As we inch closer to 2010, HouseCall remains committed to keeping our clients informed on ways to ever improve efficiently by utilizing the best technology on the market. In this effort, we would like to share with you a few gems of technology that may make your workday more efficient in the New Year.
Flip Video Camcorder
This is not your father’s camcorder. The Flip is small, super-portable, and very easy to use. The Ultra HD model ($199.99) allows for up to 120 minutes of HD quality video. It’s perfect for on the fly captures of speeches and presentations, yet has high quality video that looks perfectly professional.
Uploading videos with the Flip is easy. The Flip plugs directly into your computer with USB and comes with software for easy video editing. The software also makes it simple to upload videos directly to YouTube.
Plantronics Wireless Headset
The Plantronics CS55 Wireless Headset ($255.00) is perfect for anyone who spends a great deal of time on the phone. Holding the receiver to your face is painful after a while and doing work one handed can be difficult. Wireless technology and battery life of up to 10 hours allows you to talk on the phone while roaming around up to 300 feet. You can even answer and end calls while you’re away from your desk.
If you’re interested in purchasing a Plantronics headset feel free to contact us.
Kindle
Having a Kindle from Amazon ($259.00) is like having an entire library (up to 1,500 books!) that weighs only 10.2 ounces. Not only can you read books on the Kindle, but you can also subscribe to newspapers like the Washington Post. The Kindle will even read text to you. Best of all, there’s no glare or backlight so it’s more like reading from a page than a computer screen.
Going Green: Consume less paper by reading important PDFs on your Kindle instead of printing them out.
LaCie iamaKey
Flash drives (also known as thumb drives or USB drives) quickly made floppy disks obsolete by allowing people to easily store and transport more data in a smaller item. The only downside to the small size is how easily it can get lost. The LaCie iamaKey (starting at $21.99 for 4GB) solves that problem by creating a flash drive that is key-shaped so you can attach it to your keyring. Now all you have to do is remember where you put your keys!
Acer Aspire One Netbook
Netbooks are perfect for computing anywhere. It’s small enough to take with you on a plane, on the metro, at work, and at home. The Acer Aspire One is our top choice with the solid hardware necessary for on the go use. With a 10.1” WSVGA CrystalBrite LED backlit LCD screen and a Intel Atom processor N270 you can do anything anywhere. Choose from one of four colors to match your style.
CardScan Executive
Where are all the business cards that you’ve collected over the years? If you’re like most people, they’re probably in a box on your desk taking up space and waiting for the day when you’ll have time to enter each contact into Outlook. If your job is like most jobs, you know that day will never come. CardScan Executive ($259.99) will scan your business cards, extract the important text, and with a click of the mouse transfer that information straight to Outlook. CardScan will process up to 15 cards a minute in color. No one can type that fast! CardScan is also available for Mac.
Adobe Premier Elements
Sometimes free video editing software such as Windows Movie Maker and iMovie isn’t quite enough. Adobe Premier Elements ($99.99) is a popular and affortable software for editing and perfecting videos. This software gives you the opportunity to create clean and professional videos easily: add titles, automatically remove bad footage, include transitions, create picture-in-picture effects, add animations, and more.
Apple Magic Mouse
Adding the scroll wheel to the top of a mouse was smart, but the Apple Magic Mouse ($69.00) is brilliant. It brings the multitouch experience from the iPhone to your mouse. Instead of manipulating the scroll wheel you just slide your fingers on top of the mouse to scroll in any direction. The rest of it works like a regular mouse–you just move it around with your hand and click.
Interested in getting a new Mac to go with the Apple Magic Mouse? Contact us and we’ll see what we can put together!