In a three-part series (each article to be published daily), DigitalJournal.com’s Essential Digital Gear profiles some of the most impressive tech we came across in 2010. We looked at a variety of gadgets for the workplace in this installment, whether for the office itself or for getting there.
Brother HL-3070CW Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking ($350)
Despite the many emails you send, if you work in an office, you likely still use printers. Brother is known for its quality printers, and the HL-3070CW doesn’t disappoint, offering 17 ppm of brilliant colour copies. It also features built-in wireless 802.11b/g and Ethernet interfaces for sharing on your network, an add-on many companies may admire for its ease-of-use.
You can also print JPEG and PDF files right to a USB Flash memory drive, which is great if you don’t want to connect the printer to a PC for a certain job. It’s also handy the printer allows you to print pics directly from your digital camera.
The HL-3070W works with four cartridges, and toner cartridges (black) cost $88 each and colour cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow) cost $82 each.
Overall, we found the printer to be quiet, dependable and speedy.
The idea of web-enabled cameras in the workplace is not new, but Axis makes the technology both affordable and very useful. We tried out the Axis’s M1054, a security camera that can be mounted at work or even at home.
The camera offers both wireless and wired connection to the network and installation is relatively simply if you’re technically inclined (some users may need help getting it configured to their office or home network). The video quality is also good at 30 frames-per-second in VGA resolution.
Once installed, you can monitor your office or home and remotely turn on and off a built-in light, as well as click buttons to emit sounds. It’s useful for both scaring away intruders and having fun with co-workers, and you can make the camera send “psst” sounds, or even chicken clucks and dog barks sure to get the attention of intruders or even your snooping boss.
It also includes a passive infrared (PIR) sensor that can sense movement, even in the dark. You can also remotely listen in on an area or communicate with individuals via recorded audio clips.
For those who want the next model up, we recommend the Axis M1054 Network Camera ($399). It’s a wired camera (no wireless) that offers HDTV 720p / 1MP resolution for indoor surveillance. The camera supports additional I/O ports for connecting external devices such as door contact alarms and it also comes with motion detection, audio detection and a tampering alarm. It also has a PIR for motion detection, two-way audio and it supports the AXIS Video Hosting System, which means that it’s equipped with one-click camera setup for remote viewing.
Finally, our favourite part about using the Axis cameras is the additional iPhone app that can be downloaded to monitor as many as four camera feeds from your phone. The app is the icing on the cake, and really gives this product an edge over many of its competition.
The following ad was produced by Axis for an older model, but it gives a good idea of how audio and alerts can be used with the technology:
Cisco Linksys High-Performance E3000 Wireless-N Router ($160)
Those brains at Cisco Linksys know their routers and this high-performance powerhouse is among the fastest to let you share the Net with computers and other devices in your home. Novices shouldn’t be afraid with setting it up, since it’s quick and painless to get working on your office network. The router supports simultaneous dual-band, both the 2.4GHz band and the 5GHz band.
You can stream stored music to connected devices in the router’s range, and unlike its predecessors it’s optimized for streaming HD video and wireless gaming. All of this in a compact design, too.
One small quibble: its USB port can’t be used to host a printer, but some offices won’t need this feature anyway.
Garmin nüvi 3700 GPS ($500)
It’s not the most inexpensive gadget but the new nüvi trumps its predecessors by coming in at 9mm thick and learning daytime trends for traffic flow to improve your routes. The unit begins to learn your routine and logs how you got where, so it can find the same route next time.
You can find your next meeting by simply speaking commands and directions, which is useful for drivers who want to keep their hands on the wheel. With 3-D Building and Terrain view, you can see buildings and landmarks from terrain level, so it’ll feel like you stepped into Google StreetView.
The design won us over – it flaunts a brushed metal casing, a flush glass display and just the bare-bones buttons required on the side. Finally, a GPS device that looks as stylish as your car.
Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection
By Chris Hogg:
We’ve been a big fan of Adobe’s Creative Suite (CS) product line since it first hit the market and the product has made it on our Essential Digital Gear list numerous times. Why? Because the product just works, and there is no competing product that can do as much as CS.
Creative Suite 5 Master Collection is the mother of all design and Web products. It includes: Photoshop CS5 Extended, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Flash Builder 4 Standard, Dreamweaver CS5, Fireworks CS5, Contribute CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects CS5, Soundbooth CS5, Adobe OnLocation CS5 and Encore CS5. With this suite, there is nothing you can’t do.
The big obstacle with CS5 Master Collection is the price: It’s the most expensive product in Adobe’s multimedia offering. That said, we do believe you get what you pay for and if you need a product suite that can do anything, this is it. If you’re thinking about upgrading, be sure to note that some programs within CS5 Master Collection have received more tweaks than others, but some of the small tweaks were our favourite parts. Adobe has improved on production and design tools from CS4, and provided more room for a variety of professionals to flex their creative muscles. Be it photography, video, Web design — you name it, CS5 can do it.
The big benefit of CS5 Master Collection is working across multiple programs; you can create an object in Flash and bring it right into InDesign, for example. Adobe has spent a long time perfecting this product and CS5 has a lot of processing power over its predecessor with the support of the 64-bit era. Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects and InDesign also use hardware acceleration from supported video cards to make document exporting way less painful.
To start out the list of things we like, we’ll look at InDesign — it’s one of our favourite Adobe products and has been since its very first version.
A quick back-story: For years, DigitalJournal.com produced a glossy tech/web publication that was distributed in bookstores across Canada and the U.S. and for a number of years we relied on QuarkXPress for all our publishing needs. Quark worked, but it gradually became dated and cumbersome to use. Furthermore, supplying files to our printer’s pre-press department was tedious, as it would often take nearly a dozen CDs to fit the entire magazine, fonts, images, etc. Then came Adobe InDesign, an innovative product that promised to make things simpler. It did.
We started using InDesign in its very first version and watched it evolve by leaps and bounds with each new release. We gave up our beloved QuarkXpress for InDesign and DigitalJournal.com became one of the first magazines in Canada to use the new software. The first go-around was a lot simpler on our end as far as pre-production went, and everything was exported to PDFs on one CD.
Back in the early days of InDesign, however, it was a foreign entity to printers. When we switched and produced our first issue entirely using InDesign, we frankly drove the company’s pre-press department crazy with issues. Despite the fact we were printing with a very large, reputable print house, InDesign was so new that there was no precedent or best-practice tips to fall back on. The tables turned for us then, when we became the experts teaching a multinational print firm how to use InDesign and the benefits of its various features. We practically slept at our printer’s plant to get entire teams familiar with this new production process. The learning curve was not steep, however, and DigitalJournal.com‘s magazine was printed and celebrated across the country as a major undertaking using new technology. Adobe showcased our magazine across Canada at product launches and seminars in an effort to highlight what InDesign could do, and over the next few years countless other magazines made the switch.
Looking back, it’s amazing to see how far InDesign has come. We have often featured it in our Essential Digital Gear wrap-ups because there really is nothing that comes close. With CS5 Master Collection, InDesign has been updated and is much easier to use, whether you’re a novice or pro, with a huge number of customization options at your fingertips. The new interface is a big plus and positions InDesign to be a must-have part of the CS package.
In addition to InDesign, products such as Adobe Bridge (Adobe’s answer to the file browser) have also been updated; going from a companion program that runs on its own, CS5 Master Collection incorporates a new Adobe Mini Bridge that is a new panel in Photoshop that serves as a window between Photoshop and Bridge. Mini Bridge allows you to browse through folders and preview images without ever leaving Photoshop. It’s not a replacement for Bridge, but it’s a simple add-on that increases productivity tremendously. It’s the type of feature that designers or photographers would clamour for, but a feature that doesn’t necessary get a front-page write-up in a product review. You have to use it to really appreciate how much time it saves.
Crowd-sourcing tools in CS Review (available separately) are also great for collaboration in a multi-user environment, as InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator can be shared and commented on by multiple people. BrowserLab is a particular favourite, as it lets you preview websites and content locally on many operating systems and browsers. If you’re a Web designer that pulls their hair out over browser conflicts, this offers a quick way to get basic testing done. Watch the promo video here to get a real sense of how collaboration can be powerful.
Adobe CS5 wins a spot in this year’s Essential Digital Gear list because of Adobe’s attention to detail. The company took something that worked well and made it much better. It is really the only company that makes a product this dynamic.
Sony VAIO F Series Notebook ($1,500)
What office wouldn’t want a potent notebook PC to complement their array of desktops? The VPCF136FXB model sports a Quad Core i7- 740QM Intel Core processor (1.73GHz) with Intel Turbo Boost Technology. And 640GB of hard drive capacity and 6GB of pre-installed system memory is quite impressive. Its battery life reaches 3.5 hours max (not the best) and it also includes an integrated numeric keypad so you can input numeric data easily with just one hand. We like how this laptop adds video conferencing using the Motion Eye camera and microphone with face-tracking technology to its feature list. Separate AV controls let you navigate through your multimedia hassle-free.
It also comes with a Blu-ray DVD drive, perfect for some necessary workplace distractions when you just finished that brutal project.
What other tech would you recommend for the office? Let us know in the comments section below.
Tomorrow, we look at technology for your home, from tablet PCs to gloves ideal for touchscreens.
