Office Reviews

I've tried several different brands, and these are the best. I've burned over 700 DVDs and no coasters. Memorex is the worst and should be avoided like the plague. Peace.

Exactly which brand/maker of DVD+Rs works best for you depends on your DVD drive. I know from many reviews that Verbatim DVD+R 8x and DVD+R 16x work wonderfully with NEC 35xx drives; I have been using that combo for 1.5 years now and never had a single coaster or issue reading the data back in.

I have used about ten of these DVDs. They work fine by now. (...)

Having a spare battery and charger keeps my camcorder ready to go. I leave my spare battery in the charger and then, when the primary battery is drained, I swap the batteries and recharge the drained one. The charger is light and small (cell phone size), the prongs retract when not in use, it is easy to carry (in an equipment bag or a pocket), a green light indicates when charging is finished, and I can usually find a wall plug for an emergency charge (such as recharging while having a snack at a cafe).

This is a great stand alone charger. Just put the battery in and plug it into the wall.

Received this item promptly and it is exactly what I hoped it would be at the best price that I could find. Thank you!

This is my third Canon UW housing. I sold or gave away the other two, as I have moved up from the SD110 (3.2 mp) to the S500 (5 mp) and now to the SD550 (7.1 mp).

All my previous cameras are still in great working order, and still being used on a regular basis, both inside the housings and out (You can see my previous reviews and photos for those housings elsewhere on the Amazon site).

I am an underwater tour guide in Hawaii, so I put my housings through more day to day abuse than the average consumer. And mine have all held up well.

You need to be religious about soaking and rinising the housing after use. And occasionally lube the o-ring. And do not store it in the heat (sealed up in the car on a hot day, etc.), since this will likely warp it, and cause it to leak.

Other helpful hints that I can give, are:

1) Get a soft carry pouch for it, to help ward off scrapes and nicks in the plastic housing (I use a Coleman Stove pouch) while transporting it.

2) Do not put the camera in the housing while you are in your air conditioned hotel room. Wait to put it in, until you are outside. This will minimize the chances of condensation forming inside the housing as it warms up.

This housing is a little better than the other two, in that there is a shade for the LCD on the back, which makes it a little easier to see in bright conditions and while it is in the housing and you are wearing a mask.

My only complaint about this housing is the lack of a thumb rest for my right thumb. The other housings had one. But this one cannot, due to it's small size. Since the LCD is much bigger than the other models I have used, it means all the controls are shoved way over on the one side of the back panel, leaving you little room to hold onto it. Since I typically wear gloves in the water, I have, on a few occasions, knocked the camera out of one shooting mode and into another. Not a real big deal, it has never cost me a photo, but you need to look at the display to be sure you are in the right mode. Just a minor complaint, and I understand why, since the camera is so small and the LCD very large for the size of camera.

Overall a great product for the price, especially if you like to be able to take nice quality UW photos while on your snorkel/dive vacations.

Yes, it costs a bit more than a disposable camera. But like other reviews have siad, if you spent $400 + on the camera, why not have the underwater case.
I was amazed at how well it is built. I felt totally safe putting my camera inside of it. And it takes great pictures. If you are in the ocean, the waves and current can make it difficult to take the pictures, but practice makes perfect. One tip, when in the ocean try to get as close to the subject as possible so the flash will help brighten the colors. I came home with a few shots were everything is blue and green.
We live near the water and have used this case once or twice a week since we got it. It really is amazing!

It's insane to spend $180 for a piece of plastic, but it's also insane to spend $400 on a camera and then need to buy disposable cameras when you go scuba diving. This is a nice design, not too heavy, and it does the job perfectly. I only wish it were half the price.

Yeah...the print quality is nice....but entirely too dang frustrating to actually get it to print. Trust me, find an alternative.

i just received this printer as a birthday present from my daughter (thank you daughter:0).....It is very easy to use, prints very nice photos and also letters. The only problem I have had so far is that it seems the ink runs out very fast and if one color runs out it will only allow you to print in black.The Lexmark printers that I own seem to hold more ink and last longer than this printer. Other than that it is a very nice printer that does beautiful pictures and is esy to use.

Hp has released a paper feed cleaning kit to solve the paper feed issues seen on the 8250 line of printers. The kit is free and it is available through their support site. All you have to do is call them and they will send you one for free.

We have had this router for a little over a month now and so far it seems to be working pretty well. My husband and I are experienced computer people and gamers but we have had a few problems understanding the instructions and what settings we needed to use for our wireless network. We have 3 Tivos, 2 laptops, 2 desktops (all using 802.11b technology) and a printer on our network and had a few problems finding the right settings so all of them could access the router but with a little help from the friendly tech support people we were able to get most of the issues resolved. Accessing the printer through the network is still an issue. The biggest problem I see is the cost to replace the 802.11b network adapters for our networked computers and other wireless components. At approximately $75 a piece it will take a while to be able to get the full benefit of this router but since it is backwards compatible we are at least able to utilize enough of it's power to be satisfied with the performance. The blue lights are very bright and may be annoying to some people but we like the nice nightlight glow as we retreat from our media room each night.
All in all, as technology and router speeds progress it is worth the money to purchase this product with it's approved technology, if you are supporting a fairly large home wirless network.

I like this router because it's programmable, detailed information on exactly how to program evry little thing in it is a bit scarce. I was expecting it to noticably give my VoIP more bandwidth but since I have to plug the VoIP in front of the router I don't think it helps it at all. Overall, it's a good product.

I had originally bought a Linksys, without doing any research beforehand... thinking all routers were more or less equal... oops! Hardware was poor, the interface was wonky, customer service was a joke. I was re-booting it every few minutes under moderate usage, because it keep dropping my DSL connection or completely locking up. I just replaced it with a DGL-4300 based on all the positive reviews, and have been very happy so far. I don't need or use any of the advanced features for gaming; but already I've been very impressed with the DGL-4300 since it hasn't dropped any connections since I bought it last week. You get what you pay for.

I ordered this bag for my Canon A620 and it's just great. Very snug fit, ( you wouldn't want your camera rolling around in the bag.) Nice front compartment to hold extra batteries and cards. Nice shoulder strap to wear around your neck and it doesn't feel heavy. If you want a nice camera bag that isn't hard to carry around with you this is the one to buy.

I was really concerned, after ordering, my camera would not fit in this bag. It fit my Canon A610 quite perfectly. Seems like a very well made bag based on initial impression. Front pocket holds my extras batteries and also has a small net pocket for small items like extra memory cards. I like the option of the shoulder strap plus the belt loop. When zippered and buckled shut, feels very secure. Just make sure you check your camera measurements against the bags to ensure a good fit. Very pleased.

Fits perfectly to my camera Canon A95. Has extra space for batteries and memory cards.

After three weeks the batteries fails. I buy a knew one in Walmart, and less expensive.

It was just what I was looking for. I thought the price was right also, it was less expensive then retail.

This was purfect, exactly what I was looking for, and at a great price too.

The Apple Mac mini audio input jack is highly susceptible to picking up 60-cycle hum and other audio noise. I bought this device to get around the problem and found it introduces a high level of white noise to the audio signal. Not acceptable.

It should go without saying that the iMic is not a professional recording device. It might also go without saying that it is just fine for the purposes for which it is intended: recording from vinyl or other similar mic or line level to your computer. I bought mine because my MacMini doesn't have an audio in (what was Apple thinking?!). Generally speaking, it does its job of getting sound into the computer, and is fairly transparent while doing so, acting much like a piece of built-in equipment would.

What should not go without saying, though, is that there is no ASIO driver for the iMic. So, it is incompatible with any recording software that requires an ASIO driver, particularly Steinberg's Cubase. As far as I have been able to find out, neither Steinberg nor Griffin have any plans to do anything about this. Note that Griffin does produce an ASIO driver which only works under Mac OS9, and there is a third party driver which will make it work, but it costs more than the iMic itself.

For the price, you can't beat the iMic. In fact, it's the lowest priced external audio interface I was able to find. And there are precious few bits of gear that fill the void between its price point and the $100 mark. Just be aware of its limitations before buying. I ended up spending another $180 on a more apropriate piece of equipment, and now my iMic is lying on my office floor.

I tied recording directly from my turntable with no satisfactory result. My turntable has no preamplification. Swithced to recording out of the earphone jack of my main stereo preamp with absolutely wonderful results. Final Vinyl program is simplicity itself. EQ options permit you to overcome a lot of sortcomings of the original vinyl recording. Was able to reproduce such diverse things as Mazel's CSO record of Prokoviev's Romeo and Juliet and my old treasured Stan Kenton recordings with near CD quality. Well worth the cost and simple to use. Highly recommeded.

This is really about the ink cartrige needed for this printer. Under the Product Description for the HP 97 ink cartridge, it states that the cartridge is good for over 400 pictures; it's not, it's good for between 90 and 150 pictures. After much discussion with HP, they finally told me that it's only rated for about 150 color pictures. You'll be going through a lot of ink cartridges if you have a lot of photos (vacation pictures) to print like I did, and they're not cheap. I appreciate Amazon's feedback when I'm purchasing products, so I thought I should share. The printer itself is great though.

I have this printer for a month, and just love it , the photos are very good, the color and sharpness of the prints. are beautiful. I am printing photos for gifts, and putting them in multible frames. The printer is very small and compact. I am glad that I purchased it and would recomend it for any one who wants a printer that you can use with out a computer.

This printer does so many things so well and so easily. It is smaller and lighter and easier to use than the Epson printer. I compared the photos from the 475 and the Epson Deluxe and I liked the prints from the HP much, much better. The HP prints are much brighter and cleaner and clearer. I think the Epson prints look muddy, somewhat pale and grainy. The HP also prints 5x7s and 4x12 panorama photos which the Epson can't print.

However, you should decide for yourself. Everyone here tells you what they think. They want you to validate their decision. I say bring your memory card down to the store and print out a photo or two on this printer and the Epson and a Canon and a Sony for that matter. You can even try a Kodak. I think you will find what Consumer's Reports keeps finding. HP portable photo printers produce the best prints. But you can and should decide for yourself. All of the prints will look better than you expect and they will all look better than anything you can get from Wal*Mart or any quick print place. Anyway, when you have finished, you will know which printer is the easiest for you to use and produces the best looking prints.

Whatever you decide, you will end up with a printer that is fun to take to family events, parties, soccer games (with a battery), hockey games etc. You can print out pictures on the spot and use memory cards from anyone's camera. Try that with a Kodak printer. And when you mother says: "I want a picture of you and Mary, I never have any pictures of you and Mary", you can print one out on the spot. That is worth more than $200 any day.

A great B&W laser printer with a flat bed scanner, fax, copy, and all over your LAN. I have a new MacBook Pro (Intel) and also run Parallels. I can print from the Mac or from Windows inside Parallels. Scan over the network directly into a number of applications. It's a really nice printer and a great bargain.

Wow. A colleague recommended Brother for a quick set-up, inexpensive, B&W all in one. Am I glad he did.

From the scanned faxing from your computer to the straight print jobs, this thing works seamlessly over our networks for both Mac OS X and Windows XP computers. While I expected the machine to work and do its job, I just didn't expect it to work so well, considering the price was so much less than competition.

We have high end printers and high volume printers but were looking for something inexpensive to handle faxing, scanning, and general B&W print jobs. But amazingly enough, the print jobs are actually better than expected and the other features are really too numerous to mention in the review.

Anyway, I just took the recommender to lunch at a really nice restaurant to thank him for the suggestion. I am really impressed with Brother.

'Old Reliable' -- aka my Samsung ML 1210 -- was wheezing more than a climber at the top of Everest. My Panasonic fax was as feisty as ever, grabbing 4 pages at a time while sending/receiving faxes Jackson Pollack-style. It was time for an upgrade. Wow; what a step up.

Of all the companies to offer 'true' OS X, Mac-compatibility, surprising to see it from a traditionally fax machine/label maker one. Brother's MFC 7820N software functionality is flawless for my wife and I's iBook's, running 10.3 and 10.4, respectively. True 'touch controls' power this unit, the Control Center software allows seamless and intelligent faxing, copying and scanning to customizable folders, email locations, etc. I did a double-take when spotting PC Fax capability LIMITED TO MAC's(!). Control Center is so Mac-friendly, it even comes with software for folks running OS 9.

Moreover, setting up this unit to print wirelessly from a network was a snap. It quickly linked up with my Belkin Wireless Access Point, finally allowing affordable printing AND faxing (from local files) without being tethered to a desk. The Remote Setup function is likewise very clean; a nice break from endless scrolling across the sharp LCD.

Hardware-wise, the MFC 7820N is standard quality for multifunction units...hardened plastic with decent give...although with a much smaller footprint than competitors (including several from Brother). To put size into perspective, the MFC 7820N is approximately 1/3rd wider than standalone, monochrome laser printers, same height. Dig the large slide out paper try + print output at the center of the unit. No paper mess spewing from this one. Related, the paper feed (at early review) is outstanding. Take that, Panasonic fax.

Cost-wise, the MFC 7820N is a steal, a couple hundred bucks less than similarly featured units. Toner can be had at 1/2 the price of most conventional laser units -- $40 or lower.

While this unit is still in its infancy stages of use on this end, I am left wondering why I stomached the high pitched squeal of my ML 1210 for this long. This Mac user finds the MFC 7820N a winner.