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Posts Tagged ‘office supplies’

Types of Office Chairs

August 8th, 2010 No comments

Gone are the days of utilitarian style chairs with the dark wood frames, vinyl seats and straight wooden arm rests. A quick internet search or glance through catalogs for office chairs will return hundreds of pages offering numerous styles and types.

There are basic office chairs with minimal features, bare bones in comfort and selection for home office or perhaps school usage where strict budgets are in place. These chairs are typically basic black with a chrome base, non-adjustable arm rests and either a solid seat back from the head to the lower back or a curved metal back rest, adjustable by a turning a knob.

Some types of office chairs, found under home office headers, sport outrageous seat cover patterns in leopard or zebra print, and colors such as lime green, orange or hot pink. The idea comes from the thought that offices in the home are a little less professional or “stuffy”. These hip, modern chairs range from basic offerings up to ergonomic designs with mesh backs.

Mesh backed office chairs offer the same designs as traditional office chairs, but have a breathable mesh back support. While the majority of these mesh style chairs are inexpensive, there are many of these chairs in the upper price range with Italian leather trim, pneumatic adjustments and lifetime guarantees.

Executive style office chair are fuller backed designs with heavier arm rests and fully padded seats. With styles more comparable to receptionist chairs, completely adjustable features such as lumbar and head rests, seat height and back angles are geared for people that spend more time in their chairs during a work day. 24 hour chairs offer complete support, adjustments and comfort for work environments where a chair is used continuously for technical call centers, police dispatchers or hospital staffing.

Learn about other types of office chairs.

Used Office Furniture And The Environment

February 10th, 2010 No comments

Buying used office furniture or refurbishing existing furniture is a good strategy for companies that are looking to cut down on operational costs without sacrificing the aesthetics or functionality of their furnishings. Helping the environment may not be on the agenda, but nevertheless this is another advantage of this practice. Waste is minimized through the three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Companies can do their share in reducing the overall waste being deposited to landfills just by buying used office furniture or refurbishing their existing furniture. Just think: 40 workstations are already one tractor-trailer load of waste that can be saved from the landfill through recycling. Five to nine pounds of virgin material are also saved for every pound of natural resources used to repair or improve old office furniture.

Recycling or reusing furniture is practical, given that many office tables, chairs, sofas, bookshelves and desks taken to landfills are still structurally sound. They are not really damaged or broken, just outdated or slightly worn perhaps. A common reason why companies discard these pieces is that they no longer fit the color scheme or layout of a new or renovated office space.

There is a saying that goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Recycled office furniture generally refers to pieces that have been diverted out of the solid waste stream and back into the market with or without repairs. Specifically, it can refer to remanufactured, refurbished or reused office furniture and office cubicles.

Sometimes, suppliers get items that are still structurally sound and do not need any repair or improvement to its appearance. Resold and used as is, these pieces are referred to as reused office furniture. This type is probably the least expensive of the three kinds of recycled furniture, because the supplier does not need to do anything to make the items saleable.

Some pieces require little cosmetic changes or minor repairs before they become marketable. Repairing the broken arm of a chair, reupholstering panels of office cubicles or adding new laminate surfaces for tables or desks – these are some of the things done when furniture is refurbished. Companies can take recycling further by having their existing furniture refurbished instead of replacing them.

Remanufactured office furniture also has value added to it, but includes structural level changes. This involves complete disassembly of the furniture, after which parts are inspected, cleaned then repaired or replaced. The entire thing is put back together and refinished. For example, refurbishing old office cubicles includes repainting, application of new fabric on the panels, stripping and replacing of laminate, edge banding and molding.

Recycling is good, not just for buyers of used office furniture and office cubicles and the environment, but for suppliers as well. This results in a business that is not only environment-friendly but easily sustainable, as well.

Company’s can save quite a bit of money if they purchase office furniture because it can be half the price of new furniture. Not only is it cost effective but the quality can be the same. Craig Mather works to help companies find money saving used cubicle furniture by consulting with companies about it.

Digital Voice Recorders: What To Keep In Mind Before You Purchase Them

February 7th, 2010 No comments

This article might best be used as an informational tool for purchasing and using voice recorders. I am speaking specifically about digital, as this is the most common type. There are a lot of companies making them, so it might be wise choice on your part to think through the process before you do.

The best thing for you to do well before you even start looking into brand names and prices, is to assess what you are going to use this gadget for. The truth is, many people might end up paying for features and programming that they don’t actually need. Or likewise, they later find that they wish they had paid a little more for features that they don’t have and need to complete the task they are asked to do.

Some of the more common reasons for wanting or needing a voice recorder are: college students needing to record lectures, business people that need to record meetings for various reasons, and sometimes these are used by musicians for quick recording of song ideas. You might not need it for one of these, but these are generally the main ideas that go into the production of these nifty little devices.

After you have decided all of the uses that you might have for one of these little gadgets, then you are going to have to dig a little deeper and make a decision based on features. More specifically, I have laid out what I consider to be the three most important aspects to buying a digital recorder. This should give you some insight when you go to buy.

As you might have guessed, the first feature that you have to decide upon is the recording quality of the device itself. You see, there is a good deal of variance in the sound quality of the built in microphones. So what you have to do is find a microphone that is suited for your needs specifically, that will provide you a clear and crisp sound in any circumstance.

The second thing that most people concern themselves with when it comes to purchasing one of these is the length of time you can record. The storage is important if you don’t have access to a computer all the time. If you go awhile without it, then having a recorder with a higher storage capacity will definitely be the way to go. But it all, again boils down to its use.

The last thing will be the price. Granted, this is a huge factor in deciding what model, because you don’t want to pay an arm and a leg if you don’t have to. The thing to remember is, just because it doesn’t cost quite as much as something else you are looking at, does not mean that it is lesser quality. Some of the highest rated recorders are rather inexpensive. Some of the best names to look for are: Sony, Zoom and Olympus.

Hopefully you now have a better idea of what goes into buying or using digital voice recorders. The best thing to do is to check them out for yourself, or read some reviews and see what people who use the products feel about it before you buy.

If you need to record your voice, then there are any different voice recorders out there. You should check out the functions of the voice recorder before you buy it in order to be sure it has everything you want.