Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Konica Minolta bizhub MFPs Receive Three BLI “Pick of the Year” Awards

Ramsey, N.J. and Hackensack, N.J. (Vocus/PRWEB ) December 18, 2007 -- Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today announced that Buyers Laboratory, Inc. (BLI) has recognized three of its next-generation bizhub Multifunctional Products (MFPs – print, copy, fax, and scan all in one) as “Picks of the Year” in the category of Outstanding Segment 4 Business Color MFPs. BLI’s semi-annual “Pick” awards acknowledge the very best performers in its unique battery of tests which evaluate a wide range of the most important performance factors for buyers, including reliability, image quality, productivity, ease of use and a host of connectivity attributes.

The three Konica Minolta bizhub™ MFPs that received the “Pick” awards were the first in a revolutionary new line of network-enabled MFPs designed to offer significant quality and performance enhancements when replacing color MFPs. The next-generation of bizhub MFPs also provides innovative security features and allows IT administrators to painlessly administer Digital MFPs on their networks while increasing workflow capabilities in the office.

“Konica Minolta has certainly done its homework in developing this new engine,” said Pete Emory, manager of laboratory testing at BLI. “Print quality is one thing, but to have copy quality that rivals it is outstanding. From multi-tasking to scanning, to their competitive to aggressive prices, these three units are dependable MFPs for business color customers, general office use and color environments.”

With fast color and cost-effective black and white output, the bizhub C650 provides all-in-one functionality for high-end office workgroups and applications that require 50 pages per minute (ppm) color and 65 ppm black and white document production. All incorporate advanced Konica Minolta technologies and new innovative features that deliver better image quality, reliability and enhanced productivity as well as a true, secured networked solution for document workflow management. The bizhub C550, which combines breakthrough styling with fast color and cost-effective black and white output was the first in the next-generation series, and provides all-in-one functionality (print, copy, scan, fax) for high-end office workgroups and applications that require 45 pages per minute (ppm) color and 55 ppm black and white document production. Meanwhile, the bizhub C451 is a true color replacement for monochrome devices and incorporates innovative new features such as the tandem laser print head and improvements that deliver better image quality, reliability and enhanced productivity.

“We at Konica Minolta are honored that BLI recognized all three of the first MFPs released in our next-generation bizhub line,” said Kevin Kern, vice president, marketing and product planning, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. “This award echoes the same sentiment we’re seeing in the marketplace, and it’s great validation that our superb color image quality continues to stand head and shoulders above the competition.”

Watch the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl on January 1st at 1.00p EST on CBS; and visit www.KMBSsports.com to enter for your chance to win The Konica Minolta Ultimate Sports Experience.*

About Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc. (www.kmbs.konicaminolta.us), a leader in advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, brings together unparalleled advances in security, print quality and network integration via its award-winning line of bizhub™ multifunction products (MFPs); bizhub PRO™ production printing systems; magicolor® desktop color laser printers and all-in-ones; and pagepro™ monochrome desktop laser printers and all-in-ones. Konica Minolta also offers advanced software solutions, wide-format printers, microform digital imaging systems, and scanning systems for specialized applications.

Headquartered in Ramsey, NJ, Konica Minolta delivers expert professional services and client support through an extensive network of direct sales offices, authorized dealers, resellers and distribution partners in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America.

About Buyers Laboratory
For more than 45 years, Buyers Laboratory has been the leading independent office-equipment testing lab and business consumer advocate. In addition to publishing the industry's most comprehensive and accurate test reports on office document imaging devices, each representing months of exhaustive hands-on testing in BLI's US and UK laboratories, the company has been the leading source for extensive databases of specifications and pricing on copiers, printers, fax machines and multifunctional products. The company's databases cover 10,000 products and have a long-standing reputation for being the industry's most trustworthy and complete source for global competitive intelligence. They are available to BLI subscribers online via the company's bliQ competitive information service. This encyclopedic resource also provides quick and easy access to BLI's First Look Reports, Field Test Reports, Lab Test Reports, Solutions Reports, Digital Imaging Review and Business Consumer's Advisor newsletters and OEM library.

In addition to the testing of office equipment for its subscribers, Buyers Laboratory provides a vast array of confidential for-hire private testing services that include document imaging device beta and pre-launch testing, performance certification testing, consumables testing (such as toner, ink and photoconductors), software and solutions and print media testing (including virgin and recycled papers).

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Customer-Designed and Customized Gift Cards at Mytego.com Provide Unique, Practical, and Timely Gifts in the Final Rush Hours of the Christmas Gift Gi

Winnipeg, MB (PRWEB) December 18, 2007 -- Online Retailers all across the continent are pushing hard to ring in at the register, while consumers are pushing to finally put down their credit card, and close their browser. The same problem always arises however, this late in the Christmas shopping game; how do you get a cool online gift across the continent within the next few days up to Christmas, without paying more for shipping than the actual cost of the product itself? And, for those true last minute shoppers, how do they get something special right up to the end?

Many online vendors have created what are best-described as "virtual" gift cards - these are gift cards that are generated electronically when purchased by the customer online. The cards will then be emailed to the purchaser or directly to the gift-recipient.

Mytego.com takes these virtual gift cards one step further from the traditional online retailer with the current offering, by providing the tools for each customer to actually design their own virtual gift card, with their own pictures and designs on it. In essence, the purchaser can put a photo of themselves, or photographs or designs of significant personal events, people, things, etc. onto the actual gift card. Customers design their own virtual gift cards at mytego.com's unique online creative studio, that allows them to see their design while they are making it, in real time.

The mytego.com virtual gift cards are then used by the gift-recipient to design a personalized Tego skin for their own portable electronic device. These customer-designed Tego skins allow the customer to completely re-design how their portable electronics look, by putting a full color image on top of such devices as cell phones, laptops, game systems, ipods, etc.

With the virtual gift cards, available until the final last moments of Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, the customer can then either email it to their favorite gift recipient, or print it out at home and put it into a Christmas stocking or under the tree as the final gift. Mytego.com also offers the plastic credit-card style cards; these too can also be designed by the customer themselves.

"Customer-designed gift cards are a natural fit for us", Doyle Buehler, President of Mytego begins. "We provide the ultimate in personalization and customization with our Tego skins for portable electronic devices". "It is very helpful for those people who understand and appreciate the uniqueness of personalization, but are not completely sure of what types of devices the gift recipient has, to get Skins for.". Buehler continues, "our customers are putting all kinds of pictures onto their gift cards - pictures of their pets, their friends, their travels, their families; our gift cards really allow people to clearly express themselves, with a real personalized gift - the gift recipient then makes it into a fantastic and creative Tego skin for their own device".

The Customer-designed virtual gift cards are available to purchase up to and including Christmas Eve, for the culmination in last minute shopping. These are then emailed to the customer, or the gift-recipient. A variety of denominations are available to cover all categories of the mytego customer-designed personalized Tego skins, beginning at just over $10.

About Mytego.com

What's on your skin? Mytego.com is the only company allowing customers the unique opportunity to design and style their own portable electronic devices to reflect each customer's own tastes and preferences, and stand out from the crowd. Its about personal choices. TEGO™ skins are precision cut, protective vinyl stick-ons that go on easy and come off clean, and are designed to fit exactly to any portable electronics. Any handheld electronic device from laptops, iPods, cell phones, and portable game systems can now have a TEGO™ skin for it, designed by the customer. Now, even other cooler stuff can have custom TEGO™ skins made, including board decks, and console game systems like the Nintendo wii, Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360. Each skin is designed online, in real-time, specifically by the customer, with their own images and designs. Mytego.com then manufactures each one individually, on-demand, and ships them direct to each customer to easily apply it to the outside of their device. In a world full of millions of the same black, white and other limited colors of electronic devices, TEGO™ skins show off the customer's inherent desire to have the power to personalize their own world with their own style.

Mytego.com is based out of Winnipeg, Canada and has licensed operations in Europe. Worldwide distribution of TEGO™ skins is accomplished through a unique, patented online design studio that operates in over 7 languages. Mytego.com is a world leader in innovative, on-demand, mass-customization and has developed a complete patented production system that allows for individual manufacturing with infinite customer choices, with similar economies of traditional mass-production manufacturing where the customer receives very limited or no choices for personalization.

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Christmas Broadcast, DVD/CD to Benefit Mercy Ships

Garden Valley, Texas (Vocus/PRWEB ) December 18, 2007 -- Just in time for Christmas, Franklin Tennessee musical artist Calvin Nowell and Mercy Ships have teamed up to release a dynamic music CD and DVD in support of Mercy Ships life-changing surgical and development work.

Titled “A Mercy-Full Christmas,” the 60-minute made-for-television version hosted by Nowell will also air on cause-related Starfish Network in the week running up to Christmas (December 18 -25, 2007)

Tues, 12/18 at 11 am EST
Thurs, 12/20 at 2 pm EST
Sat, 12/22 at 10:30 pm EST
Tues, 12/25 Christmas at 10 pm EST

The program will be available to view online at http://www.vdc.com/ Many regional television and radio stations will also feature “A Mercy-Full Christmas” in their programming throughout the month of December in the United States.

Created especially for Mercy Ships, the Broadcast/DVD features songs hosted by Calvin together with some of his closest industry friends including Kirk Whalum, Nicole Binion, Missi Hale, Drew Cline, Nia Allen, B. Reith, and others. The 11 song CD includes many songs from the Broadcast/DVD plus additional Christmas selections from The Katinas, Evan Wickham, and David Binion.

“I believe a lot of times we lose sight of what Christmas is all about,” states Nowell in the program. “Mercy is showing kindness to the miserable and afflicted – mixed with a desire to help,” he says. “When I saw what Mercy Ships was doing in Africa, I knew I had to do something.”

That “something,” also led him to write the song "Mercy's On It's Way!" in 2006 which is featured on Nowell’s debut album Start Somewhere. The song won Mr. Nowell and the charity an Angel Award this past March. It became the theme song for Mercy Ships during 2007 with the launch of their new hospital ship the Africa Mercy. The ship has helped to double the capacity of all previous vessels combined and deliver more hope and healing to the forgotten poor of the world for many years to come.

Mr. Nowell co-wrote two of the songs featured in the production “Noel, Noel” and “A Mercy-Full Christmas”. In addition to the U. S. launch for Christmas 2007, a 2008 “A Mercy-Full Christmas Concert Tour” is being developed due to the tremendous response to the production. A DVD/CD version for distribution world wide will also be made available for Christmas 2008.

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WUHU and wview Latest Weather Station Software to Support weatherforyou.com/HAMweather Personal Weather Station Program

Grants Pass, OR (PRWEB) December 18, 2007 -- Personal weather station software from WUHU and wview have added support for sending data to the weatherforyou.com/HAMweather Personal Weather Station Program.

"We're very excited to be able to serve users of these programs as we have others over the past seven years," said Joe Torsitano of weatherforyou.com. "weatherforyou.com was started to serve and promote personal weather stations. The support of software manufacturer's for our programs is not something we take lightly. The author's of these programs have to take the time to re-write portions of their software to accommodate this. We very much appreciate their work and are always looking for ways to return the favor."

WUHU is a Windows program which interfaces to personal weather stations to send data to weatherforyou.com and similar programs. More information is available from the WUHU software web site.

wview runs on Linux/Unix computers and accepts data from the Davis Vantage Pro/Pro2, Vaisala WXT-510 and a station simulator which is included. It can then turn the data into web pages which can be sent to a server and send the data to weatherforyou.com and similar programs. More information is available at the wview software web site.

Data from personal weather stations from Oregon Scientific, La Crosse, Rainwise, Texas Weather Instruments and others can be connected to a computer. The software then formats the data for display on a web site and sends the data to weatherforyou.com/HAMweather. The data received is then displayed with local forecasts, providing much more relevant information for thousands of locations not located near "official" weather stations.

According to Torsitano, "We noticed, especially out here in the mountainous west, weather conditions can change over a very short distance. The information from many miles away and significantly different in altitude just isn't relevant to many towns. Yet there were all these personal weather stations with web sites scattered between official stations. So weatherforyou.com was started in 1998 to bring awareness to those already with weather stations and to encourage installation of new stations."

In 2000 HAMweather became a part of the program, donating programming expertise for accepting real-time data, server space for the data and bandwidth. They also provide data from personal weather stations and official National Weather Service back to those contributing to the program in different formats including XML.

A listing of other software that supports sending data to weatherforyou.com/HAMweather is available at the weatherforyou.com personal weather station information page.

"Since we're here to serve personal weather stations we're hoping for more suggestions as to what else we can do to help personal weather stations," said Torsitano.

In addition to the personal weather station program, weatherforyou.com provides weather information for locations worldwide. Forecasts, current conditions, radar, satellite images and more are available. They also provide custom branded weather for other web sites. And free weather images that can be included on web sites are used by tens of thousands of web sites around the world.

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Txttunes Launches New Widget Application With B Real Of Cypress Hill and Latin Thug Records

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) December 18, 2007 -- Txttunes (www.txttunes.com) is pleased to announce the launch of our new Txttunes Widget this Christmas, and the first artist to use the service will be Cypress Hill's B Real, whose new album The Gunslinger 3: For A Few Dollars More (Latin Thug Records) was released worldwide on Dec 11. The widget can be accessed here at www.myspace.com/brealonline.

Txttunes allows computer users to purchase songs, which are charged to their cell phone account rather than a credit card. In addition, Txttunes users can create their own wireless communities and fan clubs and other wireless services.

Latin Thug will be marketing the widget to over one million fans, enabling them to be the first U.S. consumers to purchase B Real's new single and receive the MP3 full track download to their PC or Mac.

Fred Sherman, President of Latin Thug Records, said, "Latin Thug Records is always seeking new ways to deliver our music to our fans. The Gunslinger series was created by B Real to bring his new music to his fans and to prepare the world for his upcoming solo album release. We are both excited to use the power of this amazing new Txttunes technology to both enable new revenue and to build an SMS-based fan community."

Matt Coleman, SVP at Txttunes, stated, "The widget is fully customized for Cypress Hill and B Real fans and enables them to opt into a TXT community fan club and receive special offers and exclusive tour merchandise, as well as an enter-to-win contest each time a fan purchases a B Real track via their cell phones.

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source: prweb.com