papers

With the fail whale cropping up even more than usual, I think I have found a good backup for Twitter.

The folks at humorous paper products company Knock Knock have come up with an entirely analog variant of the microblogging service.

The company sells notepads billed as "Paper Tweets," where people can use pen and paper to jot down their witticisms of 140 characters or fewer. There are check boxes to indicate whether you are retweeting, replying, direct messaging, or just updating your status. And even a place to write in one of those silly hash tags. The … Read more

If you've ever dreamed of sticking all that paperwork on your desk where the sun don't shine, a Japanese machine can turn it all into toilet paper for you.

Appropriately named White Goat, this device designed for the office can take regular letter-size paper or shreds, including that sales report you cursed until you were blue in the face, and transform it into nearly pristine rolls of white tissue.

White Goat was developed by Oriental Co., a small shredder maker based in Kiryu City, north of Tokyo, which says it's the first product of its kind in … Read more

Do they give awards for "Most Inventive Re-Imagining of a Classic Paper Game"? If so, I nominate Hanged for iPhone (which should also be in the running for "Best Stop-Motion Love Story" and "Game Most Likely to Make You Pull Out Your iPhone and Tell Friends, 'You Gotta See This!'")

If that sounds like a lot of gushing for what is essentially Hangman: Extreme Makeover Edition, it's because Hanged is such a clever and pleasant surprise.

The game has no menus, no instructions--it is just Hangman, after all. I don't want to … Read more

The App Store offers a handful of solutions for transporting data from iPhone to printer, but few work as easily as Print Magic.

The $6.99 app makes it a cinch to print text, Web pages, and photos, all without wires: it connects via Wi-Fi to any printer on your network (or any shared printer on your Mac).

Well, almost any printer. While the app had no problem detecting my Brother HL-2170W laser printer and MFC-440CN multifunction, it couldn't figure out how to print to the latter.

Ideally, you should take Print Magic for a test drive before plunking … Read more

Those who enjoy the beauty of a high-quality black-and-white print will appreciate Ilford's newest member of its Galerie line of inkjet photo papers, the Galerie Gold Fibre Silk. It's a professional-grade inkjet photo paper, with characteristics resembling a traditional fiber-based black-and-white print. Designed for use only with photo inkjet printers that utilize pigment-based inks, such as Epson's UltraChrome or Canon's Lucia inks. Professional photographers and anyone passionate about black-and-white printing, especially all those familiar with fiber prints from a darkroom, will enjoy the look and feel of it.

Ilford Gold Fiber Silk inkjet paper is a … Read more

Chip supplier Marvell is hooking up with e-reader companies, hoping to take the lead in silicon design for this nascent market.

The market for e-readers, currently led by the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, is poised for growth, according to Weili Dai, a Marvell co-founder and general manager of the consumer and computing business unit. "The timing is right for the e-reader market to take off in volume," Dai said in an interview.

Marvell, though not a household name like Intel, is a major supplier of communications, storage, and wireless chips. Marvell, for example, supplied the Wi-Fi chip … Read more

Tax time is always just around the corner. Software maker 1099 Pro's Enterprise Edition provides a smooth way to fill out practically any U.S. tax form and print it off. With a simple layout and impressive choices, this is a great program for frequent tax filers.

Large command buttons and intuitive flow characterize the interface. Navigation is smooth and easy, with no need to consult the Help file. A surprise was that the program didn't just offer the popular 1099 tax form. A drop-down menu offers seven different tax forms, though the program lived up to its … Read more

W2 Pro Professional Edition promises to simplify the complicated task of managing employee tax paperwork. With a helpful Wizard and surprising extras, it does just that.

We instantly loved the interface's excellent setup Wizard, which provides definitions for complex questions and makes the entire process of managing W-2 forms easy enough for users with no accounting experience. You can set up your company's information in a matter of minutes by filling in a few fields. Adding employees to your roster and filling in their information is just as easy, especially since a virtual W-2 form lets you fill … Read more

Today's guest on The 404 Podcast is The Paper Raincoat, a local band of the "experimental rock ambition" genre, as Jeff calls it. Amber Rubarth and Alex Wong have both garnered musical recognition for their individual acts, but only recently came together to form The Paper Raincoat. The release of their first EP, Safe in the Sound, ushered in an international fan following and an impressive list of accomplishments, including the iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight. We're very excited to have them in the studio with us today, and they come bearing instruments for a live acoustic show!

As we talk to more bands, we're starting to understand the long process of dreaming, writing, playing, and touring with your music in the current music business scene. With outlets like Facebook, Myspace, Last.FM, and many more, artists can easily cast a wide net over an audience that would normally require a major label contract to reach. We talk with The Paper Raincoat about the naming of the band, their recording process, their fantastic DIY album art, and their upcoming tour.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, there are a million places to stream their music live, but the best thing you can do to show your support is to preorder a CD. One-hundred percent of the preorder money will go to printing the record, and you can pick between three packages, the highest of which lands you a limited edition CD, two signed posters, a T-shirt, and a custom USB wristband drive with a personalized video "thank you" and exclusive video content from the band. In the meantime, you can also follow the band on Twitter, attend their CD release party at Joe's Pub in NYC, and download their brand new song, "Right Angles."