Aug 01 2002
A momentous day! After 3 (sometimes hard) years of building the extension I’ve just had the final inspection. There a couple of tidy-up tasks to be done but I’ve been granted my completion certificate with praise on the work. Apart from the length of time it took, all went well and pretty much to plan. A very big thank-you to all that helped out, without this I might have been still at
Jul 23 2002
Yet another job removed from the task list - we agreed on some tiles for the en suite floor and I spent the recent weekend laying them. The rear garage door was fitted a couple of weeks back and looks smart.
Garden now put back together again - side of house now no longer looks like a building site with new wall, couple of plant troughs and some Cotswold gravel. A couple of jobs left to do before I can get the official sign off (I hope!) from the local council which should be done this coming week or so.
In order to mark the occasion we plan to ‘celebrate’ on 4th August with a B-B-Q. Hopefully the friends and family who’ve lived through the experience (and especially those that helped) can see what became of it all.
Apr 22 2002
We’ve actually been living in the bedroom for around 9 months now and the garage completion just has the rear door to arrive. Couple of tidy up activities outside and it’s all complete!
Apr 09 2002
Where are these months going? Hey, good news is that the garage floor is laid. It’s definitely not as smooth as a professional could have done but I’m well pleased with the result. I seemingly (once again) over ordered on the concrete but the driver from Ace MiniMix was fantastic - patiently let us lay the floor in stages and sorted out a bit of what was left. All I’ve got left to do before inviting the building control man back for final sign off, is to order/fit the garage rear door.
Feb 10 2002
Got this as an unexpected Christmas present (2002) from my wife! It is (was) fairly new to the market at the time only being released a month or so previously.
A few people had asked what it was like so I thought a small review on the device was in order.
The main unit and it’s parts:
A breeze (Win2K SP3) - install the drivers from the installation software CD and then connect the device to the USB port. Windows should then detect the device correctly and leave you ready to install the label creation utility.
I’ll not give the utility the badge of ‘application’ as it’s terribly simple. The authors have tried to spice it up by using a non-rectangular window which lifts it out from the mass of dull applications out there.
According to the agreement you ‘click-on’ during installation, TDK do not cover you for loss of data if you print onto media that has already been written on (you’re supposed to label the disk 1st, then burn the CD content). Installation was a breeze (Win2K, USB), drivers 1st then attach the device to the USB then install the application software. The software from TDK is a few weeks ‘newer’ (by date) than that from Casio which is labelled V3 as apposed to TDK’s V1. No matter, they are the same!
Very simple to use, just select the style of label, enter the required text or images and press the print button!
I’ve done 3 disk labels each using simple text. 1st was good, 2nd was bad and 3rd was good. I used a few custom fonts and found that those with good definition and pitch size gave good results (prints 1 and 3) whilst those that are intricate with fine detail tend to get lost. Disc blanks I used were Jungle branded Memorex with 50-50 green/white surface colour. The fine font was almost passable on the green but didn’t show at all on the white. Both surfaces feel and look of the same finish though! I tried to reprint the label in exactly the same place ** and the second attempt still didn’t print on the white! Closer inspection showed some greasy marks (fingers most likely!) so maybe this affected it.
** The TDK support web page is somewhat vague and extremely ‘hopeful’ on this - colour limited only by imagination. In order to acheive this you need to make multiple passes (one per colour cartridge). TDK are being over optomistic in my opinion as removing the cartridge will almost certainly rattle the CD in it’s tray on ejection - but I guess it’s may just about be possible! I tried but ended up around a quarter of a mm out and ended up creating a slightly ghosted text effect.
I’ve done a few more prints now and I’d definitely recommend getting media with the best surface possible. I had excellent results with a Verbatim DataLife Plus CD-R.
Pros
Cons
It’s a good toy that shouldn’t be confused with a professional product. It’s just about worth the cash (I may change my mind depending on how long the cartridge REALLY lasts). I’d recommend it for people who cannot write neatly on their CDs or maybe budding musicians, programmers, etc. who want to add an extra bit to their demo CDs.
Overall 7/10
Product page on TDK Europe website - TDK CD/DVD Label Printer
Supplier where mine was bought from - Scan International
Review done by Reckless © 2002
Images from TDK web site.
