Through the generations our music medium has moved from Records/Vinyl to Tapes, from Tapes to CD, from CD to Mini Disc and from Mini Disc to MP3. These days we download music in seconds onto our smart phones, via iTunes into our iTunes libraries, on Spotify into our Spotify libraries and we even create playlists on You Tube. But with all this downloadable music, our physical music libraries are dwindling. At first this wasn’t an issue as having new music at our finger tips was a novelty. However as we grow more accustomed to this new era of music, some of us are beginning to remember just how good it actually felt to pull a CD off a shelf and play it in our music systems. I love to look at my collection of music which sits proudly on a nice shelving unit in my living room. I’m quite proud of my collection, however I’m sad to think that everything I have bought over the last few years is on my computer and my phone, and not up there on the wall with the others, adding to what is already a fab collection, but could be awesome!

So, I have decided it’s time to put some effort in here and create the CD’s myself. I have bought the music after all; I may as well have physical copies of it! But as it turns out, this is simpler than you may think, and at Office 365 we have all the tools necessary to do it! So if you’re a new customer, why don’t you consider taking advantage of our 10% off (for all new customers) and stock up on your CD making supplies?

When I say you can re create the CD yourself, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you burn the music from your library onto CD, get CD markers and write the album title and band on it; I’m talking about actually re-creating CD’s that will look just like they do when you buy them in the shops! With our selection of blank CD’s, CD labels, CD case cover and tray inserts and CD cases, you can print your own artwork or actual original downloaded artwork onto these labels and covers creating a collection you can be proud of!

Using our range of supplies from Avery, you can finish the job properly by creating your own inserts for the jewel cases matching the CD to the case so it all looks very professional. You can also use this opportunity to add extra information such as a song lists and titles! All Avery CD printing supplies comes with Avery DesignPro® Software which includes over 800 pre-designed templates for CD/DVD Labels enabling you customise effectively.

So get stuck in and finally update your collection now! Let us know how you get on and how satisfied you were with the quality from Avery’s reputable range of labels and inserts. For enquiries and bulk orders call us on 0870 766 1624 or simply order online where you will also find an option to ‘get a quote’ for bulk orders!

Thanks to the new music copying laws, soon the UK can look forward to a relax in the rules in terms of copying music and film. This is a fantastic advance in government legislation and will allow the UK to keep up with technology trends. The result of the change is the Hargreaves Review, which states that the government should make it legal to move digital files you own from one device or format to another. It was an obvious and vital move as more and more people are storing music and film digitally, and the technology for doing so is continuously advancing. If the law’s hadn’t been relaxed, we would literally be freezing music and film digital storage technology as it is causing more and more new products to face legal difficulties if they were to attempt to launch in the UK. Now where’s the sense in that? Britain don’t want to be seen as a technologically stunted nation any more than they want to be ridiculed by the nations who are advancing. Happy days!

We can now expect companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple to open up new services allowing us to access our music where ever we are! The laws will be relaxed so much so that it will even be legal to copy music and film for our own and immediate family’s private use on different media! It does state however that the move will only legalise private copying for non-commercial use, it will not allow people to share content over the internet without copyright owners’ permission. So in short, if the plans become law, changing the format of your music and film will be legal, and you will also be able to lawfully burn copies of the music and give them to your family.

With this positive change in the law, we can now all happily stock up on blank CD’s and copy our files from our computers onto disk for family and friends – fantastic! Dawn is the era of legal ‘mix tapes’ or rather mix CD’s, compilations for loved ones of just straight CD copying. Happy times indeed; but why not go the whole hog and make your CD’s look like the real thing? Using CD Labels will enable you to give your disks the replica look of the actual thing that way your copied disks will look far more pleasing to the eye and will leave the recipient feeling as though you’d put your all into the gift. You can save yourself a fortune with just a stack of blank disks, CD labels and time; that’s Christmas’s, birthdays and anniversaries all rolled into one!

Take a look at our variety of Avery CD labels available in clear or glossy options as well as inkjet printable and laser printable varieties. Simply create your label design using software from Avery, then print and apply carefully to the disk. What you will be left with is an impressive high resolution print finish and the imperative ‘wow’ factor.

In our new and ever changing world of technology, computer peripherals have never been more important than now, and we need to look after them! More often than not, our personal and financial information will be stored my means of computer related products and in many instances this is the CD or Optical Disk. Companies store vast amounts of delicate information on optical discs and without giving these discs the proper care, you expose this information to the risk of damage and inevitably becoming lost for good.

At Office 365 you’ll find that we stock many forms of media storage as we understand the importance of disk safety. We have many varieties available, each of which keeps your disks free from dust and away from harm. What’s more, disk storage is an excellent way of keeping all your CD’s in one place so you know where they are when you need them. CD Cases are an excellent option for if you like to keep each disk in a labelled case, rather than in sleeves or CD storage folders. They look neat and tidy lined up on shelves and can be labelled on their spine for quick and easy identification.

A standard jewel CD case is the original compact disc case that has been used since the compact disc was first released in 1982. It is a three-piece plastic case, measuring 142 mm × 125 mm × 10 mm. Two opposing transparent halves are hinged together to form the casing, the back half holding a media tray that grips the disc by its hole. All three parts are made of injection-moulded polystyrene. The back media tray snaps into the back cover, and is responsible for securing the disk. In its centre is a circular hub of teeth which grip the disc by its hole. This effectively suspends the disk in the middle of the container, preventing the recording surface from being scratched. Originally, the media tray was constructed of flexible black polystyrene, but many newer trays use a more fragile transparent polystyrene. This allows the reverse of the back card, which is usually used for additional artwork, to be visible.

Our Compucessory Clear CD Cases as featured to your right are a stackable CD storage option which would give a professional and organised finish to any office whether at home or at work. They feature;

• Innovative system allows CDs to be stored in individual cases or clicked together to form a tower
• Simply turn the patented spine to stack
• Each case operates as a drawer
• Packed – 10
• Now featuring 55% off! – Just £2.85!
• Free delivery when you order 15 or more packs!

At Office 365 we take great pleasure in surprising our customers with our selection of products for all around the home and the office. We’re not just stationery suppliers and as the pennies dropping our customer base is doing quite the opposite! Now one of the UK’s top rated online office supplies retailers, you will find that our selection is not only vast, but fairly priced too! Take a look at our computer media supplies for example, where you will find an impressive selection of all forms of computer media storage products!

So that you can safely store all your hard work (and the fun bits too), your computer uses various types of storage media to save information continuously for future use. Your computer can load an operating system from a drive and process your information; it can find your saved data on its drive or computer optical media and then process it, furthermore, upon request it will save your files on the drive or media for future reference. In order for you to use your machine to the best of its ability however, you must have the right tools to do so and this is where our computer media supplies come in handy.

3.5 Disks (or Floppy Discs)

‘Floppy disks’ replaced the age old tape or cartridge storage media and is still the most commonly used storage medium in educational facilities and offices today. A magnetic 3.5 disk records information in magnetic bits like a tape, however the main difference and as it goes, advantage, is that you can retrieve specific information rather than having to go through each individual file.

CD’s DVD’s Optical Disks

Other forms of storage media like the CD and DVD can have two types of storage; recordable, and re-writable. The first enables data to be written once and cannot be erased and the second enables data to be written which can later be erased if required, then used again for storing further data. CD’s, DVD’s and Blue Ray are all examples of optical discs which use laser to burn minute pits on the reflective surface to store data. Although they cannot be harmed by external magnetic fields, this form of media is subject to scratches which will ruin the ‘playability’ of the disk resulting in the loss of its information; for this reason they must be stored safely.

USB sticks

A USB stick or ‘flash drive’ as they are also known as, is a common and favoured example of a solid state memory. This chip-based storage medium is extremely popular with many people carrying theirs in their pocket or on their key ring for quick access. This amazing device is fast and can safely store several gigabytes of information even when the current is turned off. For this reason it is the most favoured choice for portable storage applications and file backups.

With many other forms of quality storage medium here, Office 365 will have a solution for you and if you need any help, just give us a call on 0870 766 1624.