Archive for Site Update
New Sponsor – American Folder Company
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I’d like to welcome a new sponsor to the site, American Folder Company. I think we all know that folders are an essential tool for any office supply geek, and being able to partner with a family owned business that manufactures their product here in the USA is a great pleasure. The American Folder Company not only offers some of your most basic manila folders and pressboard folders for your filing needs, but they also offer various colors of manila folders, expandable accordion folders, and custom folders with specialized tabs and fasteners.
In addition to just being family owned and a US manufacturer, the American Folder Company also:
- Offers a price guarantee that they will beat any lower price you find
- Has free shipping on ALL orders
- Provides free samples of their products to inspect before you buy
- Has a 30 day no-hassle return for products offered on the website
- Gives you a free $10 Shell Gas Card with every purchase
If you are in the market for any kind of folder for your filing needs, American Folder Company is offering a 10% DISCOUNT to readers of OfficeSupplyGeek.com. All you need to do is visit the American Folder Company site, and use the discount code: OSGTEN to save 10% on your folder order. Its a pretty good deal… discount folders, a free gas gift card, and supporting a family owned manufacturer based in the US.
Shopping for Previously Reviewed Office Supplies
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A few weeks ago I implemented an Amazon style shopping page to help readers find some of the items I’ve reviewed in the past, and quite frankly, I hated it. I didnt like how it looked, I didnt like how it functioned, it slowed the site down, and most importantly, the user experience was terrible for people who just wanted to quickly find and add something to their Amazon cart. Thankfully it was just a piece of trial software that was easy to install/uninstall, and I didnt have to spend any money on.
I’ve taken another shot at it, but decided to take a more simple approach and just design/code a few pages on my own. You will now notice a “Shop OfficeSupplyGeek” tab in the top navigation bar that brings you to a page with a few categories you can select from to help guide you to some of the office supplies that you have seen reviewed here. Clicking on the product links there will open a new window and you can place the item in your Amazon.com cart, and from there you can continue shopping for anything you want, unlike the previously mentioned trial. Oh, and of course I will continue to add things to those pages as I continue to review things.
I’d love to hear feedback, good or bad. Hopefully the feature makes finding your cool and unique home office supplies much easier than trying to navigate and search elsewhere, but if not, I am definitely open to your feedback. And also (in full disclosure mode) the quick and simple answer is “yes” I make a small percent comission on stuff that you might buy from these links, but there are also ways around that if you don’t want that to happen. I think if you just copy the full name of the product and delete it from your cart, then log out and log back in then research using the copied product name it gets around that. I say that “I think” it works because I cant really test it without fear of violating the Terms of Service agreement with fraudulent clicks.
Anyway, like I said, your feedback is much appreciated. Good or bad, Id like to hear it, and if you have suggestions for things that should or shouldn’t be on there, just let me know. Just keep in mind it will only be for products that are available on Amazon because its just much easier to code that way, and it keeps the look consistent across those pages.
Bottom line is that even though it is an affiliate link, the goal is to make it a little easier for you to quickly find and purchase the stuff you read about here without having to go back and find every individual office supply review.
Availability for Some Frequently Requested Items
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Not many folks are around due to the holidays, so I’m doing some catch up work with the blog and additional research. Two things I always get a ton of questions about are the jumbo binder clips and the purple and orange Sharpie pens, so with that in mind, I wanted to share the links below with everyone. The reviews themselves have also been updated to include the appropriate links if you are interested in buying either item. I’ve got plenty of stuff sitting here waiting to get reviewed and posted too, but in fairness to some of the stores and manufacturers that supplied them, I will be holding off until just after the holidays, but I will continue to post on my regular schedule with some other items of interest.
1. Purple and Orange Sharpie Pens (review here) are available on Amazon right now, but still not in their own individual packages.
2. Jumbo binder clips (review here) are also available on Amazon now.
New OfficeSupplyGeek Theme and Design
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As you can see, I’ve got a completely new theme, layout, and graphics for the site. It took me quite a while to get this all sorted out, and I still have some minor changes to make. This is also part of the reason I probably have not been as responsive to emails, comments, and Twitter (matching changes over at Twitter as well) over the last few weeks, but I promise to get back on that now that this is mostly done. Let me know if anything doesnt look or work right, or if you have any feedback in general. Hopefully I have not ruined anything that was easy to use or that you liked, but I am open to any requests or feedback, just leave a comment and Ill see what I can do.
Mother’s Day Deals and Sales, and Some Updates
Posted by: | CommentsWith Mother’s Day coming up soon (May 10th to be exact) there are some deals and sales that I thought I would share here. Just double check the shipping though because we are pretty close to Mother’s Day already, so I dont want to be responsible for any late gifts. 
- Gold Spot Luxury gifts has a section on Mother’s Day gift suggestions, and free domestic shipping on orders over $99.
- Lincoln Stationers has a section on Mother’s Day recommendations with some of those items on sale.
- Colorado Pen Direct has up to 60% off, free domestic shipping over $50 and gift warpping and engraving done same day.
- Not Mother’s Day specific, but Levenger has a 2 for 1 sale on some items including their Metallic Clippies that I recently reviewed.
I’ve had some updates that I have not had a chance to get to until tonight, so I wanted to quickly highlight them:
- I was thrilled a few days ago when Steve Leveen, the CEO of Levenger decided to include a link to my site in one of his “Steve’s Pick” emails to Levenger’s preferred customer list. See here for the email. Click here to go to the Levenger site and sign up for his weekly Preffered Customer emails.
- I have updated the Ink Comparison Log to show some new Blue Black and Blue Ink Samples
- On a completely unrelated note, I am in a fantasy baseball league with @dowdyism over at PenAddict.com. It is a head to head league, and after one day he is beating me 4-3, I know this has you all on the edge of your seat in anticipation of how the weeks head to head match up will end, so I will be sure to keep you updated.
Ink Comparison Log – A new feature
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Sample of Ink Comparison Log. Check out the "Ink Comparison Log" links to the right for a larger view.
Question: Will the following be helpful to you as a reader of this blog?
I’ve started a new feature that you can access over there on the right called the Ink Comparison Log. The goal of this part of the site is to give you one location where you can compare various shades of the same or similar color inks. It will include fountain pen, gel, or any other kind of ink you can think of that I review.
Not sure yet what I’ll do with colors like Blue Black or Green Black. Do they go in Blue and Green? Do they go in the Black section? Do they go in both? I’ll think about it some more, but any feedback from you is a huge help because I am hoping that the feature is something that people find useful, so your input is critical to have that happen.
Please leave any comments or feedback, I think this will be a work in progress.
Exclusive Reviews, New Site Feature, and Contest Winners
Posted by: | CommentsThis coming Monday is a big day for OfficeSupplyGeek.com Not only will I be announcing the 2 winners of the latest office supply giveaway, but there will also be an exclusive review of a brand new office supply product that isnt quite out on the shelves yet. I’m very excited about this product and the review, having had a chance to use the item over the last few weeks has been fun, and I’m sure that once they become available shortly you will all be running to pick one or more up for yourself.
Additionally, I’ve got a bunch of other new items lined up for reviews soon, and I will also be adding a new section to the site that I am hoping will be helpful for those of you making some tough pen and/or ink purchase decisions.
Looking forward to tomorrow for the new product review, and the two newest office supply winners!
What Office Supply to Review Next?
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I didnt have as much time to write up a new office supply review as I thought I would Friday night, so I’m going to write something up for a review to post tomorrow morning. I thought it would be fun to give the readers of the blog a chance to weigh in on what they would like to see reviewed next, so I figured a small poll was in order. I’ve put together a list of a few of the items I’ve got laying around waiting to get reviewed. Let me know what you would like to see me review next, and that will be the next post that you see up on OfficeSupplyGeek.com on Saturday morning.
I am going to end the voting around 5-6PM eastern so I have time to write up the review and take pictures tonight, I hope I get more than 2-3 votes so this isnt too embarrassing.
The voting is closed and as you can see, with 39% of the votes, the Noodler’s Blue Black Fountain Pen Ink was the winner, so look for that review tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone who voted, hopefully I’ll get to those other items soon though.
[poll id="3"]
RSS Feed Issues
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been having trouble setting up my RSS feed correctly. If you have subscribed in the past, you will need to resubscribe if you wish to keep getting my feed.
Apologies for any inconvenience, however I think it is all straightened out now.
Getting Started
Posted by: | CommentsWell its been a few days and a few hours of playing with WordPress Themes and editing the css files, but I believe I am done with that now. I’m pretty happy with how the site looks, although I might make changes down the road.
Now I am looking forward to doing some reviews and posts on actual office supply related items. Not sure where to start, but I may start with one of my too many pens. I have purchased a ton of things in the last 2 months that I will end up reviewing, and actually bought some new ink for my fountain pen today.
Tomorrow I start with taking some pictures of things and writing my first review, but first I need to decide on the actual item to write about.
Things to come…
Posted by: | CommentsAs I gather my thoughts on the direction that I want to take my blog in, I thought I would build myself a little outline of some of the items I expect to review in the coming days.
Pens:
I have a small handful of pens to review that range from a $1.50 highlighter to a mid-range Waterman rollerball. Most of the pens are recent acquisitions from JetPens, Colorado Pen Direct, Paradise Pens, and the old stand-by aka “Staples”
Not only do I plan on reviewing the pens or supplies, but I also plan on providing feedback on the places I have purchased from both online and off line.
Notebooks:
I have two different notebook types that I plan to review, none of them being the old 5-Star coil bound ones that I used to heavily rely on. As of late I have become addicted to the Levenger Circa system, but I do have one other type that I am still slightly fond of which I will review. Again, along with the product review I expect to do a full review of my experience with Levenger as a retailer.
Desk Chairs:
Unfortunately this is not something I buy frequently enough to do mass reviews, but I did just purchase a new one to replace a TERRIBLE old one that I had. I will focus on a comparison of the two and also compare to some chairs that I have used in the past at work.
Desk supplies:
This is a catch-all for now to cover the things that are not pens or notebooks. It will include any type of organizers, or accessories like staplers, binder clips, rulers, filing systems, and such. Not as exciting as the rest, but still stuff that I enjoy and that deserve attention.
Electronics:
There are a ton of sites that do in-depth reviews of electronics so I might not focus heavily here but I do expect to hit a few of the essentials like printers and monitors.
Future Purchases:
I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts on purchases as I am researching and considering them in hopes that I might get feedback from my many (OK, as of today 0) readers.
That is all I’ve got for today, and I do have other plans for what I might include in the future, so thanks for bearing with me as I start to lay things out. And to whomever is my first reader, thanks in advance for wasting a few minutes of your life with my ramblings here so far.
The Office Supply Geek
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever used a binder clip to fix or create something…something that did not just simply involve holding a stack of papers together? Have you ever found yourself in the pen aisle at Staples for an embarrassing amount of time?
I plan on keeping this blog updated with the typical things that any self proclaimed office supply geek would want to know. I look forward to sharing reviews and insight on anything and everything office (or I guess school) supply related. If you would find it on a desk, I hope to have something to say about it here.
