NEATO Media Labeling Products
Company: Neato
Estimated price: $29.95
http://www.neato.com

How many of us have the new CD writers? How many of us hate the plain, uninviting blank labels that come on the media? How many of us have tried "spring loaded " labelers, only to find bubbles under our labels? Well, I have finally found, tried, and tested a labeling product that not only works great, but is easy to use.

NEATO's labeler is simple to operate. I printed out the instructions (included on the CD) and began to read. I found them a little bit long, but found that I was doing great on less than a few pages read. So, I ventured forth to create a label and insert for a CD full of pictures of my grandchildren. I first downloaded a few pictures into Photoshop (my personal favorite) that I wanted to make into a label and created a collage. I will not go into the details on how to go from your graphic program onto your templates, but it was easy enough that even I could do it. Once you have finished transferring your photo and printed your label, the applicator is so easy a child can use it! The edges do not curl nor do you get bubbles in the label.

Not only can you create great CD labels, but also labels for floppy disks, jewelcase inserts, standard cassettes, and my personal favorite, video cassettes inserts! I had so many videos with those ugly handwritten labels. But now I have all my videos labeled so I can tell at a glance which grandchild or vacation is featured on the tape.

If you don't want to be creative, NEATO has included on the CD over 100 textures and images to save you the trouble.

NEATO has a website where you can download the software, available for both the Mac and PC platform. Althought I mentioned Photoshop, you can use this product with many of the popular programs, such as Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, MacroMedia Freehand, and PageMaker, just to name a few.

What is included
NEATO comes with a MediaFACE CD, NEATO CD Label Applicator, and sample inserts and labels.

Summary
NEATO Media Labeling Products' CD Label Applicator worked as easy with me as it did for the reps at Macworld. I found it easier than the lengthy instructions made it look. If you're looking for a labeling solution that is simple and fast, yet still gives you truly outstanding results, then this is the product for you.

I would invite you to visit their website. Here you can find out all about NEATO, order supplies, and enter your design winning label in their LabelMania Competition. While you're there you can also get ideas on how others are using the Neato labeler, such as a teaching tool.

MacMice Rating: 4

Lyn Price
lyn@mymac.com