Types of Paper Shredders - A Comparison

In an office environment, all companies maintain sensitive documents. Over time, one is often required to shred and dispose the papers containing some valuable sensitive information. That's when a shredder comes into the picture, in order to shred huge volumes of paper in a short span of time.

The main advantages of using a paper shredder is its speed, its automation, ability of handle large volumes.

When it comes to paper shredders, there are roughly about 4 types of machines used for shredding (each identified by the style of shredding) as follows :

• Strip-cut Shredders
• Cross-cut Shredders (Confetti, Diamond cuts)
• Micro-cut Shredders
• Super-Micro-cut Shredders

Strip-cut shredders are the most basic, cheapest form of shredders. It cuts papers in strips. Note that, with some effort, these strips can be put back together and the document can be reconstructed. Hence these shredders are extremely the low level types and are not secure. These shredders are just perfect for basic home or small office use.

Eg : Fellowes 4690001 Powershred 90S 18-Sheet Strip Cut Shredder

Image Courtesy : Amazon

Cross-cut shredders add an extra level security by cutting the paper in cross cuts. Usually, in diamond or confetti cuts. This makes it more difficult to reassemble the pieces to reconstruct the original document. These can shred CD's and credit cards as well.

Eg : Swingline Hands-free 100-Sheet Super Cross Cut Shredder

Image Courtesy : Amazon

Micro-cut shredders are considered even more secure since they cut the papers in much smaller sizes than strip-cut. Just like the cross-cut varieties, these can shred CD's and credit cards as well.

Eg : SimplyShred 10-Sheet Micro Cut Heavy Duty Shredder

Image Courtesy : Amazon

Super Micro-cut shredders are even secure than micro-cut varieties since the cutting size is even much smaller. Thus making it extremely difficult to reconstruct the document.

Similarly, Confetti and Diamond shredders cut papers in specific shapes and are quite useful for extra added security.

Note that most good quality top-shelf products come jam-detection functionality to detect any paper jams. Check each product's specifications to suit your needs before buying.

If you plan to use shredders for heavy duty industrial purpose, then maybe you should try the following industrial strength products :

Intimus Cross Cut Shredder

Swingline CX40-59 Commercial Shredder

Taking pictures from a boat or ship - Photography

Taking photos from a boat or a ship can be extremely challenging.

Since the ship is always moving, you are moving as well. So it is extremely challenging to maintain a proper focus. Keeping the camera on a tripod reduces slight distortion but still since it's on an uneven surface, the resultant pictures are not so good i.e they are blurry and distorted.

Make sure the lens you're using has Vibration Reduction (VR) or Image stabilization. It reduces some blur and distortion from the pictures.

Try to use a grip hand strap instead of a neck strap for added stabilization. You can buy one online here from B& H Photo Video store in New York City.

I would recommend you experiment with the settings and try to master getting perfect photos. If you're in Manhattan, I'd suggest you take the free Staten Island Ferry and practice getting some pictures of the Manhattan skyline. First try during the day time and then try at night. However, it becomes extremely challenging to get pictures at night, due to low light conditions. I'll cover the low light condition scenario in another post for now.

Take a look at my very bad quality night time picture of the Manhattan skyline taken from a boat. You can imagine how challenging and difficult it is to get still shots from a ship. Observe the blurriness and distortion. This was taken during the 9-11 anniversary so you can see the 9-11 memorial lights.

Sherpa Goal Zero Solar Kit

Let me assume, you're reading this post because you're a keen camper or a hiker or are atleast interested in having those hobbies. If you're planning a multi-day hike / camp to some remote location, I'd suggest you take a look at the Sherpa Goal Zero solar kit. I came across this Sherpa-50 kit at the Eastern Mountain Sports in New York.

This kit is extremely useful to recharge your electronic devices like smartphones, digital camera, laptop, tablet, or basically any device either using the USB or the 12 V DC power plug port etc.

Sherpa-50 and other variations of the brand are easily available on Amazon.

However in order to recharge, you have to use sherpa batteries or use the solar panel or could charge using a 12V car. I must the Sherpa Goal Zero would be my first choice for my recharging needs when I plan to go to a long hike or a trek or go camping.

An excellent detailed review can be found here. Also check out a tabulated comparison chart for various solar chargers currently available in the market.

Bokeh blur effect - Photography

Bokeh is an interesting blur effect in DSLR photography. Most users new to the DSLR photography are not aware of the terminology. As a matter of fact, I myself didn't know what bokeh was, until one day I accidentally shot a photo with an interesting blur effect. The photo looked nice with the blurred lights during the night. Honestly speaking, it just happened to me while experimenting with different settings of my Nikon. I was just randomly trying out different combinations in various modes.

What followed was a bit of a research on the internet and lots of googling :) I came across this very helpful tutorial which helped me recreate the previous camera settings for a bokeh. After a bit of practicing I do feel that although the steps to create a bokeh seem quite simple at the first glance, it is infact quite tricky under various situations.

When you try to click a bokeh under low light conditions, it can be a bit tricky. Another tricky and challenging situation would be to try to click a bokeh of a city skyline at night from a boat or ship. We will look into this scenario in another post.

For now, lets just focus a bit on the bokeh. Check out a sample photo below to get an idea:

Bokehs can be extremely pleasing to the eye in stylish portraits. You could also use them as backgrounds and overlay text on top of it to create flyers, posters etc. In my next post on Bokeh, I'll specify some generic steps for recreating the camera settings and also some photos.