Label It, Brother
By Wayne Maruna
I consider myself a pretty organized guy, a firm believer is the adage “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Time spent looking for something is time wasted. As a retired accountant, my financial record keeping is impeccable. When it comes to computer documents, I can find most anything I’ve saved in very short order. And as a bonus, I’m always happy to provide advice to my wife on how to properly load the dish washer for maximum effective cleaning. Even the forced downtime during the recent hurricane was put to good use, sorting my iPad icons into alphabetical order. Hey, not so easy; I mean, The Weather Channel – under T or under W? I admit to briefly considering deleting my Uber and Voice Message apps to skirt the issue, but no, I’m not afraid to make the tough decisions.
This obsession with organization is probably what spurred me to purchase my Brother P-touch PT-2030 Labeling Machine a few years ago. It runs off batteries or in my case an optional AC power adapter. It has a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2-line LCD graphical display for proofing, and produces laminated labels of varying heights: 6mm (0.23”), 9mm (0.35”), 12mm (0.47”), and 18mm (0.7”). My unit offers four different fonts. The label tape stock is provided in cassettes that you pop into the labeler as needed. The so-called TZe label stock is a continuous tape that runs about 26 feet long when new, so if you have need of a 26 foot long label, you’re covered. Brother (the name of the manufacturer) sells the laminated thermal tape stock through office supply stores and online places like Amazon. Their basic tape produces black print on white stock, with a shiny water resistant laminated covering. You can also find non-OEM brand TZe tape in other colors, including white print on lime green stock, white print on pink stock, white print on black stock, black print on clear stock, and black print on yellow stock (so you can make your own miniature crime scene tape), plus a few more varieties.
The PT-2030 is no longer marketed, but Brother makes several different newer models, both desktop and hand held. Their primary competitor is Dymo, another long-time name in personal labelers which sells an array of similar products. My former labeler, which I’ve probably had for 40 years, is an old mechanical Dymo unit which worked by loading a black plastic tape spool and spinning an embossing wheel that held letters and numbers. Find the desired character, press the embossing handle, then spin to the next character. The result was a black tape with white lettering. Peel off the backing and stick in place. My Brother PT-2030 is several generations beyond that old Dymo dinosaur. The tape still has a removable backing that exposes an adhesive surface, but the resulting laminated tape is a major improvement. And the adhesive really holds. There’s a bit of waste as every label (unless strung together and cut) creates one inch of lead-in and one inch of lead-out space.
I use my labeler a lot in my computer work. Clients are forever forgetting their passwords, so I place a label on their desktop machine with pertinent information about email and Microsoft account info. Not the best idea for laptops or mobile devices subject to loss or theft of course, but generally safe for stay-at-home devices. I label all my spare hard drives and flash drives so I know what is on each. I have a label with my name and phone number on my iPad and Kindles. That’s already saved me from losing my Kindle when I left it at a local Pizza parlor where it was found by an honest proprietor. I also have one on my aluminum water bottle. It has been through the dish washer on more than one occasion with no harm done to the label. Takes a licking and keeps on sticking, to bend a phrase.
How might you use laminated labels? I’d recommend starting in the pantry with storage containers. Putting something into the freezer for the long haul? Label it with the contents and date. Label anything you carry around that might get lost, like a cell phone or eye glass case. You can make very professional looking file folder labels with one of these devices. Here’s an example of output:
I’m told you shouldn’t label people. That’s probably true. Even with water resistant tape, the labels would eventually come off in the bath.