“As long as we can recall, the kiln has been the playground for us two sisters. Now we want to pass this kind of hope at hand to more people needing it with the TS-453A."
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Chieh-Hsuan Mao and Hsuan-Yuan Mao, founders of Mao Studio
Before Mao Studio came into being, it was Hsanig Shin Ceramics Kiln founded by their father Chang-Hui Mao in the 1980s in Yingge, Taiwan. After doing OEM work in ceramics for more than three decades, they were met with the decline of the ceramics industry in Yingge as the export market for traditional ceramics started to dwindle. The sisters Chieh-Hsuan Mao and Hsuan-Yuan Mao could not bear to see their father's lifelong hard work disappear. In 2008 the two sisters put their ceramics work on the Internet. To their surprise, it attracted significant attention from users and greatly encouraged the two sisters to take their craft further. After some discussions, the two decided to use "Mao Studio" as their brand name.
As they observed their father in making all kinds of ceramics from the kiln since their childhood, the two sisters have developed strong interests in fine arts and design. In the initial stages of their business they used popular social media like Facebook and Pinkoi as their channels of promotion. The works of the purely handmade and unique design style of Mao Studio quickly brought fame to them. Right now, aside from the original ceramics business, the sisters have also developed many household utensils with a creative sense. Meanwhile they have also started providing customized products and services for the individual needs of customers and businesses. A work of the elder sister Chieh-Hsuan Mao was a finalist in 2010 Cerámica Contemporánea in Aragon, Spain as well as in the Fifth Taipei Ceramics Awards and Creative Life. Exhibition of New Ceramics Works. Chieh-Hsuan Mao also has been invited to display her works at the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, the Executive Yuan's gallery and various Fine Arts museums in Taiwan. The works of the younger sister Hsuan-Yuan Mao on the other hand started from the concept of design. The "Full series-Bowls and Plates" was from her feelings about life as she merged creativity into life and was made into "2010 Creative Life - Exhibition of New Ceramics Works" at Yingge Ceramics Museum. This gave the series plenty of exposure in exhibitions of various scales.
In the initial stage of their business. members of the Mao Studio design team transferred files through messaging applications like LINE, Skype, and WhatsApp. Normally the process needs a person to download the file first, revise it, and then send it back for the original creator to use it again. As a file often needs to be sent back and forth after frequent revisions, oftentimes it makes collaborators unable to know which one is the final version. This in turn would impact the overall efficiency of the entire team. Therefore finding a solution that can provide easy file sharing and online collaboration became the most urgent requirement for the Mao Studio team.
Like all graphics designers, the Mao Studio team often needs to use editing software like Illustrator and Photoshop to make product design proposals. Team members have different duties and use different operating systems, for example designers use Mac computers to work, those responsible for ordinary works use Windows. With different operating systems and no centralized file management platform, there was lots of unsynchronized data. Due to too many revisions, often users could not find the final versions of files or the storage location of original files. The Mao Studio team needed a storage device that could support multiple operating systems, on both computers and mobile devices, to effectively enhance work efficiency.
Before using the TS-453A, the Mao sisters suffered from the painful experience of data loss several times. In the past they only used traditional desktop hard drives and external hard drives to store their important design drafts and customer data. After instances of data loss, the Mao sisters had to pay for expensive data rescue and also suffered a loss to their reputation. The Mao sisters decided to invest in a highly-efficient smart file storage device to provide a trustworthy backup solution.
The Mao sisters recalled when they chose to buy a NAS, having numerous discussions, they finally decided to buy a QNAP TS-453A. The TS-453A is equipped with a 14-nm Intel® Celeron® quad-core N3150/N3160 1.6GHz processor with up to 8GB DDR3L-1600 dual-channel memory. It has four Gigabit Ethernet ports and supports SATA 6Gb drives. The TS-453A also features the USB One Touch Copy function that can quickly copy files to/from USB devices with just one button push. Coupled with the use of high-performance Toshiba N300 hard drives, the Mao sisters can be more at ease with their creative works.
Mao Studio designers often need to edit files online. Now with the TS-453A they can store client-commissioned designs on the NAS and configure permission settings according to different projects. Each member can access each project's folder and adjust files in real time. Then through the built-in link sharing function of the NAS, they can let each other preview the finished view of the product design. This effectively makes work delays due to file transfer time and revisions a thing of the past.
The TS-453A supports protocols like SMB/CIFS, NFS and AFP. Whether the files are edited on Windows® or Mac®, they can all be stored on the NAS and shared with all connected devices. With the Qfile mobile app, they can also show their work samples stored on the TS-453A when they are dealing with clients outside the office. The meeting minutes can also be uploaded to the NAS for storage, making sure no important information is missing.
The TS-453A not only satisfies the Mao sisters' storage needs at work, but also solves the issue of data backup that used to trouble them. The TS-453A supports complete RAID configuration settings and also supports snapshot scheduling and encrypted data transfers. Files can also be backed up and synchronized with cloud storage space including Google Drive™ and Dropbox® for extra layers of protection. In the event of data loss, files can be restored extremely easily by using these protective measures. The comprehensive backup functions of the TS-453A provides reliable protection mechanisms.
In addition to using the QNAP TS-453A as the primary storage device at work, the Mao sisters also often use external hard drives that are easily portable and used as temporary data storage when they are out of the office. When they return o their office, they use the TS-453A'sUSB One Touch Copy function to quickly copy files from the external device to the NAS. Not only does this effectively release storage capacity from the external hard drive, it also centralizes their important data.
The Mao sisters have many experiences using Toshiba products and find them to be highly reliable. They chose Toshiba N300 8TB NAS hard drives for the TS-453A. These highly-reliable drives feature multiple shock sensors technology, and can also detect and compensate for shock and rotational vibration to reduce downtime. While their error recovery control minimizes recovery time from data errors to ensure completeness of data.
After the initial adjustment period, employees at Mao Studio now use the TS-453A with ease across their various operating systems. No matter if they are making adjustments directly on the TS-453A or downloading the file to the local machine for modification, it is always a simple task. The TS-453A's file sharing function is easy to use. You can share files via email, social networking sites, or provide links to share files that greatly reduces the time needed for the huge amount of data transfers. Using the TS-453A as a base for multiple backup solutions gives Mao Studio the confidence to ensure important resources like customer data and design files will not be lost. Coupled with Toshiba N300 hard drives that provide both high performance and reliability, the Mao sisters enjoy the various conveniences provided by its private cloud storage solution and can fully focus their creative energies into Mao Studio's creative pottery.
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