Need a practical, median priced gift for your favorite artist, writer or student this year? Know someone who would benefit from a GTD command post that would fit in a pocket or purse?

Maybe a little bitty notebook could be the cornerstone of your gift giving season (you save money if you buy in bulk!)

My own love affair with the Moleskine:

Despite my love of Moleskines for everyday use, I really appreciate the artistic side of things where these little gems are concerned. I enjoy them so much that I’ve been collecting some sites that show off the best illustrations, hacks and accessories for the little volumes.

I know that they now make smaller and brighter colored versions (Volant versions). I just got the email yesterday. It’s pretty fresh news. But, I’m a traditionalist when it comes to my notebooks.

I’m not saying I won’t try one of the tiny ones — it looks like those may represent a “can’t help myself” episode in full force. Gee, I love paper and pens and pencils (Oh. My!)

Newfangled colored and flexi-covered versions aside, today I’m going to share a few cool things with you, fellow classic Moleskine lover. And these things can make a notebook into a token gift or an amazingly rich gift… depending on how you play it.

Moleskine Art:

Some ideas for the artist in your life. Select a Moleskine Small Sketch Notebook (pocket-sized) and add a high quality graphite pencil set and art erasers. If you are particularly fond of this artist, add in a lust-worthy water color pencil set and/or travel watercolor brushes or professional quality colored pencils to create a portable art studio.

Smashing Magazine’s Collection of Moleskine Art
‘Skine.art – a site dedicated to the decorated moleskine
Flicker Hive Mind collection over on FivePrime.org

Hacks:

A writer’s Moleskine Hacks – Mikes version from 2004, but still quite applicable (and I use the writer’s tools PDFs printed out and glued into my own). Add a package of post-it tabs, brightly colored index cards, a fabulous pen (I highly recommend the Namiki Vanishing Point Raden if it’s in your budget. I swear by mine.) You may prefer to opt for a high quality mechanical pencil, instead. Be sure to tuck an Amazon.com gift card in the pocket to support their reading habit. And dedicate it to the writer on the inside cover. No writer likes to be caught out without a place to capture ideas. IMHO, there’s no better, quicker, easier tool to capture those thoughts on the fly than a properly outfitted pocket-sized, ruled Moleskine notebook. Leather covers are nice too (see below.)

GTD Moleskine Hack for Students – Great gift idea! This How-To printed out with a brand-spanking new Moleskine, a good no-skip pen and a mechanical pencil, a few Post-It tabs, a package of index cards, a large rubber band and an eraser. Add a funky, properly sized sticker and tuck an “emergency $20 bill” in the pocket alongside a prepaid calling card and you have a “to die for” gift that will actually be enjoyed and appreciated.

Accessories:

Want a beautiful, handmade leather case for your favorite notebook? Try Gfeller Casemakers.
Want one that’s got the midas touch, and is made to order? Try Sojourner Leatherwork

To whet your appetite for bitty notebooks:

If you aren’t already a convert, learn more about all things Moleskine over on Moleskinerie. Those of us who are already in love with these little notebooks will wait, we are patient. It’s only a matter of time before you join us in our addiction.

Ubiquity, by definition, means being everywhere (or at least seeming to be everywhere) at once. That’s the dream I’ve tried to fulfill for decades. Now, even though I’m more about “slowing down” and taking life a bit easier — I’m still a stress-monger when I’m online.

When I’m on the web, I always juggle a dozen things (at least) at any given time. So when I find a tool that promises some relief… I’ll take it!

I find that my online workstyle is a bit schizophrenic — I’m so many different people, going in so many different directions. The problem is compounded now that I’m participating in several social networking groups. It’s hard to get all the different versions of me synthesized back into a single entity once my workday is over.

Life seems a bit fractured. Between you and me, carrying an iPhone everywhere doesn’t help, but I won’t eliminate that complication — I’m addicted.

A new Foxfire addon, Ubiquity, promises to whittle away at my problem. And the way it does it — by using standard language commands to do a whole slew of tasks online from inside your browser window — is simply awe-inspiring!

With a shortcut command (the standard is alt-space, but you can set it to anything you like), a grease-monkey overlay pops up and you can use plain language to do what you want. Like… “Twitter I’m testing Ubiquity and am loving it!” and it updates your twitter. Ditto for the steps to update Facebook. Other platforms are probably planned for the future.

I’m still just testing this little gem, but so far, I’m loving it. It’s still under development. It’s free. And, it promises to be just one more reason that I’ll never give up Firefox.

The only thing that I don’t like is that it’s still limited to Google Calendar and Google Mail for the quick launch apps (and I’m using Google Apps which doesn’t play the same way.) Learn more on the Ubiquity Wiki. Then download Ubiquity and try it for yourself!

iPhone to Thunderbird Sync Client.

I’ve not tried this one myself, since I use Google Apps now, but it looks like someone found an easier way to make this happen than what I’ve seen to date.

Check out the full info page here:

Sync your Thunderbird to your iPhone.

Ok, I should give credit to someone for this information — and I really WOULD if only I could remember where I found it originally.

The issue: HP 1020 printers have a known problem with Ubuntu and Kubuntu. It makes me crazy. Now back when I did my first Kubuntu system, I dug in (or begged help from someone) and managed to get it installed. Now, on Ubuntu (and my third Linux system rebuild) I had managed to forget that little “note” I’d made.

I’ve been trying for TWO WEEKS to get my printer to work. Heck, I even swapped out for three older printers I had lying around. (I really need to clean out my gadgets!) And, I was still without a working printer.

Then, this weekend, as I swapped all my notes over from BasKet Notes to Tomboy Notes, I found the little unassuming note. The process is listed here, and it works like a CHARM (although you should remember to remove any previous attempts in CUPS, reboot your system and reinstall via CUPS).

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ wget -O foo2zjs.tar.gz http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/foo2zjs.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf foo2zjs.tar.gz
$ cd foo2zjs
$ sudo make uninstall
$ make
$ ./getweb 1020
$ sudo make install install-hotplug cups

Hope this helps someone else as much as it has helped me!

My father got an iPhone from my mother this year for his birthday (Happy B’day, Pops!)  I can’t believe my non-geeky mother bought this piece of equipment. What’s even more unbelievable is that she likes it too and (methinks) wants one of her own! This, gentle reader, is the power of the iPhone… to convert to technology the unconvertable (namely, my mother).

So, Pops is spending the wee hours of the morning finding all the cool stuff online and on the phone itself. I’ve found a few cool new things for him that I’ll share with my readers here… (more…)

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about how to make sure websites are mobile-friendly and, in particular, how to make them iPhone friendly.

Sure, there are lots of mobile devices out there (and I’ve owned quite a few myself) but none have the kind of market saturation that is expected for the iPhone. So, as a website owner, I’m interested in how to make my sites more iPhone friendly and will encourage my clients to do the same for their sites.

If you want to read more on this topic for your own site, consider the following resources: (more…)

Yup! It’s being done. And there are new, more creative ways to get your ebooks all the time. I’ve been following some of the methods, but most leave you with tiny, ugly notepad typestyles.

Then I found this particular ebooks for iphone video, which gives a great overview of using the PDF download functionality alongside Safari to have a fully illustrated and scaleable ebook on the iphone. Not sloppy! (more…)

Ok, the new hasn’t worn off. In fact, the more I work with it, the more I love it. I’m working to find the online, web-based apps that will make it my tiny palm-sized dream machine. I’ve always hesitated to rely on web-based versions of my core work programs, but I’m now seeing how nicely these web-based programs mesh with use of the iPhone.

I’m sure I’ll be mentioning what I find and offering reviews on what works well over the next days, weeks, and possibly even months. But, for now, here are a few impressions and some finds from my play-time this weekend with my new iPhone:

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I’m loving this recent Inman post from Todd Carpenter of Lenderama on the new interest in using large metal shipping containers as the basis for a new type of housing. (more…)

While doing my usual thing today, I found a great resource for tricking out Firefox. Now this list isn’t for the faint of heart, but for those geeks among us, it’s a cool list to take Firefox to the next level of customization and performance!

If you have a problem with a particular product or gadget and you can’t find the information you need on the manufacturer’s site, you now have a resource to help you troubleshoot.

www.FixYa.com is an Israeli website and how-to community with the desire to be the world’s largest support community and online knowledgebase. FixYa hopes to bridge the gap between an increasing lack in manufacturer support and customer demand for technical assistance.

Personally, I’ve already bookmarked this resource and may even hop over there later and write a few “how-to” articles to help support the community myself! In the meantime, check it out for your own techie/geek quandaries.

If you are like me, you like a custom computing experience.

That’s just great, until you have a computer crash, or you buy a new one. Then you realize how MANY of those little custom do-hickies have to be recovered, relocated or recreated from scratch.

Want a tip to make that easier? (more…)

It makes me crazy to have to wait. I’m not a patient woman. I’m just not.

I’m also a multi-tasker. There is seldom a time when I have less than a dozen processes going at once. So, when my FireFox is all locked up because I hit a link that, unknown to me, is a PDF, because I failed to check the URL at the bottom of my screen when hovering over a link… I get a wee bit antsy.

I’ve found a few ways to help curtail that frustration for fellow FireFox users: Courtesy of enblogopedia (read after reading about the FireFox plugins that prevent PDF launching at Blog Herald) I offer the following:

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As I prepare to become truly mobile (something I’m seeking as I look for ways to save bucks), I’ve decided that I’ll keep my client records archived back on the farm, with a digital copy on my computer for reference. I’ll be using a minimum amount of paper. First because piles of paper are unseemly and they take up valuable space and second because I want to be digitally organized.

In this quest, I found a pretty interesting little piece of equipment for organizing myself.For just over $7 (after tax was added), I purchased a Pembrook Superfile. I got mine at a local discount grocery chain, Aldi Foods. (You can visit them on the web at www.Aldi.com – but you can’t purchase on the web, unfortunately.

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Wired magazine recently reported that several of the electronic voting machines, which contain the “closely held” software secrets were recently auctioned off at government auction. How’s that for “homeland security” gone awry? The cost? $82.

The man that purchased these five machines was none other than a Princeton computer science professor who promptly reverse-engineered the systems, along with his students seeking security holes. Want to know what he found?The read the entire Wired article about the Auction of Top Secret US Voting Machines. *tsk-tsk*

Technorati: electronic voting machines, vote security, reverse engineering

I was cruising the web today… I honestly don’t know how it started. I think it was back tracking some referrals on voluntary simplicity that led to my own blog. I found a couple pretty cool sites that I thought I’d share with those interested in living a life less complicated, and learning to decorate on the cheap in the small spaces of a tiny home (or apartment).

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I just found an amazingly sweet little suite of programs to make my iPod a backup “server” to take my own programs on the road. This customizable bundle will let me take my browser (FireFox) and a portable version of an AV program, a basic MS compatible office suite, a calendar program, an email program (ThunderBird in portable format), a image editor, a media player, a Suduku game and a host of other options with me.

And the most interesting part? It’s free! You also get a webpage editor, an audio editor and recorder, FileZilla (my favorite FTP program) in a portable version, a file zipper, a systray launcher, a backup program and even a couple IM clients that are cross-IM compatible!

Personally, this looks like a great way to carry my “PC tune-up and repair kit” along with me in a folder tucked away on my 60 gig iPod — not to mention a way to invisibly use a public computer, or someone else’s machine without the need to install anything on the host computer and to do my work without leaving my data or any footprint behind. Sweet… very sweet!

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The way my Adobe came packaged (version 7.0 Professional), it’s not particularly “Tablet PC Friendly.” I want to be able to “mark up” a PDF with my stylus the same way I would mark up a paper copy with a red ink pen.

As a writer and a marketing specialist, my clients often send me documents and marketing materials in PDF format for my review. And, when mobile, it’s the format I prefer. But it’s not that simple to mark up these PDFs and send them back to a client with recommendations with a stylus. And, it should be!

I noticed, while cruising over at JKOnTheRun, that there are programs especially designed for Tablet users who want this functionality.

In particular, they mentioned PDF Annotator: (http://www.ograhl.com/en/pdfannotator/index.php). If you don’t have the full version of Adobe, I’m sure this thing would be worth its weight in gold (and the fairly hefty price — $50–for a small piece of software that serves only one function.)

But, with my current sizable investment in the Adobe Software, I wanted to figure out how to do the same thing with existing software. I hate having duplications in software functionality. It’s wasteful!

And, I’m happy to report, I found the way…

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I love Firefox. I despise IE. I use IE only long enough to ensure that my own webs and my client’s site resolve properly using that browser. Then, lickety-split, I’m back to FireFox where I can browse in tabs, where I can worry less about security issues, where I can customize my browser to serve me the way I work, and where I can be a part of a community of software developers and users that create objects for their peers. It’s a geeky community, but an enjoyable one.

Yeah, I know the new IE 7.0 offers its own “tabbed” browsing, but they are too late to this party, IMHO.

I could wax poetic about Firefox for hours (I’m verbose that way, at times…)

But, rather than doing that, I thought you may be interested in what Firefox add-ons I use and why I love them. That way, if you want to give Firefox a spin, you will know some of the bells and whistles you can add. And, if you already adore Firefox, you can peruse a list of “must have” add-ins that are tried and true (and won’t crash your Internet sessions).

1. Want to know all the cool stuff that the new release offers (for those of you that have an old release, or those that have never used Firefox)? – Get the Scoop Here!
2. Want to give it a spin? Download the latest release Firefox 2.
3. Want to waste about six hours of your life reviewing all the widgets you can get that will customize the devil outta your own copy of Firefox? Visit the add ons Page.

Or, perhaps… you would prefer to see some of the top Ad ons — the ones I’ve tried and found to be true? Well here they are…

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As I mentioned the other day on WickedBlog, I broke my precious little, ultra portable (and great-picture-taking) Canon SD 500 Power Shot. I broke the little LCD screen. Now, although it still takes photos — I can’t see them, preview them, or sort them until I plug the sd card into my Tablet PC. So, it’s really cramping my style.

With that said, I called a client of mine (photo buff and Georgia Realtor Jeff Aughey) and asked if he knew anything about replacement of the screen — was it possible, or did I need to budget for a whole new camera? He went on his favorite forums and did some legwork for me and found the following forum post… (Thanks, Jeff!)…

Photography on the Net Forum on LCD Camera Screen Repair. These forums require a log in — but I must admit that I didn’t find them to be extremely helpful, other than learning that it could be done — and of course the phone number for ordering the part. So, I decided to write my own “how-to” to help anyone who would like a cheaper solution for a heart-breaking gadget problem.

Since the guy that posted said he hadn’t actually DONE the replacement himself, but had pulled it from another post, I thought I’d give a blow-by-blow on how this goes for me… and, just maybe, my hands will be steady enough to do the deed.

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