» Hipster Fotos
September 8, 2008
August 11, 2008
» Hipster Redux
I've talked about the Hipster PDA a few times. I finally stabilized on a system that works for me. I've been using it steadily for months with no major changes now, so I thought I'd share with you.
My brief foray into the hipmod was fun, but too restrictive and small in the end. I understand others enjoy it though, so I'm glad I did it.
I find the classic hipster with a few modifications works best. My biggest beef with the original hipster is that it falls apart and it's not very user-friendly. That binder clip had to go. So I got some binding rings (½" I think, but the exact size isn't critical) and use a standard 3-hole punch to punch 2 holes in the index cards, and bind it with 2 rings. This makes a more book-like planner, which nicely folds over on itself.
Now, those rings can be pesky to open and close so I decided not to. I snip a little cut from the edge of the cards I want to be removeable to the holes. They stay in but will come right out and go right in without struggle.
I also like to print some forms (as you've seen). These I just print on regular paper and trim to size with a guillotine then hole punch (no snips, that works best on cardstock).
I made front and back covers out of a cereal box and duct tape, and even a pen holder out of duct tape. I'll post a picture soon so you can see.
My planner consists of a few reference pages I printed out (including a circle of fifths, a few airport kneeboards, performance data for my favorite planes, and morse code… anything you can find a PDF for.), my weekly calendar/todo list pages, and a bunch of index cards that I use for notes, moments of inspiration, or whatever else they come in handy for. Oh, and a paperclip to mark the current week. I only have to reprint/refill the weekly pages about once every 3 months or so.
For printing things, I wrote a script that automates some of what I mentioned in previous posts.
January 29, 2008
» Printing Hipster
So the hipmod is too small for you? You want to use the regular-size hipster? But by golly your printer refuses to play nicely with index cards?
Here's a solution. Use Multivalent to 4-up index cards onto regular paper, and cut them with a guillotine. You can use cardstock for the full effect.
The trick is in printing the cards at the original size, and optimizing for trimming. Something like this:
./multivalent impose -nup 4 -sep 1 -paper 6x10in core.pdf
This gives you a 6x10-inch PDF (core-up.pdf). Now you need to print it without scaling it to letter size. That should be straightforward to figure out in your environment. Then take it to the guillotine and make your 6 cuts and pat yourself on the back. If you're really clever and your printer has <= ⅛-inch margins you can get it down to 4 cuts.
If you want to make a lot of one card, you can do something like this:
./multivalent impose -nup 4 -page 46,46,46,46 -sep 1 -paper 6x10in core.pdf
You can even get clever and take advantage of duplex printing if your printer supports it. Sky's the limit!
January 26, 2008
» hipmod
When I was in grade school, I used to bring my homework from and to school folded up in my back pocket. Life was simpler then. I always knew exactly what I had on my plate at any moment by checking my back pocket.
Fast-forward to the era of planners, PDAs, and productivity software. I've gone through all the phases. None of them fit, but I took something away from each. These days I know what I want, and none of the traditional solutions come close.
I want something analog, very simple, compact, and easy to put together. When I came across the Hipster PDA I thought I had found it, but I soon found that even the hipster wasn't easy enough. I didn't like even the smallest binder clips or paperclips because they had to be removed to actually use it. Rings didn't suit my fancy either. Loose index cards are of course a disaster. The supply of index cards got almost as unwieldy as the hipster itself. To top it all off, blank index cards alone wasn't quite enough structure. So it fell into disuse.
Then I found the D*I*Y Planner, most notably their Hipster PDA edition. This added some structure and beauty, so I gave it a try. I soon decided that printing onto index cards is completely infeasible without special equipment. So that was out, alas.
The other day, I came across PocketMod. Here was something not entirely unlike the homework in my back pocket. It had some structure, it was easy and simple and cheap. It was perfect, except… I don't want to visit a website and run a flash app every time I want to print one. What if the website disappears? And what if I want to add custom pages? (There's a Windows app for that but I don't use Windows.) Also, the printouts generated by the flash app aren't quite right—the fold points aren't on the center and so the end result is a little sloppy-looking. I wish the US used A4 paper, but that's beyond my control at the moment (though I might consider ordering some online…). So the pocketmod flash applet had to be replaced.
So I decided to combine the D*I*Y Hipster and some scripting magic, and the result is hipmod. Thanks to the magic of Multivalent (I was going to use pdftk but it's segfaulting on my laptop for some reason) I can now create hipmods including whatever PDF of interest I find lying around. See the README for more information. Here's a screenshot:
August 20, 2007
» Miquelrius Hipster
I have told you about the Hipster PDA before. Today I found a wonderful medium for those of us looking for something a little nicer than index cards and paperclips. It's like the Moleskine Pocket Notebook but even smaller (so that it actually fits in your pocket) and with a faux leather cover instead of the rather boring Moleskine cardboard. This thing feels like Napa leather. I bought it for logging my swimming workouts, but I don't know if I can bring myself to get it all wet—it feels so nice in my hands.
Did I mention it's cheaper than Moleskine? See if you can't find Miquelrius products at a bookstore near you. You're looking for the Flexible Notebook line. They have full- and half-size notebooks too.