Please vote for LoveIsRespect.org

I’d like to ask all readers of this blog to take the time to vote for LoveIsRespect.org in this year’s webby awards. My partner works for this charity and your vote would be much appreciated. It’s a great cause that’s worthy of your vote. Thanks!

Vote here.

Moleskine at SXSWi 2008

You’d think that South by Southwest Interactive 2008 would be the most wired place in the country. However, the wireless continues to reach max capacity and completely fold under the pressure during the most popular panels. My T-Mobile service on my Blackberry is also in SOS mode about 75% of the time. What does that mean?

It means that my trusty pocket Moleskine notebook has become note taking device, chatpad, and general capture apparatus. Talk about analog multitasking.

Pocketmod V2

After a long dry spell with no new innovations from the original creators of Pocketmod, we finally have an update! What a nice Christmas present for you pocket productivity fans. Check out Pocketmod V2.

The new version includes many features originally hacked into existence by dedicated devotees, including the ability to add pictures, information pulled from live RSS feeds, and more.

The best new features of Pocketmod V2 are the “Today,” “Tomorrow,” and “This Week” pages, which actively update with the correct dates to create a pre-populated calendar. Excellent.

via Pocketmod blog

Pencil of the Month Club, Vol. II

Don over at Pencil Things has decided to resurrect his much beloved feature, Pencil of the Month Club!

This time around, there’s even a limited edition for special collectors:

We also may offer a Limited Edition, for $8.00/month. The Limited Editon will include a vintage pencil and/or a special pencil. American Pencil Company’s Venus Velvet is an example of a vintage pencil. Mitsubishi Pencil Company’s Hi-Uni is an example of a special pencil. I characterize a pencil as “special” if it is unavailable to individuals living outside the pencil’s country of manufacture, or it is unreasonably expensive to acquire. But PencilThings.com may purchase special pencils from foreign businesses and distribute one to each Limited Edition member — a co-op purchase, in effect.

Exciting news for pencil dorks everywhere.

Couch-to-meditation-practice program

It seems like I’ve been reading about running for about as long as I’ve been reading about Buddhism, and up until about 3 weeks ago I hadn’t had the determination to practice either one. But once I started putting Cool Running’s Couch-to-5k running plan into action, I realized that reading doesn’t matter, only practice matters. The couch-to-5k program has been so inspiring to me (I’ve worked out every day since I began, even doing weights on the off days) that I began to wonder, “Why isn’t there a couch-to-meditation-practice program?

Most meditation instructions range from “just start sitting” (not that helpful) to detailed, complex guided imagery type things. I think almost every type of meditation has its benefits, but I realized none of these instructions provide a plan for building up a solid, active meditation practice. They don’t provide you with the tools and motivation to create the habit of meditation.

This program is designed for people who are curious about meditation but consider themselves too restless, ADD, or just too “active” to sit and meditate. By starting off with very short periods of quiet contemplation, you’ll feel satisfied that you’ve completed each step. Don’t do more than is required for each week. Overdoing it is one of the main reasons new meditators (and runners!) end up quitting. Just stick to the program and you will slowly build up a tolerance for stillness.

What this program is designed to do:

• Get you in the habit of meditation
• Increase the typical restless Westerner’s tolerance for sitting still
• Give you a plan to put into action

What this program is NOT designed to do:

• Insist on a particular type of meditation
• Insist that any particular posture is more “correct” than any other
• Promote a particular Buddhist school of thought (Please choose the path right for you prior to starting the program. Some common examples are counting the breath, goalless shikantaza, vipassana, loving-kindness/metta meditation, Tibetan visualization or tonglen – see the wikipedia entry about meditation for more information)

So, in the spirit of the popular couch-to-5k running program, I present the couch-to-meditation-practice program. This 10-week program will get you into the habit of meditating three times per week, each week increasing your Sunday “long meditation” by a few minutes. By the end of the program, you’ll be meditating for 30 minutes at a time.

Supplies needed:

• Zafu and zabuton or a pillow/cushion and towel
• Timer (either a watch or a kitchen timer of some kind)
• A quiet spot where you can be undisturbed (either in your home or outdoors in a shady spot)

Routine for each meditation period:

• Dress in comfortable clothing (but not pajamas)
• Arrange yourself on your cushion so that you’re comfortable
• Assume your preferred meditation posture (need help? check out Zen Mountain Monastery’s meditation instructions)
• Start your timer
• Begin your preferred meditation format

The follow chart gives you the 10-week plan for slowly and steadily increasing your meditation times. I’ve chosen Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday (with the long meditations on Sundays) but feel free to choose whichever three weekdays fit with your schedule.

If you ever doubted the power of pencils…

Learn how to turn a pencil into an emergency light source, via Lifehacker.

This looks like a great hack for roadside emergencies or amazing the kids.

Rhodia notes

So I promised I’d report back after some heavy use of the new Classic Rhodia Stapled 3 X 4 3/4 notebooks. I’ve been using Rhodia’s orange pocket notebook, pictured here, for about 2 weeks straight now. I can safely say that after a solid fortnight in my pocket, this little Rhodia is not only a convenience but also a workhorse. It travels in my front pants pocket with my Blackberry, and it currently shows no signs of wear other than some creasing near the top staple (these notebooks are bound with two stables along the spine).

The distinctive orange color helps me keep track of where I left my notebook laying around. The small pocket size isn’t noticeable until you need it, like I did the other day when I was wandering around in Ikea. It beats the bulk of a pocket Moleskine by a mile. The plastic cover holds up well even in sweaty basketball shorts in the middle of a Texas heatwave. That’s something I can’t say for my grubby (kinda dampened) Moleskine cahier.

I still use pocket Moleskines for journaling and poetry. I think I would be willing to switch to Rhodia entirely if I could get my hands on a svelte Rhodia ePure notebook, a promising soft cover replacement for my Moleskine journals.

Moleskine sighting: Jennifer Morrison

From TVGuide.com:

House’s Jennifer Morrison has been tapped to star in The Murder of Princess Diana, a Lifetime movie based on the Noel Botham book that theorized that Di’s fatal car crash was the dirty work of a conspiracy. Morrison will play an American journalist who witnesses the tunnel crash and starts her own investigation after becoming suspicious of the “official” take on what happened.

In the photo, any Moleskine fan will quickly notice she’s jotting down important journalistic notes in a pocket Moleskine reporter notebook, complete with snappy elastic closure. Wonder if JMo prefers plain, squared, or ruled?

Thanks to Ladybluelake for posting this pic on Livejournal.

Rhodia cahier?

I’m a longtime Moleskine devotee, and I haven’t ever found any brand of notebook that’s as useful for jotting notes on the go. However, when I saw this new type of Rhodia classic stapled notebook on Rhodia Drive, I new I had to give them a try. Rhodia has eliminated two of my biggest problems with the Moleskine Cahier – the lack of durability in the paper cover (something that wouldn’t have been an issue if they hadn’t discontinued the Volant line) and the size of the pocket version.

The covers on the Moleskine cahiers are fine if you’re simply storing them in a briefcase or a bag. However, if you keep the cahier in a pants pocket or change bags a lot, the cover wears out extremely fast, especially if you don’t fill it fast enough to need a new one quickly. Rhodia solved this problem by adopting a thin plastic-coated cover for their smallest pocket notebook.

Also, the size of the cahiers is continually an issue for me because I prefer to carry them in my pants pockets, and the Moleskine cahier is just slightly too large to fit comfortably when seated. The Rhodia stapled pocket notebook measures 3 X 4 3/4 inches, making it an even more compact solution than a hipster PDA. This is the absolute perfect size for carrying around in a front pants pocket.

Are there any cons to the Rhodia version of the cahier? None of the pages are perforated, so they’re not as convenient for tearing out notes. I’m not sure how much of an issue this will be for me since I don’t think I’ve ever torn out a note from my Moleskine cahiers the entire time I’ve been using them. Of course the Rhodia pads also lack the back pocket, but the cahier’s back pocket (really just a flap) was so flimsy that using it practically destroyed it anyway.

All in all, it looks like this version of the classic Rhodia stapled pad (available in black or classic Rhodia orange) is a big improvement on the Moleskine cahier for on the go notetaking. I’ll report back after a few weeks of test-driving. You can see more photos of the Rhodia pad compared to various Moleskines, or you can snag your own from Ship the Web here.

Backpack Publish Firefox Extension

Most Backpack users have probably already discovered the Backpack Extension for Firefox made by Ben Mills, which places a Backpack icon/menu in your Firefox toolbar for easy access to all of your pages, lists, calendar and reminders.

If you love the convenience of that add-on, you’ll love Andrew Kortina’s amazing and incredibly useful Backpack Publish Firefox extension. Backpack Publish gives you the web clipping abilities of Google Notebook right in your Backpack account. Clipping of images is not yet supported, but clips do include a link back to the original source.

Once you’ve installed the extension, all you need to do is highlight some text on a page, click the icon in your toolbar, choose the page you want, and select whether you want the clip to be a note or a list item. You can even turn highlighted text into a reminder. This extension provides functionality that the 37 Signals team should have implemented into their app long ago.

If you’ve been wavering back and forth between Google Notebook and Backpack for note taking and to do list management, this extension will definitely turn the tide in Backpack’s favor.