“I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” - Field Notes

Nearly a month ago, I wrote a bit about Field Notes Brand notebooks and I promised a review. Well, wouldn’t you know it that work, life and being a dad got in the way, but here it finally is.

The first thing that struck me when when I opened up the envelope (other than the usage of Futura) is how thin these guys are. In a familiar way, it was similar to my reaction to looking at my old Macbook Pro next to the Macbook Air: wow, small. Sure, these Field Notes notebooks are only 48 pages compared to the 192 pages of the Moleskine pocket size, so it’s obviously going to be thinner, but it just felt like it was going to be a good, durable and light travel companion.

The inside has 48 pages of 1 pica graph paper that is, well, graph paper. It works, has no feathering and I’ve only had minimal bleeding from one page through to the next. As others have mentioned, the inside covers are great - they’re filled with practical applications for the notebook such as:

• To Do Lists
• Half-Ass Calculations
• Hate Mail
• Escape Routes
• Loose Promises
• Last Will and Testament
• etc

It even has a built in ‘ruler’ on the back cover. How much more can you ask for?

On two separate occasions I’ve brought the notebook on trips, just throwing it into the side pocket of the laptop sleeve I I use with the Air - these notebooks have no ‘bulk’ to them and fit nicely. They’re great for meetings. I’ve also been spreading the love at work - I dropped one off with Chad Dickerson over at Brickhouse, so I’m still awaiting his feedback (nudge, nudge).

All in all, I’m pleased.

Anyways, in the spirit of David Yeiser’s ‘notebook giveaway’, I’ve decided to ‘share the love‘ and give away three notebooks. Here’s how to play: Email me (smakofsky at hotmail dot com) a photo that’s at least 400px wide of your old, tattered, doodled on and shredded notebooks - I’ll pick three of the best and send each winner a Field Note notebook. Please make sure that you have the rights to the image you send in - I’ll post the images with your name, link to your site, etc.

For more pictures, you can also check out my flickr photostream.

[Fake Steve Jobs] What really freaks me out is that when you mention this to the VCs, they say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” I used to think they were being coy. But I’ve come to believe that they actually don’t know what’s wrong with that. Worse yet, they all give me this sad look, like I’m some crazy old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner who just doesn’t “get” the whole Web 2.0 thing. Sigh. Maybe they’re right. I guess I’m getting old. But I really miss the days when people in the Valley made actual products.

I touched on this a bit the other day and have struggled with it for the last few years. The industry tends to have ebbs and flows with light vs heavy clients, but the recent trends of software just leaves me craving for more.

I really don’t like all the Web 2.0 ‘featurelets-that-are-companies’ out there - I want client experiences that can leverage the cloud for storage and data, but offer the beauty and richness of the operating system I’m working on.

[New York Times via Shawn Morrissey] The moment of grace came after Sara Tucholsky, a diminutive senior for Western Oregon, hit what looked like a three-run homer against Central Washington. Never in her 21 years had Tucholsky propelled a ball over a fence, so she did not have her home run trot in order, gazing in awe, missing first base. When she turned back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

What happens next is something that you rarely see today in sports. Continue reading at the times…

Wanted to share a link to one of the more unique, but incredibly interesting blogs I’ve been enjoying recently: Strange Maps (found via John Ludwig here).

Take this map from the NASA archives. It’s the Apollo 11 landing ‘traversal map’ compared to the size of a soccer field.

Just fascinating stuff.

Back in 2005, I wrote up a series of blog posts on how to get Windows Mobile 5 running inside an emulator on your USB key (more here on WM5, and the original Portable CE). Interestingly enough, I’ve actually had a post sitting in my draft folder for several weeks on putting together Portable CE 3.0, which I was going to use the latest and greatest version of the MS Device Emulator, Windows Mobile 6.1, etc.

Anyways, looks like Windows For Devices has linked to a MS TechNet post that talks about almost the same thing, saving me the time of having to finish my write up.

Here’s a list of things you’ll need to download to get it up and running:

• The Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh. The only thing you need from it is the emulator images, or you can download localized versions here. I ended up using 0409\Windows Mobile 6 Professional Images(USA).msi
• The Microsoft Device Emulator Standalone Release (Version 3)
• The Virtual Machine Network Driver. It now looks like the driver is just part of Virtual PC 2007, instead of a separate download.

Update: I’ve posted a new Portable CE 3.0 launch script.

Also of interest is the MSDN Documentation for the Device Emulator and the post ‘What’s new in the Device Emulator version 3‘.

(Photography: ’scootie’, creative commons license)

Dear Apple,

I have one small feature request: Could you please add a system-wide preference to always “use small size” icons on the toolbars? It’s incredibly annoying that in each and every application, I have to manually set this over and over and over and over again.

That’s it, nothing major. Keep up the great work.

Thanks,
Steve Makofsky

[Venture Beat] It’s a little counterintuitive, but one of the most important frontiers in web development is getting offline — taking applications that have been built online and allowing them to run even when people aren’t connected to the Internet.

Q: What do you get when you cross a browser application with the ability to go offline?

A: A client application without any the goodness that the platform (be it Windows or OS X) has to offer.

Really? Do people really want this?

Don’t get me wrong, I get the convenience of having access to your data from whatever machine your on, but wouldn’t a better model be to store the data in the cloud and provide a good abstraction on top of it so that it could be accessed from either a really well done rich client and a web application?

Point in case: I find it interesting that most of the twitter feeds that I read are created by client applications accessing the twitter API.

Perhaps there’s been so much blah blah blah about web 2.0, social networks, etc., or that folks have just gotten so lazy that they’ve forgotten how to write client applications. It’s sad really.

Not that it means anything, but I was just looking at the sites monthly statistics in Mint, and noticed that Safari usage is higher than ever:

• Internet Explorer - 46%
• Firefox - 37%
• Safari - 12%

Of course, my stats also show an unusually large amount of incoming google traffic searching for Jessica Alba, even though I’ve only posted about her once. Who knows what it means.

[Starbucks Gossip] Splash sticks — plastic plugs for sip holes with tops in the shape of the Starbucks siren — should be at all Starbucks stores by the end of the week, according to this story.

Yessssssssssss!

Back in 2004 I wrote: ‘(Dear Starbucks) I’m begging you, could you please spend a little engineering time to develop a lid/cup solution that doesn’t leak all over my car.‘

Glad to see it only took 4 years of spilling drinks (and who knows how many hours of research and dollars) to come up with a solution. Better late than never, I guess.

It’s an apple. No, it’s a grape. Wait! It’s both: A Grapple.

While doing some shopping today in QFC, I noticed a package of Grapple Brand apples. A few weeks ago, my boss had mentioned them to me so I figured I’d pick up a package and give them a try. I figured, what better food is there than something concocted by science. Bon Appetite.

According to their website, the process on how they make a Grapple is pretty straightforward: “There is nothing but flavor being infused into the apple. A relaxing bathing process prepares our apples for you or your kids. The apple takes on no additional sugars or calories. They are not genetically altered in any way. The apple is as healthy as ever but now has the new exciting grape flavor.”

Bummer I missed the special on the Food Network, it would have been interesting to watch. (Hey! Food Network! You need to get your programs on either iTunes or some other form of Video on Demand).

Click here for the video on YouTube

Johnny Chung Lee demonstrates how a simple hack of the Wiimote can turn it into a Minority Report style interactive device. He also recently demonstrated this up on TED talks.

Update: Just saw the multitouch interactive surface demo too.. Very cool stuff.

No, not THAT notebook. I love my Macbook Air - over the last 2 months, it’s become my primary machine. My review will be in another post, some other time. This is about real notebooks. You know, the kind you write in - remember writing?

I’ve been a fan of the Moleskine notebook for the past few years. And, as silly as it sounds, I’ve set a pretty high standard for myself when it comes to selecting a notepad. Fine - I’ve become a notebook snob, sue me.

Back in 2005, I talked a bit about how certain things (computers, notebooks, mp3 players, etc) become irresistible due to the combination of pleasure and the ‘experience’ using the item. Ed Stroglio (upon the release of the Mac Mini) went as far as saying: “For PCers, a computer is a tool, an animated screwdriver. You don’t have an “experience” with a screwdriver. It either works well or it doesn’t. If it does, you like it; if it doesn’t, you don’t. You don’t admire its aesthetic features, or find one a reflection of your good taste, or a symbol that proves you’re an {fill in the blanks: admirable, special, creative, artistic} person. For Macsters, it’s just the opposite. The object is an extension of themselves just as much as their clothing or interior decoration, it’s a part of them in a way a PC never is for a PCer.”

3 years later, I think this still holds true. This goes not only if you’re a PC or a Mac fan, but rather to any possessions you own that you have a personal attachment to. It’s an expression of oneself.

Anyways, the point I was trying to get to is that I just found out about Field Notes notebooks today from Draplin Design and Coudal Partners.

The retro-style memo books come in 3-packs, each with 48 pages of 1-pica graph paper. They also include a pencil, pen and other ‘goodies’. They’re inspired by “the vanishing subgenre of agricultural memo books, ornate pocket ledgers and the simple, unassuming beauty of a well-crafted grocery list”.

With inspiration like that, how could you not instantly buy a few? I ordered 2 packs this morning, so I’ll post a full review when they arrive.

Somehow, I think these bad boys are going to replace my Moleskine, and make the perfect travel companion to my MacBook Air.

Twitter is an interesting beast. Heck, it took several false starts before I started using it, and I’m still not to sure of it’s overall value, other than an easy way for me to update my status that gets aggregated. I still maintain that it’s a pretty silly concept - it’s nothing more than finger, except that my .plan is in the sky and it aggregates all the people that I follow.

On the other hand, Twitter is somewhat disruptive:

1. It’s completely killed my usage of Facebook, which has now turned into a conduit in which I push Twitter updates to. I rarely visit the site anymore, except to check the occasional mail there. Most of the status updates from my connections start with “is twittering” anyways.
2. Companies are starting to use Twitter to track what people are saying about them.
3. Getting ‘real time news’ is faster out of Twitter. Last night, the quickest way to get the details of Google’s AppEngine announcements was by checking Tweetscan. This was hours before the search engine crawlers hit it and way before people were blogging about it.
4. Lots of applications / mashups are being built to better understand the traffic Twitter is generating and extend the service.

And the downside? The signal to noise ratio on Twitter is massive. It’s worse than with blogs.

While I find that I prefer a client application like Twitterific to the web interface (see here for other tools), it does enable you to easily post every random thought. And boy, people sure do have diarrhea of the mouth when given an open mic to talk with all day long.

Another thing that I don’t understand is how people can follow the stream of consciousness of massive numbers. Really - how can you follow 39,000+ people? Or is it just another “a-list” popularity contest to see who can amass the largest number of “friends”? Who knows.

Anyways, the jury is still out on how useful Twitter really is .. Time will tell, I guess.

Oh, and finally, my twitter status updates are here if you’re interested in reading what coffee I’m drinking this morning.

Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen recently did a talk at Google. If you have to use Powerpoint or Keynote, this is a must watch.