I carry a notebook in my pocket all the time - a Pocket Squared Moleskine at the moment. The way I use it is pretty much along the lines of PigPogPDA, but mixed in with more general journaling.
Yesterday, I had an idea - mark some of the notes as I go, and copy the marked notes to a blog post later that day or the next day.
So, I’m actually writing this entry on paper, with a pen (Pelikan M600). If you’re reading it, I actually got around to typing it up and posting it on PigPog. I’ll make the title something very simple, including the date, which should help make the typing-up process something that can be done without much thought.
Flock
I’ve started trying out Flock again, since it reached version 1.0 recently, and first impressions are pretty good. If this post looks strange, impressions may be starting to dip - I’m attempting to post this using Flock.
It seems to be able to run the AdBlock Plus extension for Firefox, and Google Browser Sync seems to be working ok. I’m not entirely convinced it’s still working in Firefox, but that may be another problem entirely.
The problem I had before with Flock was down to memory management, and I don’t know yet if that’s fixed. It’s not really Flock’s problem as such - Firefox doesn’t seem to manage memory at all well, and Flock adds features on top of Firefox.
Update: Flock hung when I tried to post this - on the plus side, though, it recovered it when it restarted and I opened the blog editor again. It hung again when I tried again, so it doesn’t look like the blog editor likes our installation of Drupal.
Bad Pen Mojo
I Should Blog More
I should blog more. That’s hardly an original start to a blog post, especially one on a long-neglected blog, but there you go.
I’m using Emacs for much of my day-to-day stuff at the moment, working in PlannerMode. I never use the ‘Schedule’ section (I use Google Calendar), so I’ve changed it to ‘Blog’ instead, with the idea of tapping a blog post into it during the day, then posting at the end of the day. If you’re reading this, it worked. Once.
So, what’s been happening recently? We’re still enjoying Devon. My calculator obsession seems to have faded somewhat, leaving me quite settled with the HP 12C financial calculator. There are far more powerful things around, but they’re sitting unused in a drawer. The 12C just does the basics really nicely.
I’m left with my current obsessions being pens, notebooks and Emacs.
Pens
I have bought a few new pens recently:
What Is It?
A fountain pen that still looks modern, though it’s been in production since 1966. It’s a piston-filler, so you have to use bottled ink, not cartridges, and the nib is quite a bit more flexible than most modern pens.
Latest Update: Just correcting a typo.
Thanks to our bosses-to-be at Cult Pens, we are in a rather lucky position - being able to revew both the Pilot Capless (Vanishing Point to Americans), and the new Pilot Capless Decimo, which has just been released in the UK. Cult Pens have the first official stocks in the UK, and one of the first batch is right here to be reviewed.
We’re talking about two pens here - the Pilot Capless, and the Pilot Capless Decimo. I’ll just refer to them as Capless and Decimo to keep things shorter, but the Decimo is also a Capless. Because they’re both quite similar, I’ll cover them together for the most part, but where they differ, I’ll try my best to describe how.
What Are They?
Retractable fountain pens. With other fountain pens, you have a cap, which you either pull off or unscrew. Some people put the cap on the end of the barrel when writing (called posting it), others keep it in their other hand, or pop it down somewhere (Sam posts, I don’t). If you’re using a pen on and off for a while, removing and replacing the cap can start to get annoying, and if you don’t post it, it’s easy to forget what you’ve done with it, or end up with it knocked on the floor.
The Capless pens get around that by using a retracting mechanism, like a ballpoint. Because the nib has to be kept away from the air, though, there is also a little sprung ‘door’ that opens as you push the button, allowing the nib to side out.
I never saw removing a cap as being a problem, but when I stood leaning on the wall to sign for a package one day, with the cap of my Sheaffer Saratoga Snorkel in my hand, I found afterwards that I’d leaned on the cap, and made a set of gouges into the plastic. It was about then that I started to see the point of the Capless pens.
Continue reading about Pilot Capless and Capless Decimo Review (AKA Vanishing Point)
Update: Removed the mention of the PigPog shop. We gave up, and put the stuff on eBay instead.
The Lamy Safari is a fairly cheap fountain pen - perhaps the cheapest you can get that’s actually good.
(Click any pictures to see them on Flickr, with notes, comments, and bigger sizes available.)
- Plain ABS plastic casing.
- Simple design.
- Takes cartriges or a converter, but the converter is not supplied. Budget a little extra if you want to use bottled ink.