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Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Wiser Web Wednesday – a weekly link to posts of interest from around the web:

The Newsprint
Whilst a good majority of posts I link to from The Newsprint will be pen or tech based pieces, I really enjoyed this two-part photo essay from Josh Ginter’s recent trip to New York. Regardless of the topic, you can guarantee there will be great photography. Yes, an obligatory Field Notes pic appears, though you’ll have to find it yourself:
New York 2014: Part 1
New York 2014: Part 2

Jet Pens
In the spirit of the epic The Well Appointed Desk pen refill guide, comes the Jet Pens guide to everything notebook. Again, one for the reference collection:
Notebooks Explained

The Modern Stationer
After picking up a clothbound Clarefontaine Notebook recently, I was interested to read some other thoughts on this paper. I myself had a couple of issues with ink drying time, particularly with a very wet ink (Montblanc Meisterstück 90 years Permanent Grey). I believe I was a little ambitious given it was a during a meeting requiring somewhat rapid note-taking:
Clarefontaine Basics Life. Unplugged Staplebound Duo Review

Presentation Magic
Follow up to a link from a couple of weeks ago, the focus this time on videos used (or overused) in presentations. This is certainly something I have noticed in recent times myself, mostly with good effect, however there is indeed a limit:
Think including a TED talk or video can improve your PowerPoint or Keynote presentation?

Capital Public Radio
Whilst a shortage of high quality coffee is never a good thing, the reality of both crop and employment decimation through the coffee rust problem becomes a little more real with stories such as this:

Mendez’s brother sends money when he can. But the family is deep in debt, both from the smuggler who tried to help them cross the border, and from their previous failed crop.

Rust Decimates Guatemala’s Prime Coffee Crop And Its Farmers

Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Wiser Web Wednesday – a weekly link to posts of interest from around the web:

Gourmet Pens
Azizah takes a look at the Rhodia Ice No 16 Notepad. I have linked to a review of one of these previously, however this one is worth having a look at for the gorgeous colourful test writing alone. I was also pleased to read I am not the only one disappointed by “messy tears”:
Review: Rhodia Ice No. 16 Notepad A5

Nock Co.
Nock Co. is fast becoming another one of those sites where you go specifically for one or two items, and checkout with a full cart. Are you kidding me? Now we have TWSBI pens and Organics Studio inks to throw in as we wander the store. Great value too, however the groan you heard was the collective stationery budget around the world stretching a little thinner:
Nock Co. On-line Store

Mac Sparky
Following along nicely from last weeks link to Les Posen’s Presentation Magic, now up for sale on the iBooks Store, is David Sparks latest Field Guide, which will help you create exceptional presentations. It’s also made specifically for the iBooks format. You can read a little more about it on David’s blog:
The Presentations Field Guide is now shipping

The Pen Addict
As I do not own one myself, it was only fitting I read about Brad purchasing his third! No bitterness folks. All jokes aside, I have always been wary of acquiring one of these untried, as I do have concerns the clip position may annoy me a little. This is a great looking pen though, and the title contains two my favourite descriptors, gun-metal and matte:
Pilot Vanishing Point Gun Metal Black Matte Fountain Pen Review

Serious Eats
Another article by Nick Cho for Serious Eats, this time on the science and technique of making French Press coffee. A coarser grind and longer brew time of 6–8 minutes probably a little different to what most are used to:
Coffee Science: How to Make the Best French Press Coffee at Home

Matt Gemmell
What better way to put down some thoughts on the lost art of handwriting than a letter. No, really… a letter.
Handwriting

Pentulant
A review of the Kaweco AL Sport, in a fantastic grey body. Why, it’s almost gun-metal:
Pen Review: Kaweco AL Sport

Kickstarter
If you are anything like me, consideration of various pen and paper related Kickstarter projects is a fairly regular occurrence. This one is a beauty, which I have backed to the tune of two each of both the No 1 and No 2 notebooks. The customisation feature is a winner, and though still deciding on the cover, inside it will be dot grid on Tomoe River paper:
Stateside Co. Notebooks

Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Wiser Web Wednesday – a weekly link to posts of interest from around the web:

Les Posen’s Presentation Magic
That fabulous world of academia, where a soundly stated and well thought out hypothesis, is tested, confirmed or disproved, then reported and reviewed by peers. Important stuff. The means of presenting of such findings? Apparently much less important if conference presentations are anything to go by, and I’ve been to quite a few.

Some thoughts from a true master of the conference Keynote (yes – that Keynote):
Why Academic conferences need to change, and why Powerpoint is a dead technology walking

April Zero
At the time of writing, San Francisco based entrepreneur Anand Sharma had been “tracking everything about himself” with an iPhone and a few key apps for 107 days. The results are published on a great looking site:
April Zero

Asian Efficiency
The final part of a series by Mike Schmitz for AE on tools for taking care of the quick capture phase of a GTD workflow. This time how to configure Drafts to sync with nvALT on your Mac, allowing effortless iOS capture and transfer of information to your Mac for processing:
Quick Capture Part 4: nvALT & Drafts

Teespring
Sporting one of my favourite tag lines of all time, The Cramped now has an official T-shirt campaign that appears to have reached its funding goal. With only a day to run, show them a little more support and grab one before they are gone. You know you want one:
The Cramped Official T-Shirt

The Cramped
Of course I’d follow it up with this. A brilliant article from a writer about writing, whatever the tool used to get it done. In which you will find:

But it turns out that there’s nothing that motivates quite like the sight of your friend covering pages with ink. Are you going to sit there like a loser, with your blank page? No, you are not.

Always Open To The Possibility of Writing

The Writing Arsenal
If the above article inspired you to get writing by hand, perhaps a new notebook is in order. Tim at The Writing Arsenal reviews the Word notebook, with its built-in bullet point mark-up system:
Word. Notebooks “Indigo” Review

The Pen Addict
An interesting post on two fronts. Firstly, being a fan of felt tip or fineliner type pens in my teens, and was thinking I must give them a run once more. With seven tip sizes and multiple colours, I’m sure there is a Pigma Micron to suit.

Further, Brad discusses how a fascination with finer tip or nib sizes has perhaps seen him miss some great writing experiences with the medium to broader end of the spectrum. I had been thinking along those lines as well recently, however for me the reverse is true. I have traditionally never used anything finer than medium, though am now enjoying an exploration of some finer tips and nibs.

I’d best order some fine Pigma Microns as well then:
Sakura Pigma Micron Blue Black Review

Pens! Paper! Pencils!
Pen buying budgets are interesting things. What next? A big purchase, a bag of cheaper ones or something in between? Whichever one the needle points to when it stops spinning, reliable information is your friend. Ian Hedley with a very well-balanced review of the Kaweco AC Sport fountain pen. Red is probably not for me:
Kaweco AC-Sport fountain pen review

Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Wiser Web Wednesday – a weekly link to posts of interest from around the web:

Study Hacks
Although specifically referring to mathematical proofs, there are enough hints here for broader applications. My favourite? Idea 1 – sometimes we just need to be specific, have clear aims, and deal with it:
How to Read Proofs Faster: A Summary of Useful Advice

1Password for iOS Tip of the Day
Along came this little gem in my Twitter feed recently – swipe right on 1Password (iOS) entries to copy the password. A cracker. It appears many others needed a little reminding about this great feature I was unaware of:
1Password Status

The Sweet Setup
As someone with less than 12 months Mac experience under my belt, tips like these come in very handy:
Quick Tip: Enable Hot Corners on OS X

Pens! Paper! Pencils!
Nothing wrong with a little tech, but where are the pens and ink? Why here for starters:
Diamine Ochre ink review

Hastily Written
Lately I’ve been drawn to the red/orange/brown spectrum of ink colours, however on the opposite side of the rainbow, am also in need of a new blue. Food for thought here:
Ink Drop: July 2014

Office Supply Geek
If a little colour in a notebook is your thing, Brian takes a look at the turquoise Rhodiarama hard cover. Same Rhodia quality – just a little louder:
Rhodiarama Notebook Review

The Atlantic
Did you read my previous post on penmanship? Maybe a slightly different tangent from such an idea (which by the way wasn’t written this quickly):
How to Write 225 Words Per Minute With a Pen

Still Drinking
Of course punctuation matters, however as much as we think it does? Need I say more:

English is a mutt of a language, inheriting ludicrously contradictory spellings and grammars from other languages.

Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

Barista Magazine Blog
I’m all for someone having a stab at the often elusive “where did this originate?” – perhaps the Dutch Traders in the South Pacific were the lucky souls that invented out of necessity. Although this low-acidity brew is not new, and something I have written about before, I’m interested to see how the trend has caught on in the modern Cafè scene. This series might be one to follow:
Completely Cold brew: Part 1 of a series

Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / 2 Comments

Wiser Web Wednesday – a weekly link to posts of interest from around the web:

The Well Appointed Desk
Whichever pen is regularly in your hand, you will likely need a refill from those listed here. There is an endless amount of Googling required when searching for refills or at least trying to determine compatibility. This post from Ana at the Desk goes a long way towards solving this problem, and is destined to be a classic:
The Epic Pen Refill Guide

Asian Efficiency
This continues a four-part series by Mike Schmitz for AE on the principles and systems of quick capture in the context of a GTD based workflow. A nice integration of nvALT, which is a super fast plain text search and entry Mac application that also supports Markdown. Part 1 is well worth reading also:
Quick Capture, Part 2: nvALT

SBRE Brown YouTube Channel
One of the more experienced fountain pen reviewers out there, and perhaps one of the most prolific as well, presenting us with regular high quality video of various pens, inks and many other things in action. Take it from Stephen, if you’re thinking of doing some reviews yourself – Do it! (whilst reading that, imagine 2 very pointed fingers in your direction straight down the barrel of a HD Webcam). Words from a master that suggest forgoing the second thoughts and writing about what you enjoy – its your duty:
Why aren’t you doing reviews?

The Fountain Pen Quest
With the Nock Co on-line store finally open, no doubt there will be more reviews and views of customers to come, however I thought this was a nice first look of some index cards I will certainly be trying out for myself. Pictures do speak a thousand words, and Ray has put up a great gallery which will give you an excellent idea of what to expect:
Quick Look: Nockco 3 X 5 Dot Dash Note Cards

Whilst at FPQ, also check out Ray’s post looking at the remaining pen cases from Nock Co.’s Kickstarter project, having reviewed The Hightower back in May (a model I have also been enjoying using on a daily basis). No doubt much of this inventory is going up…then down, in Nock Co.’s on-line store:
Review: The rest of the Nock Co Kickstarter Pen Cases

Serious Eats
If you read my previous post, you will know I have a keen interest in learning more about this manual coffee brewing caper. Nick Cho describes many of the principles and processes involved with this method of brewing:
Coffee Science: How To Make the Best Pourover Coffee at Home

Barista Guild of America
A short video (4:46) produced by the author of the article above, demonstrating those very brewing principles. Everyone who watches these videos screenshots the key captions and brew ratios etc right!…er…right?
Kalita Wave Coffee Brewing: Intensive with Nick Cho

Pens! Paper! Pencils!
Now that’s a pen. Ian Hedley’s great review of a gorgeous Franklin-Christoph, with yes, that is correct – 20 different nib options. I’m all for choices though I’m thinking perhaps that’s a paralysing one for some:
Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic fountain pen review

Mac Sparky
David Sparks is back with another Field Guide. Although currently for pre-order on the iBooks Store (AUD $11.99) with a release date of 21 July 2014, I’m sure this guide to preparing and giving great presentations will be every bit as good as the previous four Field Guides (of which I own two, Paperless and Markdown):
New MacSparky Field Guide: Presentations

~ PD.