MacGyver’s Notebook
To any origami master, a crisp, single sheet of paper can be turned into a beautiful creation with just a few folds.  The Japanese art of taking a simple object and turning it into something beautiful is just that, artistic.  In TechLife, “the useful” is much more my area of expertise.  Television’s poster-child of usability was MacGyver, who seemingly every week used duct tape and a paperclip to defeat the bad guys.  One utility item MacGyver always carried was his Swiss Army knife, a multi-utility tool about the size of a cigarette lighter.

While there doesn’t appear to be a revival of the television show, the idea of a utility tool in all areas of life is always appealing.  I have a special treat for you today, something I call MacGyver’s notebook, also known as a PocketMod.

The Basic Mod
A PocketMod is a single sheet of paper uniquely folded to provide a small 8 page booklet.  When folded each page is slightly larger than a business card.  “So what?” you retort.  C’mon this is TechLife do you really think that’s all I got?  I bring my “A-game” for you, the faithful readers.  The unique folding booklet’s true strength lies in the “mods”.

 

The templates or guides that go on each page are completely customizable to the user’s needs.  There are basic mods such as: Cover, Blank page, Lines, Grids of various sizes,  and Tables.  For the creative types there are Storyboards, Musical Staff sheets and Tab Sheets.

To create a PocketMod choose your eight mods, print, follow the special folding instructions and in 5 minutes you have a complete 8 page PocketMod.  Overall PocketMod is a great application, it runs in Flash and has a slick but easy to understand interface.  This free application is a benefit to any software library.

Disposable Organizer
Many people carry an electronic organizer, or a large bulky paper organizer.  PocketMod has a much more simple solution and completely customizable.  Organization mod’s such as: calendars, deadline plotters, appointment timesheets, to do lists, contacts, checkbook and even a food diary are all useful depending on your lifestyle.

There are also some reference mods that might be useful: a conversion reference, a math formula reference, a tipping guide, and some less popular references to both Morse Code and Dvorak keyboards.

Gamer’s Mods 
Gamer’s mods usually refer to ways to hack your PlayStation, modify your Xbox, or enhance your PC to make it very fast.  Sorry, PocketMod’s are more analog mods, requiring a pencil as your input device.  The first two are old school classics, a Tic-Tac-Toe mod and a Dots mod.  Both of these two player games are great.

Which leads us to the hidden gem of the column.  The SuDoku Mod.  PocketMod has one of the most recently popular pen and paper games available.  The most unique thing is PocketMod’s site claims that it will randomly generate a new puzzle each time.  Which means for a real SuDoku fan, 8 puzzles can be generated.  Since there are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 that can be generated, sharpen your pencil.

I have a special request, comment below the unique ways you use PocketMod.

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