Joe Gross

I’ve got a terrible short-term memory. I forget names, dates, places, you name it. I’ve learned to adapt by carrying a little notepad around with me everywhere I go. Any time I run across something I need to remember I write it down rather than trust my swiss cheese of a brain.

I’m also a fan of cargo shorts. I found some I liked and bought one (or two) of every color. The notepad lives in the right cargo pocket. Of course notepads aren’t any good without a pen, and finding a quality spiral bound notepad that will hold a pen isn’t easy. I found a decent one made by Boku that fits a .2mm Sanford Ultra-Fine Uniball in the spiral perfectly.

The problem is that after a few months the notepad starts falling apart and beings to look not-so-fresh. I recently discovered the fabulous Moleskine notepads, but alas, none of them have a spiral to hold a pen. Here’s a quick hack to make your own pen holder for your favorite Moleskine model.

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Seen on a bike ride last week in Point Reyes National Seashore:

I’m going to start posting a bunch of my ‘cheap hack’ UNIX tricks that I’ve picked up over the years. This first one is a DSL watchdog script.

How many times have you gone on vacation to find your DSL has burped, requiring a power cycle of your DSL modem, and leaving your home boxes (and email) stranded? If only you could train your cats to hit the power switch. Until then this script should work.

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