31 March 2012

Web Finds - 31 March 2012

So another great week of Filofax finds on the web....
Tune in tomorrow for something slightly different on Philofaxy.....

And don't forget we have the Philofaxy Skype chat on Sunday as well...
    Enjoy

    30 March 2012

    Free For All Friday 176

    Hopefully a sunny and warm weekend is around the corner. I've started to note down the weather conditions in my Filofax, so I can compare one year to the next.

    So do you record any information on a daily or weekly basis in your Filofax?

    But of course it's a Friday so feel free to discuss anything Filofax related. 

    29 March 2012

    New York City Meet Up - June 16th

    It's time for another New York City Meet Up! The first and second meet-ups were quite successful and a lot of fun! My list of contacts for upcoming meet-ups in NYC has grown, so I am following Steve's outline for planning the next one - this post is just a "calling notice" - please read the entire post before responding.

    Date: Saturday, June 16

    Time: 1:00 pm

    Where: Sam Flax store, 900 Third Ave (bewteen 54th & 55th Streets)

    In the past, it has worked well that we meet at Sam Flax, shop the Filofax selection, then head to Le Pain Quotidien (937 Second Ave, between 49th & 50th Streets) for a late lunch/early dinner. A few people travel quite a distance to attend, so we have to meet after noon.

    How to book a place for the meet up:
    Please send an email to Susan at kanalt17 [at] gmail [dot] com on Friday, April 6, beginning at 9:00 a.m. US time. This gives people a week (between the announcement date and the sign up date) for people to look into arrangements should they need to. (Please do not book travel arrangements until you have been confirmed a place.) I will add people to the list on a first-come, first-served basis and will notify you via email regarding confirmation as soon as I can.

    In order to keep the group to a level that allows for easy shopping and dining, we will limit the list to 10. If there are more than 10 people to respond, I will create a reserve list - if one of the original 10 drops out between April 6 and June 16, I will contact someone from the reserve list in order of placement. Please do not request a spot for the meet up unless you are fairly certain that you'll be able to attend - I'd like to give as many people the opportunity to attend as possible.

    Please let me know if you have any questions - you can email me directly at kanalt17 [at] gmail [dot] com. Thank you!

    28 March 2012

    How do you use: Travel?

    Continuing with our series of how you use for your Filofax for specific tasks.

    So this week, how have you set up your Filofax to plan travel, be it for holidays or for business trips. Do you use calendar pages at all to record the details of your travel schedule or just jot them down on note paper.

    Tell us in the comments.

    Are there any specific inserts you use, or require? If they don't exist already I'm sure we can create them and make them available for you.

    If you can share pictures on Flickr or your own blog post then please post links in the comments.

    27 March 2012

    Free For All Tuesday No. 60

    Time for you to fire those questions at us..... as long as they are Filofax related of course.

    26 March 2012

    Pen and Paper Test

    I've just swapped over from using the Filofax Time Management Week View insert to the Ray and Steve Enhanced TM Week View insert (must come up with a new name!)

    In fact I created a version 2 of the insert with a little bit more room between the lines and some other tweaks to the format. You will see the links to the new version on the post and in the Diary Inserts page.

    Having got unused pages of both formats I decided to do a very quick and simple pen test on both pages. I had printed the Enhanced TM insert on some A5 paper I bought in UK from my local Ryman stationery store. It is made by Mondi, 80 gsm and it says for Laser, inkjet printers and copiers, so nothing very special.  I bought a 500 sheet pack, so enough to keep me going quite a while!

    So here are the two pages side by side Filofax on the left, 'Steve and Ray' on the right:


    and the reverse side:


    And here's the stack of pens I used:


    It might not be so obvious from the pictures... but here are my findings.

    On both pages the CD markers bleed through quite obviously, they are a spirit based felt pen designed for writing on the shiny surface of a CD/DVD, so they will leak through paper easily.  But the Filofax paper seems worse than the Mondi.

    Next worst is the Pilot V5 Hi Techpoint this shows bleed through on the Filofax paper, but not on the Mondi paper.

    There is some very very faint bleed through on the Filofax paper on the Pilot G1 Grip rollerball.

    On the Filofax paper the first four pens are very very faintly showing through the paper, I wouldn't class it as bleed through, it is just the paper thickness really. The 0.5 Frixion is very hard to see through the paper on both samples.

    So if anything if you are considering printing your own inserts, try to get a sample of the paper first and try as many different pens as you are likely to use before buying a large pack of the paper.

    25 March 2012

    Date for your Filofax - Sunday 1st April


    New York



    London



    Paris



    Jakarta





    We are going to run another conference round-table voice chat using Skype.

    I'm sure we are gradually getting to know each other's voices, but I will make a point of going 'around the table' to get everyone to introduce themselves this time.

    So...When, Where, What, Who and How?

    When? - Sunday 1st April from 10am (US East Coast time), 3pm London time, 4 pm Paris time etc.  See the clocks at the top of this post to see roughly what time you should be on line.

    Where? - an on-line chat using Skype.

    What do I need? - just a micro-phone and some head phones(in ear phones work fine) and a free Skype account. Using headphones reduces 'echo' on the call.

    Who - All of you... connect up with Philofaxy and we will attempt to get as many of us linked in to the audio conference as possible.

    How -
    1. Connect to Philofaxy by firstly searching for Philofaxy in Skype, I will then add you as a contact.
    2. Then  'Start Chat',  I will then add you in to the chat room. 
    3. Then if you request it, I can add you to the audio conference as well. But if you just want to chat via keyboard that's fine. That way it's slightly less hectic for me! 
    Come and join in the fun, even if you only pop in to say hello...

    As with previous round-tables there will also be a parallel text chat room going at the same time as the voice conference.

    If you need any assistance setting up Skype, please pop a comment in this post and I will try and help you get one line. Skype is free for computer to computer calls....

    Here is my post on how to improve your Skype audio with headphones or a headset.

    Hope to be chatting with you on Sunday 1 April 2012.

    Free Pocket Filofax diary layouts to download

    People have been very patient. Ray and I are now ready to release Pocket-sized versions of some of our diary layouts.

    1. Enhanced TM Week on Two Pages
    First, we have the very popular Enhanced TM Week on Two Pages layout:


    Is the Pocket page big enough for this layout to be usable? You'll have to decide. But with this layout, you can view the whole week's schedule alongside daily tasks. And, weekend days get as much space as weekdays, which I know lots of people are clamouring for.

    You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

    Print this double-sided. If you have a duplex printer, set it to flip on the short edge. If you don't then you'll have to print odd-numbered pages and then refeed to print the even-numbered pages on the reverse. You might have to experiment to find out how to refeed the paper.

    On one side of each sheet you'll find crop marks. Use a craft knife and a steel ruler to release the Pocket pages and punch them. The templates are set up with mirrored gutters to accommodate the holes.

    As usual, we're also giving you the facility to lift the bonnet and play with the innards. You'll have full freedom to edit and create your own adapted version by downloading this Word file and this Excel file.

    If you want to know how to go about using the source files, this post will help you.

    2. Two Days Per Page
    Next we have the Two Days Per Page layout, in two flavours: unlined and lined:



    You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.  Use the instructions above to print and finish your pages.

    Before printing any of the prepared sets, please see our note on printing PDF files on this page

    All you tinkerers need to download this Word file for the unlined version or this Word file for the lined version. In either case, you'll also need this Excel file.

    Creative Commons License
    This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

    24 March 2012

    Help! PDF files print slightly smaller than they should!!

    When printing either the Word or the PDF files, it is essential that you set the paper size correct in the application and in any printer dialogue boxes on your PC/Mac. If you are printing on A4 paper, then you need to set the paper size to A4 not Letter or any other size.

    If you don't set the paper size correctly then the files will be resized according to the paper size you have selected, despite having A4 paper loaded in the printer.

    Printing PDF Files

    When you print your PDF file, it prints out smaller on paper than the Word or other file it was created from.

    When you print from Adobe Acrobat Reader, you will see this dialogue:



    You will see that 'Print Scaling' setting is by default set to 'Shrink to Printable Area? That's the one that's shrinking your PDF when you print it.

    Change the setting to 'None':


    Now, when you print the PDF it will print at the right size.

    Webfinds - 24 March 2012

    Only 9 months until Christmas... too early.. yes I think so too... but in the mean time why not forget that random thought by reading some Filofax blog posts we have uncovered this week.....
    Can I give a shout out to two of our readers who are fund raising for Cancer Research UK. Alison and Sharon are both doing their own 'Race for Life' in June (different dates). Click on the links and give your support to them.

    Enjoy.

    23 March 2012

    Free for All Friday No. 175

    This weekend, Europe joins the US and Canada in moving to Summer Time (one hour ahead of Standard Time). But as in the case of, say, Arizona in the US, there are always exceptions. For example, Iceland doesn't move their clocks ahead, and Belarus and the Russian Federation will stop observing Summer Time for the first time this year.

    I've always been fascinated by the information pages that come at the start of Filofax diary refills, like The World and Time. Sometimes, I leave them where they are; in some cases, I remove them to make space.

    In the 2012 Personal Cotton Cream diary I bought recently, I noticed that the Clothing Size Equivalents page has been removed. I'm just as glad to see it gone -- it was really inaccurate when it came to the American sizes for woman's clothing.

    Do you keep the info pages in your Filofax? If so, how often do you refer to them?

    22 March 2012

    Guest Post - Oxford International A5 Notebook - Jotje

    During my visit at Staples today (one of the many bonuses of being self-employed is a company pass to Staples …), I discovered the A5 Oxford International Notebook. It immediately caught my attention, because it had pre-punched pages. Would it actually fit an A5 Filofax, I wondered? Luckily, I had mine with me and could check it out immediately. Bingo! Perfect fit!

    Because the paper looked and felt so nice, I bought it for “investigation purposes”.

    The notepad comes with 80 sheets of 80 gsm paper.


    Upon opening I saw that it was multi-punched in order to fit a variety of A5 binders (Filofax being one of them). The page also has a very interesting grid layout. Ideal for taking notes during meetings or phone calls. The left-hand small column could be used to note down the date of a To-Do, then the right-hand small column for the date when the To-Do has been finished. Just a thought …


    The top and bottom row has some sort of added grid, maybe to be able to add vertical lines? Here is a close-up of that grid:


    The pages itself are micro-perforated and are easily removed from the notepad, without that typical “feathered” look of perforated pages. Nicely done!

    photo

    The pages fit nicely in the rings of my Filofax. The page size itself is identical to the A5-Filofax pages.

    photo

    However, the punched holes are a little bit off. Filofax have the holes punched more towards the edge of the paper. Therefore, the pages appear a bit narrower compared to Filofax inserts:

    photo

    Honestly, I couldn’t care less!

    Because next was the fountain pen test. Since the paper feels very smooth and substantial, I had high hopes.

    Here is the result of my fountain pens:

    photo

    Just delightful!

    Curious how the reverse side is looking?

    photo

    That’s right! Where the Filofax pages typically show major bleed-through, there isn’t even the slightest show through of the ink on this paper! I’m totally in love!

    Here is the rear cover with information about the company:

    photo

    They also produce a wide range of very nice bound notebooks in various sizes with 90 gsm paper! And even with purple lines …!

    Thank you Jotje for another excellent review

    21 March 2012

    How do you use?: Gardening

    Continuing with our series of how you use for your Filofax for specific tasks.

    So this week, how have you set up your Filofax to keeping track of your gardening tasks. Do you record the first signs of blossom,  daffodils, when you planted seeds, the variety of vegetables you are growing each year and the success rates etc.

    Tell us in the comments.

    Are there any specific inserts you use, or require? If they don't exist already I'm sure we can create them and make them available for you.

    If you can share pictures on Flickr or your own blog post then please post links in the comments.

    20 March 2012

    Free For All Tuesday No. 59

    So here we are again. Time for some questions and answers. Please don't hang about at the back... first time posters and experienced regulars can all take part... we don't make a fuss.

    Fire away.

    19 March 2012

    Mid-West US Meet Up

    Well, after much deliberation J and Skhen would like to invite you to a Philofaxy Meet Up on Saturday, June 23, in Chicago, Illinois. We know it's a ways off, but we wanted to give as many interested Philofaxers time to plan ahead.

    We're still finalizing the details but are considering meeting in Oak Park, IL--a suburb just west of the city--as there is a Filofax retailer, a Papersource shop, a book store, and a multitude of coffee and food options all close in proximity. In additon, public transportation and/or reasonable parking options are available.

    That being said, we hope you can make it! Please rsvp to J and Skhen, and more details will be posted/sent out as we have them. If you know any others that might be interested in coming along please let us know.

    And. finally, please let us know the kid situation. I know I want to leave my monkeys at home, but your kids are welcome to come along if need be.

    If you want to know more about the details of this meet up, please initially contact philofaxy[at]gmail[dot]com

    Free Day-Per-Page and Day-On-Two-Pages diary pages for the Filofax Personal

    Before Ray and I began our project to design a full range of diary pages, Ray created a couple of A5 layouts for Day-On-Two-Pages and Day-Per-Page diaries and it's these - adapted for the Filofax Personal - that we are releasing today.

    First up is the Day-On-Two-Pages:


    Then we also have Day-Per-Page:




    1. Pre-prepared 2012 sets

    You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

    Print these double-sided. If you have a duplex printer, set it to flip on the short edge. If you don't then you'll have to print odd-numbered pages and then re-feed to print the even-numbered pages on the reverse. You might have to experiment to find out how to re-feed the paper.

    On one side of each sheet you'll find crop marks. Use a craft knife and a steel ruler to release the Personal pages and punch them. The templates are set up with mirrored gutters to accommodate the holes.

    Source files

    You can also roll your own using our source files. The Day-On-Two-Pages version uses this Word file as the base document and this Excel file as the data source. The Day-Per-page version uses this Word file as the base document and this Excel file as the data source.

    You can also try out this same format on personal size paper too, although it is a lot of paper! If you want to use the source files you will need both the Word file and the Excel File

    If you want to know how to go about using the source files, this post will help you.

    Creative Commons License

    This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

    18 March 2012

    'What's in my Filofax' - Nikki

    You will remember Nikki and I met up in Poitiers just before Christmas on a very wet and windy day! 

    Anyway we had a great time exploring a nearby stationery shop. But you will recall the interest in Nikki's A5 Hampstead... well all will be revealed..

    I have almost "got there" with my organisation for my lifestyle and my filo, and thought I would share with the site, as it has given me sooooooo much inspiration to truly make my Filofax my own!!

    So I introduce my overstuffed A5 Hampstead in brown




    Inside I made a personal page inspired by illustrations from an old 'book of hours'. I am not particularly religious, but very inspired by medieval art, which you will discover as you walk through my filo :)



    Small note pad and a few leaflets tucked into the side pockets, and a credit card calculator ocupying one card slot!

    My first divider is Finance. Book of hours art work, (all pages are printed on Claire Fontaine 100grm ivory paper) and the tabs are covered in sticky back plastic, to make them a bit more durable.


    First I have a clear wallet I cut down from an A4 plastic wallet to hold receipts and bank RIB's etc.

    I bordered the edges with a pattern I liked and taped it. This makes the hole punching much easier, and looks pretty too :)


    Next is a printed page of my estimated monthly expenses. Characature of Louis Phillipe at the bottom for fun :))



    The a self made printed bills outstanding page, when due, when paid etc.



    Next photo is a separate sheet I devised for each bill I get regularly for services/taxes etc. this gives me an overview of when I can expect a bill to come in, and how much it is likely to be. These will be hand written from now on, but I went back to the first bill since I moved into this house, and typed in the information up to date.

    The photo is SOREGIES, my electric supplier. It includes all the information of this company, where to send payments, telephone numbers for breakdown, changes etc. ,account number, and then a list of every single bill I have received from them, how much it was, invoice number, when and how I paid it. I made a small lined section to include any notes. I find this section so usual for budgeting, and keeping track of unpaid bills etc.


    Bank account self made pages to keep track of my bank balance on a daily basis.

    This completes the finance section for now, but I tend to add a few more bits to it. I need a secretarial pocket for my outstanding bills to be paid, and, I will also add a page for my direct debits each month, and the date they go out.


    Next tab is Info Book of hours illustration. Self explanatory, size charts, kids shoe measurements, my house room measurements etc etc;



    The next tab is MEDICAL. this is quite an important section...... front of tab is Leonardo da Vinci, and the reverse is a book of hours illustration again :)


    Contains general medical info, blood group etc. then a list of doctor/hospital/specialist appointments. Brief description of outcome, and any drugs prescribed. This is useful to track your last mammogram for example, and I have found that here in France, the doctors do not really keep notes for you, and often ask what they prescribed to you on your last visit!! Includes any X Rays (broke my nose last September!!!) specialist visits (had to see an ENT specialist for this as my sinus got filled with blood!!! yuk!) etc.



    Notes tab, a pretty page frame I found on the internet, then put a lovely drawing of a horse into it, and added the "notes" in the appropriate box :) then hand coloured the border after printing.


    Computer Info tab illustration I found on line and hand coloured. reverse is a colourful aAfrican art picture I found cheerful, and colourful :)



    Here I have made a page for computer maintenance. I found I was not de-fragging etc. often enough, and it was slowing my old laptop down, so now I have a log of scanning, de-fragging, empty cache and all that malarkey, and do it at least once a month now. I know you can set the computer to do it, but I prefer to do it manually, then I know it is done, and what the results were.

    Also in this section, is basic instructions to use my mobile!!!!!!!!! Yes I know, I have been living in a cave for a long time, and I find my new phone a pain in the ***. This is why I have a Filofax lol
    Also have Steve's wonderful home network setting page, WWW pages. then I have notes for my printer setting etc, for printing these sheets for my filo.



    Obligatory picture of my beautiful little girl to remind me how lucky I am :)))))))) on the left, and HORAIRES tab on the right.



    Again, pictures I found online whilst looking at medieval art. In this secton, I have printed out the opening hours of all the places I visit regularly, like the local Tresorie and tax office, Créche for my daughter, town hall, dechetterie etc, and contact details. I refer to this ALL the time, as the opening times in France seem to be totally random!! All typed and interspersed with little medieval illustrations, I like :)


    Next is maps, with an old illustration of Roman Britain, with a simple scroll border. My maps are mainly "stolen" from an old post office calender. They have great maps for you local area in there.



    Next is diary tab, more medieval influence, hand coloured after printing. I use a day per page here with appointments, and then notes for the day/shopping needed/my thoughts or whatever really :) Then I have made a monthly page, that I have tabbed for the beginning of each month. This gives me an overview of the month with any appointments, and birthdays/anniversaries coming up.




    My final section is addresses and A-Z


    The first page I have printed off just phone numbers for quick access, and then I have the address etc. in the A-Z.



    These pages are all printed from the Filofax address book software I bought a long long time ago for my pocket filo, and never used, as I found the writing in the pocket too small to read easily.

    At the back just holds a few business cards, and a note pad.


    My home made today marker.



    I would like to add, to thank Ray at "My Life All in One Place" for the diary pages. I love to browse his site for ideas.

    And also, that even on a very low budget, I bought an empty bargain filo on ebay, and now have it full of "my life" for the cost of a bit of printer ink, and a packet of paper. Filofax, can be done on a budget :))

    Hope you all enjoyed the tour into my slightly less chaotic life :)

    Thank you for a very detailed tour of what is in your Filofax.