So I know some of you were wondering what my latest flickr pool was all about but clicking around you probably figure it out fast.

I spent a lot of time and a lot of brain power on getting an HP C5180 all-in-one scanner, copier, printer, photo printer, hipsterpda authoring tool. It wasn’t pleasant. In fact, it was pretty horrifying considering that the latest drivers and software on the HP website are badly broken.

Also, I know I’ve been busy lately. I assure you this is more related to work and family than a terrible fixation on a certain gnome, though I’m starting to get teased a little by my friends for such things. So onward and upward.

This guide is designed to help the owner of an HP All-in-One model printer (or any other HP printer and perhaps any printer that will feed 3×5 cards) print cards using Mac OS X.

Assumptions:

You’re an awesome hipster and have a deck of cards in PDF format, 1-up, to prove it.

You have a printer similar enough to the HP Photosmart C5180 that you can fake having one or have already cleared off room for your own. (It is worth looking at—Epson doesn’t have a printer of this capability in the same price range at the moment and my RX500 died because I used stupid third-party inks that blew out my heads. It also prints photos very well though the scanner software sucks and HP has issues with QA of their software apparently.)

You have yourself a nice place to put all those cards, such as a Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase, or a Levenger Rope Case.

You have a Mac running OS X 10.4+. I only say that because I’m not sure if the UI elements look the same in Panther. Its been a while. Maybe you should upgrade.

You have a stack of index cards. I get mine at a local office supply store (Morrison Office Supply on Thayer Street, Providence Rhode Island, US) because I just love the owner and his shop. You can probably get them just about anywhere though. I like plain ones. I go for a nice weight that isn’t too stiff and isn’t so flimsy that they’re going to easily tear. The HP lets you put them in the main tray. Don’t try using the photo paper tray. It doesn’t work. They’re too small for that, but the big huge tray lets you accommodate smaller sizes. Go figure.

When you load the cards, you can’t even see them anymore. It makes it hard to know how many you have left. I’m usually only printing 10-20 cards at a time though, so it isn’t like I’m raking the leaves while my printer sits waiting for cards.

Preview.app

Preview.app is the preferred way for me to open the hipsterpda DIYplanner templates. It is a great PDF viewer all-around anyway. First things first, open the document.

File » Page Setup

Make a custom page size. I self-assigned 0.00 inch margins. This is roughly similar to 0.00 centimeter margins.

I called mine “Hipsta” and set the page size to width 3 inches by height 5 inches.

Easy.

You’re going to want to set your Paper Size to that custom Hipsta selection you just made.

You’re also going to want to change the scale a bit. I got the best results at 95% but I’ve had great luck with 96% as well. 100% is too big, and your cards will get the edges cut off by the margins, even though they’re at 0.00. Ping me if you get a better result than this. I’m happy with the results I’m getting, but would probably prefer getting a larger print onto 3×5.

So yeah, I set mine to 96%.

Punch the big OK button.

File » Print

Here we go.

Name your preset.

Create a new preset. Call it “HP Trying” or whatever you want to call it. Something like “I hope this works!” is fine, too. Don’t get cocky with your naming of this preset, I think it interprets assertiveness as a threat.

Save your preset.

You’re going to save your preset after every change we make, so get used to it.

Go to Layout

Select the drop-down menu below Presets.

Pick Layout, and make it look like this:

Save your preset.

Paper Handling

Select the drop-down menu below Presets and select Paper Handling.

Leave everything as-is, but change “Scale to fit paper size:” and change that to Hipsta.

Save your preset.

Paper Type/Quality

Select the drop-down menu below Presets and select Paper Type/Quality.

I like to use Plain paper. I leave quality on Automatic. I use sRGB even though the cards are all grayscale now. I think they used to have some with little faint splashes of color. Or my Epson was so cracked out that it was injecting some color where none should be. That doesn’t seem all that unlikely. I really screwed that printer up. That’ll learn me.

Do you see Paper | Color Options | Ink?

Click on Ink.

The middle setting bleeds too much. I nudge it down a peg. Your mileage may vary.

Save your preset.

Copies & Pages

Select the drop-down menu below Presets and select Copies & Pages. Set the number of copies you want, and what page-range you want. It will probably be 10-20 copies of Page X.

Don’t forget to do this because if you don’t, you’ll hurt yourself scrambling to launch Printer Setup Utility to stop the print job you just kicked off lest you get showered with 84 index cards.

This printer cranks them out fast. Like little ninja throwing stars they’ll spray at you. Heads-up.

Now what?

That’s it, slacker. Now that you have a saved preset you can dig through your 1-up PDF hipsterpda templates and find the one you want, hit Print, change to your hipster-pda printing Preset you created (Please Work, HP Trying, or Tickle Me Merlin) and assign how many copies you want of that card.

If you come back and print more later after having closed the document, you have to pick Page Setup again to tell Preview.app you’re printing to Hipsta again. It will not remember that on a document-by-document basis, which would be nice. I submitted a feature request to Apple for that.

Wrap-up

So that is that. You can crank out cards really fast on this printer, and they turn out really well. Honestly I think my Epson controlled ink output better, but the HP does pretty awesome and also lets me load cards directly, instead of cutting my own, which is very error-prone because I have the patience of a 3-year-old.

Shout-outs

To my peeps on the 43 folders block, merlin, berko, pookster, keep it real. Real organized.

The fine folks at DIY Planner who slave night and day to make your life easier.

I’d like to give the finger to HP for putting borked software on their downloads site. You guys should try installing your software once and attempting to use it before putting it on the download site. I bet that may solve your problem of putting broken software online. Unless you did test your software and decided that it was good enough in spite of not working.

Two biggish changes to the paper today.

Added a luggage section where I talk about my baggage, and not the kind that keeps me awake at night.

Added some more notes about file synchronization for notebooks to desktops/servers.

I think my next sweeps will be to make it more readable, improve flow, and correct any glaring grammar, diction and other problems.

Closing in on no longer being a draft.

Latest Draft is always available.

This is working-draft number 35 of my GTD LoFi HiFi whitepaper, which is a use-case as well as living document to reflect my implementation of GTD. I like reading about everyone elses, so I hope that someone likes to read mine.

It isn’t perfect, but it will eventually be a completely exhaustive document that outlines how I process all the various inputs and outputs and use GTD to get things done.

Draft 35 is live, that document will always exist at that location, and will be editted frequently. Please leave comments regarding it in my email inbox or here in the comments.

Changelog:

Added clarity to some parts of my workflow from feedback. (re: cards, re: creation)
Added notes on encryption and data integrity with DEVONthink.
Added “Things to take to Meetings” section.

Technorati Tags: gtd, hipsterpda, meetings, work

On the Levenger website they have an RFP of sorts up for how people are using index cards and paper in a “WiFi world”.

So I wrote them a letter, which I have just been informed as been sent to their product design team.

Capturing here for posterity.

You said you wanted to know how people were using 3×5’s in a digital world.

First of all, you guys need to really bring back the ballistic nylon pocket briefcase. I was lucky enough to find one in the Levenger store in Boston. Thank God I walked past that store or I never would have bought one. The leather one just didn’t appeal to me and looked like it would be slippery and hard to use every day. I’m glad I saw the ballistic nylon, but would love to get it in a dreamy dark blue flavor.

I’ve been working hard on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system. I also have as one of my daily reads the 43Folders blog, which is targeted mainly to GTD users with Macs or other non-Windows workstations. This is the same blog where Merlin Mann wrote the famous Hipster PDA piece; HipsterPDA (which redirects you to the right place at 43folders.com ;))

When it comes to PDA’s and such, I’ve owned them all. A Pocket PC, several PalmOS devices, an Apple Newton (!!!), and various smartphones, BlackBerry’s, and other HiFi organizers and devices.

So I’ve jumped from platform to platform, place to place. None of the web-based solutions are a perfect fit, and they’re also not all fully functional on a mobile phone. This precludes me from relying on them. I’ve also found that relying on my PowerBook or ThinkPad will not work, because I’m not always near a computer and I have many computers that I work on throughout the course of my work. I need my projects and tasks with me no matter where I go and no matter what connectivity I have.

What I’ve found is that in spite of these devices being digital and therefore super extensible, they are completely limited in the freedom of motion that they give the user. You are at the mercy of software updates, developers in the marketplace, and hamstrung by limitations in the devices themselves that make it very difficult to manage multiple projects concurrently. You can only look at one item at a time on a digital device. There is no such thing as peripheral vision and a “horizon” when you’re on a digital device. No big picture. No overview. Everything you do on a PDA or smartphone is manual.

My current solution to my mandness as an information security research analyst and writer, is to use a versatile mobile phone and a hipsterpda wrapped in a Levenger pocket briefcase.

The phone? A Nokia N90, on the Nokia S60 platform. These are one-handed smartphones that offer great email capability and browsing, as well as media capabilities. It plays music, it browses the web, it takes amazing snapshots with the 2 megapixel camera (perfect for capturing whiteboards and “used” index cards) suitable for 5×7 prints. It is my communications device, my messenger, my mobile browser, and a source of entertainment. It also is the home of my reminders, alarms, alerts, appointments, meetings, and ticklers for things I should do on certain days. My “hard landscape” lives in iCal on my PowerBook and syncs wirelessly to my Nokia N90.

I have been totally underwhelmed by project and task management on PDAs and smartphones. I don’t use tasks in iCal or my mobile phone for that very reason. They are too focused, too narrow-minded, and completely obtuse when you need to see the big picture.

Which brings me to you Levenger and the Hipster PDA.

I picked up a ballistic nylon pocket briefcase after sampling all of your wares in the local Levenger store.

Photo Set on Flickr

As you can see, I’m using it as a portable home to my many index cards of Next Actions, Projects, and other captured bits that are important to me and my life.

The beauty of the index card isn’t that it is merely an inexpensive bus for various inputs and outputs, it also allows me to really visualize all of the things I’m working on and sort based on situation.

My Next Actions cards are titled ”@home”, ”@office”, ”@calls” and such, like any good GTDer would have. I can easily pull my pocket briefcase from my pants pocket (because it fits so well) and slip out the appropriate card, tuck it under the flaps, and get working.

When it comes time to review my current projects, or brief my management on my progress and workload, I can easily deal out my deck of projects and follow along with each of them. Since I’m capturing all of my tasks on the same index cards, it makes review and processing that much faster.

Upon finishing the tasks on a card, I take a snapshot with my smartphone for archiving, and tear the sucker up. I have to tell you that this one of the most satisfying things ever. Not only is checking off a box on a to-do item nice, but tearing the card up? Exhilarating.

While the digital devices are fun, they are remarkably inflexible in spite of themselves. I don’t need to wait for software upgrades and patches with my HipsterPDA and my Levenger pocket briefcase keeps my cards neat and organized, and also has a room for blank cards (ammunition), and space for a few business cards when I’m out and about.

All in all, I’m very happy with this system. Happier than I’ve been with any all-in-one device that ends up doing everything with mediocrity and limitations in software. It is also the fastest method to capture data ever. No opening a laptop, no thumb-board, just a Fisher Space Pen and my Levenger which are out and ready for action in about three seconds. And since it fits in my pocket, I am always at the ready.

So thats it. How I’m rocking lofi in a hifi world.

This is working-draft number 30 of my GTD LoFi HiFi whitepaper, which is a use-case as well as living document to reflect my implementation of GTD. I like reading about everyone elses, so I hope that someone likes to read mine.

It isn’t perfect, but it will eventually be a completely exhaustive document that outlines how I process all the various inputs and outputs and use GTD to get things done. I made huge headway today. I started writing last night and today I am very pleased with the status of this document so far.

Draft 30 is live, that document will always exist at that location, and will be editted frequently. Please leave comments regarding it in my email inbox or here in the comments.