Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Maker's Notebook

Okay, I'm not trying to sound like a commercial here, but I've got to rave a little bit about the Maker's Notebook. My friends over at MakerSHED sent me a few to use with the exercises (and, I'm sure, to hopefully blog about).

Now, if I didn't like them, I'd just email "Thanks, MakerSHED" and keep moving. But this thing is amazing. I was content to keep using my lined paper/cardboard notebook, but after looking over this book, it'd be like driving a golf cart versus a 4WD Jeep.

This thing is rugged and stiff and a lot more likely to survive to Experiment 36. It's got 146 graph paper covered pages to write on, but what I like best is the extra resource pages in the back that you can see in some of these photos - I've got a page with resistor color codes, another with pinouts for various chips that we'll be using in the book... there's a one-page guide for testing your multimeter, wire gauge details, LED color guide, and more... plus stickers. (Not sure about the stickers, but they come in a little pouch on the back cover, a great place to store your receipts and small manual for your multimeter.)

So, there's my spin on the Maker's Notebook - certainly not required to work through the exercises in the book, but for me, an avid notetaker, definitely a nice lab book to have beside me.

Again, thanks to MakerSHED for sending me a few to try out... I've seen them advertised but never really considered buying one... now I'm worried when I run out of pages that I'll be spoiled and have to order more.

As I said in the previous post, I'll be posting a question for my USA readers to answer. I'll be sending out one of these to the person who provides the best response.

6 comments:

  1. As I'm in the UK and therefore cannot win your competition, I've decided to buy one of these off eBay. They look really handy with all of the reference in the back. Thanks for the quick but decision making review :)

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  2. Hi, Andrew.

    I'm sorry I have to limit this to USA readers, but I recently shipped a similar-sized book off to the UK and another one to Denmark - in both cases, shipping was almost as much as the cost of the book.

    It is an impressive lab book, though... you'll love it.

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  3. Yeah, the Maker's Notebook is incredibly nice. I've used it to plan out a kitchen remodel also. The ability to scale a small kitchen easily with the well thought out graph paper was super handy.

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  4. I got notebook when I got the book. I really like it. A little too much.

    If you notice, the larger stickers are the same size as the grid on the cover. You can customize yours with your stickers. I have "If you can't open it, you don't own it" on the front, and on the back it says "hacking is not a crime"

    I also like how you have a spot on the spine you can write on. Either your name, or the project.

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  5. Here's a couple fun Maker's Notebook links:

    http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=maker's+notebook
    http://makezine.com/notebook/

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  6. Amazon's page for the notebook has a nice little video of how to put a pocket in the back of your notebook. Amazon also sells it for $14 and has a link to "tell the publisher I'd like to read this on the kindle" ...both of which are kind of weird (to me).

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596519419/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1C29QEFEPR6JXG8BTFRC&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

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