Pocketmod Freeware Review by Raider 502

Recently while reading through a forum I am a member of, I came across the Pocketmod Freeware. This freeware is available at http://www.pocketmod.com/. Essentially the discussion centered around how the Pocketmod had replaced their desire to get a PDA (personal digital assistant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant ) I was curious about this since I really like my Dell Axim x51v but don’t always like carrying it around. I went to the website www.pocketmod.com to check it out. Basically it is an 8.5 x 11 in sheet of paper split into 8 sections that once folded makes a little paper book and allows you to select from the following pre-made inserts; writing guides, calendar, organizers, reference, games, miscellaneous. In step one, you click on one of the topics and it drops down exposing the individual sheets that make up that folder. By clicking on the sheet it is previewed in Step 2. When you find a sheet you like you click and drag it to Step 3. In step three the sections are numbered; front, back, 1-8. This is important because of the way you will have to fold the paper. If you change your mind about a selection you simply click on it and drag it back to Step 2. Once you are satisfied with your selections simply go to Step 4 and click on the send to printer bar. After the document has printed then you will have to fold the paper to make the book. Directions are provided in written or video format under Step 2. I made one that had the following sections; Pocketmod cover (with if lost return to information), in case of emergency data, conversion references, Morse code, 2007 full year calendar; and three sections of medium sized grid for notes. I have been toting it around in my pocket jotting to do lists, gift ideas, important numbers, etc., it has really come in pretty handy and beats having a notebook or PDA in my pocket or on my hip all the time. I could see having a monthly calendar as a dedicated Pocketmod, I am also thinking about making a few with just grids that I can just carry for taking notes at meetings. The good thing really about this is that it is really small, around 2x3 and you can fit a lot of information in it. The downside is that you are limited by the type of information on the site (although there is a do it yourself version of Pocketmod, I will discuss below), and folding it takes a little practice, to clean it up some I trimmed the edges and used clear tape to tape the top and sides.
I got to thinking you know this is a pretty neat idea, especially if you could get other information on it. So I started searching the web and found a site that had these made up as computer software cheat sheets, and another that had taken their manuals for electronic equipment and made cheat sheets. So I went back to www.pocketmod.com and looked at the home page. Just under the title there is a link for a PDF to Pocketmod converter, truly make your own Pocketmod! Hey this is what I was looking for. So I click on the link and a download box pops up asking if I wanted to open, save or cancel, I chose save. This file is a compressed (zipped) file and will have to be extracted. Once the file was extracted I went to my desktop where I chose to save the file and right clicked on the file, selected extract all and it extracted the files to my desktop. Once extracted I opened the PDF to Pocketmod folder on my desktop and selected the PDF to Pocketmod application file, a dialog box comes up allowing me to open a PDF and then save it as a pocket mod, you can also decide the page size you want it to be saved to. Once this is saved it becomes a PDF so you can’t go back in and make changes you will have to start all over. So I start thinking of all the different topics that would be handy to have, first aid guides, knot tying guides, land navigation guides, standard operating guides/procedures that are shrunk from 8 pages to one page folded into 2x3 piece of paper. Then it hits me I don’t have the adobe software needed to generate my own PDF files. So back to the web where I come across the following link http://www.pdfonline.com/ that allows you to make free PDF files. I clicked on the link Convert to PDF for Free and noticed it would do multiple formats including, Word, PPT, Excel, and images. The next page that comes up allows you to produce your document. In Step 1 you select your document, Step 2 you name your document, Step 3 enter in an email address (this is required since the way you get your file is through email) and then click on the Convert to PDF button. They say it normally takes a minute to get back, and with a word document I converted it took less than a minute, but with a document I sent with a lot of images (knot tying guide) it took several minutes to get it back. Upside to this is it is a free service; downside is that you may not want to send anything that could be considered sensitive information as you don’t know who else might get a copy. Well once I got my PDF file back it was back to the PDF to Pocketmod file where I opened my newly generated free PDF file and selected the file (open file) and then selected save as Pocketmod. It generated a PDF file which I then opened and there it was my knot tying guide. Lesson learned here is that you should use really high quality images as there is some distortion and that font larger than 12 should be used due to the shrinking of the document to make it fit on a 2x3 piece of paper.
I am not affiliated with Pocketmod or PDF online in any way shape or form but thought this could be useful for all of us. I would be interested to hear what ideas you might have for Pocketmod and if you have used this before what your experiences have been. Here is a list of topics I have thought of that would be useful.
First Aid
Survival
GPS
Phone Numbers
Knots
References
User Manuals

If using a pc, use the free primopdf to make your own pdf files.

I use PocketMod all the time.

Daily I use all 8 pages, with lines, to keep notes.

Also, I've filled all the pages with pertinent info (freqs, altitudes, etc.) about the 20+ airports I fly to locally while teaching.

I have Adobe already, can I just use that and then insert in PocketMod?

If you have the software, you should be good to go.

My experience:

After seeing your post I gave it a try. Looks like an interesting concept. Unfortunately, my computer combination does not work with it. Specifically Linux_2.6.14->Firefox_1.0.7->FlashPlayer_7. It works fine all the way up to "Send to Printer", which then does nothing (although it SAYS it sent it to the default printer, there's no record of it in my print queue). To be fully accurate, I've never tried printing directly from a Flash application before, so I can't say if it's Flash or some other PocketMod website thing. The Linux version of Flash is a bit old, but that's what we've got to work with. I think a newer version is in the works ... maybe it's even out already in beta. Probably wouldn't hurt me to update my Firefox either (although Linux isn't necessarily prone to all the browser related security problems that Windows is).

You know more about it than I could ever pretend to know so good luck.

Hmm. I just tried it (in Windows). I dragged 8 interesting pages to the template then tried printing. All I got was a grid of 8 empty boxes.

Nice idea though, and easy to use. I might persevere with it and figure out what's wrong. A pity that Flash is Evil.

A

I just tried it the online version and it worked fine for me. I think I'll download the off line version and try making some with the type of information you were talking about; knot tying, first aid, etc. If you have some good links for such stuff would you please post them.

Thanks...... smitty

just tried the online version, on a W2K machine >> works fine.
Downloaded the offline version and plan to "play" with it, asap.... (next year !).
Looks like by printing on both sides of a sheet, you can create 2 different sets of 8 pages (unfold n° 1 and fold the other way around >> set n° 2 is ready !)