As if the reMarkable 2 tablet wasn’t enough like writing on paper, now you can disguise it as a “regular” notebook and no one who glances at you jotting and scribbling away will be the wiser

It replicates the timeless design of classic composition books and helps protect your device from scratches and such. The spine of the case has a holder for the official reMarkable stylus that aligns with the tablet’s built-in magnets, so it’s held in place even better than before and is still able to charge when you’re not using it.

Considering how the case is just $21 on Amazon (down from $36) as I write this on September 16th, 2024, you’re looking at a real good value right here.

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Field Notes latest quarterly limited-edition release, the “Index” edition, is actually comprised of two sets of memo book pairs, all designed to help you record and organize things that are important to you.

The first pack, containing two Log Books, is dedicated to capturing and reviewing events, experiences, and milestones, with spaces for titles, star ratings, and notes, along with a table of contents you fill out yourself.

The second pack has one Ledger Book and one Date Book. The former is where you can track any collections of items and/or numbers you like — expenses, game scores, travel mileage, shopping lists, etc — while the latter contains a year’s worth of weekly planning pages (which are undated until you say otherwise) so you can track appointments, meetings, to-dos, important events, and more.

At the back of each book is a small pocket where you can stash receipts, ticket stubs, an emergency $20 bill, a love note, or what-have-you.

To go with this release, they’ve created a memo book slipcase ($13) that can hold the entire set of four together — or any 4 or 5 other Field Notes memo books in your collection that you feel should be organized into a single set — and displays them nicely on a bookshelf.

Get either 2-pack of the “Index” Edition for $15 each at Field Notes.

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Looking for a fine writing instrument to last you a lifetime? Bastion’s titanium bolt-action pen is a beautifully made and virtually indestructible one that’s well balanced, writes super smoothly with no skips, and is weighty without being excessively heavy.

This is a writing tool that is just as luxurious as it is practical, with exceptional fit and finish that elevates your daily writing experience. Just as an example of what I mean: Because of how precisely this pen’s metal body is milled, it appears virtually seamless until you go to unscrew the tip. And, the heft is just enough to force you to slow down a bit and write better.

Of course, the bolt-action mechanism is enjoyable to engage/disengage whenever you have the urge to fidget, thanks to the buttery smooth operation and a rather solid, reliable feel to its construction.

You can get the titanium gray pen for $76 on Amazon. They have quite a few other metal/color options as well, with widely varying prices:

• Polished titanium ($70)
• Black titanium ($76)
• Stainless steel ($54)
• Black stainless steel ($54)
• Carbon fiber ($60)
• Stainless steel + carbon fiber ($54)
• Aluminum (various colors) ($40)
• Zirconium black ($255)

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If you’ve already got a levitating moon lamp and some floating bookshelves in your office to create a physics-defying atmosphere, consider adding the Novium Hoverpen 2.0 to your workspace as well.

When not in use, this aircraft-grade aluminum pen rests within the ring of magnetic repulsion generated by its zinc-alloy pedestal stand, suspended at a 23.5° angle as if by magic. ️

Pictured here is the Mars Magma colorway.

Not only will this be an impossible-to-ignore centerpiece of your desk space, it’s also a cool fidget toy that spins freely for about 20 seconds if you need a break from the task you’re working on. The magnetic cap that snaps itself into place from a short distance can be considered a secondary fidget mechanism.

…and here is the Neptune Blue.

The Hoverpen accepts any D1 size ink refill — two Schmidt ones are included to get you started — and it comes with a small tweezer-like pincer ring tool that makes it easy to slide out the old cartridge so you can slide another in. {Insert John Wick reload sound effect here}

Get the Novium Hoverpen 2.0 for $99 on Amazon in your choice of Space Black, Mars Magma (my favorite), Neptune Blue, or Starlight Silver.

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Released a couple months ago (March 2024), iClever’s BK09 foldable keyboard is like a newer, expanded cousin to the BK05 model I wrote about in 2019 (and which released in 2015).

The basic idea is similar in that it’s a nondescript clamshell case you can easily fit into a bag pocket, and opens up into a fully functional Bluetooth keyboard to handle any typing jobs you’d rather not do with onscreen keys — no matter where you happen to be.

The main differences here are 1) the numeric keypad at the right end, and 2) USB-C charging instead of micro-USB. The first of those is obviously the bigger deal, especially for anyone whose work has requires a lot of calculating and/or data entry.

One feature I’m happy they kept is the ability to pair the keyboard with up to three devices, which you can switch between by pressing fn+Q, fn+W, or fn+E respectively.

There are plenty of other key shortcuts you can use as well, and they’re adaptable to Mac/iOS, Android, and Windows devices as needed:

Get the iClever BK09 keyboard for $40 on Amazon.

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Today’s neat find are these “Sprout” wood-cased pencils, which offer an eco-friendly alternative to wasteful plastic pens and mechanical pencils. They’re made from certified and sustainably harvested wood to ensure they’re carbon neutral, and each one is tipped with a decomposable cellulose capsule containing non-GMO seeds for various herbs, flowers, vegetables, or trees.

When you’re done with a given pencil, you can plant it upside-down in a pot filled with soil. After a few weeks of regular watering, you should see sprouts starting to grow!

This is a fantastic way to get kids thinking about the products they use in a more cyclical, minimum-waste fashion. ♻️

You can buy Sprout pencils in various amounts and seed types:

• Various packs of 5 ($10–$12 each) with different seed choices
• Various packs of 8 ($15–$16 each), also with different seed choices
• Pack of 12 ($22) that includes seeds for thyme, sage, daisy, basil, melon and forget-me-not
• Pack of 32 ($50) that includes seeds for sage, thyme, carnation, chia, coriander, daisy, forget-me-not, and basil
• Pack of 100 ($135) that contains 25 sage seeds, 25 thyme seeds, 25 forget-me-not seeds, and 25 basil seeds.

They also offer colored pencils that kids will love all the more.

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To preface this post, I want to point out that the product I’m about to mention is currently a prototype, not an actual existing product — at least not yet. If you’re cool with that, then read on.

Designed in collaboration between keyboard startup Work Louder and 3D artist/motion designer Ben Fryc — who’s been documenting mockups on his Instagram page — the k•no•b•1 (aka “Knob” or “KNOB1”) is an interestingly designed mechanical keyboard going into production very soon and should be shipping later this year.

Here’s how Fryc describes it in his own words (bold emphasis mine):

But what is the k•no•b•1? At it’s core it’s a low-profile mechanical keyboard with uniquely designed keycaps that are designed look amazing and feel great to type on. Another novel feature is a small screen on the right hand side between the right arrow key and two rotary encoder knobs above. It’s only 100×310 pixels so pixel art should look great on it. We plan to support custom wallpapers, a timer, and computer control features when we ship. Down the road, we want people to be able to create their own features. Stay tuned on that front.

Before you ask, because I know you’re wondering: No, that small screen he mentions isn’t touch-sensitive. However, it does promise to be a UX playground of sorts where you’ll be able to create your own widgets and such, and in full color:

The bottom knob is what you’ll use to interact with the display, and the top one will be programmable to prefer whatever function you deem suitable. As for the keycaps, they’re mounted on custom-tuned MX Gateron low-profile hotswap switches.

All of this is encased by an anodized aluminum top and bottom shell (silver- and gunmetal-colored, respectively) for max durability and aesthetic appeal:

Gotta love those orange accents 🧡

The keyboard will support up to three saved Bluetooth connections and will also come with a braided USB-C cable (also orange) for wired usage.

The team’s current shipping target for the k•no•b•1 is Q3 2024, and while they still have yet to test any production models as I write this on April 23rd, you can bet I’m excited for the project and will be keeping an eye on it in the meantime.

If you feel confident in what the keyboard will bring to the table (or desk, as the case may be), then you can pre-order it now for $439 USD from the official website or from the Work Louder page. In a Product Hunt comment, Fryc states that the purchase price will increase to $479 USD once models are actually in stock.

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About a year and a half ago I wrote about the Chocobo & Chill album, which featured fifteen of Nobuo Uematsu’s beloved Final Fantasy tracks flipped and remixed by lo-fi beat-maker Rifti Beats in collaboration with video game record label GameChops. As a lifelong FF fan, you bet it’s something I still listen to often while working.

Yesterday, GameChops and Rifti released the long-awaited sequel, Chocobo & Chill II, which contains sixteen additional lo-fi reinterpretations of Final Fantasy songs from across the entire series. I’m listening even as I write this, and just riding a wave of absolute nostalgia with a lot of the tracks that have come on.

Here’s a bit more description about the album as shared by the label:

Chocobo & Chill II highlights music heard across the series (such as the main theme and victory fanfare), the Super Nintendo’s Final Fantasy IV and VI, Final Fantasy VII–IX for PlayStation, Final Fantasy X and XI for PlayStation 2, the massively popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, and Final Fantasy XV. Prominently featuring the work of Nobuo Uematsu, who Rifti cites as one of the greatest composers of all time, Chocobo & Chill II also includes compositions by Masashi Hamauzu, Masayoshi Soken, and Yoko Shimomura. 

Here’s the full track list, with s to denote my personal favorites:

#	Track name	= standout track
1.	“Ahead on Our Way”
2.	“Besaid Island”
3.	“Cosmo Canyon”
4.	“Holding My Thoughts in My Heart”
5.	“The Place I’ll Return to Someday”
6.	“Someday the Dream Will End”
7.	“Fisherman’s Horizon”
8.	“Sultana Dreaming”
9.	“Theme of Love”
10.	“ViVi’s Theme”
11.	“Ronfaure”
12.	“Gold Saucer”
13.	“The Decisive Battle”
14.	“Victory Fanfare II”
15.	“Somnus”
16.	“Final Fantasy Lofi”

Get the album in these places:

• Apple Music
• Amazon Music
• Spotify
• Tidal

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Let’s say you’re looking for another marriage of paper and digital, except in this case your preferences lean more towards the latter than the former. Friend, what you seek is the “reMarkable 2” e-ink tablet.

This digital notepad is designed to mimic the feel of writing on paper, making it popular among note-takers, sketch artists, and anyone who prefers the tactile experience of handwriting over typing.

Picture this: you’re in a bustling cafe, sipping on your favorite brew, when inspiration strikes. With the reMarkable 2 in hand, you can effortlessly capture that fleeting idea before it slips away. The device’s textured paper-like display, responsive stylus, and crisp monochrome “ink” technology all offer a writing experience so natural, you’ll forget you’re using a digital device.

Whether you’re jotting down meeting notes, sketching out a new design, or simply doodling to unwind, the reMarkable 2 empowers you to express yourself with ease. It’s also a fantastic way to read ebooks, mark up documents, sign PDF files, and more.

Students, professionals, and creatives alike will appreciate the reMarkable’s refreshing lack of distractions. There are no pop-up ads, no notifications, no social media feeds, no web browsing — just you and your thoughts.

At just 0.19 inches (4.7 mm) thick, the tablet is incredibly easy to take and work on anywhere, and its long battery life means you can go up to two weeks without needing to recharge, ensuring you stay productive no matter where life takes you.

The reMarkable 2 tablet includes a free year of the company’s Connect sync/storage service and is $449 on Amazon. They also offer bundles that include either the polymer Folio sleeve ($549) or leather Book folio ($599).

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In a world where digital organization is king, finding the perfect balance between analog and digital note-taking can be a game-changer. Enter the Rocketbook Core notebook, a clever fusion of old-school pen and paper with modern digital convenience.

It looks and feels like your typical notebook at first, but the “paper” is actually a polyester composite that can be wiped completely clean with a moist towel, allowing you to reuse the pages over and over and over again and thus eliminate piles of single-use paper waste.

You write on the Core using an erasable gel pen such as the Pilot Frixion, and one black pen from that line is included with the notebook, along with a microfiber cleaning cloth.

But fear not, my fellow note hoarders; just because the pages can be erased doesn’t mean your notes have to disappear forever.

The other half of the Rocketbook ecosystem involves a free companion app that uses your camera to intelligently scan and digitize all those handwritten notes and have them sent to your favorite cloud services or elsewhere. THEN you can wipe the page clean and start again.

One of the coolest parts of this systesm? If you look along the bottom of each Core page, you’ll see a series of seven symbols:

In the Rocketbook app, you can assign a save destination for each symbol, so that when you scan your notes with a given symbol marked out, it will automatically send your document to the appropriate place.

For example, you could set the star symbol to send your meeting notes directly to your shared team folder in Dropbox, or designate the diamond symbol to send your class notes to a specific folder in Google Drive, or have the clover symbol drop your brainstorms and idea clouds into Evernote, or have the bell symbol message the note to someone directly.

The Rocketbook Core is the perfect marriage of traditional writing and modern tech. Forget having all your old notes scattered around your desk, unorganized, and forget about paper waste while you’re at it. It comes in a bunch of colors and your choice of Letter, Executive, and Mini sizes.

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For their first quarterly limited edition of 2024, the folks at Field Notes borrowed the name of the Roman goddess of flowers as they celebrate the coming of spring in all its bright, colorful splendor.

Dubbed the “Flora” edition, this set of memo books features three vibrant original cover designs by Chicago-based muralist Emmy Star Brown:

Each book is held together with glossy red staples:

…and each of them has a distinct page style inside (plain, dot graph, and ruled, respectively):

As always, the accompanying making-of video is worth a watch:

Get a 3-pack of the “Flora” Edition for $15 at Field Notes.

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We’ve written about quite a few Satechi products over the years, but to my knowledge we’ve never written about any of their keyboards. Today that changes thanks to the launch of their first ever mechanical keyboard.

Dubbed the SM1, this Mac- and Windows-compatible wireless mechanical aluminum keyboard sports a compact layout (75%) for a more efficient typing and gaming experience without sacrificing essential keys.

It also makes use of low-profile brown switches (with removable keycaps) that provide wonderful tactile feedback without the loud sounds of clicky switches, so you can use it at the office without your coworkers hating you.

The switches themselves aren’t hot-swappable though, so keep in mind that you won’t be able to customize it to that level like some mechanical keyboards.

The SM1 can connect via Bluetooth 5.0 with up to four devices at once, and it offers a pleasant white backlight with 14 different lighting patterns you can switch between by pressing the lightbulb button near the upper right corner. (Note: The CAPS Lock backlight in particular will switch to turquoise when enabled.)

If you use the SM1 without the backlight on, it can last about two months on a charge. Keeping the backlight on constantly will shorten that to a mere 16.5 hours, so I would personally use it sparingly. The battery’s power indicator is located on the spacebar, so it’s easy to see when it’s starting to run down and needs a recharge.

You can get the Satechi SM1 mechanical wireless keyboard for $100 on Amazon. As I write this on March 1st, 2024 however, the Amazon page is showing me a 15%-off coupon checkbox, so look for that when you go to buy.

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Tom and Dan of Studio Neat have spent the last 12 months working on a new product that distills all the things they’ve learned about making notebooks these past several years, including their soft-cover Totebook and panoramic-layout Panobook.

Their latest offering is called Keepbook, and this time it’s a classic-style hardcover journal intended for long-term archival once you’ve finished filling its 160 pages. To that end, they include a blank rigid slipcase with spaces on the spine where you can fill out the start and end dates for that notebook, along with any little notes you want to say about it.

As you complete more and more of them, your shelf starts to become an exhibition of your past thoughts, doodles, memories, and whatever else you may want to look back on someday.

Keepbook lays completely flat when opened, and every page is a treat to write/sketch on thanks to its thick and toothy 240 gsm weight, which in its way is akin to high-quality photo stock.

You can even use watercolors on these pages without bleedthrough.

Even the built-in bookmark looks and feels wonderful to use, thanks to its soft woven twill construction and dark green color.

Keepbook comes in your choice of blank, ruled (7mm), or dot-grid (5mm) pages, each of which is $25 at Studio Neat.

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Bright orange has long been a favorite color of mine. There’s just something about it that feels electric to me, and I know I’m not alone because people often associate it with feelings of warmth, energy, and positivity.

It’s also known for its ability to stand out in a crowd, drawing the eye to it like a magnet. In fact, it’s a color choice you kind of have to be careful not to go overboard with, even if you’re hoping to be noticed. Instead, it’s best to use orange accessories to accent other things you wear/carry.

To that end, this edition of the Caran d’Ache 849 ballpoint pen is an attractively bold option that’s conspicuous in the best way. That lacquered ‘fluorescent orange’ color makes it nigh-impossible to misplace or lose in a bag, and like its siblings, it sports the classic slim hexagonal barrel and signature pocket clip that’s always made the 849 such a distinctive writing utensil.

You can get this audaciously orange pen for $22 on Amazon. It comes loaded with one of Caran d’Ache’s own Goliath M Blue ink cartridges.

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The folks at Field Notes have always had a penchant for 20th century Americana, and that adoration is on full display with their latest limited edition, “Heartland,” which goes back to their roots by paying tribute to American farm life:

For this edition they asked artist/screenprinter Dan McCarthy to illustrate a triptych of covers that, when aligned, become a panoramic image depicting a Midwestern farm landscape over the course of a day:

Man, what a vibe, so pretty. Here are some of other tidbits about this edition in their own words:

The pocket-size books feature McCarthy’s artwork printed on sturdy 100# Domtar Cougar cover stock. The body of the book is Finch Opaque 60# text with a “Big Sky”-blue 3/16″ grid. Each book features a unique set of “Practical Applications” based on the daypart illustrated on the cover. You’ll find these books indispensable whenever you take a moment from your busy day to catch your breath and collect your thoughts — on the farm or wherever else you may happen to be.

Get a 3-pack of the “Heartland” Edition for $15 at Field Notes. You can also buy a print of the triptych cover artwork for $35.

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