Okay ... this is one of those ideas I have to write down because I'll forget about it in the a.m. ...

Background: one of the little personal organizational tools I use is something called a Pocketmod ... it's a flash application (i use the standalone version) which will generate a minibooklet of various type pages (e.g. checklist pages, note pages, etc.). It prints onto a single page and then there's a special way of folding it to get the eight page mini booklet.

Recently, the developer of the Pocketmod (which is free, by the way) came out with a thing to convert pdfs to a pocket mod format, which allows you to create custom pages as long as you have something to output to pdf (and there are plenty of freebie things to do this if you don't). Anyhoo, tonight I finally started playing around with this pdf to pocketmod converter and did lots of fun things, including printing the latest issue of Amphora as a pocket mod (actually three pocket mods ... very tiny type, but still legible, although the yellowish text is hard to read ... not a criticism ... it obviously wasn't meant to be printed like this) ... An article from the AJA was eight pages of pdf ... so that got me thinking ...

Whenever I go to a major conference (which isn't often, admittedly), I really do not like having to thumb through a seventy page program on the days of the conference. What I'd love to have is a little pocket thing for the sessions I plan to attend on that day ...

So it occurs to me that some techie guy could come up with something like this:

1. Make individual pdfs of each session at the APA/AIA meeting
2. Create a facility on the web whereby someone could check off the boxes for the sessions they plan on attending on a given day and generate a pdf of all those sessions 'on the fly' (I know this can be done because there are tons of sites on the www which generate pdfs on the fly; I use one all the time, e.g., to generate graph paper)
3. Adapt the pdf to pocketmod converter to an online facility (or direct people to download it)

and voila! People can generate custom programs for a specific day of the meeting ... empty pages could be left blank or perhaps have note pages yadda yadda yadda.

There.