Apps
- First thing in the morning on my MacBook Air to start my daily note where I record what time I woke up and run a couple of shortcuts to add the day’s weather and my calendar events
- As soon as I get to work, I open Obsidian on my PC and leave it open all day to record meeting notes, people notes and notes on things I will reference later. I use u\kepano’s templates from the vault he shared on GitHub
- on my iPhone, I record where I eat lunch and link it to a restaurant template and file class I configured with the Metadata Menu plugin.
- During the evening, I record what I watch on TV using the Media DB plugin
- Before I go to bed, I have a nightly checklist in Things 3 that involves me clearing my Obsidian inbox and internally bookmarking anything I need to read later. I also use this time to make a quick three-bullet gratitude list as part of my daily note.
- I have a workflow for sending emails to Obsidian and I clear that folder out each night too.
- I check to see if Omnivore, my Read Later Service has any imported pages or highlights I need to file.
- The last thing I check is whether I need to import any bookmarks I’ve made that day in Raindrop.io. This can be automated but I prefer to do it manually to make sure I correctly file and/or link web pages to any current MOCs
- BetterTouchTool
- CleanMyMacX
- MindNode
- WidgetWall
- 24 Hour Wallpaper
- CloudMounter
- AlDente Pro
- HoudahSpot
- PathFinder
- Default Folder X
- Dropzone
- CleanShot X
- Mac Updater from Core Code - a buy once (no subscription) app with lots of features including release notes, links to the title’s home page, automatic updates for most programs, app store links and more.
- Latest from Max Codes - a free app that catches app updates that Mac Updater sometimes misses.
- The Ellane W. Obsidian Demo Vault Ellane is a strong advocate for plain text within the Obsidian community. I’ve interacted with her on Mastodon: @ellane@pkm.social
- The Lean Productivity Starter Vault This vault by Sascha Kasper is comprehensive, covering organization, metadata, templates, core and community plugins, and even CSS snippets.
- Nicole van der Hoeven: A Senior Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs, Nicole shares about learning in public, note-taking, and other interesting topics. Her videos are conversational, mostly stay under 20 minutes, and demonstrate concepts clearly. You can follow her on Mastodon: @nicole@pkm.social
- FromSergio Though he no longer produces Obsidian videos, Portuguese YouTuber Sergio’s past content is excellent. Like Nicole, his videos are short, to the point, and easy to understand.
- Reddit With over 126,000 members, r/ObsidianMD is a massive subreddit. Be ready for the deluge of graph screenshots, but it’s also a helpful place to ask questions, stay updated on plugins, and interact with the community. Obsidian’s CEO, u/kepano, even moderates and interacts with users there.
- Official Obsidian Forum This is the best place to go when you’re stumped by a problem. I’ve always received an answer to my questions here. Superuser holroy even wrote me a working DataView query on the first try!
- Obsidian Members Group on Discord A huge and somewhat chaotic space. Many plugin developers hang out here.
- Built in podcast player
- Turn Google News searches into feeds
- Customize the look with your own CSS if desired
- Get accelerated updates on certain feeds
- Annotate and save articles
- Multi-lingual content
- Sync your YouTube subscriptions
- Filtered Reddit feeds (see Obsidian posts without having to look at pictures of other people's graphs)
- Unlimited bookmarks
- Unlimited collections
- Unlimited highlights
- Unlimited devices
- More than 2,600 integrations (via IFTTT)
- Apps for Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.
- First I created a label in Gmail called attachments
- Then I created a filter that applied that label to all emails addressed to me with attachments. The “addressed to me” part is important because without that emails that I send with attachments would also get included.
- The next step was to associate my Gmail account as the source for the CloudHQ app and to designate a folder in my Google Drive as the destination for the saved files.
- Free Email Tracker
- Gmail YouTube
- Free Video Email for Gmail
- Things 3 (Task management)
- Ivory for Mastodon (social media)
- Product Hunt (Because I’m a software junkie)
- Obsidian (Inbox app, used for daily journal and logging)
- Day One (journal app)
- Yahoo Mail (newsletter subscriptions only)
- Facebook (mostly for family stuff)
- Carrot Weather
- Outlook (work email and calendar)
- Paycom (payroll program)
- Duo Mobile (two-factor authentication)
- Microsoft Authenticator (more two-factor authentication)
- Microsoft Edge (browser of choice and search app)
- Clipboard Fusion (shared clipboard with PC)
- Jira (IT ticket system my dept. uses)
- Drafts (rapid text capture and processing)
- Launch Center Pro (launches actions through URL workflows)
- Messages
- Launcher (widgets on my home page)
- Shortcuts (some automated)
- PastePal (shared clipboard with personal Mac)
- Camera++ (taking and editing photos)
- Lastpass (password manager)
- Threads (social media)
- Blue Sky (social media)
- Vernissage (for PixelFed)
- Reddit (social media)
- Inoreader (for RSS)
- Google News
- Micro.blog (social media)
- Watcht (Trakkt app for TV)
Launcher is the king of widget apps. I use it on my lock screen, my home screen, and in my work focus mode. It does much more than just launch apps, allowing you to create actions for messaging, social media, music and more. Launcher on App Addict
I added a new app to my wish list today, Rond Life Mapper and added some details on this Scribbles post. It’s one of those apps that logs your location and activities, but this one, unlike many has a good privacy policy and promises not to be a battery hog.
One of the practical aspects of tech is using it as a tool to boost mental health. Using two journaling tools (Day One and #Obsidian) for more than just recording geeky data I maintain a years long habit of making a daily gratitude list. Here’s why it helps.
How many times a day do you open #Obsidian? When do your record data? When do you reference data? What are your habits?
I have Obsidian in the dock on my iPhone and MacBook Air and in the taskbar of the Windows machine I use at work. Obsidian is always within reach for reference but I have some habitual times I open it to record certain data.
My Daily Note in #Obsidian - Byte Sized Chunks for Customizing Every Element, Plugin Recommendations and Links
I love a good shared Obsidian Daily Note post. My own daily note is an amalgamation of elements I’ve gleaned from other people. I’ve discovered some useful plugins as a result. The data I capture is valuable to me. The way I capture it is automated to an extent and easier to enter as a result of what I’ve learned. I’m going to offer the same to you, in hope that you’ll find something useful. I use the community plugin, Periodic Notes and not the Daily Note core plugin.
The first thing I do on my computer in the morning is start my daily note. I record the beginning of the day data using the tools that follow.
Properties
---
title: Daily Note Template
url:
tags:
- dailynotes
- journaling
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Author: amerpie
status:
wake time:
---
My properties (YAML frontmatter) use Templater snippets for the creation date and modification date. Templater is one of the most useful plugins in the Obsidian universe and has plenty of other uses. The status: property is one I use to delineate whether the day is a work day, at home day or a travel day. The wake time property is where I record what time I get up each morning. You could enter anything you want to track in properties, such as your weight or the distance of your morning run/walk. You can use the Dataview community plugin to quantify that information later.
My H1 Heading
I use another Templater snippet for the H! heading. Instead of rendering the date as YYYY-MM-DD, it displays the format as Friday, March 29th 2024, giving me a little more information when I refer back to it later.
<% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>
The Quick Add Button
The next element on my Daily Note uses the Buttons community plugin to access the actions I have set up via Quick Add.. Not only do these actions let me make entries under the appropriate heading on my daily note, they also serve as shortcuts to other notes I create frequently, namely my people notes, meeting notes and page formats I use for specific types of blog posts. Mike Schmitz does a great tutorial on setting this up over at The Sweet Setup.
Button Syntax
Button
name Add entry
type command
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd
color default
Quick Add Entries
The Task of the Day
I prefer to use the dedicated task manager Things 3 to manage my tasks. I do however list my primary task of the day at the top of my daily note. This is the one thing I want to get done that day if everything else falls by the wayside. I create this task using a hotkey to run an iOS shortcut crafted with Carlo Zottman’s excellent Actions for Obsidian. . This requires me to create a placeholder in my template styled like this.
%%new-tasks-here%%
Morning Weather
Once again, I use Actions for Obsidian and an iOS shortcut to add the morning weather to my daily note. I use a button added to the ribbon bar via the Commander community plugin to launch this shortcut. I use this placeholder:
**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%
Appointments
I add the appointments from my default calendar with this shortcut. The placeholder is formatted like this:
## 📅Appointments
%%Appointments%% <br>
Daily Quote and Previous/Next Days Entries
Templater has syntax to add a daily quote to your notes and I use it with joy. I live quotes and collect them in my my vault. In fact, I have a Github repository where you can download over 500 notes of markdown formatted quotes divided by the author/speaker.
Syntax
<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]]
Result
Headers for Running Entries
My notes main body consists of three main sections. I use headers for these and the headers serve as placeholders for the quick add button I mentioned above. I add to the note throughout the day and add finishing touches at night as part of my end of the day routine.
Notes Created Today and Notes Modified Today
I have two Dataview queries in my Daily Note template. I have them formatted as callouts so that I can fold them up when I don’t need to see the information and therefore don’t have to do a lot of scrolling around.
The first callout shows me the notes created on the same date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's New Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date ```
The second callout shows me the notes modified on the date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's Modified Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date ```
They appear like this in the note.
Final Touches
As I mentioned, I use Things 3 for task management. There’s a plugin for Things 3 which appends a log to your note when you complete tasks, Things 3 Logbook. This is a useful record of different tasks I accomplish each day. I also use the Things 3 Today community plugin to display my day’s tasks in the sidebar while I make entries in my daily note.
Logbook
Today View for Things 3
The Template
---
title: Daily Note Template
url:
tags:
- dailynotes
- journaling
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Author: Lou Plummer
status:
wake time:
---
# <% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>
```button
name Add entry
type command
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd
color default
%%new-tasks-here%%
**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%
📅Appointments
%%Appointments%%
<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]]
📚Learnings
✏️Journal Entries
👍Gratitude
> [!abstract]- Today's New Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
> ```
> [!abstract]- Today's Modified Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date
> ```
A Dozen Reasons to Try SetApp - #Mac Apps I Use Every Day and How Much I Save
SetApp is a monthly subscription service that offers access to 240 different Mac apps starting at $9.99 a month. I currently have 37 different applications from Setapp installed on my MacBook Air. Some of them are startup items that run all the time when my Mac is on. Others I use an a regular basis for maintenance and routine tasks. They have quite a few apps that I’ve purchased in the past but no longer have to pay for upgrades because they are now included in my plan. I’ve listed a dozen of my favorite programs from Setapp, along with their cost if purchased or subscribed to separately to give you an idea of what you can save with a subscription. If you use my affiliate link, you can get a 30-day trial instead of the seven-day trial they normally offer.
BetterTouchTool
BetterTouchTool allows you to customize various input devices like trackpads, mice, and keyboards. It offers a wide range of gesture definitions for the Magic Mouse, Macbook Trackpad and Magic Trackpad, and allows users to trigger keyboard shortcuts, system actions or custom scripts. Additionally, the app also features window management and a clipboard manager. My favorite actions include one click trackpad action to launch a Google search and launching the Raycast emoji picker and clipboard manager. ($22 for a lifetime license when purchased without SetApp)
CleanMyMacX
CleanMyMac X is a versatile maintenance utility designed to keep your Mac running smoothly. It includes features for junk file deletion, system optimization, application updating and uninstalling, plus malware protection. I have a reminder to run the optimizer once a week. (Yearly subscription price is $34.95 when purchased without SetApp)
MindNode
MindNode is a powerful tool designed for creating mind maps and visualizing ideas on your Mac. It has customizable layouts, themes, and easy-to-use drawing tools. I’ve been using it for over 10 years and took advantage of the SetApp version to avoid having to pay an upgrade fee. (Yearly subscription $19.99 when purchased without SetApp)
24 Hour Wallpaper
The 24 Hour Wallpaper app for Mac provides high-quality, time-synchronized wallpapers that adapt to match local daylight conditions. The wallpapers change throughout the day, mirroring natural or city scenes suited to the time. I like it more than the Bing wallpaper app I previously used. (One-time purchase price is $9.99 without Setapp)
CloudMounter
CloudMounter connects your Mac to cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. It mounts these services as local drives, allowing you to manage your online files directly from Finder. I like it because it let’s me avoid having to run the native app for each application. (annual license is $39.99 when purchased without SetApp)
AlDente Pro
AlDente Pro protects your MacBook battery by intelligently managing its charging behavior. It lets you set a maximum charge percentage to prolong battery lifespan and offers various customizable settings for optimal battery health. I keep my maximum charge set to 70% on my MacBook Air, although I can easily top it off to 100% if I need to be on battery for a prolonged time. (One time purchase of $25 without SetApp)
HoudahSpot
HoudahSpot transforms your Mac’s search capabilities. It builds upon Spotlight, offering complex search criteria including file attributes, content, and metadata. I use the saved search functions to find all the Markdown files created in the last seven days (run as a weekly task) to import my Obsidian files into EagleFiler. (One-time purchase price of $39.00 without SetApp)
PathFinder
PathFinder is a powerful file management alternative to macOS Finder. It offers advanced features like dual-pane browsing, batch renaming, deep folder comparisons, and customizable interface modules. This is another app I’ve used for more than a decade. (Annual subscription $29.99 without SetApp)
Default Folder X
Default Folder X enhances your Mac’s Open and Save dialog boxes. It offers quick access to recent folders, favorites, powerful keyboard shortcuts, and default folder management. I’m a long-time user and no longer have to pay any upgrade fees. (One-time license costs $34,95 without Setapp)
Dropzone
Dropzone supercharges your Mac’s productivity with its drag-and-drop interface. It lets you send files to apps, shorten URLs, execute custom scripts, and much more – all by simply dragging files or text snippets onto its icon. I use a script to automatically install apps from DMG files and a shortcut that uploads media files to Micro.blog (License is $35 without Setapp)
CleanShot X
CleanShot X elevates screen capturing on your Mac. It offers far more than basic screenshots with tools for annotations, blurring, screen recording, and a scrolling capture mode. CleanShot X delivers professional-looking visuals and clear communication effortlessly. I’ve used other apps like Shottr and SnagIt) and I find that CleanShot X offers more. (Subscription is $10 a month for the cloud service plan without SetApp)
App Update Workflow for Macs Using HomeBrew and the CLI version of the Mac App Store. It Finds Updates Other Apps Miss. #macOS
I’m one of the lucky people whose hobby and work coincide. I’ve been working in IT support since the 90’s, yet i still enjoy tinkering on my own machine with new software and workflows. As a result, I have more than 300 apps installed on my M2 MacBook Air and I am fanatical about keeping them up to date. I run two updaters every night as part of my routine:
The Mac App Store is supposed to update apps you purchase there automatically but most find that it sometimes runs days and days behind. Both Mac updater and Latest check Mac App Store Apps so I was really surprised recently when I discovered even they miss some releases.
I found this out after installing the command line version of the Mac App Store via HomeBrew. After installation, you can run the following command to see what’s out of date on your machine:
$ mas outdated
If anything shows up, you can then run the following command to update your apps:
$ mas upgrade
I now have a weekly reminder in Things 3 to fire up iTerm to run both commands.
My #Obsidian Journey and the Resources That Helped Me - Sample Vaults, Videos, Web Sites, Newsletters and Communities
After retiring from my IT career in public education in 2020, I found myself less engaged with technology news and updates. My previous habit of upgrading my phone yearly faded, and I continued using the software already on my MacBook. An Evernote user since 2009, I relied on it for everything from technical specs to recipes. My subscription auto-renewed annually without much thought.
Within a few years, it became clear that staying at home full-time wasn’t for me. Through connections, I landed a relaxed role in the IT department at a small, private university in my hometown. It’s the perfect post-retirement job: I enjoy helping faculty, staff, and students with their tech problems without the headaches of being on-call, budgeting, or strategic planning.
Around that time, I noticed an unfamiliar program, Obsidian, gaining popularity among the tech circles I used to follow. David Sparks (MacSparky) wrote an entire field guide about itand The Sweet Setup offered a sample starter vault. Since the guide was expensive and the sample vault was free, I naturally started there. I downloaded Obsidian and figured out how to access my new files.
A Starter Vault
The Sweet Setup’s Starter Vault includes articles about common Obsidian use cases like journaling. It provides instructions on how to download, install, and configure community plugins, and how to integrate them with the core plugins that come built-in, like the daily note plugin. My journaling habit and my use of the Quick Add plugin began on day one thanks to this resource.
While other demo vaults are available, I recommend waiting a bit before exploring them. This gives you time to familiarize yourself with your own setup before adopting someone else’s system. Some notable ones include:
YouTube
I realized early on that Obsidian has a steeper learning curve than most software, but there seemed to be ample resources to help. True to the 21st century, I turned to YouTube and stumbled upon the perfect beginner’s video: Nick Milo’s Linking Your Thinking. He has an entire beginner’s series, but that first video truly explains the philosophy behind Obsidian. Two other YouTubers whose content I found particularly helpful were:
Other YouTubers I enjoy include Danny Hatcher, No BoilerPlate,, and Dann Berg, who also has a blog linked from his YouTube page.
Communities
Obsidian users gather in three main online spaces:
Websites
Obsidian Rocks is the product of Tim Miller (@WebInspectInc on Twitter). I finally got the courage to use the complicated and powerful Linter plugin after reading Tim’s article on it - Automate Your Notes With Obsidian Linter. Another helpful article was Obsidian Mobile: Five Tips for Success, which helped me configure my iPhone settings so that I had many fewer problems. There are plenty of other articles on Obsidian Rocks on all facets of the apps use and I encourage you to check them out.
Prakash Joshi Pax on Medium - One of the most helpful articles on Obsidian that I’ve ever read came from this site, Obsidian Templater Snippets I Wish I Knew Sooner.(Note: I link to Medium articles through archive.ph to avoid the paywall). There is new material being added regularly and it’s worth bookmarking and checking back. Pax also has a newsletter worth reading and he occasionally makes videos.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t plug my Obsidian “how to” articles. I’ve written about plugins, backup, vault structure and more. I also answer questions as best I can. My whole career has been helping people with technology issues and I still enjoy it.
Newsletters
Aidan Helfant has a website, YouTube channel and a podcast about Obsidian, geared towards students but helpful for all Obsidian beginners. I subscribe to his newsletter and find value in it.
Mike Schmitz has a website, Obsidian University where you can subscribe to his newsletter, download a starter vault or sign up for his (paid) Obsidian class. I got a lot out of his material, especially his video on configuring Obsidian’s settings.
Inoreader - Absolutely Worth It or Why I Love My RSS Provider
Like most of us these days, I spend a fair amount of money on app and service subscriptions. Some of it is pretty painful (Evernote!) but the cash I spend on my RSS service, Inoreader is worth it and more. I get so much value from the myriad of ways Inoreader helps me consolidate, curate and collect information from around the Internet. It does so much more than just provide a list of articles from my specified sources.
Custom Monitoring Feeds
My favorite feature, hands down, are the custom monitoring feeds Inoreader allows me to create. It scours the web every hour to search for articles using my keywords. I have monitoring feeds to help me track my favorite software titles for news and tips/tricks. The wizard that creates these feeds lets me decide whether I want to search entire articles or just titles. I can search the entire Internet or just sources from sites whose main RSS feed I follow. As with all feeds on Inoreader, I can set up a highlighter for my search terms (Obsidian, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Micro.blog). I can filter out terms I definitely do not find interesting (Android, Apple Vision Pro, Trump). Finally, I can filter out duplicates and near duplicates so my feed doesn’t get inundated on dates when one of my keywords makes the news, for example when updates to a certain title get released. It is possible to place all these keyword monitoring feeds into a folder and to view the output combined. I can even generate an OPML file with the output to share with others!
Newsletter Subscription Replacement
Inoreader allows me to generate email addresses to use in subscribing to newsletters. That way I get the benefit of their content without having my mailbox clogged up. Like every other feed, these newsletters can be saved to OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. I can export them to Pocket or ReadWise, Instapaper, Blogger, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon or a custom location.
Automation
If you highlight text in any RSS article or newsletter, you can use the highlight to trigger an IFTTT applet. You can do the same with any article you mark to read later. In fact IFTTT has a dozen different triggers for Inoreader and over 2000 services you can connect it to.
To add feeds to Inoreader you can use any of a variety of browser extensions, although I find that a simple bookmarklet works best for me. You can read your feeds in a web browser or in your choice of RSS readers like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I like their web interface so much that on a desktop, I choose to use a stand-alone web app of their site to read my feeds since it has easy access to most of the extra features offered. On my iPhone and iPad, I use their app as opposed to a separate RSS reader. Their iOS and Android apps have an offline mode allowing you to download content to read later, useful for flights and helping you avoid a separate subscription to a read it late service.
Organization and Backup
You can use folders or tags (or both) to organize your feeds. You can set up notifications for different keywords or material from certain sources. In the settings section of the Inoreader you can look at the health of all of your feeds and easily determine if one is down, allowing you to contact the blogger or publisher of the site in question. If you currently have an RSS provider or reader, Inoreader can easily import your feeds and conversely, it can export feeds for you if you want to use them elsewhere. Your feeds get backed up everyday and you can set them to be saved to a cloud folder synced with your computer so you can have ready access to them. I use Dropbbox for this.
Other Features
Pricing for all the features I mentioned is $7.50 a month paid annually
My Bookmark Workflow in 2024 using #Raindrop.io and #Obsidian
I recently found a backup of my browser bookmarks from 2009. It was a trip down memory lane looking at what i was most interested in 15 years ago (lots of cycling) and seeing what web resources are sadly no longer with us (Google+, Stumble Upon). Before browsers started syncing bookmarks I used (and paid for) Foxmarks a browser extension that synced bookmarks between different browsers. My Chrome (work) and Safari (home) bookmarks were identical. It was great. Foxmarks died when its functions were supplanted by native browser capabilities. For the next few years I relied on Chrome’s native capabilities to sync, ditching Safari. In 2022, I switched to Microsoft Edge and I’ve remained there since (on Mac, iOS and PC).
Microsoft Edge Really Doesn’t Suck | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)
Raindrop.io
Last year I heard about Raindrop.io for the first time in an article from Mac Automation Tips. Raindrop.io is a multi-featured bookmark manager with a web interface and native apps for Mac and PC. It allows you to add sites to your collection via a browser extension. When you add a new bookmark you can assign it to a folder, add a note, tags and set a reminder to revisit the site later (paid feature)
The free version of Raindrop.io offers enough features for may users.
The pro version offers even more benefits. If you rely on PDFs for reference, you can upload your library to Raindrop.io’s servers and take advantage of full text search and universal availability. For regular web sites, Raindrop.io saves an archive of the page when you add it to your collection so you never have to worry about losing access to an article if it gets pulled from the Internet or disappears behind a paywall. You get daily backups. I have mine saved to Dropbox so I get a local copy of them downloaded to my computer.
Integrations I use include YouTube where every time I give a video a thumbs up it gets added to Raindrop.io. My RSS service, Inoreader, allows me to add pages directly to my bookmarks and it automates it even further by also adding starred (read later) articles as well. I also imported all my articles from Pocket and for awhile synced my bookmarks with an Evernote notebook.
Obsidian Integration
I try to make Obsidian the center of my digital life. After hacking together a workflow that involved exporting my bookmarks to Dropbox via IFTTT and then moving them to my vault with Hazel, I found a community plugin that accomplished all that for me, The Raindrop Highlights Plugin can be set to only import bookmarks where you’ve made highlights or it can import every page you add to Raindrop.io (my choice). The plugin allows you to customize your import template for the body of the note and the metadata. If you choose (recommended), it will duplicate the folder structure you’ve created for your collection. Vitally, you can import the tags you assign as you add bookmarks so that if, like me, you use tag-based MOCs (maps of content) in Obsidian, your imported bookmarks will get automatically added.
If you’d occasionally like to add the full content of a page, you can use the community plugin ReadItLater which will import a website from a URL on your clipboard. Even if you don’t import the content of the page, the clean interface of an imported bookmark note invites you to add your own commentary and to add internal links to other notes on the same topic, Obsidian’s super power.
A Lovely Routine - The Digital Checklist That Brings Me Joy Every Day and The Hunt for Links
I have a digital checklist I try to complete every day. It helps me do the mundane things we all have to do, stay on top of my email, organize my notes, keep important software updated. My checklist also helps me to remember to do the fun things I enjoy: uploading a photo every day to Micro.blog where it gets cross posted to all the social media sites in which I participate. I have a reminder to check in daily at Product Hunt because I enjoy seeing what’s new in the software categories I follow. The other “fun” item I try to check off seven days a week is to find a bookmark to share.
Every Saturday morning, I get up at 4am to drink coffee and work interrupted on posting to my blog. I keep a running note all week in Obsidian where I add each day’s link. I write a short blurb for each site, download/upload a few images and post the links. My uber original name for this feature is (drumroll) This Week’s Bookmarks.
I subscribe to way too many newsletters and what keeps me interested in them is looking for the link of the day. Ironically, some of what I subscribe too are other people’s weekly link posts! I’ll share anything that looks like it might catch the eye of a curious person. It could be a story about the world’s coolest streets or something funny like the Washington Post’s collection of one-star reviews of National Parks. I rarely share news stories. I aim for something with a little shelf life. I’m a techie and a blogger so there’s plenty of stuff there for like-minded folks.
Right now, I’m keeping a running list of several week’s worth of links. One day it will get too unwieldy, and I’ll have to pare it down or start a volume two or something, but for now it’s there to explore. If you check it out and find anything useful or entertaining it would mean the world to me if you let me know.
Matthias Ott, author of the wonderful newsletter Own Your Web, wrote a piece recently about all the reasons why creating a links page is an integral part of the IndieWeb. He listed different ways to share your finds (like newsletters and RSS feeds) and he gave multiple reasons for collecting links in the first place. He’s the inspiration for this reflection.
A couple of bloggers I like have weekly links posts or newsletters. Check out the HeyDingus Seven Things This Week collection and let the writer, Jarrod Blundy know that I sent you. While you’re at it, look at Ian Betteridge’s new 10 Blue Links which he’ll be happy to email you each week.
Peace! Lou, in NC
Lou Plummer | Amerpie
Email
CloudHQ - Adding Functionality to Google Services: Gmail. Google Drive and Search
My Original Problem
I still have my “Welcome to Gmail” message dated February 21, 2005. When Google Drive was introduced in 2012 I adopted it as my primary cloud storage service. For some unknown reason, Google has never implemented a way to automate saving email attachments to the cloud. Once upon a time IFTTT used to have an applet that would do this for you but it’s been deprecated and no longer works. In my search for a solution, I discovered CloudHQ.
CloudHQ has over 60 Google Workspace related services, some paid, many free. My initial search led me to implement their backup and sync utility. It has the power to save all of your email to Google Drive as PDFs which was a bit overkill for my use case. All I wanted was to save attachments. The process was simple:
But What About…
I found that occasionally I do actually have a need to save an email as a PDF. I could of course use a print to PDF option but it’s much easier to use the CloudHQ utility Save Emails to Google Drive.Once installed this utility adds a button to your Gmail web interface that allows for one click saving of an email. It creates a link to the email on the fly and asks if you want to save it to your clipboard. I find it particularly useful for receipts that I want to add to Evernote.
A Useful AI Tool
In exploring the CloudHQ catalog, I discovered their browser plugin for Chromium browsers that integrates ChatGPT into every search.
It’s a real time saver, offering both a traditional Google search along with a comprehensive AI query. You get both on the same page any time you conduct a search. By default it uses ChatGPT 3.5 but you can provide your own API key and use ChatGPT 4 if you desire. For most searches I find that v3.5 is sufficient (and cheaper).
More
The variety of services offered by CloudHQ is extensive and are not limited to Google Workspace products. They offer Microsoft Office 365 tools as well as solutions for use with Dropbox for Business and Box. I haven’t used those but there is extensive information on their web site. Since I’m a Gmail user I intend to explore some of the plugins CloudHQ offers, including:
I used ChatGPT to craft a Python script today that edited 500+ markdown files (my imported Raindrop.io bookmarks) from my #Obsidian vault. It moved text in the form of an inline properties field for URLs from the body of the note into the YAML front matter. I knew next to nothing about #Python.
App of the Day is Clipboard Fusion - Syncs your clipboard between your Mac, PC and phone, iPhone or Android. Allows for saved clipboards for frequently used text. I keep my OpenAI api key on mine. It’s a real solution if your work OS is different than your home OS.
Today and tomorrow only - price reduced software at the Indie App Sale - My purchases: Audracity, Nametag, Photoscope, Evo, Logger, Mastowatch, Presets, Relog
For any users of the Little Snitch firewall program on Mac. I just found a terrific blocklist via Reddit for 135K sites with trackers, malware, etc. You can subscribe and have it updated daily via the dev’s page on Github #security
FreeTube is a YouTube client for Windows, Mac, and Linux built around using YouTube more privately. You can enjoy your favorite content and creators without your habits being tracked. All of your user data is stored locally and never sent or published to the internet. FreeTube grabs data by scraping the information it needs (with either local methods or by optionally utilizing the Invidious API). With many features similar to YouTube, FreeTube has become one of the best methods to watch YouTube privately on desktop.
Freetube - The best ad-free YouTube experience.
I love the Internet and I love milestones. Reddit is still one of the most informative sites on the Internet despite the knuckleheads there among the users and management. Today, my Reddit account is old enough to vote. Happy Cake Day To Me!
It’s Saturday and my /now page is updated with American and British journalists, a tale from 17th century Japan, iOS and #Obsidian news and a tasty sandwich. What’s up now
The #iOS Apps I Use Every Day - Broken Down by Time of Day and Purpose
