Apps
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-Inbox - The default folder for all new notes added to the system through plugins, scripts and shortcuts, named that way to move it to the top my my folder list. I could have used a numbering system on my folders like all the cool kids do, but I stuck with old habits carried over from 16 years of Evernote use. This is subject to change.
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Lounotes - My folder for personal reference material
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Apple Notes - I periodically import my Apple Notes into Obsidian to keep all my info in a central location.
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Blogging - Research material, rough and final drafts of posts to this blog (in a subfolder)
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Classes- A folder used by the Metadata Menu Plugin
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Contacts - Notes created via a shortcut built with Actions for Obsidian that imported my iOS address book into Obsidian so I could have notes for all the people in my life (outside of work)
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Journal - My daily notes divided into subfolders for months and years
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Select Email - I have a workflow that allows me to send email to my Obsidian vault - Details.
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Pocket - Pockets is a free read-it-later service. I use a plugin to automatically get the articles into my Obsidian vault. I triage what’s there in the evenings and add tags, links and highlights for stuff I am going to keep.
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People - I use a template that includes a space to track meetings and phone calls with different folks at work. I also use this folder for notes on my favorite content creators, whose pages include a dataview query based on the Author: field in properties to make a MOC of all their work I’ve quoted in my vault.
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Web Clips - These are entire web pages I download using either the Obsidian Webclipper.
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Quotes - I have a collection of over 500 notes of nothing but quotes. Each note is named for a speaker/writer and the properties contain info on the source and topic of the quote. I used a python script I found to import my previous collection from a CSV file into Obsidian as markdown files. If you are interested, you can browse the collection on GitHub or download the whole archive.
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Bookmarks - I use a plugin to automatically sync my bookmarks From Raindrop.iowith my Obsidian vault. Any page I bookmark goes into this folder, where I can add links and MOCs.
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RSS - I use the RSS Copyist plugin to import my watched TV shows and movies from Trakt, my books from Goodreads and my music from Last.fm.
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Serials - I have a lot of software. A lot. I’m a sucker for those sales at Bundlehunt and App Sumo. I have serial numbers and registration info for all that I own.
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Tech Notes - These are heavily cross-referenced notes on all things IT related (outside of work) that I’m interested. It’s a mix of info from the web and my own notes.
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Templates - I have a few heavily customized templates with Templater snippets and custom metadata (including tags) for my Inbox, People, Quotes and Bookmark folders
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Weekly Notes - Named so that they’ll appear chronologically, these are created via the Periodic Notes Plugin
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zz-attachments - This is the folder where all the attachments (images, PDFs, audio and video) live. They are arranged and renamed automatically by the Attachment Management Plugin
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zz-meta - These are notes about notes, similar to the MOC concept where I have custom dataview queries for different categories of quotes, notes on certain topics and notes from select periods of time.
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He was playing with Lego during Y2K, ruminations of an old timer
We hired a new network engineer at the university where I work. This is my semi-retired job. I had an IT career in public education and retired in 2020 but found that I wasn’t ready to stay home all the time. I found this gig doing stuff I did 20 years ago - handing out laptops, solving printer issues, answering the phone. I didn’t want any pressure and the job suits me fine. I don’t need or want to be in charge of anything. The money is really good for what is asked of me plus I have my pension. I was talking to the new engineer, who to be truthful has a wee bit of a superiority complex and I mentioned what I was doing in IT during the Y2K period - working for a bank. He told me he was playing with Legos during that time. I don’t know if he intended to make me feel old (I’m almost 60) but he did. I wasn’t trying to make him feel callow, just telling a story. Anyway, I gotta get my head wrapped around aggressive go-getters with something to prove. I just want to stay out of his way and do my thing. Why do men have to make every goddamn thing a competition? I still love computers after spending all these years with them. I enjoy technology and the last thing I want to do is compete with someone younger than my children over who can write the best powershell script or configure a Cisco switch in the least amount of time. I’d rather talk about how much I enjoy using Obsidian or how insanely long my MacBook battery lasts. Something fun. Don’t suck the joy out anyone’s work life, y’all. Just don’t do it.
Just read where Tiago Forte, the Second Brain Guy, rejected #Obsidian, Tana and Mem in favor of sticking with Evernote. I don’t think he’s much of a techie in real life and the learning curve intimidated him.
Happy Birthday 🎂 to my Gmail account. As of today, I’ve had the same email address for 19 years.
Obsidian Great but Not Perfect- Complementary Software for PKM #Obsidian
Obsidian: Awesome, Yet Imperfect
I’m a big fan of Obsidian for note-taking. It’s built around plain text, the ultimate in portability. Still, even the best tools have their limits. Obsidian’s features can sometimes differ across platforms – you’ll find certain limitations on mobile that you won’t face on desktop, and vice versa. Thankfully, there are other great apps out there to complement Obsidian and boost its power.
Enhancing Your Desktop Experience
Last week I tackled a major metadata cleanup project in my quote collection. I use a “topics” property similar to tags, and let’s just say it needed some love. My collection has a mix of sources, and the topics were inconsistent – no capitalization rules, long strings without separation, you name it. Desktop text editors to the rescue! I used Notepad++ (PC) and BBedit (Mac) for multi-file search and replace. They’re both fast, handle case-matching, and the basic features are free.
Backup paranoia? Me too! On top of Obsidian’s built-in versioning (a must-have), I backup the whole vault to my Mac’s Time Machine, keep a versioned copy on GitHub using the Obsidian Git plugin, and sync a local copy to both my PC and Mac with automatic Google Drive uploads. For local sync, I rely on Sync Folders Pro (Mac) for its nightly auto-sync, plus Free File Sync (Mac/PC) for occasional manual backups.
More information on automating Obsidian backups
Speaking of organization, I’ve dabbled with EagleFiler and Devonthink on my Mac. These knowledge management apps index my Obsidian vault alongside years of Gmail, Facebook, Evernote, tons of PDFs… you get the idea. They keep my main vault lean while giving me powerful search across all my data.
Obsidian Power-Ups for Mobile
Obsidian’s mobile app has one major weakness: slow load times. While the developers are working on it, immediate data entry just isn’t its strength yet. Upgraded phone or not, I still experience lag. My workaround is the brilliant iOS app Drafts. It’s a lightning-fast text capture tool, has great Markdown support, and with a tap you can send everything to Obsidian (even from desktop!).
Other amazing text editors pair perfectly with Obsidian. iA Writer is a minimalist’s dream. It strips away distractions for pure writing focus, especially when it comes to Markdown. You can work directly on your vault without even opening the Obsidian app. 1Writer is another fantastic, more budget-friendly option that handles plain text and Markdown beautifully.
Let me know what you think!
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Looking for tips and advice. I just installed #Devonthink and imported my Raindrop.io bookmarks and my #Obsidian vault. What’s next? What’s the best way to get the most use out it? What all can it do for me? Does it work well with PDFs? Is importing Gmail a possibility? Total newb on this one. #PKM
Gotta give good ol' #BBedit a shout out tonight for doing multiple search and replace operations across hundreds of markdown files in my #Obsidian vault. It was fast and flawless and something the native app can’t do alone. If you’re riding the plain text wave, you need a copy or Notepad++ for PCs.
Installed Reor today, an easy to add front-end for a local LLM running on my Macbook. Reor uses my #Obsidian vault as a knowledge base and all queries are processed on my computer. It writes notes in MD right back into my vault and can even choose where to file them - been wanting to try this.
I’m not saying my #Obsidian daily note template looks as tricked out as my 2004 My Space page, but Weird Al thinks it does.
What's In My #Obsidian Vault - Info on Plugins, Workflows, Tags and Philosophies on #PKM
A curious Redditor asked me to explain my vault structure to him and I obliged, such is the nature of most people in the Obsidian community. There’s info on plugins I use for certain workflows and links to a couple of tutorials I’ve written on how some elements are structured and used. I put enough effort into it that I thought I’d let it serve a double purpose as blog entry and here we are. Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments. Contact info is in links at the bottom of the post.
Obsidian Tip of the Day: Three Templater Snippets for All Your Note Templates in #Obsidian
If you use the Templater community plugin (and you really should) you have three snippets available to you which provide a real asset in creating metadata in your note templates. These dynamic entries allow you to automatically add the creation date, modification date and note name to your new notes. Never again will you have to bear the indignity of a note that decides to call itself Untitled. To add these to your templates, edit them with source mode turned on instead of live preview which is the Obsidian default.
Note Name
This snippet gives you a pop-up when you first create your notes asking you to name it then. You type the name into the resulting dialog box and that’s that taken care of. (Note: This snippet goes at the very top of your note at Line 1. It creates the three tick marks that are the beginning of the code block for your properties.)
<%*
let title = tp.file.title
if (title.startsWith("Untitled")) {
title = await tp.system.prompt("Title");
await tp.file.rename(title);
}
tR += "---"
%>
Creation Date
This snippet will provide you with the creation date of your new note instead of the creation date of the template itself which is sometimes a problem when using dates in templates. If you use a different date format, replace the format here within the quotation marks.
<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Modification Date
This snippet will provide you with a properties field that will update itself whenever you edit a note. As above, if you use a different date format, replace the format here within the quotation marks.
<% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
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I posted a shortcut on Routine Hub for capturing entire web pages in #Obsidian, including image links and a link back to the source article. You can create a new note or append to an existing one. Routine Hub | Download Web Pages to Obsidian
Worked with Google Gemini today on a python script for an hour that never worked. Meanwhile an anonymous human being on the #Obsidian forum solved my problem with a five-line dataview query.
Automating Your #Obsidian Backup, Let Me Save You Some Hassle
The current sale underway at Bundlehunt offers over 40 Mac apps for under $5.00 apiece. There are some definite bargains but two I want to point out are Alarm Clock Pro and Lingon X. Both of these utilities offer a feature that comes in handy when setting up an automated backup solution for Obsidian. They can both launch applications according to a set schedule. If you are a Keyboard Maestro user, that can do it too, with the added benefit of also being able to close applications for you.
Sync Folders Pro
Keyboard Maestro launches an $8.99 app I got from from the Mac App Store to run an automated backup of my Obsidian vault every morning at 2:00AM. Sync Folders Pro It perfroms a one-way sync to a folder on my Google Drive, which in turn backs up the files to the cloud, giving me an offsite back up in case of theft or natural disaster. I’m planning to start using Dropbox instead of Google Drive because it offers file versioning. If you are a PC user, you can get Free File Sync which doesn’t offer a scheduler but is easy to set up and you just have to remember to run it manually on a regular schedule.
Obsidian Git
I also use the Obsidian Git community plugin. If you are a Mac user, save your self some hassle and install Git and Git Credential Manager via the terminal and Homebrew before setting up your backup. Failing to do so may result in annoying permissions errors when attempting to back up.
Install homebrew if you don’t already have it and then run the following command from terminal:
$ brew install git
To install Credential Manager use:
>```
brew install --cask git-credential-manager
Then use Github Desktop for Mac to create a private Git repository based on your Obsidian vault. You’ll need a free Git account to do this. Once you’ve got your repository set up and your initial upload done,install the plugin and you’ll have an automated real time back up of your files - with versioning. Danny Hatcher has a video to help you understand the procedure.
Time Machine
Of course, it’s a best practice to back uo your entire Mac regularly. Thankfully the bulit-in Mac backup utility, Time Machine makes it as easy as plugging in an external hard drive. I use a Sandisk 1TB portable SSD to back up my Macbook every night. See this Apple document for detailed instructions on Time Machine.
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What I Found on the Web This Week
This week’s bookmark collection includes a magnificent time suck at the Internet Archive, thanks to Jarrod Blundy from HeyDingus.net.. Also included are the YouTube channel of the week, the blog of the week as well as a helpful tool for skirting paywalls, a great article on the Fediverse, new AI tools and more.
Internet Artifacts
Summary: It’s an online museum with exhibits. Want to see the first SPAM email ever sent? It’s here. Want to see a diagram of the Internet when it was only 111 computers big? It’s here too. This site is extremely well done and prepared to cost you some curious time if you get sucked into it.
Hugging Face Assistants- Open AI offers custom GPTs to it’s $20 a month customers, but Hugging Face does the same for free. You can choose from a variety of fine-tunes helpers to accomplish anything from web design to cooking.
Archive.is
Summary: Archive.is is the ultimate tool for viewing paywalled material. I don’t even try to open Medium links anymore without pasting them into Archive.is. If you want to read something from the New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal, chances are you can find it already archived here. There’s even a browser extension to make it easier for you. You’ll thank me later for this one.
cyclelou/Amerpie: Downloadable Markdown files for Obsidian (github.com) - This is my personal quotes collection, broken down in separate markdown files suitable for importing into Obsidian
The fediverse, explained
Summary: The always excellent Davis Pierce interviews himself about our corner of the web. “The buzziest new thing in social networking is a big deal. It’s also very confusing. And it’s not actually new. Let’s talk about it.”
Marco Serafini - YouTube
Summary: Marco is this charming Italian guy who makes videos about Obsidian, note taking and PKM in general. I learned how to use some use plugins from his concise explanations of them.
Tracy Durnell
Summary - Tracy is a blogger and consultant in Seattle who does a great job on her personal blog. She wrote a series of posts on blogging around the first of the year I found personally very helpful:
What little extras do you #Obsidian people add to your daily note? I have Templater snippets for a daily quote and to link to yesterday and tomorrow’s notes. I also have a dataview snippet for all the notes created that day and finally a plugin for Things 3 which lists all my completed tasks.
I live the cross-platform life, Windows by day. #MacOS at night. I need clipboard syncing with iOS on both. There are many Mac choices. I use PastePal. On the PC side, I use Clipboard Fusion and it just got its first update in five years! I hate it when much loved apps die on the vine.
If you’re looking for a way to save web pages to #Obsidian on mobile, check out this shortcut to save markdown to #Drafts routinehub.co/shortcut/…
I’ve been collecting quotes for years. Getting into #Obsidian has given me a new way to catalog them. Anyone out there want to trade ZIP files full of Markdown formatted quotes suitable for importing into an Obsidian vault?
Three Plugins to Simplify Your Metadata Management in Obsidian
Introduction
In the world of markdown note-taking, maintaining tidy metadata in Obsidian is crucial for advanced functionality. Whether you rely on the Dataview plugin or embedded queries, properties play a vital role. Beyond functionality, having easy access to note information like creation dates and source URLs enhances your note-taking experience. Luckily, there are three powerful plugins that can streamline your metadata management in Obsidian: Linter, Metadata Menu and Multi Properties.
Linter Plugin—Streamline Your Defaults
Among the trio, Linter stands out as the most robust plugin. With enough customization, it can accomplish what the other two plugins offer. However, I prefer using Linter for general defaults while using the other plugins for specific cases. Linter excels at applying a default set of properties to all your notes, and I use the following essential properties:
>```
title:
url:
tags:
creation date:
modification date:
```
Furthermore, Linter offers the flexibility of adding additional properties, which it conveniently lists in alphabetical order. You can also choose the date format, with the recommended format being YYYY-MM-DD. Another impressive feature of Linter is its ability to move tags from the note body to the metadata section. Additionally, if you have older notes without properties, Linter excels in formatting existing YAML headers according to the new standards.
Metadata Menu—Customize Note Properties
For applying a specific set of properties to select notes, Metadata Menu is an excellent choice. Whether you want to group notes within a folder or classify them by a common tag, this plugin offers remarkable flexibility. While the Templater plugin can achieve similar functionality, Metadata Menu eliminates the need to learn special syntax. It’s worth noting that Templater can be less reliable on Mac systems. To learn more about how to leverage Metadata Menu effectively, check out Marco Serafini’s YouTube video.
Multi Properties—Quick and Easy
If you need a quick and effortless method to add properties on the go, the Multi Properties plugin is your go-to solution. Simply select a group of notes, right-click, and Multi Properties allows you to apply as many properties as desired. This feature allows you to assign specific tags or add property fields for note-specific data that you plan to fill in later.
Conclusion
By leveraging these three powerful plugins, you can automate a significant portion of your metadata management in Obsidian. This foundation will not only make your note-taking more effective, it will also allow you to harness Dataview and inline queries to amp up the effectiveness of your PKM system.
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OMG - my Open.AI account finally refunded, meaning I spent $5 since November 29 - with almost daily use of some sort.
