Links
I retired in 2020 and it was a huge mistake. I didn’t have a plan to make use of my time and consequently, tried to set a record for the most hours spent napping in a single calendar year. I took a low-key job in a field I enjoy to rescue myself from the torpor. It worked and I’m glad! The story.
Today on App Addict - Toy Viewer a fast, free and dependable replacement for Apple Preview when viewing graphics or making minor edits. See my review
Having lived my entire life in the South, I don’t know if pickled eggs are a Southern delicacy, or if they are enjoyed nationwide. (Please feel free to leave a comment enlightening me if you wish). A Recipe
I wrote a review of a 59-year old album because I’m a big old Bob Dylan Fan and maybe some of you have never given him a chance. Well, you ought to. The man is a genius and he’s important and he matters. Bringing It All Back Home
Have you heard about the uninvited AI bloatware that Logitech injected into their Logi Options mouse driver last week? It’s objectively terrible and a resource hog to boot. I suggest switching to BetterMouse, an $8 superior driver with advanced features. Here’s my review
This Weeks Bookmarks - Free fries, best condiments, web history, free advice, Google graveyard, Shakespeare's inventions, best national parks
Wendy’s giving away free French fries every Friday for rest of 2024 (usatoday.com)
57 Best Condiments in the World - TasteAtlas
The Analog Web - The History of the Web
The Technium: 101 Additional Pieces of Advice from the World’s Most Interesting Man (kk.org)
Google Graveyard - Killed by Google
21 Words Created by Shakespeare (And 4 That Weren’t)
Path Finder by Cocoatech has been around as long as Mac OS X. Its dual pane file navigation and depth of features make it a must-have tool in my app belt. It is available on Setapp or by subscription or one time purchase without upgrades.
Mac people - excluding Apple’s own apps, what software have you been using the longest? For me it’s going to be BBEdit (released in 92) and ToyViewer (released in 95), both of which I’ve used since the 90s. Honorable mention to Launchbar and PathFinder.
KeyClu is a free app for aspiring power users. Once installed and running, all you have to do is press the command key twice to bring up a cheat sheet with all the keyboard shortcuts for the app listed on the display.
Did you ever have a manic phase that let you just turn out good stuff for a prolonged period of time? It sucked when it ended, didn’t it? I had one of those phases about ten years ago and carried a camera all the way through it. A Once and Future Love
10 Lesser Known But Super Useful Obsidian Plugins
The most popular Obsidian community plugins, Excalidraw, Dataview and Advanced Tables have over a million downloads apiece. The Obsidian forums and Reddit are full of questions about the best ways to use them. There’s no doubting the power of these plugins and the value they add to Obsidian. But what about the lesser-known work of volunteer developers who make up the backbone of the devout Obsidian community? What about more niche cases and hidden gems? Let’s look at some of those. All of these have less than 50K downloads, some of them much lower than that.
1. Beautitab
Beautitab creates a custom new tab page in Obsidian with customizable elective elements for search (with native search or Omnisearch), time, greeting, recent files and bookmarks to keep often used notes readily available. You can include a daily quote and an ever changing and beautiful collection of photographs as a background.
2. Local Images Plus
Local Images Plus downloads the images in web pages you add to you vault so that if the page is taken down or the URL changes, you still have the images to illustrate your notes. It converts images to jpg from png and makes sure you don’t have duplicates by using the MD5 hashing algorithm. It will also remove orphaned images from your vault. You can even use this plugin to localize images from existing notes.
3. Auto Note Mover
Auto Note Mover allows you to set rules that automatically move notes to the folders of your choice based on tags. You can also set up rules to manually move notes based on tags or you can include a file property yo exclude a mote from being moved. If the destination folder does not exist or if there is already a note with the same name, you will receive a warning and the note will not be moved.
4. Callout Manager
Callout Manager is a plugin that makes creating a configuring callouts easy. With it you can browse a list of available callouts, change the color of callouts, create custom callouts. As a bonus, it works on mobile.
5. Extract URL Content
Extract URL content works when you select a URL in a document and execute a command from the command pallet to replace the selection with the markdown content. Additionally, if you use a file property of link:, followed by a URL, the markdown content will be created. Finally, if you have multiple links in a note, you can run a command to have notes created for each URL in a separate folder.
6. Automatic Table of Contents
Automatic Table of Contents is useful for long and detailed notes. It will create a table of contents for you at the top of a note based on the headers you have used. If you make changes to the note, the table of contents will automatically change to reflect your input.
7. Media DB
Media DB is useful if you use Obsidian to track content consumption. You can search a movie, television series, anime, game, music release or wiki article by its name across multiple APIs. You can make customized templates in each category and even convert existing notes into Media DB notes using the API.
8. Raindrop Highlights
Raindrop Highlights imports your collected bookmarks from the Raindrop.io service along with your highlights into your Obsidian vault. You can import them all or selectively choose the folders you want to bring in. You have the option of running a sync process manually or having it run automatically. If you have decent JS skills, you can even use Nunjucks to create a template for custom front matter and the importation of content with your bookmarks.
9. Attachment Management
The Attachment Management plugin is central to my workflow for the importation of web content. It centralizes the location on attachments in a single folder with subfolders matching the structure of my vault. It renames images to match the note names they are a part of. It works well with the Local Images Plus plugin. If you have folders where you don’t want the attachments moved or renamed, setting up exclusion rules is easy.
10. Waypoint
Waypoint is an Obsidian plugin that automatically generates tables of contents/MOCs within your folder notes. Once a waypoint is generated, it’ll automatically link to every note within the folder and its subfolders. The Waypoint plugin will detect when you create/rename/move/delete a note and automatically stay up-to-date.
Custom Shortcuts by Houdah Software is a free Mac application that allows you to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to any menu item in any application.
If they’re smart enough to fix a 46-year old computer from 15 billion miles away, everyone can STFU about the competence of government employees for a while. Voyager 1 Is Working Again
Doc Watson, the blind folk guitarist from the NC mountains been gone for 12 years now but before he passed away, I got to see him perform live. It was the musical experience of a lifetime. His music has had special meaning to me for decades. The Essential Doc Watson - a Review
Back in the days of the pre-OS X classic Mac OS, you could configure the Apple Menu to serve as an app launcher and conduit to the folder system. XMenu, a free utility from Devon Technologies offers the same functionality.
Adventures in Camera Land - The story of a recent weekend spent chasing good snaps, featuring the Easter Bunny, some Green Berets, hookah-smoking coeds, a Lebanese delegation and lots of unphotographed children.
Apparency by Mothers Ruin Software is an app that also serves as a plugin for the macOS QuickLook feature. After installing Apparency, you can select an app in the Finder, press the spacebar and get a variety of information in the resulting window.
In the pre-streaming days when my kids were young teenagers (circa the mid-90s) we could go rent movies on Friday nights and get an entire weekend’s worth of films for $5. It was glorious and makes for a fine memory. Remembering the 90s- the Video Store
If you use more than one browser or non-standard apps for things like YouTube, getting links to open in the app of your choice can be a pain. Using Opener by tijo inc., you can force links to open where you want them, not where your phone thinks they should open.
