Amerpie by Lou Plummer Profile Photo

Amerpie by Lou Plummer

Working in educational IT since the 90s. Dedicated Mac user trapped in a PC world. Obsidian fanboy. Blogger. Friendly 😊
Obsidian Posts | AppAddict | Living Out Loud | /Now Page | Find Me

Writing

    ∞

    I put my thinking cap on this afternoon and came up with 50 Ideas for Blog Posts. Hopefully, some of y’all will get some use from them.

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    How to Create Maps of Content (MOC) in #Obsidian

    A purple rock holding down a map

    Maps of Content, or MOCs in Obsidian lingo are just notes that built around a collection of links to other notes with some sort of commonality. You can make them manually be just creating links by hand when you want to add a note to a collection. You can also create them automatically using a few plugins.

    Folder Based

    If you keep your notes in folders, you can use two plugins, Folder Note and Waypoint to create a MOC of all the notes in that folder and its subfolders.

    1. Just download and turn on both plugins
    2. Create a note within the folder with the exact name of the folder
    3. Add the following text to the that note %%Waypoint%%
    4. For any subfolders, add a note within the subfolder with the same name as the subfolder.
    5. Add the following text to that note %%Landmark%%

    This will create real markdown links to the notes in the main and subfolders. Unlike MOCs generated with DataView, You can print and copy the text from Waypoint notes into other applications.

    Because folders are binary, a file is either in a folder or it is not. If you want to add a note to a Waypoint based MOC, nothing is stopping you from manually creating the note. You can even combine a Waypoint note with the second type of note, the DataView MOC.

    Tag Based

    If you note organizational structure is tag based, you can create MOCs based on a simple DataView query. First, install and enable Dataview. It doesn’t matter where in your vault that you place Dataview based MOCs. I have a folder call zz-Meta where all mine live. Use the following query to create a MOC based on a tag:

    
LIST

FROM #tag_name

SORT file.ctime DESC

    Of course, nothing prevents you from manually adding notes to this MOC either.

    More Obsidian Info

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    IndyWeb Carnival - Tools, How #Obsidian Cured My Depression, Saved my Job and Gave Me Purpose

    A smiling older man holding a large purple rock

    I often make the comment on Reddit or Mastodon that Obsidian, a cross platform note taking application, is my favorite piece of software since Netscape Navigator 2, the browser that practically everyone used when we transitioned from AOL and CompuServe to the real Internet back in the 90s. Back then we discovered new and interesting web pages daily. The Internet was full of hastily constructed and esoteric material, and it all seemed so magical. For our whole lives we’d had to wait until 10 past the hour for the radio to give us a weather forecast and now we could use this marvelous piece of software to go to weather.com whenever we were curious. It was revolutionary and amazing, and it took a while to get used to.

    Eventually we did get used to it, along with all of the other marvels over the past nearly 30 years. I find myself quite jaded sometimes. The computer I carry in my pocket can do almost anything and I’m still referring to it as a phone, the same name i used for the hard-wired wall mounted rotary dialed device at my grandmother’s house. I no longer marvel at being able to do my Christmas shopping from my couch or following a baseball game pitch by pitch, knowing the speed of every thrown ball and the batting average of every hitter right up to that at bat.

    I experienced an Internet revival late last year. After an aborted attempt to retire early, I’d lost interest in keeping up with technology. I quit following the news, stopped downloading software and spent hours scrolling trash subreddits like “Am I the Asshole”. Out of desperation, I went back to work to have something to do. Even though I went back into the IT field, I was still ambivalent. Instead of being on a Mac like I was used to, I was assigned a slow old Dell full of Microsoft software. It did not spark joy. Then one day I picked up my old iPad and for some reason launched my RSS reader. Many of blog feeds were years old and dead but some were still active. I started reading them first from boredom and then with interest. People were talking about apps I’d never heard of. I cracked open my MacBook and started downloading updates for the OS and the hundreds of apps I’d collected over the years. It took a while.

    A British blogger, Robb Knight had created a page where people were listing their default apps in all kinds of categories. I wanted to get on the fun. I’d been working in the Apple/Mac/iOS space since the late 90s and except for the short break after retirement, I’d always been fascinated by software. In order to get added to Robb’s site, I had to start a blog. I signed up at Micro.blog, registered a domain and started writing. One app I saw mentioned over and over that I’d never used was Obsidian. It’s free to download and you can use it all you want without paying a dime unless you want to take advantage of their sync service, something I did a little later.

    I documented my learning process in Obsidian as it progressed. I’d download a plugin, watch a YouTube video, configure my setup, use it for a few days and then write a post for my blog. I’d cross post it on Reddit and use a hashtag on Mastodon. I went for months living and breathing Obsidian. I started doing all my writing in it. I pimped out the template for my daily note, incorporating more and more of my life into it. I integrated key email messages via IFTTT, Dropbox and Hazel. I synced my bookmarks from Raindrop.io. I started using Omnivore as my read it later service simply because it automatically imports into Obsidian. I started my first GitHub repository to share 500 Markdown notes containing my quotes collection. I managed to get Obsidian to do every single thing I’d once used Evernote for.

    Because of Obsidian I’ve been able to learn blogging in the 21st century. I have four different blogs on three different platforms. I’ve got good notes and records and tens of thousands of words of web posts in my vault. Although I still write about the app once or twice a week, I’ve moved on to writing reviews of other software and even into non-technical writing. It’s amazing that something as simple as a plain text editor at its core has been at the center of my tech and real-life revival. It is so powerful and so extensible that it almost defies belief. The community around the app is generally helpful, supportive curious and open. I’ve even interacted with the CEO of the company on social media.

    So, to the folks in whatever Bat Cave Obsidian is developed in, thank you for making such a wonderful tool. I owe you one.

    ∞

    Another 10 Random #Obsidian Tips

    This is the third in a series of things I figured out on my own in Obsidian, but that I wish I’d seen elsewhere to save me some time!

    10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips

    10 More Random #Obsidian Tips

    1. Quick Access to Frequently Used Notes

    Although a plugin exists to let you add notes to your ribbon bar, you can set up your own quick access panel in the left sidebar of adding the bookmarks module. As a bonus, you can use an alias name for notes and drag them around to reorder them.

    2. Create Buttons for Frequently Used Commands

    The Obsidian Commander plugin interface

    The Commander plugin lets you create buttons in your ribbon bar for your most frequently used menu commands. I use it for Linter, Shortcut Launcher, Attachment Management and RSS Copyist.

    3. Update Your Plugins Wisely

    The Plugins Update Tracker notifies you when there are updates to your plugins. It creates a page with all of the release notes. You can set a delay of X days before you are notified if you prefer to wait awhile to make sure there are no bugs in the new releases. You can choose to be notified of beta versions if you want. You can update your plugins right from the Tracker’s interface without opening Obsidian’s prefs.

    4. Create a Homepage with Search, Recent Notes and Bookmarks

    The Beautitab plugin lets you choose an image for the background, displays a clock, a quote, links to recently opened notes, links to recently bookmarked notes and your choice of a search interface (native or Omnisearch). You can turn off any element you don’t want to use.

    5. Manually Order Notes

    The Obsidian File Explorer++ Plugin

    File Explorer++ lets you hide and pin files and folders. You can utilize custom wildcard or regex filters based on file/folder names, paths, and tags. Additionally, a simple click in the file menu lets you hide or pin specific files or folders.

    6. Speed Up Obsidian on an Older Phone

    I contacted Obsidian support when I was having issues withslow updates on my iPhone 11. To get better performance they suggested turning off backlinks and graph view on mobile and to not enable Dataview and Metabind. (Note: you have to have Obsidian sync to do this)

    7. Automatically Sync a Copy of Your Vault Daily

    For Mac Users - SyncFoldersPro lets you schedule folder sync operations. I run one daily to sync my Obsidian vault to Google Drive. As a bonus, it saves copies of moved, deleted and renamed files in a separate folder, allowing you to pull old versions of notes if anything ever goes wonky. It’s saved my bacon more than once.

    8. Add a Creation Date and Modification Date to Every Note’s Properties

    The Linter plugin Has a setting to add a creation and modification date to every note which can prove very useful in building certain Dataview queries.

    9. Get Obsidian Sync

    Quit trying to jank together some alternative solution and spend the $4 a month on Obsidian sync. It allows you to selectively sync folders, eliminating the need for separate vaults, have custom preferences for your plugins on different devices, batch restore files and more. If you are a student, educator or non-profit employee, you get 40% off.

    10. Prevent Multiple Copies of the Same Note From Opening

    Mononote is a simple plugin that prevents this aggravating behavior. Instead of having multiple tabs with the same note open, it just refocuses the existing tab, saving you time and memory.

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    12 Helpful iOS and macOS Shortcuts for #Obsidian

    The icon for Apple’s Shortcuts app

    To avoid awkward copying and pasting and the sometimes long wait before Obsidian is ready to accept text on mobile, iOS and Mac shortcuts are available to create new notes or add content to existing ones. Actions for Obsidian, the collective name for two apps, one for iOS and the other for macOS allows you to automate certain actions in creating notes. It is required for some of these shortcuts to work.

    1. Add new location - when run from an iOS device prompts you for a file name and then adds both the physical address if available and the GPS coordinates from where you are when you create the note (Requires AFO) Download
    2. Create Markdown note - creates a text file with a .md extension in a folder you choose on your phone, presumably your default new file location Download
    3. Add Bullet to Daily Note - in iOS, adds a bulleted item to the end of your current daily note (Requires AFO) Download
    4. Save email as Obsidian task - in macOS, creates a task formatted bullet (with checkbox) at the end of your current daily note that is hyperlinked back to Mail.app Download
    5. Get Available Commands - Required by AFO to index commands used by other shortcuts Download
    6. Create Note - on iOS, creates a new blank note in user defined location ready for text entry. (Requires AFO) Download
    7. Quick Task Entry - Creates a task at a user defined placeholder in a daily note. Runs on iOS or macOS (Requires AFO) Download
    8. Sync Contacts with Notes - on a Mac, creates or syncs notes associated with a folder of in the Contacts app with Obsidian. Syns email and phone number only. (Requires AFO) Download
    9. Capture Web to Obsidian - on iOS, shares the content of a web page from any iOS browser to Obsidian in Markdown format with links and images Download
    10. Obsidian Web Clipper - iOS shortcut to copy selected text from a Safari webpage and the link to the web page to a new note in a specified location in an Obsidian vault Download
    11. Add Weather to Daily Note Adds today’s weather at your current location at a user-defined placeholder in your daily note. Works on iOS and macOS. Requires AFO Download
    12. Add Calendar Events to Daily Note - Adds up to 20 calendar events for the current date from your calendars at a user-defined placeholder in your daily note . Works on iOS and macOS. Requires AFO Download
    ∞

    The Case for Using #Obsidian Sync

    Basic vault configuration in Obsidian

    When i used iCloud to sync Obsidian, I saved a whopping $4 a month and got next to no granular control over the process. As an Obsidian sync subscriber, not only am I contributing to a company I value, I also get to control all kinds of things I couldn’t do before. Restoring deleted files either singularly or in bulk is supported. I also get tech support for syncing issues.

    Selective Sync

    Selective Sync in Obsidian

    I don’t want to sync a number of larger folders on my phone to help Obsidian load faster, so I can exclude those from search. I don’t need my receipt collection or software serial numbers or receipts on my mobile device and now I don’t have to worry about it. This solves the problem many people have about how many vaults to have. If you don’t want your personal notes on your work computer, it’s very easy to exclude them from syncing without having to create a separate vault.

    Choose to sync:

    • Folders
    • Images
    • Audio
    • Video
    • PDFs
    • All other file types

    I don’t have much audio and video in my vault, but what i do have, I elect not to sync on mobile for speed reasons.

    Vault Configuration Sync

    Vault Configuration Synci in Obsidiain

    If I find that I’ve made some untraceable changes to my settings, I can take advantage of automatic backup of my settings file to restore them to a known good state.

    Sync items:

    • Main settings
    • Appearance Settings
    • Themes and CSS
    • Hotkeys
    • Active core plugins
    • Active community plugins
    • Installed community plugins

    I elect to sync my settings, hotkeys, appearance and theme between devices, but I can toggle each one of these if I choose.

    I can turn plugins on and off depending on what computer I’m using. For example, I just want my home computer to do a GitHub backup, so I turn off that plugin off on my work machine.

    The plugins sync allows you to have separate settings for core and community plugins on each device. I use two Macs, one PC, an iPhone and an iPad with the same vault with no issue.

    77 Types of Notes to Keep in #Obsidian | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)

    15 Example #Obsidian Vaults from Around the Internet | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)

    10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)

    10 More Random #Obsidian Tips | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)

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    10 Useful #Obsidian Plugins That Won't Affect Your Plain Text Data

    A hammer making impact.

    One understandable reason some people are hesitant to use community plugins is the fear that the plain text data they’ve worked hard to create will be altered, negatively affecting the portability of their notes, one of Obsidian’s most attractive features. That’s a wise attitude to take for plugins that affect data, but what about plugins that just make Obsidian easier to use? What’s the reason for not trying those? These 10 plugins don’t leave any code fragments in your notes. They just make Obsidian better.

    1. Commander

    Commander lets you add and remove commands from the Obsidian interface. I use it to create ribbon bar buttons for shortcuts that add content to my daily note and to run the Linter plugin on demand. Commander can also edit commands, hide commands and for sync customers, choose what devices commands appear on.

    2. Editing Toolbar

    Even for seasoned Markdown writers, having access to an editing toolbar can come in handy for doing things like indenting or unindenting text. It also has very handy undo/redo buttons, superscript and subscript buttons and convenient color pickers for text and highlights. Inserting code blocks or inline code is also a breeze.

    3. File Explorer++

    One of the most frequently asked questions on Reddit is how to manually order folders and files. This simple plugin lets you both pin and hide folders and files with a click in the file menu.

    4. Mononote

    Another simple but useful plugin is Mononote, by the same developer who created the super useful Actions for Obsidian, Mac and iOS shortcuts enhancer. Mononote does one thing, it keeps you from having multiple copies of the same note open at once. If you ever looked at your tab bar and seen multiple copies of your daily note staring at you, install this plugin to prevent that from ever happening again.

    5. Note Refactor

    Note Refactor helps you split and extract content from your current notes. If you’ve clipped a long web article and you want to break it down into smaller more easily digestible atomic notes, Note Refactor is the tool you want. You can preselect the location where you want your notes to go and even chose a naming convention for them.

    6. Plugin Update Tracker

    I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I run between 50-60 plugins in my vault at any one time. Plugin Update Tracker lets me know at a glance if I have any updates and to what plugins. It will let me read the release notes and even wait a specified number days before notifying me when updates become available so that the early adopters can get the kinks worked out. If there are plugins you wish to ignore updates from, you can do that too.

    7. Read It Later

    ReadItLater collects information from your clipboard and creates notes based on the type of content you have saved there. Videos from YouTube, Billibilli, TikTok and Vimeo will be displayed in an inline iFrame based on the clipboard URL. Mastodon toots and URLs will be imported as complete notes generated from nothing more than a URL on your clipboard. It’s one of the easiest ways to get web content in your blog. For plain text, the entire clipboard will be used to create a new note.

    8. Recent Files

    This plugin displays a list of most recently opened files in the sidebar. Optionally include paths of files which should be excluded from the list. That’s it. but it’s something I use every single day.

    9. Tag Folder

    I use Tag Folder primarily to do one thing, show me which notes I have forgotten to tag. It will, of course show your tags as folders and even let you create time-based virtual tags for one hour, six hours, 3 days, 7 days and older than 7 days. You can configure ignored tags and folders if you want to.

    10. Tag Wrangler

    I use this plugin to keep my tags clean. It makes it easy to correct typos (mis-spellings) and capitalization errors.

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    My #Obsidian Wish List

    a hand holding a pen writing a wish list

    As an enthusiastic Obsidian user, I’m happy with the way it works and grateful to the developers for the hard work they have put into the app. I offer the following wish list in good faith and not as a bitch fest or criticism. Some of my wishes may have security complications of which I am not aware and others may be in the works. Some of these are partially achievable with plugins, I am aware but my desire is for more robust native functionality.

    1. A way to send HTML emails to Obsidian

    I have a way of sending text emails to Obsidian by forwarding them to Dropbox via IFTTT and then having the Mac utility change them to .md files and move them into my vault, but i would love to be able to figure out a way to het HTML emails into Obsidian with the formatting intact.

    2. Notifications when files become orphaned

    There are plugins that promise to clean orphaned files, but I’d like a way to be notified as it happens so I can fix the issue that caused them to be orphaned or manually delete them on the spot

    3. Print as RTF

    I don’t print often, but having to export as PDF in order to preserve formatting is too many steps for my liking. I want to be able to have a print function that renders the note as a rich text file and prints it.

    4. Dataview queries that render when pasted (like Waypoint does)

    When you copy a Dataview query in a note, the system copies the underlying code, not the results of the query. You can’t paste the results. The Waypoint plugin is different. The links it generates can be copied and elsewhere. I’d like to see that extended.

    5. Native PDF searching

    The Text Extractor plugin allows you to search PDFs, but it creates a bunch of extraneous files in your .Obsidian folder. If there is a way around that, I’d sure like to see it implemented. I do not keep any complicated PDFs in my vault because of the search limitation, something i was able to do in Evernote without a problem.

    6. Collaboration in the form of shared folders

    I’d like an easy way to share data on a per-folder basis with another Obsidian user. There are some hacky ways to do sharing but I want it without the hacking, so I could share something with my mom if I wanted to.

    7. iOS/Mac share sheet integration (out)

    There are a lot of ways to get data into Obsidian via other apps, shortcuts and plugins, but not so many ways to share data out without resorting to copy and pasting or PDFs. Plenty of other apps have sharing, why not Obsidian?

    8. Built-in search and replace across notes

    You can use a pluginor third party text editors like BBEdit or Notepad++ to do global search and replace and it should not be difficult to add a feature like that to a text based program like Obsidian.

    9. Background syncing on mobile (in the way that email fetches in the background)

    Plenty of mobile apps can check for updates in the background, from Instagram to email. Why can’t Obsidian check for updates in the background for people who pay for sync so that we don’t have such an interminable wait when we launch the mobile app?

    10. Integration with IFTTT

    As a long time IFTTT user, I seeall the integrations that other notes apps like Evernoteand Notion have and wonder why we can’t have the same thing in Obsidian. It would drastically improve automation and data collection in so many areas.

    More Obsidian Articles

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    My 10 Favorite Things About #Obsidian

    The Obsidian logo and Sharpen Your Thinking

    1. The Fiddling

    A pox on people who complain that it’s too tempting to fiddle with your Obsidian setup and therefore their ability to make more widgets for the man is negatively impacted. I love Obsidian because I can never stop optimizing it. If I wanted something that was set it and forget it, I’d used TextEdit and miss out on so much joy.

    2. The Plugins

    I do not understand the weirdos who take perverse pride in ignoring the 1600+ ways to make Obsidian better. OK, I do get it if you don’t want to affect the plain text functionality of your notes, but refusing to use plugins that do nothing but extend Obsidian’s functionality is just masochism. I love the obscure ones the best

    3. The Daily Note

    My Daily Note gives me a comprehensive record of a snapshot in time, complete with weather, appointments, a running narrative, a gratitude list, tasks completed and more. It’s fun to complie each day and it provides a great reference for what’s been going on in my life.

    4. Writing in Markdown

    I do almost all of my writing in Obsidian. All of my blog posts start there. Although I have the editing toolbar installed, I rarely need it any more as Markdown is pretty easy to learn and use. I love the added functionality that plugins like Paste URL Into Selection add to the writing experience.

    5. Obsidian Sync

    I use Obsidian on two Macs, a PC, an iPhone and an iPad. Using Obsidian sync allows me to have customized plugins on every instance, to omit unneeded folders on mobile, to support Obsidian development by being a paying customer. Since I have a .edu email address, I get a 40% discount.

    6. Interoperability

    I love how the plain text/Markdown features in Obsidian along with it’s local file storage allow me to leverage other apps in my portfolio to extend the functionality of Obsidian. Whether it’s using Drafts or Bebop for quick capture, or doing a search and replace across my entire vault with BBEdit, there are a big selection of companion apps to make Obsidian more powerful.

    7. It’s Better than Evernote

    I was an Evernote user from 2009-2023 and loved the automations it offered natively and via IFTTT. I’ve figured out how to send emails to my vault, and import my Raindrio.io bookmarks and every other thing I used to do with Evernote, plus I get all the other Obsidian deliciousness.

    8. Tags, Folders and Bookmarks

    I started my vault with imports from Evernote and all of my tags carried over. Since then I’ve maintained the tagging habit and it provides a lot of usefulness when combined with Dataview. I also use folders for organization and bookmarks for work in progress notes.

    9. The Obsidian Community

    Whether it’s Reddit, Discord, the official Obsidian forum or all the various YouTubers and bloggers, there are a ton of resources available to get new ideas and solve problems . I know of no other program with such a depth of material available.

    10. Backup Options

    I spend a lot of time working on my Obsidian notes and would be devastated to lose any data. That’s why I have a TimeMachine backup, a Google Drive backup, a GitHub backup, plus Obsidian sync. It’s all done with set it and forget it methods.

    ∞

    Don't Be Afraid to Use the Linter Plugin in #Obsidian

    Cotton bolls fresh from the field

    One of the most powerful and seemingly complicated plugins in the Obsidian directory is Linter. With nine different tabs in its settings panel, it intimidated me until I spent some time looking it over and testing it on a small folder of test notes. Just installing it will do nothing to your notes. All the features are set to run on command initially and you can leave them that way perpetually if you just want to apply Linter settings manually to one folder of notes at the time. Linter describes itself thus: Format and style your notes. Linter can be used to format YAML tags, aliases, arrays, and metadata; footnotes; headings; spacing; math blocks; regular Markdown contents like list, italics, and bold styles; and more with the use of custom rule options.

    To be clear, this is how you can select default file properties for all your notes or set custom file properties for notes one folder at the time. Using Linter will standardize the formatting of almost every element of your notes.

    If you have a lot of notes imported from different sources and especially if you have been using Obsidian since before the implementation of file properties, back when YAML front matter was created manually, you should be able to standardize the appearance and formatting of your vault. If you are a relatively new user, you can get a lot of benefit by setting some standards with Linter so that they apply to your notes going forward. I use the Commander Plugin to create a button in the Ribbon Bar to run Linter. I also created a keyboard shortcut to run Linter. The plugin creates an option in the right-click context menu to Lint a folder at the time.

    General Tab - This is where you tell Linter when to apply its settings. If you choose “Lint on save”, the plugin will only apply its settings when you manually press Ctrl+S. If you select “Lint on change, then the settings will apply as you edit notes”. This tab is also where you can set Linter to ignore folders so that settings never apply to them. I set my Templates and Attachment folders to be ignored.

    The YAML Tab - The settings I turn on are Add Blank Line After YAML, Dedupe YAML aliases, Dedupe, YAML tags, Dedupe YAML arrays. I set Linter to move all YAML tags to the front matter. In the sorting section, I turn on sorting for aliases, tags and arrays in ascending alphabetical order. In the YAML key sort section I turn on sorting and enable priority sorting for the following properties: title: author: url: tags: creation date: modification date: This will create those properties in every note I create in that exact order, with additional properties included beneath them in ascending alphabetical order.

    I turn on the automatic inclusion of creation date and modification date using the YYYY-MM-DD format. This is useful when building certain Dataview queries later.

    The only other setting I turn on in this tab is the YAML title which I set to match the file name.

    H1 Headings Tab - On this tab I turn on Capitalize Headings, Ignore Cased Words, and Remove Trailing Punctuation Headings

    Footnote Tab - I don’t make any changes here as I don’t use footnotes

    Content Tab - I turn on every setting on this tab for consistency’s sake except for default language for code settings since I don’t use code fences for anything other than markdown.

    Spacing Tab - On this tab I turn on Consecutive Blank Lines, Convert Tabs to Spaces, Empty Line Around Blockquotes, All Heading Blank Lines, Line Break at Document End, Paragraph Blank Lines, Remove Empty Lines Between List Markers, Remove Link Spacing, All the settings for trailing spaces

    Paste Tab - I turn on everything except Remove Leftover Footnotes

    Custom Tab - No changes

    Debug Tab - No changes

    The Linter user manual can be accessed here.

    This is a powerful tool. Before applying it to your entire vault, ensure you have a backup.

    ∞

    10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips

    1. Sort All Your Attachments in A Folder That Mirrors Your Vault

    With the Attachment Management community plugin, you can have all your attachments renamed to match the note they are attached to and arranged in a sub-folder that matches the folder arrangement of your vault.

    2. Add a Web Page to Your Vault on iOS

    This one is just an iOS shortcut [that works with any browser, not just Safar](RoutineHub • Clip Entire Web Pages to Obsidian in iOS 17). You’ll need Actions for Obsidian to make it work.

    This requires the Dataview community plugin

    > [!abstract]Today's New Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
> ```

    4. Have New Notes Give You a Popup To Name Them

    This requires the Templater community Plugin. This snippet gives you a pop-up when you first create your notes asking you to name it at that point. 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 += "---"
%>

    5. Automatically Download Images from Any Web Page You Import

    The default behavior is for the web pages you download to link the images the original source, but you can automate having them downloaded so the links don’t get broken. All you have to do to make this happen is install the community plugin Local Images Plus and change the setting to “Automatically Processing”

    6. Create a Map of Content Automatically for Any Folder or Subfolder That You Can Copy and Paste as Plain Text

    If you use Dataview to create MOCs, good luck exporting or copying them. You need two plugins for to make that happen Folder Note and Waypoint.

    A Waypoint Created MOC

    7. Use Cool Icons With All of Your Obsidian Folders

    If you’d like to visually enhance your folders like shown below, install the Iconize community plugin.

    Obsidian Folders with Icons

    8. Import Entire Articles from Omnivore, Not Just Highlights and Notes

    If you want to use the free red-it-later service to import the entire text of web pages instead of the default behavior which just brings in highlights and notes, you can tweak your article template like this.

    > # {{{title}}}
> #Omnivore
> 
> [Read on Omnivore]({{{omnivoreUrl}}})
> [Read Original]({{{originalUrl}}})
> 
> {{#note}}
> 
> {{{note}}}
> {{/note}}
> 
> {{{ content }}}

    9. Customize Your Sidebars

    In Obsidian, you can drag and drop elements like notes, links, or files to the sidebars to move or create new links. Simply drag the element you want to move and drop it onto the sidebar where you want it to be placed.

    The right sidebar of the Obsidian Window

    10. To Add a Geotag and Timestamp to a Note on iOS

    This one requires Drafts, which all Mac/iOS users should have any way. This action will append the info to your daily note but it is easy to edit to create a note instead of appending it.

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    This Week's Bookmarks- Learning guides, free transcription, A better Google, income info, YouTube transcripts, communication secrets, Apple's Top 100 albums

    Aretha Franklin in middle age, wearing a blue dress and singing

    The Curricula is a website to help you learn “anything” by generating a guide and resources. I’ve been curious about the history ot the mountain town of [Morganton, NC](the Curricula) and what I was given was a summarized learning path and links to books, articles, and videos for each area of the past: Native Americans, European colonization, Civil War and reconstruction, Industrialization and economic growth, Key figures in its history

    Check out notta.ai, which for heavy users is $8.25 per month and offers 1,800 minutes (30 hours) of transcription. Notta’s free plan provides 120 minutes, which should be sufficient for most people. I’ve also noticed that Notta is faster and just as accurate than other services.

    You may have noticed that recent changes in Google searches are making things hard and not easier to find. If that’s your experience, this is for you. How I Made Google’s “Web” View My Default Search (tedium.co)

    It’s interesting to see where our current family income places us in relation to the other people in our area, and even more interesting to see that played out at different spots nationwide. It makes a good case for people doing remote work..Upper, Middle, Lower Class in Charts: Percentages, Income by State (businessinsider.com)

    The future is here. You can read YouTube now. YouTube Transcript - read YouTube videos

    Why can some people effortlessly connect with anyone while others struggle to converse? Conversational skills can be learned, practiced, and mastered. The author sits down with Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of Supercommunicators.
    ​Watch / Listen Now

    While I disagree vehemently with the results, especially the top 10, everyone should take a look at Apple’s version of the Top 100 Albums of All Time just to see where their opinions falls alongside the so-called experts. For the record, Aretha > Beyonce, All Green > Frank Ocean and where are Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Clash?

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    Using Obsidian as a Life Record

    hands typing on a mac laptop keyboard

    Obsidian is powerful and extensible enough to fill many roles: academic notes, CRM, blogging center etc. One space it fills admirably is as a life record. Using a combination of native and community plugins, you can use Obsidian as a way to record every facet of your life that you want to preserve, from health metrics to media consumption.

    Your Daily Note

    The hub of a life record is usually the daily note. Using a template, you can record a variety of information. In my own setup, I record the following:

    • Wake time
    • Status (work, home, travel)
    • Daily weather
    • Appointments
    • Things I learned
    • A chronological record of the day
    • Gratitude list
    • Notes created that day
    • Notes modified that day
    • Tasks completed from my task manager (Things 3)

    Other metrics that are popular to record are body weight and exercise. The Obsidian Tracker Plugin is useful for generating charts and graphs for any metic you can capture numerically.

    My Daily Note in #Obsidian - Byte Sized Chunks for Customizing Every Element, Plugin Recommendations and Links

    Task Management with Things 3 and Obsidian

    Media Consumption

    Using RSS feeds from popular services like Goodreads (for books), Trakt (for movies and TV) and Last.fm (for music) you can automate recording your media consumption. Additionally you can gather information on video games, board games, and manga using the Media DB plugin.

    Automating Obsidian - Generate Notes About Your Media Consumption via RSS - Books, TV, Movies, Music

    Web Content

    If you are inclined to save content from the web, there are a variety of ways to import pages into your vault. Read-it0later services like Omnivore and Readwise have plugins that automate imports. If you want to import pages on a case by case basis, you can use the browser plugin Mark Download, or community plugins like Slurp, Read It Later or Extract URL Content. There is also a bookmarklet written by Obsidian CEO u/kepano to import web pages or excerpts. On IOS, a shortcut works the best.

    The Omnivore to Obsidian Connection Enhanced

    All the Ways to Get Web Content Into Obsidian

    MarkDownload - The Browser Extension that Works With Obsidian

    Email

    One of the things people miss when transitioning from Evernote to Obsidian is the custom email address used to send information straight to their notes. Obsidian doesn’t have that feature built in but there are still ways to achieve the end result. Readwise has a “mail to Readwise” feature that will in turn import into Obsidian. My personal choice is an IFTTT applet that creates text files in my Dropbox account that are then converted to markdown and imported into my vault by Hazel, a Mac file management app.

    How to Send an Email to Your Obsidian Vault

    Other Info

    I also keep notes on restaurants where I eat. My template has property fields for location, web site, type of cuisine and rating the body of the note has bullet points for each visit recording the day, who I was with and what I ordered.

    For places I visit, I use either the MapView plugin or a Drafts action that captures geolocation.

    I have a people template that records basic contact information (email, phone, address) and the body of the note is bullet points recording date and time of interactions with the person and details of the meeting/visit.

    My Dataview Use Cases in Obsidian


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    What's Your Browser Setup? Hundreds of Tabs? Multiple Windows? Something in Between?

    Two women shown from the back looking at a laptop opened to a web browser

    Recently, I posted on Mastodon, “I do not understand the 100+ tabs open at the time people. Not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t get it. Did you get attacked by a bookmarks.html file as a young child? Is yours the laptop with a petabyte of RAM? What gives?” Surprisingly, I got a lot of feedback from had been no more than a wisecrack. I’m interested in the way people do everything on their computers, from what apps they use, to, yes, how many tabs they work with. Please reach out and describe your browser setup if you’re up to it.

    At work, I normally have two or three windows open in Edge, my browser of choice (because it really doesn’t suck). At home, I only run two windows.

    Work Setup

    Edge has both profiles and workspaces. Profiles have separate settings, bookmarks and extensions. Workspaces have separate bookmarks bars and tabs. At work, I sign into a separate profile to access my university Microsoft 365 account. Group policies don’t allow the installation of any extensions, so it’s pretty bare bones. I normally have the following tabs open:

    • Company directory
    • Outlook email
    • Microsoft Admin Center (plus a tab each for Entra, Defender, Intune)
    • Asset management app
    • CBT Nuggets (for training)
    • Student Database
    • Six different Excel spreadsheets from Office 365 online

    Total work tabs = 15

    Personal Setup

    At work, I also run a window logged in to my personal profile with at least one of my personal workspaces. I do this to have access to extensions (like my password manager) and bookmarks. I have two personal workspaces: one for social media and blogging and another general workspace.

    My social and blogging workspace has tabs open for:

    Total social and blogging tags = 13

    My general browsing workspace has tabs for:

    • Gmail (personal email)
    • Yahoo mail (used only for newsletters)
    • Google Drive
    • Raindrop.io bookmarks
    • Gemini (google.com)
    • Reddit - Dive into anything
    • Plus whatever I happen to be interested in at any given moment, usually about a half-dozen tabs

    Total general browsing tabs = 12

    Total Tabs = 40

    Other Considerations

    I use the great Mac app, Velja, to let me pick what browser or app opens links. I have five browsers installed, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Orion and Arc. I prefer to open YouTube links in Freetube. And though I usually use the default web interface for Mastodon, I also use Ivory for its notification center actions. Inoreader is my RSS provider and I use an Edge PWA to access my feed.

    ∞

    The phones of normal people do not look like your phone and the needs of normal people do not match the wants of the content generation conglomerate. The masses aren’t outraged, and they really don’t want things to change. For WeblogPoMo2024

    ∞

    Today on AppAddict - MarsEdit which makes writing and publishing to Micro.blog and other platforms a breeze. Not a subscription, thankfully, and also available on Setapp. @danielpunkass

    ∞

    Did you ever get in trouble in school for reading? I did…frequently. I got negative comments on my report cards for “placing pleasure reading above everything else”. Thankfully, I matured and never lost a job because of an errant paperback. WeblogPoMo2024 My Life Reading

    ∞

    My WeblogPoMo2024 entry for today - On Writing - we all have a “why” to explain our need/desire/want to put ourselves out there for the Internet world to see. This is mine.

    ∞

    Task Management with Things 3 and #Obsidian

    Many people choose to do their task management in Obsidian exclusively using different plugins and workflows. The tasks plugin is #5 in downloads at 1.2 million. As much as I love and use Obsidian, I don’t consider it an everything program. Task management applications like Things 3 from Cultured Code are popular for a reason. Their superior design, shortcut integration and feature set are all ready as soon as you install the app with no fiddling involved.

    Things 3 offers projects, areas, repeating tasks, different start and due dates and imports from Apple shortcuts as well as Siri integration and a robust collection of shortcuts. There is a great Raycast extension for it too. There is an active community on Reddit.

    I use two plugins to integrate Things with Obsidian.

    Things 3 Today Sync

    A screenshot of a today checklist from Things as shown in Obsidian

    Things 3 Today Sync puts a copy of my today view (the tasks with a due date of today)
    in the right sidebar of the Obsidian interface. The tasks come in as hyperlinks, so that clicking on them will take me to the task in Things. Checking the checkbox beside the task closes it and removes it from the list. If I add a task in things on the fly, it also appears in Obsidian. It’s a Mac only plugin, so If you are on a PC, you won’t be able to use it even if you have Things installed on your phone or an a Mac somewhere else. It’s dead simple to set up, requiring no complex configuration. Just enable it after installation.

    Things 3 Logbook

    A screenshot of Things completed tasks as shown in Obsidian.

    Things Logbook will periodically sync your completed tasks with your daily note. You can assign a hotkey and sync on demand if you want to. One feature I really liked was the retroactive syncing. I have been using Things much longer than Obsidian and when I ran the sync for the for first time, it created daily notes stretching back years with my completed tasks which has really proved useful since I can now search of those items with Obsidian. Completed tasks show up in your daily note as hyperlinks and if you are on a Mac, they will open Things to your logbook. This plugin works on Windows machines so that if you check off completed tasks on your phone or on a Mac, they will appear in your daily note on Windows.

    Things Sync

    Things Sync is a third plugin for Things and Obsidian. I don’t use it because I’ve never found a way to fit it into my workflow, but it allows you to create tasks in Obsidian that get synced with Things.

    ∞

    This Weeks Bookmarks - Paleo is BS, Bye Harry Potter, Tech failures that didn't, Best books of the century, Travel destinations, Phones at protests, Clipboard managers

    A photo taken inside a cave with a man standing between the camera and the cave entrance

    Hahaha, all those gym bros have been eating an artificial man made caveman wannabe diet Stone Age Paleo diet was not rich in meat, scientists say | CNN

    How Daniel Radcliffe Outran Harry Potter - The Atlantic - Remember to use archive.io to read paywalled articles

    Remember all the people who though the iPhone was going to fail? These Tech Products Notoriously Got Wrecked by First Reviews (gizmodo.com)

    I’ve got a prize for the first person to finish the whole list. The Top Books to Read From 2000-2023 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    I love to dream of traveling almost as much as I love traveling. - The 24 Best Places to Go in 2024

    Practical advice for those going into the front lines of modern protests - How Do I Prepare My Phone for a Protest? (Updated 2024) – The Markup

    For Mac users, a long Reddit thread on what a clipboard manager is and all the many choices you can look at before choosing Raycast - Battle of the Clipboard Managers : r/macapps (reddit.com)

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