Writing
A Free Tool That Lets You Follow Any RSS Feed via The Fediverse - Birb via RSS Parrot. Do you have any favorite bloggers who just aren’t interested in social media? I do, and I use this tool to follow them on Mastodon. I’m always too far behind on my RSS reader, but I can keep up with toots.
IndyWeb Carnival - Tools, How #Obsidian Cured My Depression, Saved my Job and Gave Me Purpose
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.
I made folks laugh yesterday when I commented that I’m an almost 60-year-old man with grandchildren who now can’t cuss on my blog anymore because my mother found it and reads it every day. I thought I might explain the reasons why - When You Cuss in Front of Your Mama, You Can’t Take it back
The New York Times Style Magazine assembled a group of editors to determine which 25 photos from 1955 until today are the defining images of the modern age. Some are of news events, and you’ve surely seen them. Other images in the collection were new to me, but still very powerful.
Straight Old White Guy’s Guide to Talking About Race, Abortion, Feminism and LGBT issues - Straight Old White Guys (SOWG) need to be quiet, listen and learn, not pontificate on how great they are because they stopped being backwards.
I Have Some Strong Opinions on Privacy Freak Outs Yes, your privacy is under assault, but unless you are willing to take certain uncomfortable steps, quit making everyone miserable with performative hysterics.
The 23 Best Time Travel Novels - a collection dating from the 1950’s through today. Despite paradoxes, time travel is a fascinating concept and makes a great read.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging {micro maique}, the wonderful photo blog of Maique, resident visual artist, role model and superstar of Micro.blog, Scribbles, Flickr and Instagram. I linked to some cool outdoor photos entitled, The River.
For the 26th week in a row I’ve updated my /now page with a new to me blog discovery feed, four TV shows, the 16th blog posts I wrote, a new app to love and the links I added to my personal collection.
A good article by @jhpot@mastodon.social on the case for De-Googling and links to help you out. Lots of resources
A web site for baby bloggers or even experienced ones needing some fresh ideas, 32-Bit Cafe has plenty to explore. It has guides and tutorials, page ideas, website topics, art and graphic design, technical info and a massive resource list.
Every once in a while, I just have to blog about the day that has been, with the good and the stuff that I wouldn’t describe that way. A Day in the Life. Today my boss acted like we were building an atomic bomb instead of the very low security environment in which we operate.
Today fo #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Molly White, one of the few “famous people” I follow on social media, mainly because she is smart, relatable and knows her stuff on things I’m curious about. This is a great piece on what can be done to improve OUR internet.
Cool Tools is a web site which recommends the best/cheapest tools available. Tools are defined broadly as anything that can be useful. This includes hand tools, machines, books, software, gadgets, websites, maps, and even ideas.
I had a lot of fun writing a lookback at my most memorable TV moments from 1969 through today. I linked to many old shows, news events and sports. Hopefully you can identify with some of it! Me and the Box
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Parker Molloy, a well know blogger who writes about communication in our hyperconnected world. Her recent piece on Snopes shows how they missed the ball when they declared Trump didn’t refer to Nazis as very fine people.
Hitler Was Incompetent and Lazy and His Government Was an Absolute Clown Show - Lot’s of similarities to his orangeness and company, like it or not. It’s a valid comparison.
What do we look for in the people we meet online? - I’ve got to say that the people I meet online are a varied group, a lot more so than the folks around me IRL. It’s one of the things that makes blogging, social media and the IndyWeb ethos so attractive.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Manuel Moreale, famous in the IndyWeb community (and deservedly so) for his People and Blogs newsletter. Manuel is another blogger I choose to support each month for all he does to lift up others. His post is on how we communicate online.
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
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 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
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.