10 More Random #Obsidian Tips
Last week I posted some of the things I learned to do in Obsidian through trial and error and it went over pretty good, so here are 10 more. I want to show folks not to be afraid of extensions. Many of them don’t alter your data in any way so you won’t get locked in by using them. They just perform actions that make Obsidian run in a more customized way for you.
1. Have Obsidian Open to the Same Page Every Time You Start the App
By default, Obsidian opens up to the state you left it in when you closed it. With the Homepage community plugin - you can use any note, canvas, or workspace as a homepage. Alternatively, choose a random note, or use your Daily or Periodic Notes. You can decide what happens to old tabs that were left open - keep them, replace the last note, or remove them all.
2. Assign a Basic Set of File Properties to Every Note You Create
You can do this using the Linter plugin. The setting is on the YAML tab of the options for Linter.
3. Edit the File Properties of Multiple Notes at One time
If you have multiple notes where you’d like to add or remove file properties in one fell swoop without having to edit them each individually, the use the Multi-Properties plugin. It works for tags or any other file property you want.
4. Send an Email to Your Obsidian Vault (for Mac users)
Set up an IFTTT applet to create a text file in a cloud service like based on an email you send to a certain address. Then use the app, Hazel, to have the file renamed with a .md extension and moved to your vault. More information on setting this up
5. Quickly Capture Data to Your Obsidian Vault on iOS
The key to this at this point is using the right third-party app. I personally use Drafts most of the time, but have recently been experimenting with a new app, Bebop and with Fleeting Notes. The Obsidian roadmap states that they are hard at work improving the native abilities of Obsidian on mobile. More software to complement Obsidian.
6. Search And Replace Text Across Your Entire Vault at Once
To do this, you can use the free features of different power-users text editors I use Notepad++ (PC) and BBedit (Mac) for multi-file search and replace. They’re both fast, handle case-matching, and the basic features are free. Vscode is another favorite and it is cross-platform.
7. Automatically Sync a Backup Copy of Your Vault to a Cloud Service Every Night While You Sleep
You need a couple of utilities to make this happen. The first is a file-syncing utility that runs automatic syncs. I use Sync Folders Pro, a $9 app from the app store. Then you need an app that automatically launched your sync program. On the Mac you can use Lingon X, Keyboard Maestro or Alarm Clock Pro. More backup information.
8. Import Entire Web Pages with Nothing More Than a URL on The Clipboard
One of the features of the ReadItLater pluginis to create a a new based on nothing more than a URL on your clipboard. You just copy an address from a web page you want to save, switch to Obsidian and activate it ReadItLater from the command pallet. It’s that fast and that easy. More ways to import web pages
9. A Wizard to Build Dataview Queries
There is a free tool you can use to help with the learning curve with Dataview. “The Basic Dataview Query Builder will guide you through some questions and put together a Dataview query based on your answers. You can use this query as-is in your vault or as a starting point to refine a more advanced query.
10. Get Ideas for Notes or Vaults You Can Create in Obsidian
This Weeks Bookmarks - 50 things to know, Weird roadside attractions, Summer movies, Toxic reality TV, Recipes, YouTube games, Free money
50 things I know - by Sasha Chapin #1 is 1. I know what makes people grow more reliably than anything else. It is: taking on a difficult project with some amount of public accountability. This can be large or small: a lecture series, a business, a blog, a house, a child, etc.
Weird Roadside Attractions in Every State to Visit on a Road Trip - Thrillist - Thanks to Jarrod Blundy
The 31 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2024 | TIME - How may movies will you see at the theater this summer?
Is “Love Is Blind” a Toxic Workplace? | The New Yorker - You really don’t want to be on a reality show.
JustTheRecipe - Paste in a URL and this website will remove all of the fluff from the page and leave you with just the recipe to make it easier to read and cook.
YouTube - Everybody’s getting into gaming these days. YouTube joins the slowly growing list of companies with gaming initiatives, rolling out its Playables program across mobile and desktop. To play, simply visit YouTube’s website or Android / iOS app and look for Playables in the sidebar. YouTube will let players save their progress and keep track of high scores. There are over 75 games to choose from, including chess and crossword games to more popular casual mobile titles like Angry Birds Showdown!, Trivia Crack, and Cut the Rope.
MissingMoney.com | Search for Unclaimed Property MissingMoney.com is the official Unclaimed Property website of the National Association of State Treasurers
US State Governments and several Canadian Provinces, through their partnership with the leading, trusted authority in unclaimed property—the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA)—provide this free, safe, and secure site to the public. New properties are added daily, so start your search now and check back often!
It’s Saturday and for the 22nd week in a row, I’ve updated my /now page with info on some very good blogs, TV shows, what I wrote this week, some killer sandals and the web sites that made their way into my personal bookmarks.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Brandon gladly pulled off his headphones to talk when I asked him what he was listening to (The Fugees) on a Charlotte side street. He was surprised that I knew them, and I was surprised he was listening to something that old. We agreed that Lauryn Hill is a genius.
With apologies to REM, my new post Stand in the Place Where You Live examines the paradox wherein everyone professes to support the troops but no one wants to live near them. Life in a military town.
My Junited2024 page is up, with the first entry by @tracydurnell who wrote a classic piece last year on crafting a blog post.
Today on AppAddict - Play: Save Videos, Watch Later is a $2.99 app in the App Store that lets you add videos to your watch later list that can then be tagged or sorted by any criteria. A universal app, Play can be curated on your Mac and then watched on your AppleTV. A great app.
Looking forward, sometimes it’s OK not to live in the moment but instead to revel in what’s coming. For WeblogPoMo2024, the last entry.
Today on AppAddict - Default Folder X an OG App for Mac Power Users. It’s used to streamline and enhance finding, opening, saving and moving files and folders.
From my 100 Strangers Project - This is Amayra, her mom and auntie at the India Festival held yearly at the NC state fairgrounds in Raleigh. There were groups of kids putting on cultural performances and it seemed like they all had one or two stressed out parents in tow.
What do you hate the most about Windows and why is it printing? (After a single user’s computer started demanding driver updates to a 10-year-old printer that hasn’t even had an update in years)
I like your blog if… - my criteria for adding blogs to my RSS feed. I’m not too picky. You’re probably in there already. For WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Two free apps from Objective-See, BlocKBlock and KnockKnock, both designed to alert you to the installation of persistent apps on your Mac. If you keep your Mac up to date and only install apps from the app store, you are probably OK. If you install from elsewhere, get these.
From my 100 strangers project - Tonya from Raleigh was in the coastal town of Beaufort, NC to attend the annual Pirate Festival held there because it’s the final resting place of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s ship.
For all of you who have ever done tech support, here’s what happened when an entire company changed their email signatures to a 9,000x14,000 12MB Photoshop generated PDF. The Horror
Dont’t worry about it was my grandpa’s solution for anxiety. We know it isn’t quite that simple, but please folks, there’s a difference between a cell phone and cocaine. Today for WeblogPoMo2024.
Today on AppAddict - AnyList is my choice for recipes, groceries and general list management for things like packing and planning camping trips. I tried other apps like Paprika and Mela, but AnyList just hits the sweet spot.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Al was starting to feel a little anxious. He’d gotten separated from his wife at the flea market and was getting ready to go look for her. He declined my offer to help and told me that he was sorry for not smiling.
We watched the series finale of The Good Doctor tonight, after having watched all seven seasons of it as they happened. It was a good show celebrating neurodiversity in specific and diversity in general.
Do you use the Internet the way you want to? I don’t. In order for me to do that, I’d need an extra few hours every day and i wouldn’t be 7,000 RSS articles behind. How I Internet for WeblogPomo2024
