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Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

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Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#71

Post by progman32 »

nvy wrote: post #60
progman32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the plainest-of-plain-text approach. For me, the more structured the note system, the less it is used. I have a simple script called `n` that operates on a `notes.txt` on my NAS. If given arguments, it appends a timestamp and the arguments (verbatim) to the notes file. This serves as a super quick way to jot something down or log an action (`n determined Krylon adheres best for project X`, `n timestamp pla…

This is cool. I do something similar but with an IRC server that I run and expose over wireguard. I have a channel where my various IOT devices tell me stuff, a channel where my algorithmic trading bot notifies me, and a reminders channel that basically serves as an append-only, always-synched memopad.

Hmm that's interesting. My notifications niche is filled by my home assistant setup, but that's lacking persistence.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#72

Post by jasaldivara »

mostlylurks wrote: post #69
segphault wrote: post #12

Pocket isn’t a bookmark database, it is a tool for saving things to read later. The user interface is primarily built for reading, not organizing. I use Pocket extensively for reading, but I use Raindrop separately for organizing and managing content that I want to archive for future access with proper search, filtering, and categorization. To me, these apps serve separate functions and need different user interfaces…

With the exception of syncing the list between devices (a feature I personally can't imagine myself needing or wanting, though I can definitely see why others would), these things are basically what tabs are for. You open things up in tabs to read them later, and you can also search tabs (a feature supported by firefox, at least, not sure about other browsers) and categorize them (their order and grouping into separa…

Maybe if you have big amounts of RAM and never turn off your computer nor close your browser.

I like being able to read my bookmarks a week, or even a month later.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#73

Post by Dr4kn »

hamsterbase wrote: post #68

Most "read it later" services save web pages on their servers, which cannot preserve paywalls, ad-free content, pages that require login or registration, and pages on a local network. Sharing why I decided to develop my own "read it later" software. 1. I have a habit of saving web pages I like, most of which are in MHTML format, some are saved as single-file HTML, and others are web archives saved on iOS. Altogether,…

What is your program called?

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#74

Post by yawnxyz »

I have a tiny service I put on Vercel that takes a bookmarklet I click on any page, get the URL, scrape the content I send to it through my browser, then save that to Airtable.

I just realized I have like 12,000+ links I've saved (many of them from HN over the years), and Airtable is great for tagging, searching, etc!

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#75

Post by progman32 »

sfrinlan wrote: post #54
progman32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the plainest-of-plain-text approach. For me, the more structured the note system, the less it is used. I have a simple script called `n` that operates on a `notes.txt` on my NAS. If given arguments, it appends a timestamp and the arguments (verbatim) to the notes file. This serves as a super quick way to jot something down or log an action (`n determined Krylon adheres best for project X`, `n timestamp pla…

Do you look back over these notes and find them useful? Perhaps it's my ADD or the nature of the software products I create, but for the past 20 years of my career, I've never kept significant notes and never found myself missing them. I'm wondering if there's something I don't know that I don't know here.

Quickly check the last note to remember what I was doing? Often. Search through? Rarely, maybe once a month. The times I do though it's really helpful. I realized I was forgetting lots of semi important things that had no default place to write down.

This frequency informed the design, in fact. Easy to write, easy to read the last couple entries, moderate difficulty in finding older entries (in exchange for lower cost of making individual notes).

I think for me this is why it's so important for the system to be almost zero effort, else I'll just kinda stop using it. Just having an ubiquitous default place to dump something out of my brain helps.

Of note. A very slightly modified version of this runs on an ancient Thinkpad in my bedroom for diary/mental health reasons. I find the separation helpful. Those I almost never ever read, but I think that's the point of those.

Edit: at work I didn't really use this system, it's mostly for my own life. At work I used the ticket tracker, wikis, and calendar. I found that taking personal notes at work was best substituted by making actual documents that my team could find and use. There were much fewer uncategorized tasks at work.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#76

Post by [deleted] »

zagrebian wrote: post #5
djbusby wrote: post #3

The Pocket thing was when I started to feel Mozilla lost their way. For a while I tried to maintain a patch that completely removed it. But, that's not fun. The Idea of Pocket is great - seems everyone needs a personal-knowledge-base. And the archival feature was/is cool (I added the same to my own PKB). And Pocket for organizing, messy like the article says. I do tagging and SQLite FTS - works a treat.

> everyone needs a personal-knowledge-base What is that? Do I need it?

[deleted]

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#77

Post by tra3 »

yawnxyz wrote: post #74

I have a tiny service I put on Vercel that takes a bookmarklet I click on any page, get the URL, scrape the content I send to it through my browser, then save that to Airtable. I just realized I have like 12,000+ links I've saved (many of them from HN over the years), and Airtable is great for tagging, searching, etc!

Can you share the service? Or share how you scrape the content? There's https://readability-bot.vercel.app that is based on Firefox's reader mode, but it doesn't work very well.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#78

Post by mostlylurks »

jasaldivara wrote: post #72
mostlylurks wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of syncing the list between devices (a feature I personally can't imagine myself needing or wanting, though I can definitely see why others would), these things are basically what tabs are for. You open things up in tabs to read them later, and you can also search tabs (a feature supported by firefox, at least, not sure about other browsers) and categorize them (their order and grouping into separa…

Maybe if you have big amounts of RAM and never turn off your computer nor close your browser. I like being able to read my bookmarks a week, or even a month later.

> Maybe if you have big amounts of RAM

Browsers these days have settings which automatically unload tabs to make sure you don't run out of RAM. I personally don't run into issues with 16GB of RAM, so I don't have those settings enabled.

> and never turn off your computer nor close your browser. I like being able to read my bookmarks a week, or even a month later.

Browsers allow persisting the set of windows and tabs you have open across sessions, so this isn't an issue. I probably have a few hundred tabs open at any given moment across a few subject-specific windows, some of those tabs several months old, and I close my browser and shut down my computer all the time. Firefox simply restores the windows and tabs when I open it, so it all works out just fine.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#79

Post by vvladymyrov »

dredmorbius wrote: post #49

Original author here. My six-year-old rant still mostly applies (there've been some improvements to tag editing, and there's now in-article search for the Android app), but Pocket still massively underdelivers, increasingly as one relies on it more. Most recently, I found I had to revert to a six-month-old version of the app in order to have both paginated navigation and to be able to open the "web view" in app ... w…

I’m using Pocket for reading articles on eink in spare time - I use Kobo Forma - it has 8” screen and is lightweight and has a decent battery life (unlike newer Kobo Sage). Not all articles are saved though.

I used to do a trick with Remarkable 2/kobo - exporting webpage on iPhone into Dropbox as pdf - resulting pdf is formatted for a small screen

For pdfs and web reading I use Boox Onyx Air - with 10.3” screen and full android browsing experience… But I need to sit and hold larger screens with two arms, while with Kobo Forma I can hold in one hand while layout down. Boox recently released Page - 7.8” lightweight android ereader, but I’m not sure that android device would hold battery as good as Kobo Forma.

Re: Pocket gets worse the more you use it (2019)

#80

Post by tra3 »

MollyRealized wrote: post #8

FWIW, for my current methodology, I capture the text - often from a Tranquility Reader version of the page - and then apply a macro in Notepad++ that removes 90% of the remaining junk. Then save it to a text file.

That's really neat. Is there a way to script Firefox to do this headless and store an html file (with the single file extension)?
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