I wish all linux servers had something like this, out of the box, for all users. the first thing I do after sshing into a box is spend an hour trying to figure out the basics. Where are the web folders? what daemons is running? what hacks does have in place?
Keeping a plaintext “did” file
171–180 of 202 posts
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly even without using org-capture, org mode is perfect for a "did.org" file.
Yep. I'm amazed by how many different hacks, tools, and one-offs get proposed in threads like this when an amazing plain-text note/organization/GTD/life management ecosystem already exists and is supported by endless configurability. Of course, we're talking about org-mode. (Religious org-mode user for approximately four years.)
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#173For those who use Emacs, org-capture is probably the way to go: https://orgmode.org/manual/Capture.html#Capture
And for those who don't use emacs, starting to use emacs & then adopting org-capture is probably the best way to go! I mean, you can tortuously gin up some plaintext format by hand, or you can use Org mode; you can tortuously gin up a skin over git by hand, or you can use Magit; you can tortuously gin up a skin over wget/curl by hand, or you can just use eww.
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was using Bittorrent Sync for awhile but the product got buggy, renamed, and seems like going through weird times. So looked for an open source alternative and found Syncthing. It works well to keep files in sync between laptop and desktop, its all local - but you give up any cloud storage if all your computers go fubar.
It definitely takes extra work to protect yourseld against data loss using syncthing over something like Dropbox. I have a mirrored ZFS (FreeNAS vm) which I back up to a usb HD and Backblaze (600GB is running me about 3USD/month)
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#175For quick notes the most important for me is as little friction as possible. Having to switch to a terminal and using an alias is too much friction. So I have a global hotkey which I can press anywhere on my desktop, regardless of the current application and if I press it it opens an editor window with the current timestamp already added, so all I have to do is type and press a key to finish the entry. This way I don…
Agreed on the global hot key. I use iTerm and it has a global hot key so you can bring it up with a shortcut and then hide it with the same shortcut.
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
... and other useful info such as office location, phone number, etc. Those were the days before corporate directories.
For a brief bit I had a simple python script dump tweets into a .plan file mostly just to amuse myself by connecting new social media to old. Hmm, I wonder if I ask my Mastodon host nicely if they'd open up finger protocol support, lol. (ETA: Reminds one of the old adage about blind men touching the elephant.)
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely takes extra work to protect yourseld against data loss using syncthing over something like Dropbox. I have a mirrored ZFS (FreeNAS vm) which I back up to a usb HD and Backblaze (600GB is running me about 3USD/month)
How do you set up the mirrored ZFS? Is this running some type of job that runs something like rsync on a schedule?
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#178http://todotxt.org has a format for a done.txt list, too. Useful before project meetings to get an overview over what you did in the last days. TodoTxtMac creates this for me: https://mjdescy.github.io/TodoTxtMac/ I've been using it together with Dropbox (for access from my phone) for 3 years now.
Interesting, I've been seeing a lot of interest in syncing the file and this seems like a good next project. I never thought to use dropbox to sync, I wonder what the dropbox api does with merge conflicts
There used to be an Android app for todotxt, but it does not seem to exist / work anymore after the Dropbox API changed.
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would hand over full control to the author of Termux. According to the play store it is a guy called Fredrik Fornwall. I never heard of him. So I would not trust him with my digital life.
Seems to be open source -- https://github.com/termux/termux-app .
Re: Keeping a plaintext “did” file
#180Keeping a "did" file is also immensely valuable to demonstrating your performance and achievements to your employer. Think about all the positive things you've done for work over the past year. It's hard to account for them all mentally, and even harder for your boss to remember.
I think this is important. One of the most career oriented people I know, call him a mentor of mine, kept entire binders full of everything he did. Every accomplishment. He prepared for performance reviews like he was going to war. As a manager I suggested to my reports that this in addition to proving your work, it also helps as a way to understand whether you are stagnating at work, or continuing to learn and evolv…