As a software devloper, I only write post-it notes or to-dos on my phone, 99.9% I use computer to type notes, I use vim-markdown+nerdtree+git all these years and they work well for me.
My Personal Note Taking Journey
61–70 of 89 posts
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think apart from just writing, the one thing that feels like it matters to me is rewriting and consolidation . Having years of notes you never revisit does very little. What is good about some of the systems is that they provide a framework for consolidation and forcing you to keep reviewing things. But I find the specifics of how you end up reviewing and consolidating changes very little, as long as you do. If any…
80% (random number that seems reasonable) of the value of notes is the act of writing them the first time. For the other 20% they deserve more effort, rewriting and origination are both useful for them.
Agree with that, in that rewriting should include deciding which notes are worth just leaving as is, so that what you rewrite reflects what is still relevant and that will usually as you say be a very small percentage of the whole.
Rewriting to me also seems to reduce the need to refer back to the notes even further, because it effectively acts as a revision also for the notes I decide are not worth summarising, and the few bits that might still be beneficial gets carried along in the rewritten summaries.
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can use iCloud to sync everything - your actual notes and the workspace files. Easy, free, works great.
Assuming all the devices you work on are Apple devices. Some people use iPhones but work on Windows/Linux.
I’m iPhone & Pop_os! . There are some obsidian forum threads that can help, I think this is the one that I used for my setup (1).
It is not completely obvious in the UI, but the basic idea is that you use a iOS git app (I use the excellent Working Copy) to just push and pull everything to GitHub, working around some inherent iOS limitations. As a bonus, you can setup the Shortcuts app to auto push and pull with closing and opening obsidian. There’s a git sync extension for obsidian, makes it all pretty seamless once it’s set-up.
1. https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-...
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#64Is it just me, but using local files just gives me an uneasy feeling when it comes to robust backups. How do I make sure my local files are backed up somewhere? What happens when I want to revert? How do I really know I didn't accidentally just wipe out all my notes locally with a bad command. How do I 100% know that changes I made on my desktop are reflected on other devices? The obvious solution is to keep files in…
It could be worth looking at Wiki.js (https://js.wiki/). It's not perfect, but I started using a self hosted instance recently and it has worked out ok so far. With markdown and git sync it doesn't feel like I'm stuck if I want to move on to something else in the future, or if I want to do some automation/scripting with the contents.
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? Where's the evidence? My 0.02: people feel the exact opposite. People hate subscriptions, people hate not having control over something that they feel has been "purchased".
The evidence is all the companies moving to subscriptions and not back. It’s searching app stores and seeing all the non subscription prices being <$20.
Companies move to subscriptions because it’s more lucrative to them, not because customers prefer it.
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#66Would highly recommend reconsidering paper notes. Get a small notebook [0] and write down what you need. You’ll lose it and spill coffee on it but you’ll be fine. For the vast majority of things the note writing experience is what makes the difference, not the actual paper. For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. 0 - https://unsharpen.com/pocket-notebooks/
+1. I wanted to build a daily journaling habit but digital just wasn’t cutting it for me. I managed to do it once I bought one of these [0]. I punched a hole in it and tied a pen to it.
The forgiving format (entries are not pre-dated so you’re allowed to miss a day, the bar on entry length is set low by design) coupled with absence of friction when traveling (no poor connectivity, low battery, etc.) really went a long way.
I knew that even the need to find a pen to write the day’s journal would be enough friction for me to skip it, which is why I tied one to it.
I’ve filled up a couple of these little notebooks, but I haven’t been able to replicate this consistency with any digital solutions.
[0] #HashtagADay: A Hashtag Journal https://www.amazon.com/dp/145213927X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
That does not seem to be the case, at all. For example, people complained very loudly about not being able to buy photoshop anymore. Any time office365 is discussed, again people complain. People seem to hate subscriptions. What is true instead is that people are forced into subscriptions because one-time purchases are just not offered anymore.
As I mentioned on a thread, one-time purchases are a lie we tell ourselves anyway, and every version of Office or Photoshop (pre subscription). You still have to pay for the newest version with the support for new hardware/OS and features.
You do not have to pay for the newest version. I know plenty of people who are several versions behind on Adobe apps because they are enough for their needs and they cannot afford new ones. Those same people can’t afford the newest hardware and are fine with not upgrading their OS to be able to use their apps.
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned on a thread, one-time purchases are a lie we tell ourselves anyway, and every version of Office or Photoshop (pre subscription). You still have to pay for the newest version with the support for new hardware/OS and features.
You do not have to pay for the newest version. I know plenty of people who are several versions behind on Adobe apps because they are enough for their needs and they cannot afford new ones. Those same people can’t afford the newest hardware and are fine with not upgrading their OS to be able to use their apps.
Right, it was a massive generalization. However, I highly doubt those people are using Windows 98 (insert other example), and they probably did at some point (depending on age, ecosystem etc).
They may well not be using the 'most current' version of the software, and I can think of a few pieces of software where that's been the case for me too. Either because I don't use it enough to justify the upgrade, or I actively object to being fleeced again for essentially the same product that's been "updated".
But eventually, if they want to continue doing the task they'll end up paying for a new version. Unless it's open source, it's always under the control of the product creator, and their incentives are always going to be on extracting money, and indeed they need to, to continue supporting the software.
In the Apple Ecosystem, the move to M1 Macs is an example that will force people to pay for upgrades.
Buying it once and riding it as long as possible is undoubtly cheaper than subscriptions, however it's still got a lifespan that eventually requires the next payment.
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do not have to pay for the newest version. I know plenty of people who are several versions behind on Adobe apps because they are enough for their needs and they cannot afford new ones. Those same people can’t afford the newest hardware and are fine with not upgrading their OS to be able to use their apps.
Right, it was a massive generalization. However, I highly doubt those people are using Windows 98 (insert other example), and they probably did at some point (depending on age, ecosystem etc). They may well not be using the 'most current' version of the software, and I can think of a few pieces of software where that's been the case for me too. Either because I don't use it enough to justify the upgrade, or I activel…
> But eventually, if they want to continue doing the task they'll end up paying for a new version.
Freehand[1] has been discontinued for almost two decades, and ten years ago I was still able to use it to great effect. Heck, if I wanted to use it today I probably could, thanks to Wine[2].
> however it's still got a lifespan that eventually requires the next payment.
Unless you wait so long that a competitor arises or you stop having the need. I never paid for Adobe Creative Cloud and Affinity[3] came along without subscriptions. One could also conceivably do without Microsoft Office updates so long that Open Office catches up to the needed features and surpasses it.
Note I do tend to pay for new versions of software I use. But I have no quarrel with stopping if they no longer provide adequate value, like 1Password moving to subscription pricing to collect rent on a done product yet somehow still managing to make it inferior (Electron).
I continue to disagree with the premise that “one-time purchases are a lie we tell ourselves”. If that were the case companies would have continued as they were. They move to subscriptions precisely because it removes the customer’s choice to upgrade—you either keep paying or can’t even access your past files. And they can jack up the price or remove features at any time (see LastPass).
Though I can get behind the hybrid model of Perpetual Fallback Licenses[4].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_FreeHand
[2]: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...
[3]: https://affinity.serif.com/
[4]: https://github.com/vitorgalvao/perpetual-fallback-licenses
Re: My Personal Note Taking Journey
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. Apps like Logseq, Obsidian and Dendron don't have subscriptions.
I’m only familiar with Obsidian, but it’s business model does have an $8/mo sync tier, and a $16/mo publishing tier as well as a $50/user/year commercial plan.
> does have an $8/mo sync tier
As Obsidian keeps all your notes as plain markdown files, you can easily get it for free with two-way sync set up with Sync, box, MEGA, etc.