> And somehow I always come back to a bunch of markdown files inside a Git repo.
Others have mentioned this but if you want to keep this workflow, the best app I've found is Obsidian + Git Plugin. It works fantastically well on desktop though it does require a little work to get it working on iOS.
Are there options to see the current state of the repo? What I mean is, for example, I like that in VS Code I instantly know the current state because the git sidebar icon shows a notification of uncommitted changes. If I don't have a visual reminder, I'm more likely to not make commits when I should, and I also don't want an auto-committer firing after each change. I find the visual reminder keeps me anchored to my git status.
Heck, maybe I should just use code for notes. One plus would be web access with code server, since Obsidians only docker image that I know of uses VNC.
Anyone compared these two tools and have a decent write up? The biggest item which comes to mind would be referencing other notes and the features built on top of that?
Compared to something with automatic bidirectional sync between all devices, something where one has to manually commit/push/pull a new/edited note feels archaic.
OTOH you get version history, with commit messages if you care to write them. And the full power of git to explore the history. You can edit the same file on two (offline) devices, then resolve the inevitable merge conflict.
"Automatic bidirectional sync between all devices" scares me. How does it deal with merge conflicts? How am I sure I'll be able to revert to a previous version? Can I see the full history of a file? I don't know, perhaps it'd be ok. I certainly wouldn't learn git just for note taking! But, I know how to use my hammer, so everything look like a nail...
I thought it would be a problem as well but it turns out I absolutely never edit my notes on two machines at once. The commit/push/pull is done via a simple bash script that I'm running as a build command inside VS Code.
I did take a look at that, which is probably more than most people would have done, and by take a look I mean a skimmed for images because I'm not reading 2000 words of text for an app I don't even use yet. The only images I found showed how drag and drop works.
I know this is common with projects that think Github is a replacement for a website, but I genuinely wonder how does it get so bad that a 5 year project with 9000 commits and 60 contributors doesn't have a single screenshot. Nothing personal or particular about this project specifically, just... the whole open source culture of dropping something on Github and not even doing the bare minimum to have other people get to know the project.
It feels like such a waste. It could be an amazing project but who is going to bother with it if they can't see what it looks like?
I oscillate between Apple Notes and a bunch of markdown files, which is a pretty painful thing to do.
I like how future proof a folder of markdown files is. But I like the design, simplicity, and deep features for capture and media support offered in Apple Notes.
The more a markdown app supports extra stuff, the more proprietary it starts to feel, as any app to read it will also need to support those things.
A while back I told myself I was going to stick to Apple Notes, as going back and forth to other things is painful, and doing it proactively means more pain, rather than maybe having some pain in 10 years of the app goes away. However, where I am again, in the middle of a largely manual migration back to Obsidian for my folder of markdown files. I used an export, but the formatting is so bad that I need to clean up every single note.
The inability to export, as well as the lack of anything more than the bare basic formatting options (at least at the time a few years ago) pushed me off apple notes.
I’ve been able to export since early, early iPhone. They’re just txt files. Surprisingly, Apple notes have been the most durable as Apple has migrated them from every iPhone I’ve had for the past 15-20 years or whatever.
Basic formatting is a plus for me. Although now notes has really advanced formatting and even sketching.
I ended up using Exporter from the App Store. I didn't work great. I have an export, but there are a lot of issues with it. I'm finding it is often easier to copy the note and use the Rich Text to Markdown action in Shortcuts, then paste into Obsidian. If I spent more time with Shortcuts there is probably a way to automate this way a bit more.
Yeah disc rot is a real problem. CD/DVD-R are great when it comes to physically store drives (they don't take much space on a shelf and are easely sent via mail) but I'd rather use a hard drive and the cloud for my backups now.
The problem goes away if you burn slow, no faster than half the disc's max speed, to adequately affect the dye. I have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs that are 20 years old and work great. Inherent rot is mainly a problem with pressed discs which use aluminum instead of silver or gold for the reflective layer.
I burn my CD-Rs at a very low speed, like someone else mentioned below, so the laser does a better burn. I don't use CD-Rs as primary backup. I have 10 external hard drives, 20 thumb drives, and do a CD-R only once every couple of weeks. I just feel better having multiple different hardware devices used.
As others said, the only thing you should be looking for is a drive that works with Accuraterip. Ripping discs from my local library is a hobby of mine and I've discovered so much music from there. I still buy CDs from thrift shops and the occasional garage sale, but having my music collection neatly organized and ripped/verified in FLAC is something I enjoy a lot.
I'm in a never-ending cycle of wanting to find a better monospace font, spending countless hours looking through various alternatives and coming back to the one I'm currently using.
After using Ubuntu Mono for many many years I've switched to IBM Plex Mono and basically can't find a better font for me. At this point it's like my eyes are so used to this font I could never use anything else, despite the fact that my brain wants to try something new. So it's my default choice for any monospace font that I can set up.
Completely agree that it's hard to beat IBM Plex Mono. And although it doesn't matter much in many contexts in which I use a monospaced font, it has really nice italics, which most monospaced fonts don't.
Fira Mono is also extremely well done, as you'd expect for a typeface from Erik Spiekermann.
Writing a blog is always rewarding, but it's a difficult exercise, especially if one's writing in another language. Not only do you have some proficiency in writing fluid sentences and paragraphs, it's sometimes taxing to formulate something in a language that's not your mother tongue.
I'm curious if people around here have tips on diminishing friction and how to write better/more easily.
I'm a Garmin user as I find the hardware to be very reliable but the market is in deep need of an Open Source alternative.
Let's not forget Garmin was victim of a ransomware attack in 2020 and they finally paid $10 million after days of blackout and they never really addressed the issue.
We looked at this years ago and came to the (sad) conclusion that in this space there is no money to be made in hardware, the UX, while uniformly bad, can't make you profitable, so it's down to selling the user as a product once again.
This might be a minor thing, but does anyone know if a full pardon will allow him to use an electronic device or access the internet? Often times, people convicted of crimes related to an online activity are forbidden this right, and I wonder if that's the case for him, and if so, what his life would be in this day and age.
That’s an expungement, which is not a power the president has. He can grant a pardon, which is forgiveness, but does not erase that a crime was committed.
The problem with passkey is that it's obscure for the common folk.
I'm a developer, yet for some odd reason I'm having a hard time understanding passkeys. Are they synced between devices? Do I need to set up a passkey per device? What happens if I have a single passkey on my phone and it gets lost? Do I lose access to that service?
So many questions that need a clear and concise answer.
One issue I found recently was changing my GPU clearly changed the definition of my "device" in Windows and invalidated all my passkeys. But the passkeys are still there, the sites I access still try to request them, but Windows can't provide them, so it basically just errors out. Not found out how to clear this all out yet.
30+ years of software dev, but I rarely had to worry about security. I've grown up with passwords (from 1980s BBS logins on up), but just like you, I still don't fully "grok" passkeys, in the sense of how I understand passwords, their threat model, how they can be cracked, etc.
I think I understand it's a bit like a "my public SSH key + website's public SSH key merged together", so that each website can verify the passkey we created together using their private key. The basic mechanism is more or less straightforward.
What I do not understand well is the "how to store and manage 100s of passkeys", and how to migrate my family (including my parents in their 80s, who are far away and I am the main tech guy when the closer "basic tech literate" family members who live closer can't figure things out) to them. We use Linux and Windows boxes at home, and Android phones (for now).
I can easily log into any accounts from any of these, even from my work laptop if needed, some requiring SMS 2FA (let's leave that for another discussion). If I created a passkey on a linux desktop and stored it in a yubikey, can I re-use it on someone else's windows laptop? Would I need the bluetooth version of the Yubi to sync with my phone? Or would I have to create a unique passkey from each device to each website, using my existing password?
Basically: I don't have "one phone" and "one computer", both running the same OS. What are some usage models, including some that don't require yubikeys, because no way could I get my parents in their 80s to understand those.
This is sounding more and more complicated. I don't want a Yubikey. How does a password manager help my cloud account? What does enrolling multiple credentials even mean?
> How does a password manager help my cloud account?
It's an alternative place to store webauthn credentials, if you're worried about being locked out.
> What does enrolling multiple credentials even mean?
You register multiple passskeys for your account on a service. So if you lose access to one (because you yoinked your phone into orbit), you can use the other one.
Anything that depends on a cloud service where your account can be destroyed any time without any recourse because support is managed by bots is a no go.
Personally, I'm comfortable with cloud services, but only if I have some sort of backup strategy.
I store all my passwords in Bitwarden. One reason I use Bitwarden (as opposed to e.g. Keypass) is because it has cloud syncing. All of my passwords are synced between all of my devices.
Critically, however, if Bitwarden's server was to disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't destroy my life. My passwords would still be stored locally, so I could open Bitwarden and export them, then import them into another service.
Passkey by design have no solution this! That means I can't trust them! I need to be able to export all of my credentials to some type of local file, which can be transferred to a new machine or service without the cloud, as a failsafe. I don't care if this is less secure, because my Bitwarden setup is already very secure, and I am much more scared of being locked out of my own accounts than of someone else getting in.
> Most implementations sync passkeys to the respective clouds.
So, in the end, the old Microsoft mantra: "Your security is very important for us".
Besides Microsoft, NSA, CIA, the five eyes and friends, no one has access to your passkey, this means is secure.
It depends on who is running your keys for you. Most of the vendors (Apple, Google, Microsoft) are using device-specific (hardware) keys to unlock the passkeys, which generally means that transitively you've first logged in with Face ID, Touch ID, Android Gesture, Windows Hello, PIN or one of the other names or brand names for "device-specific pass code or biometric" that unlocks your device's hardware security enclave.
In your analogy terms it is akin to an SSH key stored on a hardware device like a Yubikey that you have to "push the button" to unlock. It is more secure than just an SSH key without a password, but depending on a lot of factors, including your personal threat model, may be more or less secure than an SSH key with a strong password. (You'd assume the Yubikey's unexportable hardware key is a lot stronger to break than any password, so it is potentially far more secure from brute force attacks, especially remote attacks with no physical access to try to export an unexportable key. It's reliant on physical device security so it is far more weak to "in the room"/"over the shoulder" attacks. At the end of the day most people's threat model is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.)
Of course if you decide to use a password manager like 1Password or BitWarden those passkeys are going to be locked behind your "master vault password" in a similar way to your other passwords.
