I guess I just blinked. January 2024 has drawn to a close, and I have no idea where the time went. I’ve had a busy month in the day job as everyone is getting to the swing of things after a big restructure. February looks like it will be mostly the same too. I have certainly been putting in the extra hours, so it feels like there will have been a bit of an impact on what I’ve been doing this month outside of work. Add to this some technology woes and I’ve certainly not been spending quite as much time on creating things as I would have liked. But that’s not to say I have not produced anything this month. Far from it.
ThoughtAsylum
I really wanted to get more than a single post out this month if I could and I managed to achieve this, but probably because my first post was a quick and easy one to put together.
The Internet Archive has a great service called the Wayback machine that allows you to view past snapshots of web pages. It is a wonderful resource that lets you not only look at how web pages have changed over time, but to provide access to information that might otherwise have been lost. In my “Going Wayback with Keyboard Maestro and Safari” I show how it is a relatively simple task to create a small Keyboard Maestro macro to search the Wayback machine for the current URL.
The second post brings me back to Obsidian, and one of my favourite plugins, Templater. For a while now I’ve been employing Templater templates to not only insert content into my Obsidian notes (including creating, linking and filing notes in a single step), but to modify existing content. In my “Obsidian: Templater Converters” post, I explain how this works and provide details about a new GitHub repository I have created for sharing them.
The repository contains over 30 converters, and I will be adding more as I continue to convert some of my existing templates to a shareable format (neat code, comments, better variable names, etc.) and of course create new ones as the need arises.
If you are an Obsidian user and want to be able to process text in Obsidian, then you should take a look. If you happen to be a Drafts user, this might fill in some of those day-to-day limitations in Obsidian without having to create your own plugin. As someone who uses Obsidian cross-platform, on platforms where Drafts is not supported, this was something that definitely scratched an itch … but it isn’t a Drafts replacement by any means. They both fulfil quite different roles in my workflows.
Forums
As always, I have been trying to pitch in where I can with advice on the Drafts and Automators forums, and as usual, I would say with mixed levels of success. Hopefully I’m still adding a net value overall, but sometimes some of the responses (or lack of response) do make me wonder.
Drafts
A question about choosing between Drafts, Logseq, and Obsidian brought an interesting set of responses from other forum members, but as someone who has spent so long delivering IT solutions to people, I just struggle to understand what the poster wanted. They just asked “Why?”, yet did not give any details of what they wanted beyond a single and quite vague sentence. I did ask for clarity on what they actually wanted so we could actually provide advice rather than a similarly non-specific response that does not take into account the real requirements.
A new poster posted a question, which was more of a request about ‘freeze’ the draft title so it is always displayed. I made some points, and I would definitely want this as optional. Screen estate on the iPhone and Apple Watch are precious commodities.
Another new poster asked for a new feature to export a draft to an image of formatted text. This was so they could post content as an image on social media. The accessibility issues around this aside (I do note that in my response), it is actually possible to do this already and I set out exactly how this can be accomplished.
If you have been having trouble getting to the Editor page in the Drafts Script Reference, I figured out why.
There was a discussion about URL/Callback URL action steps and subsequent steps where there was definitely some confusion. As usual, if the original actions had been shared in full (but suitably sanitised) along with the phrasing, this would have made things a lot clearer. Coding can be hard, but “wording” is often harder.
I took a go at simplifying and improving a shortcut to save a draft as a file on a remote server over SSH.
A topic on sending to MailMate (my Mac e-mail client of choice) got a recent resurrection and I helped the poster see things from a different perspective as well as explaining how they could do exactly what they asked about if they came up with some reason that they actually needed to.
How many ways can you automate getting a link to a Draft? Well at least three….
The Folding Text / Collapsable Headers topic got some nudges this past month, but a reference to callouts in Obsidian got a mention as how to do it. That’s not quite the same thing, though Obsidian does support collapsible sections. You can read more details in my reply.
Lastly, I helped one Drafts user with creating a new note in Evernote via dictation without using a single Drafts action.
On this final Drafts forum post, remember that in 2024, friends don’t let friends rely on Evernote. While I understand Evernote is a business that had the laudable intention of being a 100-year startup, it has been in decline for the best part of a decade - almost half the time it has been around.
I used to be a massive Evernote advocate, particularly in the early days as it enabled me to go paperless in the 2000s and always have the information I needed at my fingertips. It was like having a business super power. However Evernote have been regularly taking unconscionable leaps backwards while every competitor in the ever expanding PKM space is moving forwards.
If Evernote still gives you value, I am truly glad to hear it still does for someone. But please do look into a plan B for the day when it doesn’t. Unless things change radically, I can promise you that day is coming all too quickly. And remember … friends don’t let friends rely on Evernote.
Automators
There was a little bit of a discussion of the IKEA TRÅDFRI ‘shortcut’ button being on sale in some geographies, and what is probably replacing it.
I gave my opinion on Obsidian Dataview and note properties in the episode 145 (The 2024 State of Automation) discussion.
Is Jellycuts dead? - I’ve not found any benefit to my own use of Shortcuts, but that’s not to say I don’t keep an eye on things 😉
Automator still surfaces every now and then. This time for a PDF workflow involving OCR and vile management.
I’m always surprised when web platform developers build an API as an after thought. Building the API first as a foundation and then building the app on top means when you come to automate a platform like freedom.to, there’s no rework or duplication. I do wonder what design patterns some architects and system designers follow sometimes.
I helped someone with creating a Hazel rule to run any time files are added to a folder (or sub-folder).
I set up some shortcuts for adding multiple reminders based on a base input date for one forum user.
One user posted about managing a children’s chores list using Shortcuts and Data Jar, so I asked how he managed that across each of the family accounts. The answer revealed something rather peculiar in their setup.
I helped another user build a shortcut to do different things when the action button is pressed based on the device and focus mode.
Once again we saw WhatsApp Shortcuts issues resurface (more than once from the same user)). I still remain unconvinced about the source of the issue being in iMessage. I feel this is far more likely to be an issue with user’s data or the WhatsApp Shortcuts action than with an entirely separate messaging platform. Not that it couldn’t be, but I think the assumptions about the solution can be explained in other ways.
Also, when you run a beta, you have to accept issues and use beta versions of other software - I don’t think a lot of “beta testers” really understand what they are expected to do and not do when running pre-release software. I
I had an interesting discussion around being able to turn off a randomly selected podcast episode after a specified amount of time using Shortcuts
A new forum user posted about an automation triggered shortcut closing unexpectedly. I tried guiding them to providing more explicit details, but while they replied, it was with similar non-specifics so there was nothing I could do to help them and no one else on the forum has made any suggestions yet. The problem is when people talk in general terms and don’t even share code of what they have programmed it makes it into a really long guessing game and the Venn diagram of the sorts of people who can help solve the sorts of problems they have and the sorts of people who like playing IT guessing games … well there isn’t usually an intersection of those groups.
The saga of waking a Mac for Automation continued and simply looped back to there still being unexplored avenues from previous suggestions.
Someone challenged my point on content location and file listing vs content load times in the discussion about is there a way to get file names from a folder, without loading all the files themselves? and curiously the solution that the user adopted didn’t seem to do any comparison as the original issue described and my suggested answer accommodated.
There was a discussion of searching for a calendar entry via Alfred. I couldn’t get it to work. Can you?
A four year old topic on adding to a dictionary in Data Jar rose from the dead, and I set out some basics on using Data Jar and data types in Shortcuts.
Lastly, there was a discussion of automatic resolution change when connecting via VNC. After coming up with a solution, another requirement being added meant back tracking to the beginning and coming up with a less elegant solution. While it is inelegant, I believe it should still be practical if the user sticks to triggering the connection via an automation rather than direct from the VNC client app.
Other
Tracking With OmniFocus
For several years now I’ve been using OmniFocus to help me manage all of the tasks and ideas I have of things to do. In December, OmniFocus released the long awaited OmniFocus 4. I had been on the subscription plan as this also afforded me the web version which I could then use to manage my work tasks on my Windows machine at work. The reality was though that the experience was not as good for work - mainly because I found combinations of Asana and simple checklists in Obsidian suited my work use better and in particular adding tracking to tasks.
As a result I decided to stop with the subscription when it came due just after Christmas. I did look at other options like Things, but OmniFocus for my personal use just hit all the right spots and so, ensuring I had take the right backups, I went task-less for a few days and then purchased OmniFocus Standard outright at the start of the new year once I had been paid. After all, if I subscribed for a year then I’d have saved money.
However, as the month went on, I was surprised to occasionally bump into things where I needed automation enabled, or I found I was missing the convenience of perspectives where I had expected I would not. Therefore I have been waiting once again to be paid so I can upgrade to Pro, and start reaping those benefits too.
OmniFocus is an expensive app relative to others, but I do like the feature set, the quality and it does really help me keep track of all my personal tasks, so at the end of the day I have to say it is worth the expenditure, but it just wasn’t something I could justify as a one shot purchase, so I’m glad the upgrade option was an option.
Bunch
The Bunch app by Brett Terpstra is something I’ve cast my eye over at least half a dozen times since it appeared. It is a tool to help you automate your virtual workspace and switch your workspace to set it up for a particular context. Imagine you had a virtual assistant who would get all your files ready, lay them out in your preferred order on your desk, set your playlist for the work at hand, and get you your beverage for that time of the day. That’s the sort of thing Bunch does. Well, maybe not the beverage part unless you’re up for automated food courier orders.
I really liked the idea of it, but I simply found that the way I was working at my Mac was often quite fluid. I had a couple of Keyboard Maestro driven setups, and that was about it. I would often rearrange Windows based on what web site I was referencing or the type of content I was writing. I just didn’t have a need and so I knew I wouldn’t use it.
Roll on January 2024. In reviewing some of my work and things I am working on, I saw a couple of opportunities where I thought Bunch would be useful. I had wanted to dip my toe in and get something embedded as after that I knew more ideas and option would come to me.
I’d say that after just a few weeks I am more than toe deep and that I’m paddling around having a whale of a time exploring the app and the subtle power it provides. It is actually more extensive and flexible than I had expected and I absolutely love being surprised by that. It’s like a late geek Christmas present.
I’ve permitted myself an extensive diversion into the world of Bunch this month, and I know I’ll be coming back to this soon.
Home Tech Hell
An inordinate amount of time this month has been taken up with various items of home technology.
My TP-Link Deco home network system keeps driving me nuts. I now only have one node plugged in as the other kept bringing the whole thing down, and even after another firmware update, I am still having intermittent issues. It will go for several days just fine, and then for several more days, several times a day everything on the network will go offline. The modem is still showing as connected, but nobody’s home and a power cycle is required. The number of times it has happened when I have been speaking on a work call is farcical. I need to set aside some time to manually log all of the settings (hey, it this mesh router setup is so smart why would you need to look at logs or back anything up), factory reset both nodes, and start again.
My Philips Hue Bridge has been dropping off the network too, with lights blinking out at random. I had been cycling its power overnight using a smart switch, but the efficacy of that has been stretched of late. I think it is just old, and so a replacement is on the way.
But to support all this, after less than six months use, my 256GB Silicon Power PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD that is the drive for my Raspberry Pi 4 running Home Assistant stopped working. I wasn’t sure if it was the drive or the enclosure, but having purchased a new enclosure and a 500GB Western Digital Blue SA10 M2 SATA SSD to replace the original components and those having now arrived (in February), I was able to confirm it was indeed the drive that has failed - which is very disappointing. I’m hoping the Western Digital drive lasts significantly longer.
Last month I mentioned that I had updated Apple Home such that I stopped it working. This was because the new setup required a hub, so either a Home Pod or an Apple TV. While I did have An Apple TV, it was over 12 years old, so it simply wasn’t new enough. As a result, and so I could restore at least some reasonable smart home access from family devices I sprang for a new Apple TV. I know everyone says they are expensive, but I have to say I’m delighted with it. The speed and smoothness, the integration, and the range of apps is of course a world of difference to what I was used to with my old Apple TV.
We don’t actually sit down and watch TV all that much, but we are slowly coming to the realisation that it might be time to think about replacing our TV. We’re still rocking a 32" Sony Bravia HD TV we bought in our first rented home from about 20 years ago. I’m thinking switching to 4K now we have a device capable of 4K output might just blow our minds 😆
Upcoming
As you now know, in January I created the Obsidian Templater Converters repository. The good news is that I didn’t actually include everything in that release. I do have more converters in the wings to be polished up and published. I fully expect to be able to add some of those to the repository this coming month.
Having mentioned Bunch above, I’ll also be coming back to that. Probably in February, so do look out for some Bunch-related content coming your way, and if you are not using Bunch, definitely check it out.
I’ve dipped in a little to my bigger ongoing project and this coming month I’ll have to really gear up to drive that forward at pace. I think my OmniFocus update is going to be a big driving force around keeping me on task for this one.
All that remains is to wish everyone a fantastic 2024, and as always to thank everyone who has bought me a coffee. Thank you so much, and I look forward to sharing more content and creations through the coming year.