Author: cogmios

  • Obsidian – a second brain

    Obsidian – a second brain

    Obsidian

    Obsidian is one of the applications which helps you model the world around you, where the application allows several approaches to approach this. I tried in the past years several approach to this but at the moment it is my main hub for dropping in information for both personal use as well as for projects.

    build in plugin: Daily Notes

    Aristotle said that history was the first great invention: the sequential order of things. Like a WordPress blog the daily note is a one-click note of the current date which allows you to enter the things for that day. This can vary from person to person so you can apply templates to setup your daily note and in addition a lot of community plugins are out there to greatly extend this in any direction.

    It helps me to find e.g. the meeting notes of a certain meeting on a certain day or visa versa on which day a meeting was. It also

    helps me to blog along without any mental effort.

    On a higher level the time variable makes the current space-time configuration an uri (within this universe dimension).

    ref: https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Daily+notes

    Syncing Obsidian Vaults

    Syncing allows you to have the full set of vaults, including all latest changes, on all devices, whether it is multiple laptops and/or mobile devices. Initially this was on my drivers to propose OneNote for our family household since, especially with non-techy users, it is easily explainable and the chance is they already have one-drive sync running.

    Obsidian has a (premium/paid) Sync solution out of the box which costs $4 a month and is probably the way to go for everyone looking for the out of the box, no mental overload solution.

    Initially I played with this and installed Synology Drive on all laptops, then had a Synology webdav sync to a public webdav provider and from there sync to mobile devices via a sync app. This worked well. But it does require to walk by each person’s device to set it up.

    I was however also slowly playing with Syncthing (https://syncthing.net/) and this has advantages: now only one solution is needed on all devices. I have Syncthing running on my NAS acting as main hub for all vaults. And syncthing on all laptops and mobile devices. There are some exceptions: you will have to set for specific (dot) files to prevent configuration changes also applied to be synced everywhere but relatively simple. I made all mobile devices one way sync only, so read-only, since I normally use it only to look things up.

    Note that certain plugins who dynamically update content within pages will lead to sync conflicts, leaving a gazillion conflict files, so better to not use those plugins.

    Obsidian Community Plugins

    After you get used to the basic Obsidian functionality and read all help pages https://help.obsidian.md/Home you should be familiar with the application. It’s not that complicated in usage since in a sense it is a file explorer for markdown files. Allowing you to edit markdown files more easily.

    You will have some vaguer ideas on what you would want next. I would advise to go through the tab of community plugins within Obsidian and check out the ones that might be interesting for you. Definitely sort them by popularity since this gives you and idea on what probably is also useful for yourself. Advise is to install these only one by one and playing with each plugin since otherwise there is a chance you will be overwhelmed with new stuff.

    Ref: https://help.obsidian.md/Extending+Obsidian/Community+plugins

    For reference, I use, among others, the following plugins. Since the GitHub pages provide enough information by themselves and there are a gazillion YouTube videos and blogs about most of them, Will leave just the list here:

    Folder Notes

    For me essential. I use this to make folders clickable and have at a folder level information. It makes it a bit more wiki alike and less explorer alike. It takes a note with the same name as the parent folder as the main folder note. I used to use AidenX FolderNote but this is no longer maintained so switched to: which in addition gives a range of new options.

    github: https://github.com/LostPaul/obsidian-folder-notes

    Git

    For me essential. I have a Git Repository on my NAS. This plugin continuous updates the Git Repo, so that , just in case I ever need to go back in time, versioning allows me to this exactly.

    github: https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-git

    DataView

    For me essential. Probably the single plugin that brings Obsidian to live. It allows me to write scripts to report on both unstructured and structured information. I have simple out of the box scripts and more complex scripts to give me overviews and insights for various uses. Longer scripts require a longer time to write and test but in the end you pretty much can generate anything with this. A birthday calender is a nice one to start with.

    github: https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview

    Advanced Tables

    Allows you perform much more stuff with tables. Such as export to CSV and using spreadsheet formulas.

    github: https://github.com/tgrosinger/advanced-tables-obsidian

    Tasks

    For me essential. It allows you to add todo’s everywhere (with a lot of properties) and then display them anywhere using a long range of query support. Such as “give me all closed tasks of this week with the tag “projectA”. This I was really missing initially in OneNote, since I categorize stuff and in each subpart of categorization there are todo’s.

    github: https://github.com/obsidian-tasks-group/obsidian-tasks

    Tag Wrangler

    When re-organizing information, you often want to play (e.g. rename) tags on a larger scale, Tag wrangler has a rang of handy features for this.

    github: https://github.com/pjeby/tag-wrangler

    Full Calender

    I use to daily pull up my Outlook calendar for the day and generate via a template for each meeting a placeholder including the time and properties. When, then during the meeting I already have the place for putting down notes and actions whereafter I tag the section so that I on overview pages can track what I did and have per tag referring to a certain area e.g. a project the list of meeting, what tasks I closed that week and what tasks are still open.

    github: https://github.com/obsidian-community/obsidian-full-calendar

    Image Context Menus

    It is often handy to open an image in the default app or show it in the file explorer. E.g. when a website upload page asks from where to upload a file.

    github: https://github.com/NomarCub/obsidian-copy-url-in-preview

    Kroki

    I run the Kroki on my server (self managed) https://kroki.io/#install . With this plugin I can use any kind of text to image in any note. It allows for the widest range of text to image support, so pretty handy.

    github: https://github.com/gregzuro/obsidian-kroki

    Tray

    To have my vaults readily available in my tray, each vault with a different icon, provides me with a one-click open vault X on any machine. So no mental load required to open a vault.

    github: https://github.com/dragonwocky/obsidian-tray

    Recent Files

    Sometimes it is handy to click between files you recently added / changed “your cache’, where this plugin offers a simple solution for this.

    github: https://github.com/tgrosinger/recent-files-obsidian

    Commander

    This lets me customize my UI and display the icons I want to see and allows me to add various macro’s also to e.g. the sidebar which makes it also a macro cache.

    github: https://github.com/phibr0/obsidian-commander

    Charts

    Allows me to add various charts to various pages based on a tables. So can in addition to showing a table, add e.g. bar-chart or histogram next to it.

    github: https://github.com/phibr0/obsidian-charts

    Supercharged Links

    Allows me to add icons and other styling to notes based on e.g. their YAML frontmatter. E.g. when the tag is “female” it shows the text in pink and the female icon.

    github: https://github.com/mdelobelle/obsidian_supercharged_links

    Link Favicons

    I like it when external links are preceded with their favicon. I once wrote such a plugin for WordPress. This one does exactly that, handy for overviews with links on a topic.

    github: https://github.com/joethei/obsidian-link-favicon

    Consistent Attachments and Links

    When you wan to move all your attachments to the correct place you defined once e.g. under the current folder in the subfolder “attachments”, this plugin allows you to do this. In addition it drives you to use the default Markdown format for attachments (relative) so that it stays compatible with any markdown editor.

    github: https://github.com/dy-sh/obsidian-consistent-attachments-and-links

  • Waterschapsbelasting

    Waterschapsbelasting

    De waterschapsbelasting (zie ook https://gblt.nl/) is de afgelopen 10 jaar 100 euro duurder geworden (althans voor mijn huishouden) en de afgelopen 2 jaar 50 euro duurder. Deze belasting wordt gebruikt voor het onderhoud en de versterking van dijken, duinen en andere waterkeringen. Daarnaast wordt met deze heffing ook het waterpeil beheerd en wordt de waterkwaliteit bewaakt. (zie ook: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterschap_(Nederland))

    Dit komt met name omdat deze gekoppeld is aan de waarde van het huis. Omdat huizenprijzen stijgen, stijgt de waterschapsbelasting automatisch mee, hier zijn in discussies over te vinden (of hier). Daarnaast worden investering in relatie tot klimaatverandering genoemd als extra kosten.


    Ref:

    Deze post is een onderdeel van een overkoepelende posting over de totale stijging de afgelopen 10 jaar over alle budget posten voor een huishouden m.a.w. dat op de een of andere manier gecompenseerd moet worden aan de andere kant
  • Updating WordPress Plugins

    Updating WordPress Plugins

    Took a multi-year long break from PHP, WordPress, Plugins, etc. Let’s see if I can reboot on this.

    PHP development Environment

    • Last time I checked we were on PHP 5 and object orientation was not present in most plugins, so struggled with some questions about it. I think I need to read-up what happened since. Did a quick read-up and interesting to see how programming language developments happen in all of these languages, all in a sort-of likewise format. It would be interesting to make a site that would compare syntax for each language, probably gen-ai can spit it out. On the top you would choose your languages and on the left you would choose statements that are either build-in or are custom code or are some kind of extensions. That probably would give a nice overview. E.g. to see how every (new) feature looks like compared in PHP, NetCore, Java, Kotlin and e.g. PowerShell. I read a lot of cool stuff, probably WordPress plugin development is a nice place to play with the new things.
    • Last time I checked I used Eclipse PHP, X-Debug and the Zend framework for coding and debugging. Since I now have a nice Virtual Machines server as well as a docker and k8s cluster at home, I think I will create a dedicated virtual machine (Hyper-V) for my PHP WordPress development environment. But… what is the state in 2024? I know back then Netbeans, PHPStorm were popular. I do a lot of stuff in Visual Studio Code. Have to check what is the nicest for me. Obviously need to include references to the 2 folders of WordPress and have debugging support. Will run the VM under Windows. Eclipse PDT is still nice I think. It is free. It is Eclipse and somehow I like the environment. I could also go for Jet Brains but then I will definitely go for the “all products pack” but that sets me back 350 euro a year. That is an investment for purely hobby and my wife will ask wtf this is. but I do meddle with Kotlin, Python, have to think about this. Free/open is a better direction for me I think. Especially since I have a LOT of other subscriptions already.
      • Virtual Machine : I have created 2 LUN’s and for each a ISCSI IQN that allows multiple sessions. From various machines I use Hyper-V manager to manage the Virtual Machines on there and start them when I need them. This is handy because I can centralize the backup and never need to worry about losing content. Also handy because my “workstations” laptops” can be clean and explode without a prob. There is a trick to allow Docker inside a Windows Virtual Machine (nested virtualization) so that you can further virtualize inside Windows virtual machines: Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true. It is comfortable to know that I still have 45 Tb free for virtual machines. So let’s create one for WordPress PHP plugin development
      • to be continued

  • Sleeping Cats

    Sleeping Cats

    One of my favorite game soundtracks (and games) is Sleeping Dogs, here I tried on udio.com to create a song that could have been part of that soundtrack. (also published this on udio here).


    Songtext:


    手心的溫柔 繚繞著指尖
    在你懷裡找到 安穩的避風港
    你給的溫暖 我的心願
    愛在月光下 悄悄話
    繁星點點 爾虞我詐之間交錯
    兩顆心 緊緊相依 像海浪擁抱岸邊
    請你靠近 再靠近
    深情蜜意 只待你開啟
    悄悄話在耳邊 說不盡的思念
    彼此的影子 在夜色中交織牽連
    你的呢喃 我的期盼
    愛的誓言 在星光下輕盈
    夜幕低垂 那吻猶如蜜甜召喚
    心中情意 如此熾熱卻又難言
    你要細味 再細味
    情感轉繞 情海中漂
    [副歌]
    未來 若能別讓今宵夢遠飄
    愛裡 緩緩地將你擁抱
    月亮的羞澀 連結著夜的秘密
    我們的故事 在星空下輕聲細語
    照亮心底 淡淡愁緒
    情感流轉 在琴鍵上彈奏
    [橋段]
    想你的溫暖 如夜風中飄渺
    我們的默契 用時間慢慢譜寫
    悄悄話轉為吟唱 心碎了卻帖合
    憶著初見你的模樣 在心海中漣漪擴散
    繁華似星河 靜靜流轉 畫卷裡的遠方
    每段情 都刻雕在我心上
    愛的旋律 輕撫我期盼的臉龐
    就讓淚光 成為相思的妝
    你的目光 如煙火般燦爛
    悄悄點燃 我心底的渴望
    在這深情無盡的夜晚
    手牽手 讓愛飛翔
    過往繁華 恍若夢一場
    但你眼中 星河仍亮堂

  • Un voyage au coeur de la pensée, version petit théâtre

    Un voyage au coeur de la pensée, version petit théâtre

    A french happy pop song with the idea of ” what if Aristotle would walk around us now” created on udio.

  • Dromen eiland

    Dromen eiland

    Dromen eiland


    Music created on udio, cover by openai,

  • Sunlit market

    Sunlit market stirs,
    Spices dance on village air,
    Laughter blends with light.

  • 01:23

    Repeating numbers, mirrored grace, Eleven-eleven, a mirrored face.

    Is it a warning, a whispered plea? Or just a trick of memory?

    01:11 01:11 01:11 0:11 0:11 0:11 0:11 0:11

    We seek the message, the hidden thread, In mirrored digits, what is said?

    A glimpse of future, a life defined?

    Or just the patterns of the human mind?