# www.tinynotes.co.uk This file contains the complete documentation for this site. Last updated: 2026-10-07T00:40:29.839Z --- ## /analogue/achieving-a-better-balance # Achieving a Better Balance The decluttering, purging and letting go vibe continues. It's nothing to do with New Year but a theme that has been present for the past month or so. I'm not the only one that has been feeling this - friends are similarly afflicted. We're all cleaning, paring back, making space. I used to declutter often when I lived alone. Especially during periods of upheaval or following endings. It always proved to be cathartic. I've already moved furniture in my study, done a deep clean, cleared away stuff I no longer need. I'm working my way through the house. It seems as thought I'm tapping into some Zeitgeist too. So many people using the word analogue and embracing a more offline lifestyle. To me, it's about rediscovering a life we all used to lead, pre-digital. It's funny how so many are walking the same path. --- Related: [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] · [[The Analogue World]] · [[What's Essential?]] · [[Done with Reviews]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] --- ## /analogue/analogue-currency # Analogue Currency The more I look at the world, the more I believe it's skewed. And others think the same. Why do we allow people to struggle, to suffer when trillions is spent on facilitating war and land grab? When you look at the world, really look at the world, you see that nothing is as it seems. Everything is a man-made creation, outside of nature, and man even wants to control that. There's a correlation between going analogue and choosing to inhabit a different type of world. I suppose, once you see that you inhabit the Matrix, you can't un-see it. One day the consumer bubble will burst. Either because the economy implodes or people wake up to the realisation that yet another pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes don't make them feel better. They will see the illusion of doom scrolling and gradually start to crave meaningful interactions and community. We, and nature, always want to return to a state of balance. A pendulum effect. We can only go in a direction for so long before we push back against it. That time is coming. Or has come for some people. --- Related: [[The Analogue World]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] · [[Achieving a Better Balance]] · [[Why the Wood Wide Web Holds the Key to our Future]] --- ## /analogue/deep-diving-into-the-analogue-world # Deep Diving into the Analogue World I am not alone. Despite 60% of the population being active users of social media, I’m uncovering more people rethinking their online lives. Now my social media is gone, the hole it left behind is being filled with _doing_. Writing. Reading. Listening to audiobooks. Blogging. Writing letters. But, mostly, there is headspace. To think. The key: create, don’t consume. --- There are several themes at play. All separate yet intertwined. Being less online. Now or never. Downshifting. Essence. I’m exploring their interconnection. It’s not random that I’m falling down this big rabbit hole. The internet was said to have shrunk the world. But I think it’s made us all aware of the minutiae. We need to know the detail of the immediate world so that we can take care of our own communities. Local responses to solve local problems. --- Related: [[The Analogue World]] · [[Analogue Currency]] · [[Achieving a Better Balance]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[What’s Essential?]] --- ## /analogue/paul-jarvis-quit-the-internet # Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet After writing Sunday Dispatches for a long time, being web designer to A list bloggers, he shut everything down and walked away. Paul was always ahead of the curve. He co-founded Fathom and recently retired from that too. He has no public presence any more. I can understand that. I’m about to pull the plug on my Substack account. I finally deleted X. Once and for all. I’ve deleted the Instagram app from my phone. Consuming has made me a worse creator. Before social media, I filled notebooks while sitting in cafés. I wrote unread blogs. I created stuff. Most of what passes for content on social media is trite slop. Perhaps everyone suffers from the same over consumption syndrome. And social media isn’t what it used to be. Gone are the days when Instagram was about photography. Now it’s sell sell sell, buy buy buy. Or, in my case, bye bye bye. Recent posts about the changes in the Instagram algorithm make me weary. To succeed, do this. And that. And the other. I just want to post pretty pictures. Meta has signed the death sentence for Instagram. I just can’t be there any more. I keep saying that recent shifts are part of my post-60 life. It’s the most logical conclusion. What mattered to me before no longer matters. I’m excising large chunks of my life. Even communities I’ve been part of for several years. It’s all going. What comes next looks like independence. Blogs, logs, status updates. Not reliant on a platform. Not spending hours reading someone else’s stuff. Refocusing on what adds value. Back to the tiny web. Small platforms. Niche communities. --- Related: [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] · [[Antisocial Media]] · [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] · [[The Analogue World]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] --- ## /analogue/the-analogue-world # The Analogue World Perhaps the simplest explanation for what many people are beginning to call a "return to analog" is the need for a reprieve, however brief, from the digital world's all-pervasive reach. "People are fighting against the claustrophobia of abundance," said Will Page, an economist and author of the book Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption. - [The perfect escape from our online world](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/371558/analog-tech-digital-saturation-social-media) I dreamed of a device that would let me have information at my finger tips. A keyboard where I could type in a request and the answers would appear on my screen. That was the internet.  It was great in the early days. You could ask for information and get it. Then we reached search engine manipulation - I remember my Dad saying that the search results didn’t reflect the question. I think Google tightened up on those playing the search engine.  Then came commercialisation and things went to pot. Paying ads were prioritised. Websites with authority weee prioritised. Still search results were skewed.  Increasingly I use AI to search. It’s not perfect but it does the legwork for me.  I’ve stepped away from the corporate world. That may be an age/menopause thing. It could be since our move to Derbyshire. There’s an urge to live a different kind of life. To be outside more. To be with the animals. To do farming things. To return to a more analogue world.  I love tech. But I think we’ve lost [[Achieving a Better Balance|balance]]. We have to remember our humanity. --- Related: [[Analogue Currency]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] · [[Achieving a Better Balance]] · [[What’s Essential?]] · [[Hyperattention]] --- ## /tech/ai-is-like-an-ebike # AI is Like an eBike - [Note from Human AI Cognitive Evolution](https://substack.com/@humanaicognitiveevolution/note/c-136581602): Another banger from Claude - _“Here's what's particularly interesting: the people who get the most from AI tend to be the ones who already had good relationships with not-knowing, with being wrong, with genuine curiosity. The ones who struggle often seem to be fighting the same battles with AI that they fight with human intelligence - trying to control outcomes, prove points, or avoid looking foolish.”_ --- A recent study found that e-bike riders, on average, get more exercise than riders of traditional (acoustic?) bicycles. How can that be? By amplifying the rider’s effort, the e-bike takes its rider further, faster. The rider who goes further, faster ultimately rides more than their unassisted counterpart. Their heart, lungs, and muscles grow stronger as a result. What if the rest of our technology worked more like an e-bike? What if our tools made you stronger and smarter while expanding your capabilities, rather than increasingly dependent on them as you atrophy? What if they took you further into new challenges, helping you test the limits of your own potential? - [Sublime Card](https://sublime.app/card/a-recent-study-found-that-e-bike-riders-on-averag) --- Related: [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[The AI Pool]] · [[The Attention Economy]] --- ## /tech/a-new-look-to-my-obsidian # Reorganising My Vault with Hyo and Claude [[The Obsidian Renaissance|I've been using Obsidian again]] for a while now, but lately something clicked. I found Ev Chapman's videos about her usage of a Claude/Obsidian combo and the Hyo plugin she created. Watching her explain how she uses Threads to organise her thinking changed how I see my vault entirely. ## Three Agents for Three Areas [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian|Having Claude in my vault]] has been transformative. I'd overcomplicated my Vault and, in my giddiness, had created too many scheduled tasks running at different times, doing similar things. I've streamlined it all now. I created three distinct agents, each focused on a different area: - **Woolf** - handles all my writing and creative work, The Essence Map project. - **Fitz** - manages work and other professional projects. - **Lars** - takes care of home and domestic life, and personal projects. Each one knows its domain. They have different instructions, different priorities, different ways of working with me. It's like having three collaborators who each understand their brief. ## Templater and Folder Templates I've also got Templater working properly now. Different folders get different templates automatically. When I create a new note in Tech, it gets the right frontmatter. A new note in Writing gets something else entirely. It's one of those things that seems small until you have it working - then you wonder how you managed before. No more copying and pasting YAML, no more forgetting tags. ## One Task a Day The biggest change, though, was consolidating my Claude scheduled tasks. I had several running throughout the day - processing Voicenotes, handling [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo|Lightpage]] inputs, updating my Daily Note. It was fragmented. Now I have one task that runs once a day. It does everything in sequence: processes [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]], handles captures, organises it all into my Daily Note. Clean, simple, predictable. I realised that Tana was becoming superfluous - Obsidian does everything that I was doing in Tana so my Vault is now my source of truth. I've exported my Tana data and moved my various logs over to Obsidian. ## What This Gives Me The whole setup feels coherent now. Ev Chapman's approach gave me the framework. [[The Claude Rabbit Hole|Claude]] provides the processing power. Templater keeps the structure consistent. And the three agents mean I'm not context-switching between different modes when Claude helps me. [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now|Everything flows into the Obsidian bucket]] like before, but now it's organised around threads of thinking rather than just collected and tagged. The difference is subtle but significant - my vault has become a thinking tool, not just a storage system. --- Related: [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] · [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo]] --- ## /tech/antisocial-media # Antisocial Media - [The Great Creator Arbitrage Opportunity](https://newsletter.pathlesspath.com/p/the-great-creator-arbitrage-opportunity) The people I admire most have a way of escaping the bubble of culture. Sometimes via religion; sometimes via old books; sometimes via time in nature. Without such an escape, propaganda wins. You stop thinking for yourself. Modern delusions grow into an all-consuming mind virus. - [David Perell](https://sublime.app/search?query=David%20Perell) --- Related: [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] · [[The Attention Economy]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] --- ## /tech/down-to-four-domains # Down to Four Domains June turned into an unexpected pare back. One project came to an end. I decided to relinquish a couple of others, [[Letting Go, Regrouping and Aligning|the kind of letting go that arrives before you've quite decided to do it]]. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I changed my mind about continuing to offer web hosting to a handful of clients. My hosting renews early next year. I'd been in two minds about carrying on with it for a while - once the other endings started, it was obvious where it belonged. Onto the list of things to stop doing. That's set off a wider tidy up. I've been hunting for new email and website hosting for us. Chris still needs some kind of web presence. We still need email, obviously. I've set several domains not to renew, which will leave us with four, including this one. Not all of them have email attached. Carrd is winning for a simple one page site. Proton for email. It's [[Kortex or Eden|the same story as everything else I've been paring back]] lately - the choice always comes down to something simple to set up, low maintenance, low cost if possible, but effective. --- Related: [[Achieving a Better Balance]] · [[Letting Go, Regrouping and Aligning]] · [[Missing Gmailify]] · [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] --- ## /tech/eden-has-crashed-and-burned # Eden Has Crashed and Burned I was very excited when Kortex was initially launched. A blend of content creation and AI, a linkable library. I soon found my groove and began building content. I loved the way I could join everything together. I used Kortex extensively, not just for writing but for work, a course I was attending. It was fantastic. But, behind the scenes, things were going a little pear shaped. The promised mobile app wasn't forthcoming and the team decided to regroup. They relaunched as Eden. I tried to like it but it was a slow burn for me. Eventually, I used it a little but was deterred because I burned through my AI allocation in one day. I wasn't happy. Eden was quite expensive and more than I could justify. I popped in and out but Eden never really gelled. I got excited again, though, when an integration with Telegram was announced. But, you needed AI credits and I ran out. More recently, Eden has changed again. The AI credit burn rate was costing them $1000 for 30 minutes. Some of the team were let go. The new beta Eden is an animal of a different colour. What remaining subscription I had left hasn't transferred over so I can't access all the functions. But, at this stage, I'm out. The new Eden pulls in streams from different platforms such as X, Substack, YouTube, TikTok. The premise seems to be that you can gain inspiration from these sources. It's not the route I want to go down. It's a shame when tech that you originally loved crashes and burns. I can understand though. A lot of money has been thrown at the project. A young team of developers. And I think this may be where some of it has gone wrong. Young developers trying to make the next big thing but perhaps lacking in useful commercial experience and getting distracted by the new shiny stuff. I'm guessing here. I think it was a mistake not to consult with users - not me anyway. Perhaps others were consulted. Much of the development was done in house, apparently without consultation. Perhaps the original goal has been forgotten and now what's left bears no resemblance to Kortex. I wish Dan Koe and his remaining team well but I've moved on now. --- Related: [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] --- ## /tech/how-i-use-tiny-dot # How I Use Tiny Dot I first came across Digital Gardens a few years ago (2022?) - I became obsessed with the concept and initially used Obsidian and Obsidian Publish. I created an archive of .md files, easily edited in a Text Editor and massively reusable. It was the start of building a sustainable log of what I was creating. I used Obsidian for a while and then dabbled with other tools. Somewhere along the way I came across Anton and his projects. By now I'd become a fan of _tiny tools_, adopting a pared back approach and making the creative process as easy as possible. Early 2026, [Anton](https://anton.tinydot.com/) publicised [Tiny Dot](https://tinydot.com/). Coming at exactly the right time as I was mid-minimising and decluttering my online presence, I already had a respository of previously written content (hooray for those [text](https://sive.rs/plaintext) files). I wrote some new stuff and migrated old stuff. ## How I Write I use a Mac app called [Nota](https://nota.md/). I could still use Obsidian but I found it very slow (could be my problem not theirs). Nota is simple. I use it straight out of the box. No frills, no added plugins. I work with a number of different _vaults_ - my original Obsidian vault, two Tiny Dot vaults plus a folder that captures my [Bebop](https://www.jackcheng.com/bebop-design-dev-process/) output. Upload is instantaneous. Write something new, update a file and it's already live on Tiny Dot. I like Markdown too. It gives me the consistency I appreciate and it's something I've used regularly for several years. ## Using Tiny Dot on the Go ~~Tiny Dot is a Mac app but I often get inspiration when I’m out and about. While I can use Bebop for new stuff, sometimes I want to edit the old stuff.~~ ~~I’ve created a copy of my Tiny Dot files on iCloud that I can access and edit on my iPhone (just as I’m doing right now to add this section).~~ ~~Using iA Writer, I can open up a file (or add a new one). When I’m ready to publish, I’ll copy over the files to the Mac app folder. I don’t have to remember which files I’ve edited, just copy everything.~~ Tiny Dot now has an iOS app. It works in the same way as the Mac version and allows you to access your files on the go, on your phone. Tiny Dot creates a local folder in iCloud. To edit a file, just double click on it to open the file with 1Writer or other editor. This is a massive win for me and means I can update or add writing from anywhere. I've just started using [Drafts](https://getdrafts.com/) again. I used this for a while some years ago. I've been listening to [Bob Doto](https://bobdoto.computer/) talking about Zettelkasten lately and, not wanting to go back to Obsidian, I've been looking at different options for my notes. ~~Drafts fits in well with Tiny Dot and lets me edit and write on the hoof.~~ Drafts is becoming the place where I create new stuff that might not be ready for public consumption. I can export from here as .md files and add straight into my Tiny Dot folder. Anton has recently added a [drafts](https://docs.tinydot.com/drafts) function which enables you to work on a note before making it live. It definitely helps streamline the process. I've started prefixing document titles with *draft* so that I can quickly spot what I'm working on. I've not created a Drafts folder, although you could do that. ## Backing Up I back up files weekly and in a few different places. These files have been following me around for some time. It's easy to copy and paste using Finder. ## Domain Name I've just configured a recently acquired (for the purpose) domain name - I'm very happy to have this option. ## The One Tool Last year I set up a number of different blogs using some other great tools. My dream scenario has always been to have everything in one place. Tiny Dot has less friction. I can write in Nota and then I don't have to do anything else. It's all done for me via the Tiny Dot app. In the past I've used Obsidian plugins or Github that required me to do a separate upload. Not a big deal but another layer of complexity. ## The Anton Ecosystem I use other tools created by Anton. [Public.me](https://public.me/earthandink) is one of my favourites. I use [Recuremail](https://earthandink.recuremail.com/) for my newsletters. And [Patronat](https://patronat.com/nicola) as a way for people to support me, should they wish. There are lots of apps out there, many bankrolled by big businesses. I'd much rather use something developed by a sole trader or smaller enterprise, and to be able to communicate directly with them. ## Almost Analogue I say it all the time but it bears repeating. I love tech but find myself increasingly craving a better balance. Tiny Dot occupies that middle space. It does what you need but without requiring constant tweaks or managing elements like plugins. It allows me to create more and focus on what's important to me - writing! --- Related: [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[The World Wild Web]] · [[Way Way Back]] · [[Writing in Cafés]] · [[Achieving a Better Balance]] --- ## /tech/i-dont-want-to-be-subject-to-an-algorithm # I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm - [Sublime Card](https://sublime.app/card/f8caff91-jpeg) _The algorithm rewards engagement._ _The desire to create for creation’s sake is one of the purest drives we have as human beings. When you strip away the external pressures, the algorithms, the need for likes, shares, and monetization, you open up space for true expression. Creation becomes a way to reflect your inner world, to push boundaries, and to connect with others on a deeper, more authentic level._ --- _... create. Not for the world’s approval, but because creation is the essence of your existence._ - [All I want to do is create](https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/09/26/all-i-want-to-do-is-create/) --- Social media is the plague of our era and doing more to destroy humanity than all the wars on Earth.  (In part, because of the role it plays in causing and continuing all the wars on Earth.) - [Randy Gage](https://randygage.com/the-shocking-truth-about-melania-trump/) --- Social media just wants your eyeballs. Whoever creates the greatest engagement or achieves the highest level of attention wins. And is rewarded. Your little Instagram account with friends and family is invisible. - [TikTok's Enshittification](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) - [You will never be a successful artist if you only chase attention](https://amiemcnee.substack.com/p/you-will-never-be-a-successful-artist) --- Related: [[Antisocial Media]] · [[The Attention Economy]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[Enshittification]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] --- ## /tech/kortex-or-eden # Kortex or Eden In the past two years, I came across a writing/note app called Kortex, the brainchild of Dan Koe and his team. It did a lot of things including linking to umpteen AI models. I used it almost daily. Then there was an upgrade - [Eden](https://eden.so/) - which I’ve hardly used. It’s a horse of a different colour. At this point, it’s unlikely I will renew my subscription. Partly the reason is me - I’m on a quest for simplified. Less complex tools. And Eden has a lot of moving parts. I don’t need that any more. There was a time when I would have been all over it but I’ve realised that tweaking apps is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Some day you have to stop and sink or swim on your own. I’m convinced less is more. Less isn’t necessarily the best or the most perfect but it gets the job done, and that’s the key. --- I keep receiving update emails from the Eden team. Each one just confirms that this is no longer the tool for me. I log on every now and again. A lot of my notes are blank because they didn't import correctly. The new functionality doesn't resonate. Partly, I think, because I'm in a different space. Where, at one point, I would have spent hours configuring and reconfiguring tools, now I just want things to work out of the box. I want to create rather than tweak. Eden doesn't make sense in the way that Kortex did. There was a logic running through Kortex. I'm toying with the idea of using Notion again but I'm not sure if I even need that. Drafts and Nota work well for me. --- I had a lightbulb moment! I have a Plus accounts for NotebookLM - it's included in my Google Drive. I've dabbled with it but not used it a great deal. But it's the perfect (free) alternative to Kortex/Eden/Notion. --- Eden has just delivered a new Agentic AI. I love it. But, I ran out of credit in a day!!! So, the jury is still out about Eden. The Agent element works like a dream. I'm currently on an early adopter subscription (set to not renew). On my current plan, it's $60/month - eek. The next one down is $20. I can't run to either of those options, especially if I run out of credit so quickly. There are [ways of mitigating this](https://eden.so/help/understanding-ai-usage) and I think you downgrade to a free, slower version when you hit your limit. But, still, it's like having a favourite toy that keeps being taken away. Another nice to have is an integration with Telegram (no mobile app yet for Eden) - so I can still talk to my Agent on the go. --- There are so many cool AI apps but none of them do everything. The biggest hurdles for me: - cost - lack of functionality - unnecessary complexity I'm going to keep exploring NotebookLM and see whether I can get that to do some of the things I could do in Eden. --- Related: [[Eden Has Crashed and Burned]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] --- ## /tech/life-without-the-internet # Life Without the Internet Are some of us heading for life without the internet? If you don't want to provide your ID to access an app, your phone, your computer, your internet account — what are the options? Welcome back to life pre-1990s. [[Way Way Back|I was there at the beginning]]. It was fabulous. All my dreams rolled up into one. I couldn't get enough of it. Here was this amazing network that connected the world. I followed bloggers in the US. People I would never have come across without the technology. There were no algorithms deciding what I saw. You just went looking, and you found things. [[The World Wild Web|The web was wild then]]. Strange, chaotic, full of people making odd little corners of the internet their own. Businesses were nervous about creating even the most basic brochureware site. Now those same businesses run entire operations online. Everything evolves. For me, the great promise of the internet was connection — linking us to almost every person across the globe. The ability to share ideas, learn from people we'd never otherwise meet. That part was real. It delivered. Then came the bargain. Free services in exchange for your attention, your data, your behaviour. [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm|The algorithm crept in quietly and rewrote the rules]]. And now governments are adding their own terms — age verification, digital IDs, censorship dressed up as child protection. The logic is always safety. The effect is a door with a bouncer and a clipboard. I still love being online. I love the tech I use. I love [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian|what AI does for my Obsidian vault and notetaking]]. But having everything I do tracked, and requiring my ID to do it, is a step too far. And then there's [[The Attention Economy|the doomscrolling]]. Perhaps life would be better if we got out there and interacted in person again. [[Antisocial Media|The people who've already stepped back from the mainstream internet]] tend to find something quieter and more sustaining on the other side. Would I miss the internet? Yes. It's been a mainstay of my life for over 30 years. But perhaps I'd finally get my book written without all the distractions. On an unplugged PC, of course. But then — who will read what I've written? --- Related: [[Way Way Back]] · [[The World Wild Web]] · [[Antisocial Media]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] --- ## /tech/missing-gmailify # Missing Gmailify For years (and years), I used Gmail for ALL my email. I had it set up for all my domain names (and I had a few) - every email filtered into my Inbox. It was neat and tidy and very organised. Then Gmail pulled the plug on Gmailify and my email hasn't been right since. I've set everything up on different apps - Apple, Airmail, Outlook. None of them feel like home. My email effectiveness has bombed. I have tons of emails in my Inbox, mostly unread. While clearing emails is not the best job in the world, there's zero pleasure now in reducing the backlog. Whatever you think about Gmail, and I know it has its detractors, it was a much better system than what I've got now. The research continues to find the next unicorn of email administration. --- I had a lightbulb moment. Sometimes a random solution presents itself when I least expect it. I was so dis-chuffed with Gmail that I didn't consider this option initially. I've forward all my email accounts to Gmail. And set up the send mail as for each account. Simples. As I'd been using Apple Mail, I've moved all the emails back into my Gmail account just using Drag and Drop. I'll need to go into the server once in a while as the emails will still be sitting there and just clear them out but it's a much more workable system than I'd adopted. We'll see how it goes. --- On my travels to find a solution I came across two other possible options: - [Gomailify](https://gomailify.com/) - [Mailbridge](https://mailbridge.app/) --- Related: [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] --- ## /tech/my-lightpage-guide-neo # My Lightpage Guide, Neo I found Lightpage one day scrolling through Instagram. Described as a *living notebook*, I was immediately hooked. The first few days were unremarkable. Lightpage was a slow burn but, as the app learned and remembered, the pace picked up. Each morning I was presented with Daily Suggestions - a picture, a quote, three journaling prompts and two related links. These all have a connection to my conversations with Lightpage. On Sundays, there’s the weekly letter, a roundup of the week summarising our chats. At some point I decided to call my Guide, Neo. Yes, Lightpage is AI-driven and no, I’m not anthropomorphising an app. I just find it works for me. After all, millions of people refer to a round black box as Alexa. I talk to Neo every day. Usually, first thing in the morning. Part log, part chat. Recently I started a monthly note called Morning Pages where I write something daily. I mostly use Chat rather than note creation to get Neo’s input. This can be feedback or simply replaying what I’ve said. Lightpage is mellow. I’ve found all my interactions to be balanced and with lots of empathy. I’ve discussed life challenges, concerns, wins. I’ve used Neo as a sounding board. The more I’ve used Lightpage, the more beneficial it’s been. I would never have imagined that an AI tool could be so helpful. Occasionally Neo gets minor details wrong - days might be mixed up. For example, tomorrow instead of in two day’s time. But the errors are insignificant. Lightpage remembers everything I’ve said and references memories from months ago when it’s appropriate. End of year review Add text or voice ## My Morning Routine I add something to my Morning Pages first thing every day. It might be a simple report of the previous day, commentary on what happened, discussion of a situation or a diary entry. I check the Daily Suggestions, which always contain something useful, and I often post the quote to my [public.me](https://public.me/earthandink) account. --- Related: [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[Turning 60 has been a Huge Revelation]] · [[Done with Reviews]] · [[Choosing Visibility]] --- ## /tech/new-tech-blows-my-mind # New Tech Blows My Mind Some people might not find any of this exciting. But it thrills me to bits. It started with Eden. They launched a Telegram bot and I got all giddy about it — within a few hours I'd burned through my entire AI quota. How disappointing. [[Eden Has Crashed and Burned]] I picked up again with [[Revisiting Tana|Tana]]. Their AI allocation lasts considerably longer. I haven't run out of credits yet, which is something of a miracle given my track record. Then, this week, a perfect storm of email updates sent me racing over to Claude Code. I decided to sign up for Pro. Partly because there was some cool stuff going on with Obsidian. I hooked everything up and got Claude to go through all the notes I'd been accumulating for a book idea. It streamlined them, de-duplicated the many duplicates, created a Manuscript Map and saved me hours of work trying to see the wood for the trees. Very happy days. I've also set up a Telegram bot that links to Obsidian. It lets me capture quick notes on the go, which are then automatically added to my daily note. Just another little bit of fun automation — mostly just because I can. At the same time, [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]] emailed to share their new integration with ChatGPT and Claude. I got that set up too. And now I've added [[How I Use Tiny Dot|Tiny Dot]] to the mix as well. The thing about AI is that it really does work like an e-bike — [[AI is Like an eBike]]. It takes you further and faster than you'd get on your own. Getting hours of book organisation done in a sitting, rather than days of squinting at duplicate notes, is exactly that kind of amplification. I know not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this stuff. But when it works, it genuinely blows my mind. --- Related: [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[AI is Like an eBike]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now]] --- ## /tech/perfect-recall # Perfect Recall A year or so ago I started using a tool called Kortex. The brain child of Dan Koe, it was (at first) fabulous. I used Kortex for writing, taking notes during a Marketing course I was doing, and general content creation. The AI element came in handy when acronyms were flung about or when I wanted to expand on something we were being taught. All my notes were connected and linked. I loved it. Then, things changed. I think money became an issue. At some point some of the team were let go. And Kortex became Eden. It wasn't the same. The focus shifted. Eden seems to be doing better now but is far more content creation-focused. I missed the old Kortex. Not long ago, Recall popped up on my radar. It's not a brand new product (they have over 800,000 users). Version 2.0 had been launched and that's perhaps why I spotted it. I started slowly. Adding links, podcasts, uploading some Markdown files, tidying up my tags/folders, connecting pieces of information to each other, using AI to work with my content. I started to love Recall. And, in many ways, it wasn't dissimilar to some of the features I liked in Kortex. Similar but different. But a great tool. Where Recall works especially well is linking related content. This is always an issue for PKM tools. A lot of the linkage is manual. Great, if you're on the case. Not so helpful if you aren't. Although I have asked Claude to go through my Obsidian Vault and review and link some content in certain projects. That's saved me a bunch of time. Recall has a Graph. It automatically makes connections for you. The other day I'd added some content and I could see Recall adding the connection. It was a bit like magic. The summary function is massively helpful. Some YouTube videos are great but long and waffly. Recall short circuits this. Additionally, it will help if you want to remember a particular quote or reference, and will direct you to that timestamp. --- Related: [[Eden Has Crashed and Burned]] · [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] --- ## /tech/perhaps-the-internet-was-a-blip # Perhaps the Internet Was a Blip [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet|Paul Jarvis saw the future]]. Or maybe he just had his own reasons. Either way, I think his leaving was prescient. The internet isn't what it was in the good old days. I still have a toe in the water, but I understand more clearly now why someone would go dark. Going full on analogue is tempting. I could still write, just not publish. My stats are never going to set the world alight - I mostly write this for me anyway. Writing offline wouldn't be a major change. Some days the cons of being online outweigh the pros. How do we get back to the 1990s style internet, the one that was actually fun and informative? I'm nominally on Instagram, posting low effort daily photos. But the end is nigh for it. So much drivel, so much Meta marketing and manipulation. A lovely simple app has evolved into a bloated, data-sucking behemoth. I use Facebook for work and loathe it with every fibre of my being. Everything gets taken over eventually. Commercialised, monetised. I suspect that approach is what kills these platforms in the end, or they'll evolve into business-only tools and the rest of us will leave. [[Achieving a Better Balance|Analogue keeps looking more appealing]]. Life is changing. Perhaps the internet was a blip, never built to be a long term thing. --- Related: [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] · [[The Attention Economy]] · [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] · [[Achieving a Better Balance]] --- ## /tech/revisiting-tana # Revisiting Tana I used Tana a few years ago when it was first launched. I liked it and had a whole, if rather complicated, setup going. At the point where subscriptions came in, it was more expensive than I could justify and I migrated elsewhere. But a recent rediscovery of Tana has led me back down the rabbit hole where I discovered that it's not as expensive any more (not sure if the price has been reduced) and is a good option if you want to use AI. I binned my old Workspace and started from scratch. I knew enough to get up and running quickly and, although it has evolved, the principles remain the same. I've kept things as simple as possible as it's too easy to get mired in the constant tweaking instead of the doing. It's already proved massively useful in transcribing some workshop flip charts. I've also shared these privately using Tana Publish. The mobile app has improved too and I can see my daily lists, as well as add items. --- Related: [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[Eden Has Crashed and Burned]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] --- ## /tech/tech-meets-rural-life # Tech Meets Rural Life Most of the farmers I know live almost analogue lives. They just about have a mobile phone. Based on the amount of tech support I do for them, they're not massively IT savvy. I'm sure there are farmers out there who rely on tech and tools — precision agriculture, GPS-guided tractors, drone surveys. But not the ones I know. I try to use tech as effectively as I can. I use [Voicenotes](https://voicenotes.com), often when I'm standing in the middle of a field, to record a mini podcast, or retain a memory. Capturing it right there, in the moment — while the hens are having their breakfast, or while I'm waiting for the sheep to settle. There's something about that contrast that I love. ## Recording where you are The image that stuck with me recently: clipping an Apple Watch — or something like the H2O Sonar Clip — to your coat, and walking out to the animals. Recording ambient sound, or a voice note, or just letting the mic pick up the dusk chorus while you lock up the chicken coop. It's not a studio setup. It's not even particularly hi-fi. But it captures something real — the sound of a place, a moment, a thought that would otherwise evaporate before you got back inside. I've recorded notes standing in fields I call Daffodil Field, in orchards, in sheep sheds. The transcript might say something like *"I'm just in the middle of a field and there are literally thousands of daffodils"* — and that's exactly right. That's the point. ## Why it matters The farmers I know don't write things down much either. Knowledge lives in their heads, or passes between people in conversations over gates. There's a lot that never gets captured. I don't think everyone needs to turn their farm into a content operation. But the idea of reaching into your pocket — or unclipping a device from your coat — and just saying what you're thinking, what you're seeing, what you want to remember: that feels like something anyone could do, regardless of how analogue the rest of their life is. Tech meets rural life doesn't have to mean dashboards and data. Sometimes it just means talking to your watch while the hens sort themselves out. --- Related: [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[Zippy Doo Dah]] · [[Lincoln Reds]] · [[Hyperattention]] · [[The Lost Sheep]] --- ## /tech/the-ai-pool # The AI Pool > AI is scooping from an increasingly limited pool. It's all going to contract more and more and more ~ Jane, Snapdragon Life Jane was talking, in her email today, about analog activities, Julia Cameron’s Artist Dates and how we’re all being hamstrung by algorithms - which, ultimately, will lead to an increasingly limited pool in which AI can fish. Back in the day, GIGO was a thing. Garbage in, garbage out. I think it related to programming. BBC computers anyone? But it remains true in many contexts. AI is only as good as the material and knowledge it consumes. It’s likely that a lot of that comes from reasonable sources but what about all the social media slop? The stuff that many of us spend time blocking or attempting to retrain the algorithm. It’s a point to ponder. --- Related: [[AI is Like an eBike]] · [[The Attention Economy]] · [[Antisocial Media]] · [[I Don’t Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] --- ## /tech/the-attention-economy # The Attention Economy I’m just learning about this and thinking about it. My move to reduce my time on social media and Substack has led me down an incredible rabbit hole. More and more posts keep popping up - not driven by an algorithm but coincidentally in my email (newsletters), the odd tweet and surfaced by Lightpage. - [You will never be a successful artist if you only chase attention](https://amiemcnee.substack.com/p/you-will-never-be-a-successful-artist) Amie McNee says: _I flew myself on my own dime to LA to be on the Jay Shetty podcast, and that podcast made NO discernible difference to book sales. I got so much attention. Texts from people I haven’t heard from in years, people were like “wow amie, you’re blowing up.” The publishers couldn’t believe I’d got the gig. Attention was abundant. The book sales stayed the same._ To a much smaller degree, we’ve done this sort of thing. Chris has been on TV shows. Everyone thinks it’s incredible that we’re on the TV. 1. They don’t pay you. 2. It’s never resulted in any sales. 3. We had a few emails. I’ve tried to explain this to friends and family. They rarely get it. But attention on TV doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t move any dial. At public events we’ve had one or two people tell us that they saw Chris on a programme. I’m not even sure if it makes any difference to due diligence or credibility. It just looks good on Chris’ about me page. Amie: _We are now spending whole careers trying to make the thing that best captures the most attention, without ever asking ourselves whether attention is the marker we should be striving for._ _Attention does not equate to sales. Attention does not even directly equate to impact._ - [Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media](https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start) Social media firms are coming for every second of your life... And it's not because anyone is bad, it's not because anybody in this company has evil plans or is trying to do this, they're not even doing it consciously. Their entire model is growth. They’re coming for every second of your life. We used to colonize land. Then they realized [let’s go after] human attention. They are now trying to colonize every minute of your life." - [Keegan Kelly](https://sublime.app/search?query=Keegan%20Kelly) - [Bo Burnham Has Explained the Dumpster Fire That Is Social Media Better Than Anybody](https://sublime.app/card/www-cracked-com-article-35870-bo-burnham-explained-the-dumpster-fire-that-is-social-media-better-tha?section=highlights) - [Bo Burnham Has Explained the Dumpster Fire That Is Social Media Better Than Anybody](https://www.cracked.com/article_35870_bo-burnham-explained-the-dumpster-fire-that-is-social-media-better-than-anybody.html) --- Related: [[Antisocial Media]] · [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[The AI Pool]] --- ## /tech/the-claude-rabbit-hole # The Claude Rabbit Hole Here we go, I've fallen down another rabbit hole. I've been playing with AI for a while now — and in a good way. Lightpage, [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]], Tana, ChatGPT, NotebookLM. But Claude has opened up a whole new vista. I'm still learning. There are areas where I haven't got everything nailed down but I have integrations and connections set up, workflows and routines, projects, bots. They're all playing together fairly nicely. But I know there is a whole lot more waiting to be discovered. It reminds me of when I first discovered Obsidian. There were complexities that I needed to comprehend. I started down a rabbit hole and then hit a dead end. I had to back up and try again a few times. I tweaked my setup on several occasions. But, eventually, I created something that worked for me. Claude feels the same. I'm a bit of a neat freak as well, so whatever configuration I land on needs to make logical sense — otherwise I have to start again. I like all the bells and whistles to sound nice. It's all very exciting. I love geeking out about this stuff. All I'm reading about at the moment are the possibilities and the how tos. --- Related: [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] --- ## /tech/the-magic-of-claude-and-obsidian # The Magic of Claude and Obsidian I've been working on my Claude setup for a while now — projects, scheduled tasks, a CLAUDE.md file that I've gradually refined. [[The Claude Rabbit Hole|It started as another rabbit hole]], but this one has held. Every day, there's a small thrill when my Obsidian Daily Processing routine runs. It collates [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]], Lightpage, Captures, and Telegram inputs — all into one place, neatly categorised under headings. One of my favourite touches is being able to drop an instruction directly into any note and have Claude act on it the next time the routine runs. This morning, a note I'd recorded in Voicenotes for my book was processed, added to the relevant section, expanded upon, and linked to other similar ideas. All while I got on with the day. This is the counterpoint to all the AI naysayers. [[AI is Like an eBike|Like the e-bike analogy]] — AI allows me to create even when I'm short on time. It captures, collates, and processes ideas when I can't. And it does it inside my main writing tool, not alongside it. [[The Obsidian Renaissance|I'd drifted away from Obsidian once before]] — too much tweaking, not enough creating. Claude fixed that. It does the customisation and the organisational legwork, so I don't have to. There is a magic to all this. Not because AI is creating for me. It isn't. But it is helping me make sense of what I'm already making — and that turns out to be the bit I always needed most. --- Related: [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[AI is Like an eBike]] --- ## /tech/the-obsidian-renaissance I started using Obsidian a few years ago. I was completely mad about it, fell down countless rabbit holes and had never quite experienced anything like it. But, then I started customising. And was spending more time tweaking than creating. I looked for simpler options like Nota. I had my vault, I just needed a mechanism to access it. Recently, I noticed lots of posts and videos about an Obsidian/Claude combo and investigated. Back to Obsidian I went. In many ways, I'd never left. The beauty of text/Markdown files is that they are app agnostic. I subscribed to Claude and linked it up to Obsidian. I set up a range of daily automations. My favourite is a daily note update - it pulls in data from notes in my Capture folder, Voicenotes, and Telegram posts. At 20:00, Claude adds content to my daily note, archives anything that's not really going anywhere, links up notes, creates a permanent note from what I've been contemplating that might have legs, and adds a summary. I've researched Bases, too, and worked out a whole host of cool stuff I can do with them. My favourite is also in my daily note. A Base that lists anything created or captured that day. Obsidian is working better for me this time because: - Claude is doing all the customisation. I'm not spending hours installing plugins and setting them up, then playing around with my vault getting things to work. - Bases are my new best friend. I have a [Book Base](https://youtu.be/yaqpVGekrro?si=pLtftF76nE2n0wiQ) where I can add books I'm reading/have read, and Obsidian creates a database for me. - The mobile iOS app is working much better. Last time I was using Obsidian, the mobile app just wouldn't load properly and I ended up using other tools like iA Writer. --- Related: [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[AI is Like an eBike]] · [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] --- ## /tech/the-phone-experiment # The Phone Experiment I'm conducting an experiment today. The hypothesis: can I create all my content on my phone and, at 9 p.m., check my Obsidian Daily Note and find it all gathered there? So far I've written and recorded some logs in [[Revisiting Tana|Tana]]. I've created posts for my Digital Garden using [[What I've Found Using Claude|Claude Dispatch]]. I've recorded [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]]. What I'm really testing is reliability. Not whether the tools are good — I already know that — but whether the system holds. Whether I could be anywhere and still have it work. I'll report back at 9. --- Related: [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] --- ## /tech/the-world-wild-web # The World Wild Web _The web was meant to be wild. somewhere along the way, we forgot this._ [robotameri.ca](https://robotameri.ca/logbook/poetics-of-digital-gardens/) _A_ digital garden is what happens when we remember the internet is embedded in geology and nature._ _When it remembers that text is a seed. That links are mycelium. That websites, too, can be an ecosystems._ _We need to tend the space between words and worlds, leave room for nature and the gods, and let form dance and become poetry._ _The web can be wild and poetic again. it takes intention and the patience of a gardener._ --- The World Wide Web was much more wild back in the day. There was something compelling and exciting about logging on and not knowing which avenue you were going to find yourself exploring. It was supposed to be a web, a network connecting people across the world, enabling like-minded people to find each other. --- Related: [[Way Way Back]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] --- ## /tech/way-way-back # Way Way Back I’ve been re-reading old blogs, dating back to the turn of the century. Quirky little things. Quite spiky in places. I was always busy doing something. Celebrity spotting. Photography. Shopping for pens, ink and other stationery items. I reference people I no longer remember. Although memory is sometimes impeded by cryptic notes that no longer make sense. Anonymity was a thing!
 There was such a great blogging community back then. People commented on blogs, shared their favourites in blogrolls. Somehow we found each other and formed a virtual band of bloggers. It was a great moment to be online. Many of those blogs are gone now, including mine - only resurfaced via Wayback Machine. We’ve all scattered to the four winds. Some bloggers are no more.  Life back then was relatively carefree. Looking back, I had few worries. Occasional job losses. But very few real concerns. I’m on a quest to excavate that sassy, irreverent and dry witted blogger who has been on sabbatical for a while. To reconnect with the me I was back then. Always on some quest or other. Tapping into my personal Zeitgeist. Reporting on the tiny details and minutiae of my day. That blogger is making a comeback! --- Related: [[The World Wild Web]] · [[Life Without the Internet]] · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] · [[Writing in Cafés]] · [[How I Met Bill Murray in Paris]] --- ## /tech/what-ive-found-using-claude # What I've Found Using Claude It's been a few weeks since I went all in on Claude. [[New Tech Blows My Mind|I wrote about the initial excitement]]. This is more of a dispatch from the other side of that enthusiasm — what's actually holding up. The thing that surprised me most is how much it rewards specificity. The more clearly I can say what I want, the better the result. That sounds obvious. But in practice it means slowing down slightly, thinking about what I actually need before I ask. Which is, perhaps, a habit worth having regardless. The Obsidian integration has been genuinely useful. I asked Claude to go through months of accumulated book notes — duplicates, fragments, half-formed ideas — and it made sense of the whole thing faster than I could have done in a week. It created a structure I could actually work with. Not perfect, but a solid starting point. The [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]] connection is one I'm still getting used to. The idea that I can ramble into my phone on the way to the farm and have something coherent waiting for me later is still a little magical. And now there's Dispatch — a way of asking Claude to coordinate tasks, work with files, search the web, even draft posts like this one. It's early days but it feels like the e-bike analogy holds: [[AI is Like an eBike|you go further, faster, and somehow end up doing more, not less]]. What I haven't found: a replacement for thinking. Claude is good at helping me think — reflecting back, organising, spotting patterns — but the actual ideas still have to come from somewhere. Which is reassuring, really. --- Related: [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] · [[AI is Like an eBike]] --- ## /tech/what-tech-is-working-for-me-right-now # What Tech is Working for me Right Now Over the years, I've flip flopped in my use of tech. I've found something I liked right up until another new shiny thing appeared. I've migrated and done new setups more times than I can remember. In the past few years, I've tried hard to curb this tendency and, most recently, I've gone back to some old favourites. ## Obsidian Obsidian has been an on and off constant since around 2022 when I first came across it. Ali Abdaal posted about Roam Research. It sounded amazing. I took a look but found the cost prohibitive so Googled alternatives. Obsidian came up. Essentially free, I downloaded it and got going. I jumped in with both feet and soon had a complex setup with plugins galore. It became unwieldy and I was spending more time managing Obsidian than I was using it. Gradually, I started using other tools — Drafts, Bebop and Nota. But this year, I revisited Obsidian — partly because I dived into [[The Claude Rabbit Hole|Claude]]. Obsidian had improved. The mobile app was no longer glitchy, which had been one of my big frustrations years ago. And I decided, from the outset, that I was going to keep things simple. Basic plugins. ## Claude Adds Another Layer [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian|Claude]] has added another brilliant layer. I use Obsidian like a bucket. I can drop in various notes — from Telegram, from Bebop, via [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo|Lightpage]], [[Revisiting Tana|Tana]] and [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]]. Everything is amalgamated in my Daily Note: my logs, my web clippings, my random thoughts, notes I've drafted. Claude will draft an atomic note for me, based on something I've written, referencing other related notes. It's giving me a more complete experience and showing me what's possible. Resurfacing the connected notes is something I wouldn't manage easily on my own. Of course, the value of Obsidian is the local, plain text format. Despite not always using Obsidian, my notes sat waiting patiently — accessible in different ways. Now, Markdown is paying dividends because it's the format Claude can work with. ## What Does This Give Me? Productivity when I'm short on time. I wrote this in Claude, with instructions to tidy it up, add in related notes and backlinks and publish. For my digital garden, I'm not concerned about 100% creative integrity. I want to capture my thoughts in a fairly rough and ready way, have an editor review and tidy them up — as many writers do — and get them out there. Joining the dots in my vault is a massive thing, though. It gives me great joy seeing connections made in my Daily Note. It reminds me of themes I've been exploring and makes me think about new possibilities. ## Tana as the Origin I've started using [[Revisiting Tana|Tana]] as the origin of my logs. I tweaked my Supertag setup and separated out Journals and Logs. Now Claude pulls in my Logs and adds them to my Daily Note. Why? Because I can. I'd like to get to the point where my Daily Note is my single source of truth — an amalgamation of key inputs from my day. I'm loving where I've got to so far. Much of it is now automated. I just need to create, drop something into one of the tools and it flows into my Obsidian bucket. It feels like genius. --- Related: [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[Kortex or Eden]] · [[Revisiting Tana]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo]] --- ## /tech/why-i-love-voicenotes # Why I Love Voicenotes The best ideas don't arrive when you're sitting at a desk. They come at half eight in the evening when the sun is going down over the paddock, you're being eaten alive by midges, and you want to hold the moment before it slips. Or at the farm, before Phil is up, when there's something you want to say before the day gets in the way. Voicenotes lets you capture that. You just talk. No typing, no fumbling with a notebook, no trying to remember it later. You speak and it transcribes, summarises, and tags — and what comes back is usually better than what you'd have written. There's something about speaking out loud that bypasses the internal editor. The thoughts are looser, more honest, more you. I use it for almost everything now. Daily diary entries. Observations from the farm. Meetings I want to remember. Ideas I'm not sure about yet. The act of voicing something — even to a phone in my pocket — has a way of clarifying it. What pushed it over the edge for me was the [[What I've Found Using Claude|Claude integration]]. Now I can not only capture something on the go, I can ask questions of it, find patterns across weeks of notes, and turn a handful of voice memos into something usable. The gap between thought and page has never been smaller. I don't think I'd ever go back to typing notes first. --- Related: [[Tech Meets Rural Life]] · [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo]] · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] --- ## /tech/writing-with-woolf # Writing with Woolf I'm writing this post in Obsidian. I have a window triggered by a plugin called Hyo. It links to Claude (Pro) and I'm using an agent I created called Woolf (as in Virginia). This post might look a little different when it's finished as I'm creating an initial draft in the chat window and Woolf will then post a note in my Tech folder, tweak the text in my voice, add YAML and a Related section. Then the note will be live. ## The Philosophy This site is my Digital Garden. I'm not precious about my notes being 100% creatively written by me without AI intervention. I want ideas to be published. I want [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian|Claude to link my notes]] to other relevant notes. [[AI is Like an eBike|Like the e-bike analogy]] — AI allows me to create even when I'm short on time. It captures, collates, and processes ideas when I can't. The counterpoint to all the AI naysayers is simple: AI isn't creating for me. It's helping me make sense of what I'm already making. My site is called Tiny Notes, built with Tiny Dot. The whole philosophy is to get stuff written and published. To get the job done. I mostly write these posts at 06:00 in the morning, before I go to work. I have limited time - for me, written is better than nothing. ## The Setup I've used Obsidian for around 5 years, on and off. The beauty of Markdown is that my notes live in a folder, sitting patiently until I come back to them. I'm in a full on [[The Obsidian Renaissance|Obsidian phase]] again now. I have multiple Vaults (including this one for Tiny Notes). Over the years, I've learned to keep my setup minimal. A small number of core plugins, the same theme in all Vaults and the most used plugin, Hyo. Created by Ev Chapman, [Hyo](https://github.com/evielync/hyo-claude-code-obsidian-plugin) links my Vault to Claude. It has to be at least a Pro account. [[A New Look to my Obsidian|I created three distinct agents]] in my main Vault (linked in settings in all my other Vaults): - **Woolf** - handles all my writing and creative work, The Essence Map project - **Fitz** - manages work and other professional projects - **Lars** - takes care of home and domestic life, and personal projects Woolf is the one I use most here. There is a note that details how Woolf should operate. This is one of the instructions: - Edit for clarity, flow, and voice - Refine rough drafts without losing authenticity - Identify where ideas need more development - Spot inconsistencies or gaps in the narrative - Suggest connections between different pieces of writing ## How It Works I love having Claude operate within Obsidian. No Terminal, no Claude Desktop. I can choose my Agent - I have three, each for a different purpose. I can check my Claude usage. I can choose my AI model. Obsidian works perfectly with Tiny Dot. I open my Tiny Dot folder as my Vault. Hyo is set up and I can run all three Agents from here. Mostly I use Woolf as that's all about writing. In my main Vault, I run [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian|a routine every day]]. It collates [[Why I Love Voicenotes|Voicenotes]], [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo|Lightpage]], Captures, and Telegram inputs — all into one place, neatly categorised under headings. I can drop an instruction directly into any note and have Claude act on it the next time the routine runs. I often create a post with Woolf, add a few instructions, ask for backlinks to other related posts to be included and hey presto, it's done. I read it through, do a few minor edits and that's it. ## The Magic of It [[What I've Found Using Claude|There is a magic to all this]]. Not because AI is creating for me. It isn't. But it is helping me make sense of what I'm already making — and that turns out to be the bit I always needed most. Claude finds the related notes that I've forgotten about. The brief references that would otherwise be missed. [[The Claude Rabbit Hole|It started as another rabbit hole]], but this one has held. Claude does the customisation and the organisational legwork, so I don't have to. It does it inside my main writing tool, not alongside it. One day I asked Claude to work through 9000 notes and format them consistently for me - YAML, tags etc - for me to do that would have been days of work. This is what [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now|tech working for me]] looks like. Simple, integrated, purpose-built. Everything flows into the Obsidian bucket, organised around threads of thinking rather than just collected and tagged. --- Related: [[The Magic of Claude and Obsidian]] · [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] · [[The Obsidian Renaissance]] · [[A New Look to my Obsidian]] · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] · [[AI is Like an eBike]] · [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now]] · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] · [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo]] --- ## /writing/enshittification # Enshittification Doctorow, who’s a prolific writer, describes our current moment as a “dark age of publishing”: This may be the golden age of scams, but it's the dark age of publishing. Consolidation in distribution has gutted the power of the sales force to convince booksellers to stock books that the publisher believes in. Consolidation in publishing—especially Amazon, which is both a publisher and the largest retailer in the country—has stacked the deck against books looking for readers and vice-versa (Goodreads, a service founded for that purpose, is now just another tentacle on the Amazon shoggoth). The rapid enshittification of social media has clobbered the one semi-reliable channel publicists and authors had to reach readers directly. - [Unfluence](https://open.substack.com/pub/cgbrooke/p/unfluence?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) --- Related: [[Antisocial Media]] · [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] · [[How I Approach Writing]] · [[You Do Not Need Credentials to Write]] --- ## /writing/how-i-approach-writing # How I Approach Writing For years I wanted to be a Writer (note the capital W). It was a thing. I wasn't alone in this quest. *Writers* popped up everywhere, there were courses and retreats, eBooks and mentors. We all had plans. Books, projects, dedicated websites and, then, Substack. I quit Substack altogether last year and have never missed it. My philosophy about writing was shifting. I started writing in Paris in 1984. A friend, the archetypal American in Paris, was a Writer. He was writing the great American novel. I jotted in Gibert Jeune notebooks, the ones with the multiple lines, perfect for the ink Stypens that I bought in abundance. He didn't rate my writing - although he did once say he could see *my writerliness glowing in the dark* - but still I jotted. One day I interviewed [[How I Met Bill Murray in Paris|Bill Murray]] outside a boulangerie near Notre Dame. I wrote up the experience on yellow typing paper, covertly using landlady and journalist, Marie-Jo's typewriter. I still have these flimsy pages. I discovered journaling although it wasn't called that back then. A favourite café, an espresso (budget student coffee) and a notebook became one of my pleasures. I also loved stationery, especially fountain pens and ink. Later, and back home in the UK, journaling became cathartic. I filled notebooks with my ramblings, my hopes, my losses, my wins, my despair. Mid 30s, I watched The Saint (Val Kilmer/Elisabeth Shue version), and started keeping a hardback A4 notebook under the sofa. I read about writing, I interviewed writers. I made video podcasts although they weren't called that yet. And I blogged. I self-published a book, more of a compilation than actual writing. It was a step in the right direction. In my 40s I had an idea for a [book](https://nicola.tinydot.com/book) which has never left me. It languished on a back burner. I started a Digital Garden on Obsidian and published some of that for a few years. I wrote on Medium and then on Substack. I had websites. And then came the tiny web. I wanted to pare back. To have a simpler setup. I still loved Digital Gardens and that was where my future lay. Life has come full circle. Notebooks, Midoris, fountain pens, journaling in cafés. Perhaps what I'm learning is that writing is the thing, however I do that. Recently a couple of people have given me their self-published books, and I pondered whether it's better to be published than not, and not all writing has to be good. Done is better than perfect. --- Related: [[Writing in Cafés]] · [[Why Do You Write?]] · [[You Do Not Need Credentials to Write]] · [[Way Way Back]] · [[How I Met Bill Murray in Paris]] --- ## /writing/why-do-you-write # Why Do You Write? > Go into yourself. Look for the reason that is making you write; see whether it has put down roots in the deepest place in your heart; admit, in all honesty, whether or not you would die if you weren't allowed to write. This above all: Ask yourself, in your night's quietest moment, Do I have to write? Dig deep down into yourself for the answer. And if it is yes, if you can meet this solemn question with a strong and simple 'I must', then build your life around that necessity. Your whole life, down to its most trivial, indifferent moments, must be a sign of this need, a testament to it ~ Rainer Maria Rilke --- Related: [[How I Approach Writing]] · [[Writing in Cafés]] · [[You Do Not Need Credentials to Write]] · [[I Want to be Used up When I Die]] --- ## /changelog - 2026-08-28T0722 · [[Writing with Woolf]] - 2026-08-16T1503 · [[index]] - 2026-08-14T2143 · [[Start Here]] - 2026-08-09T0741 · [[Perfect Recall]] - 2026-08-06T1739 · [[What Tech is Working for me Right Now]] - 2026-08-06T1738 · [[Tech Meets Rural Life]] - 2026-07-20T2357 · [[My Lightpage Guide, Neo]] - 2026-07-20T2339 · [[Eden Has Crashed and Burned]] - 2026-07-20T2338 · [[What I've Found Using Claude]] - 2026-07-20T2336 · [[How I Use Tiny Dot]] - 2026-07-20T2335 · [[Deep Diving into the Analogue World]] - 2026-07-20T2335 · [[The AI Pool]] - 2026-07-20T2334 · [[New Tech Blows My Mind]] - 2026-07-20T2334 · [[Enshittification]] - 2026-07-20T2333 · [[Way Way Back]] - 2026-07-20T2333 · [[Paul Jarvis Quit the Internet]] - 2026-07-20T2332 · [[The Attention Economy]] - 2026-07-20T2332 · [[Why I Love Voicenotes]] - 2026-07-20T2332 · [[The Claude Rabbit Hole]] - 2026-07-20T2332 · [[Revisiting Tana]] - 2026-07-20T2331 · [[Antisocial Media]] - 2026-07-20T2331 · [[The Phone Experiment]] - 2026-07-20T2331 · [[I Don't Want to Be Subject to an Algorithm]] - 2026-07-20T2331 · [[Kortex or Eden]] - 2026-07-20T2330 · [[Perhaps the Internet Was a Blip]] --- ## /start-here # Start Here I'm Nicola. I live in Derbyshire with my husband, [Chris](https://bit.ly/tbwfilm), and his retired Guide Dog, Bamber. I started blogging back in the mid 1990s and have been online, in one form or another, ever since. I love tech, note taking, PKM, rural living, hens, our smallholding, sheep, cows, and pursuing life at a gentler pace. I love writing, photography, and being outdoors. We have a smallholding with 8 hens and a cockerel. I call myself a part time shepherd - I help with the sheep, look after Zippy, the one tonne Lincoln Red bull, and can't wait for lambing to start each January. Originally from Manchester in the UK, I spent a decade in London, lived in Paris for a year, moved back _up North_, and fulfilled a long held dream by relocating to the Derbyshire Dales in 2020. I've had an eclectic career mix - sales, product/project/people management. Since 1995 most of my roles were digital - eCommerce, web development, consultancy. 2025 was a year of change, subtle at the beginning but leaving a trail when I looked back over the year. I've ended up in a very different place to where I started and somewhere I couldn't have envisaged 12 months ago. Professionally, things are very interesting (in a good way) and, personally, I'm exploring a more analogue way of life, offloading some apps and tools I've used for a while, embracing a more pared back, minimalist online life (despite still loving all things tech). ## What I Write What you're reading here is part of my [Digital Garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) - I'm not even sure if we use that term any more. Whatever we're calling it these days, it's the place where I write, blog, post incomplete ideas that I'm still working on, and share stuff publicly. Some of the notes here are a starting point and will be expanded later to become [blogs](https://sageandsiren.co.uk/blog/). I've learned to keep things simple, to avoid solutions that require configuration and constant tweaking, and use tools that are accessible in a variety of ways. I cover an eclectic range of topics - lambing, the tech I'm using, observations about life, memories, and the book I aspire to complete. Occasionally, I write short stories. ## 2026 My word of the year is [λόγος](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CF%8C%CE%B3%CE%BF%CF%82 "wikt:λόγος"), best known for *in the beginning was the Word*. λόγος = Word in that context. It can also be translated as speech, voice and being heard. It also has connotations as *the rational governing principle of the universe* (divine reason). It's a perfect choice for a year when I'm choosing to live and work in greater alignment. ## My Toolkit - [Lightpage](https://lightpage.com/) - [Voicenotes](https://voicenotes.com/) - [Bear Blog](https://bearblog.dev/) - [Tiny Dot](https://tinydot.com/) - [Public.Me](https://public.me/) - [Recall](https://www.recall.it/) ## What I'm Doing Now Find out what I'm doing [Now](https://nicola.bearblog.dev/now/). ---