How to find Kindle's serial number
- Go to Amazon’s website and sign in to your account;
- Under ‘Account & Lists’ select ‘Content and Devices’;
- Go to the ‘Devices’ tab;
- Select the desired Kindle device from the list;
- Expand the window to see the serial.
Our modern society is nothing but a delicate house of cards
If you don’t live in Portugal or Spain, it will be impossible for you to understand the feelings I’m trying to convey below. And I sincerely hope you never have to deal with it.**
Around 11:30 a.m., the external monitor I have hooked to my laptop, went black while I was editing a video. If the room’s light hadn’t been also shut off, I would think it was a simple connection issue. This type of incident is such a rare phenomenon that at first I thought it was related to my apartment or building and decided to go for a walk with my dog.
Heading to the dog park, I grabbed my phone to share the “morning event” with my wife. Yes, we keep in touch all the time using Signal.
This was the moment I sensed something bigger was happening, but I still thought it was a local thing. My phone data connection was down, and as someone who has worked for 10 years in the telecommunications sector, I know that something like that rarely happens. There are so many contingencies and backups. Something else must be going on.
Maybe the entire neighborhood lost power, and, for some reason, the backup generator at the mobile phone tower closest to me didn’t kick off, I thought, trying to rationalize the situation.
I don’t know if it was instinct, but I immediately sent my wife an SMS: “I have no idea what’s happening, but we lost power and I have no data on my phone”. Again, because of many years of experience, I know how SMS works and how it is such a robust feature of the network.
The SMS took longer than expected to be sent, and that was another undesired sign. Perhaps she didn’t get it. My wife is currently on an overseas trip, so I text a friend here in Portugal: “We lost power and I have no data on my phone. What about you?” “We also lost power and I can barely use data. It looks like it’s affecting the entire country.”
This is when I started having very unwanted thoughts. Instant communication is a crucial element that we take for granted. But if you think about it, modern society has been building on top of this core infrastructure since the invention of the telegraph.
Let me provide you with further context of the situation I found myself in at that moment. Every single appliance and equipment in my house is electric, so there’s no way to cook or take a hot shower. The TV cable is an Ethernet connector that plugs to an Internet hub, so there’s no way to watch the news. I also just sold my car, so no analog radio as well.
To make coffee that day, I used my gas-powered camping stove, which I ironically set up on top of its modern induction successor.
Okay, this is a national situation. A big one because the phones went down. If there’s a positive side to this, it’s that there are probably dozens of people working tirelessly to fix it. Again, little did I know.
Here’s when I decided I had to stay calm. I ate the rest of yesterday’s salad, grabbed my iPod, a book (the paper type), and thought to myself: If this is not solved until 4 p.m., I’ll go buy some extra supplies.
I read for two hours, but at some less engaging parts, I couldn’t help but stop and think about this unusual and unexpected situation. Looking around, I began to see all these wonderful sparks of beauty in the midst of the chaos. From my balcony, where I was reading, I could see all the other people on their balconies, kids playing on the street, and neighbors having fun conversations on their doorsteps.
I remember it now. This is how the world used to be when I was a kid, and even a teenager. This is how people used to behave before mobile phones existed.
Back to reality. “It’s 4 p.m. Time to buy some supplies,” I reminded myself.
I decided to bring my dog to a nice place we usually go together to relax, before heading to the supermarket. If there was one happy soul in the house, that was my dog. Ignorance is bliss.
Going to another dog park on the same day must be winning the dog’s lottery, right? It’s a somewhat hidden micro forest on the way to the supermarket. We stayed there, going back and forth from having fun to relaxing for a while. Then we headed to our main mission.
With no shopping carts available and so many people inside, the outcome couldn’t be different. The number of shelves empty was impressive. To give you some context, something like this never happened during COVID-19. Thankfully, I don’t need much, but that’s one more unwelcoming sign to add to my list, I thought to myself.
On the other hand, I kept seeing all these kids playing on the streets and so many adults in front of houses having conversations face to face and laughing without looking at their phones. Those scenes were absolutely beautiful.
As all of this was going on, I still didn’t have any mobile data and, shortly after texting my wife and my friend in the morning, the SMS system stopped working. If you haven’t guessed yet, there was no calling as well.
All the information I had, was collected here and there, talking to others on the street. But because most people didn’t have access to the rest of the world, it was impossible to know what was really happening. Moreover, all the ones I talked to would start the sentence with something like “I heard that…”
Experience, or perhaps hope, was telling me to keep sending journaling messages to my wife, and so I did. At this point, I was already back to using Signal, where I started narrating everything I was doing. That was the only app I kept opened all the time, hooping for momentarily breaths of the network.
If, for some reason, the network comes up for a few seconds or minutes, she’ll get all the updates. I didn’t know it at that moment, but she was doing the same on her side, and at about 7 p.m., a relieving exchange happened. I saw a burst of messages from her, and the read update pop-up on all the messages I had previously sent here. That would never happen again until the power and network came back to life at about 11 p.m. But at least she was now aware of what was happening to me.
I don’t know if this applies to everyone, but as I grew older, I started understanding that many things in life were never supposed to be about me. At some point, I learned that it’s about what I mean to other people, and that’s why I have to take care of myself. That’s for them! And it goes both ways, of course. Anything we do is always affecting the ones who love us, and this perception became so important to me that I’m constantly more worried about the feelings of the others, the loved ones. It’s like going to a funeral. Our main responsibility there is to comfort the ones that are still alive. We are there for them. Loving is seldom about us, and I wish I had learned this early in life.
Anyway, back to my ordeal. You know me, I’ve been detaching my digital life from the cloud for a long time. And I do have equipment to survive in a situation like this for a few days. Of course, I learned some new lessons with this test the world just tossed at me, and I’ll do my homework.
However, as a society, I think we are digging our own grave. Why are we increasingly relying on the cloud for everything? Why do all things have to have an app that has to be connected to the Internet to work? The more I think about it, the more I see unreliable digital conveniences replacing the so-called “outdated” gadgets that are still working so well. This is nothing more than building a gigantic house of cards. And to further add more salt to the injury, it is probably being built on top of a single point of failure.
This digital modern life of ours is so bizarre. Among all the real and relevant concerns I was having yesterday, it also occurred to me that I would lose my 775 streak on Duolingo if I couldn’t do my lesson today. Seriously?! The simple fact that something as futile as that crossed my mind is so absurd!
Today, I woke up feeling slightly stressed from my adventures and I still have a bit of a headache. Nothing terrible or distressing happened yesterday. Thankfully, I was working from home and everything was calm in my neighborhood. But, in retrospect, I think the real burden I felt was the thought of possibly not being able to connect with my loved ones living in different parts of the world. That, and the fact that nobody knew exactly what was happening or how many days would be like that. I didn’t miss anything else related to the Internet, just that connection with others and the real-time information that comes with instant communication.
By the way, I’m old enough to say that most of what we did at the beginning of the web was communicating via email, forums, blog comments, etc. It was a lot of fun!
I’m grateful to have power and communication back, but, when walking with my dog this morning, I saw people quickly resuming their lives just like if nothing had happened, and, in a way, that made me sad. Yesterday’s flourishes of harmony and beauty are now gone, like busted soap bubbles.
The insane society we are building for ourselves is now back on track, and the house of cards is sitting there waiting for the next breeze. Until then, the only sign of the now gone problems was a possible bug that kept the public lighting still on during this morning.
Inside my Obsidian Homepage-a portal to what matters most.
Do you have an Obsidian homepage? What’s on there? 🤔 Mine gives me instant access to tasks, trips, projects, and family info. It works as an efficient dashboard to what matters most.
First things first. My homepage is basically a note, automatically updated with dynamic information from other parts of Obsidian. In other words, it’s a dashboard created using the Homepage plugin, as demonstrated in the video below.
Since it is the first thing I see when I open Obsidian, I expect the information there to be what I’ll be looking for most of the time. And what could be more relevant than my next tasks?
Using the Tasks plugin and some basic configuration that you can learn in the video below, I created four dynamic lists: Overdue, Today, Tomorrow, and Upcoming. There’s also a fifth one that is mostly for groceries, but I also use it for anything I need to buy. That’s why it’s called Purshases.
Next is a world map widget with pins on every place I’ve been. It’s a backup of what I have on Google Maps and is built and automaticity updated using the Map plugin. There’s also a short list with links to the itinerary notes of my next trips. I could have this list dynamically built like the tasks, but I don’t travel that much and manually creating it is easier and, as you soon see, more useful.
The dashboard information is ordered by how often I need or use each module. That explains my tasks at the top, but why the trips section is right below it? Well, there are at least two parts to a trip: planing and the trip itself. In my case, there’s also a third part. I love to keep a journal during the trip, and when I return, I adjust the details here and there.
Planing and organizing a trip is more than a list of tasks. So, having the link to the itinerary note means that I can constantly go there to monitor what I have already done and what I still need to do. Then, during the trip, I can easily open the itinerary, and inside that note, find invaluable information, like a link to the hotel on Google Maps.
Since I see the Homepage every time I open Obsidian, there’s almost zero friction. It’s just a matter of scrolling a little bit to get to the links right below my tasks and click or tap.
When I come back, it’s time for some fine-tuning, and that’s when not having the next trips list automated is helpful. If links to past trips have not yet been removed, it means that I still have some work to do. By the way, this is a strategy I use all the time. Keeping things in an undesirable place is a constant reminder.
And it also works for physical objects too. For example, I recently kept a giant bicycle lock on top of my desk to remind me that I needed to make a copy of its key.
Back to the Homepage.
Next is a Canvas widget of my Knowledge Base. It used to be the only one, but below it, I now have another one with all the information related to my Apple IIe project. That project was dormant for more than a year, and it wouldn’t make sense to keep it on the Homepage. Now that I’m working on it again, having a direct link to all that information is very welcome. This demonstrates how dynamic the Homepage is.
And speaking about the Canvas, it has become my go-to feature for visually organizing all the information I have in my Static Containers. My Family Documents container is probably the next contender to be displayed like that. But for now, they are embedded notes on my Homepage.
It’s a long list that sits as the last segment because it is definitely something I frequently use, but it’s the least needed when compared to the other items.
Having a Homepage like this is a game-changer, but it has to meet your needs and reality. If you could see the ones I help my clients build, you would be impressed by how different they are.
Another important detail is that your notes have to be organized using a system that works for you. Of course, I use the Timeline System, but regardless of which one you choose, there must be some sort of predictability to have a good dashboard. Without that, your dashboard will only be adding more friction to your life.
Switching to Proton or similar alternatives is much harder than I thought
Proton has come a long way since I first tried it, but…
The last time I was a Proton subscriber, it was known as ProtonMail, and the calendar feature was still in beta. They have come a long way since then, but for a while, I have been putting off giving it another try. However, the current situation of the world is an invitation to do exactly that.
Based on my early experience, I knew that ProtonMail would work perfectly for me, as I could set up my domain name and the aliases I currently use. That’s why my initial plan was to try the other features first, starting with the calendar. If things go well, I can move away from Google Workspace, which I have been using since 2015.
My first task was to create two calendars: personal and work. Everything went exactly as expected, including the synchronization with the Android app, which, by the way, also offers a minimalist yet useful widget.
Import and export
I don’t remember this option in the menu before, but as I said, it has been a long time since I’ve been there. Anyway, clicking on “Import from Google” revealed three options: Emails, Contacts, and Calendar.
I kept only the Calendar option checked, but I couldn’t go past the Google Authentication page. This issue was probably related to the Obsidian Web View feature (aka, browser) I was using, so it was time to switch to Google Chrome. Problem saved, the connection was established and everything looked fine until… Well, my Google Calendar database was apparently too big for the free account storage, and the process was aborted.
Fine, I moved on to trying the import feature on my contacts, which ended up highlighting another problem I now remember having had in the past.
Although it is possible to start a call from a contact inside the ProtonMail app, there’s no Contacts app for Android. And as far as I could understand, the alternative is to import the contacts from the ProtonMail app to the Android address book. But since this will not keep both apps in sync, it will forever be an inconvenience, as new contacts will have to always be added to both apps. If you know of other options, please let me know in the comments below.
Proton Alternative
A friend suggested Infomaniak, which has a different approach to the above. The kSync app synchronizes Contacts and Appointments with the Google apps we already use on Android. I ran some tests and it works!
Although I haven’t tried it yet, I noticed that there’s also a way to synchronize emails, calendars, and contacts with the corresponding Mac apps. Another point in favor of them is the fact that there’s a videoconferencing tool. Not to mention that it is a cheaper option when compared to Proton. At least I thought so.
But one detail that I cannot stop thinking about is who came up with the Infomaniak name.
Another aesthetic detail to consider is the user interface. It’s not intuitive, and even the dark mode has too much color to it. Proton feels much more comfortable to use.
Too Good to be True?
They are also a Swiss-based company and offer a 30-day free trial, which I enrolled in to fully try the service. And that’s when I faced a major roadblock.
After spending hours on this, I think I finally got it. To have a custom domain, one has to also pay for the “Custom Brand” service. There’s even a “Custom Brand + kSuite” offer for 6.21€ per user/month.
Anyway, I contacted support to make sure my understanding is correct and will update this post when they reach back to me. After all, there’s a 3.99€ per month Proton offer that covers everything I need. Well, not exactly everything. I need videoconferencing, and I’m still puzzled by the annoying Contacts app problem.
PS. Believe it or not, the above is how I spent the majority of this Sunday.
Obsidian is great, but learning is inherently hard
If you are looking into switching to Obsidian, maybe my journey can help you.
The very first video about Obsidian was published on my YouTube channel on March 14, 2023. What some of you may not know is that I had been using it for longer than that to help clients here and there.
However, that amount of time is nothing when compared to the muscle memory I have developed from using Evernote for every little thing in my life for 16 years. The problem with the new is that it is always unwelcoming. It’s not only the different way of doing things; it’s also the constant uncertainty about doing anything. And at that point, Obsidian was not only new to me, but there’s also the sheer number of settings and plugins making it feel so overwhelming.
To make matters worse, I decided to bring my YouTube audience along with me on that new journey. For a long time, I have had the idea of creating a vlog-style productivity series on my channel that would show how I organize life and work. I thought that learning Obsidian would be a great opportunity to try that, but it ended up creating unnecessary confusion, as it is challenging to film myself figuring out things happening in real time.
Back to my point. After so many trials and errors, I’m now much more comfortable with how Obsidian works. Some of the setups I came up with, like the homepage demonstrated in the video below, are now running for a considerable amount of time and working so well. Furthermore, my Timeline System has matured to the point where it allows me to seamlessly navigate my daily activities.
Don’t tell anyone, but because of all of that, I feel like recording many of my past videos again. Anyway, you are not here for this. Let’s go through my tips for switching to a new app.
Before that, a disclaimer is needed, right? The following is how I did things. It’s also based on the strategy I use to help my clients, but it may not be suitable for you. So think of the suggestions below as just that, suggestions.
From Evernote to Obsidian
First, I didn’t abandon Evernote. I knew how things worked there, which mad it my safe haven during the transition period.
With that in mind, the first actual homework was to learn the basics about the mysterious Obsidian. Because of my clients, I had already done part of that before. But now I needed to move a step further and see how things would work in real life. To accomplish that, I created the first of many local vaults on my Mac to work as a sandbox.
Once that was done, I copied, I repeat, copied, not moved, parts of my notes. In some ways, Obsidian is so similar to Evernote, but in others, like how files are stored, it’s an entirely different approach. However, it works in such a way that you can have as many vaults as you wish and easily delete the ones that didn’t work. As long as you are coping your files, you can consider the multiple vaults to be a process of prototyping and iterating.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of the article, there’s a universe of settings and plugins. I suggest avowing all plugins as you are getting to know your way around. As for the settings, try to look for the answers as you need them. For example, when you feel like you have to learn how to format text, go look for tutorials on how to do that.
As you get used to it, move some more parts of your system, but I would still think of what you are doing on the new app as in experimental mode. It will take a while for you to get used to the numerous new things that are still making you uneasy.
If you followed my progress on YouTube, you know that I was constantly changing my setup and being frustrated by all the new ways of doing things. And let’s not forget that I was doing all the above while still using Evernote. So much so that at a certain point, I had a good portion of my activities being managed with the help of both apps, and that was driving me crazy.
To make things even more miserable, Evernote decided to redesign its mobile app. Now, on top of learning a new system, I had to adapt to a new way of doing things on the app I was so familiar with.
It was a lot, but it was worth it. It felt like a final partnership with my old friend, Evernote. The new design and new ways to do things helped me eventually find a way to implement the Timeline System that had been brewing in my head for so many years. Yes, the Timeline System I use in Obsidian and in the Supernote came to be because of my struggles with Evernote.
With that settled, the next step was to replicate the system in Obsidian and start moving all my files. But I did it one notebook at a time. I would export an Evernote notebook, import it to Obsidian, organize all the mess, and, just as a last resort, keep the exported notebook as a backup. In case you are wondering, yes, I still have them in a backup drive.
Plugins
But we are not done just yet. As I have already mentioned several times, Obsidian is full of settings and plugins. My strategy here is the same as at the beginning of this process. Whenever I need something that Obsidian cannot do, I start looking for a plugin.
I try to stick with the ones that do one of a few things, but every so often that’s not possible. For example, the Tasks plugin is too much for my needs, but I couldn’t find a lighter alternative that would work for me. Templater and all its features is one that I’m avoiding, as the Auto Template Trigger does almost everything I require. But when it comes to having fun, it looks like that rule doesn’t apply. I love using and tweaking every detail possible on the Map plugin.
Which brings us to one of the reasons I switched to Obsidian. Evernote has been on a downward trend of removing features since version 10 was released. I thought for a moment that Bending Spoons was going to bring old features back, but they kept removing them.
Guess what, many of the removed features I used to love in Evernote exist on Obsidian as a setting or are available as a plugin. And in most cases, these are better variations of what existed on Evernote. And that makes me so full of joy! It’s like being in a parallel universe, where Evernote evolved to what Obsidian is today. Back to reality, I’m definitely happy. So happy!
In summary, what I’m trying to say is first, have a safe haven. Second, take your time. Really, take your time. This will be a long project. Third, you already have a lot on your plate, don’t create more problems for yourself. Go look for settings and plugins only when you genuinely need to fulfill a specific requirement.
Evernote's new PDF viewer is beautiful, but it's like a new skin over old problems
Perhaps it is time to remove Evernote from the toolbox of options I suggest to my clients.
Let’s start with the toolbar, which was beautifully redone, but as far as I can tell, there’s nothing new there. Actually, I’m missing an important detail — that, to be honest, I’m not sure if existed before or not.
Where is the undo button?
Using cmd+z (Mac) works fine, so the function exists. If they forgot about it, I hope they bring it back as soon as possible. If it wasn’t there, it seems to me that this was a missed opportunity to add it.
Meanwhile, the options Select all annotations and Clear annotations in the dropdown menu help circumvent that. But keep in mind that all means only those on the page being displayed.
By the way, I think the dropdown menu is a pleasing addition. The quick access to the Fit to page width option is a great start to making this a viable PDF reader. Which brings us to a problem so many of you have been complaining about to me over so many years.
It’s a view, not a reader
If the tool doesn’t remember the page we were on when we closed the PDF, it’s just a viewer, not a reader. And that is only one of the details that has been preventing me from using Evernote to read long documents. When reading and taking notes, I was used to relying on a PDF reader instead, but that came with an inconvenience. Evernote couldn’t be the place to store the PDFs.
It’s true that one can use the ‘open with’ option to open the PDF using another reader. But as far as I know, this is only available when using the desktop client, and we’ve been living in a mobile-first world for a long time now.
When the Files feature was added, I presumed that the final goal was to give us direct access to the files we keep in Evernote, but that never happened. Actually, even after all the time that has passed since it was released, it is still a half-backed feature causing more confusion than anything else.
Another step towards Obsidian
A long time ago, I moved all my PDFs to Google-Drive , but that ended up creating all sorts of inconveniences. Ironically, the idea was inspired by how Obsidian stores our files. Fast-forward to today, I gave up on the workarounds. I’m now reading my PDFs using whatever app I feel like, and, at the same time, the files are kept organized in Obsidian. Having the PDFs visible in the computer file structure creates a lot of freedom to do many things.
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
Back to Evernote. Another nice touch in the dropdown menu is the Include annotation summary option, which in the past used to be a buried checkbook that many people didn’t even know was there.
This is a nice feature, which adds new pages to the beginning of the PDF, including all the annotations. Unfortunately, something is now broken. As illustrated by the video below, many of the PDFs I tried, created a messed up page. Furthermore, the summary now seams to only be visible in the note view. In the past, these notes were also visible in the PDF view mode.
There’s another inconvenience that makes Evernote challenging to use as a PDF reader. If you watched the video above, there’s an annoying flicker happening every time a page is turned. And I’m pretty sure this was not there before. On that same note, if we use the thumbnail to jump to a specific point in the document, that page opens in the middle of the text. And that’s precisely where starting at the top of the page would be a much better option.
I would like to end this post with a more optimistic view for the future of this feature and Evernote in general, but I’m not entirely convinced that that’s possible. The new Files feature is not the only one half-backed. Many of the new features are simply not useful as they are, and more often than not, they arrive with new bugs.
Frankly, I’m tired of trying to tell Evernote’s team that the ‘moving fast and breaking things’ strategy should not apply to something so important as our personal notes. This will deeply sadden me, but maybe it is also time to take Evernote out of the toolbox of options I recommend to my clients.
Three everyday situations where the Timeline System in Obsidian can help you
What I love about the Timeline System is how simple it is to change the status of an activity by simply moving a note from one place to another.
A friend recently came up with a challenge. He told me he would like to know how I would use the Timeline System to organize and keep track of two everyday situations.
Bring it on, I said.
The first one was about a concert. He would like to know what I would do with the PDF tickets, that were incompatible with his phone wallet. Since this is still in progress, it should be in the Action Container.
I’m pretty sure there are other approaches, but this is how I would do it. In fact, I’ve done it before a few times, and it worked pretty well. I think of events like this as trip activities, even though it is happening in the city where I live. So, the Action Container would have a format similar to the one below.
Where the folder ‘2025–04–25 Porto’ is the fake trip storing the concert tickets.
The other situation was an Amazon QR code he needed to show when returning a product. Since this one has no specific date, I’d simply keep it loose inside the Action Containers folder. Without a specific subfolder, it will be easier to find, and it will be an inconvenience working as a natural reminder every time I go to Obsidian to check my activities inside my Action Containers.
It’s a scenario very similar to what I’m currently doing (see video below) with the #Nadsat Glossary that I have to keep around to be able to read A Clockwork Orange.
What I love about the Timeline System is that all the above situations are notes that will eventually be moved to the Timeline container (folder). This will remove them from the list of activities in progress and, at the same time, keep them naturally organized in a place that I can go to retrieve information.
Another step towards repurposing my Obsidian vault
I have been testing the idea below for the past two months, and so far, everything is working wonderfully well.
I had to check the information before writing this post, but it’s been 16 years since I started using password managers. If you are not already using one, please share your secret with me. Given the huge number of passwords we have to deal with these days, they have become indispensable software. However, like many other apps, what was once a one-time fee became a subscription.
I don’t have any problem with paying, especially considering how they make our online presence safer while keeping passwords easy to manage. My issue is with losing control. Compared to a paper notebook kept in a drawer, it’s a much better solution, but our passwords are now sitting on a mysterious server somewhere in the world.
So, after testing the concept of a “digital cave” with many other items, I decided it was time to do the same with my passwords. But to accomplish that, I would need to find an app that keeps all the passwords in a single file, which I could then move to my vault in Obsidian. It would also need to have clients for all the existing platforms. And finally, it would be preferable if it were Open Source.
KeePass checks all the boxes above, and as you can see in the video below, I created the database inside in my Timeline and copied about 20 passwords to test the idea.
I’ve been playing with this configuration for a couple of months and since I’ve encountered no problems, I’m now looking for a way to import the remaining passwords.
If you’d like to try it too, watch the video. And if you know any other software that would also check all the boxes, please let me know.
A Clockwork Orange
I see A Clockwork Orange as part of a group where I also put Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, 1984, and others that depict this dystopian future that, for some reason, attracts me.
<img src=“https://eu.uploads.micro.blog/217685/2025/cover-a-clockwork-orange.png" alt=“Cover of the book A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, featuring a bold use of black, orange, and white with geometric shapes.” style=“width:150px; hight:auto; >
Even though I’m sure it would not be a good experience at all, for some unknown reason, part of me has a secret desire to experience this alternative reality in person. It’s not just the dystopian future that attracts me. I also love the future from the perspective of the 60s.
Back to the A Clockwork Orange book, if you need a tip to use the Nadsat Glossary, I suggest watching this video to learn how I set it up in Obsidian.
Digital Cave Man
I love the conveniences of the modern world and have no intention of giving them up. However, the price we are paying to host our entire lives on the cloud is too high. And I don’t mean it in monetary terms, although it can certainly become expensive.
Because I was already using Syncthing to synchronize my Obsidian vault between two computers and a smartphone, and at the same time, keeping two automatic backups of everything — in different parts of the city — I had an idea.
What if I moved all my files to my vault in Obsidian?
I’m already doing that with several resources, like my video production folder, which I’ve been keeping in Obsidian as a Static Container for a long time. The vault is already being synchronized by Syncthing-Fork, so everything else I move there will be sent to all my devices. And talking about that, my Timeline System is also playing a big role, as its simple structure is easy to understand and use. Storing and finding information is super intuitive.
I don’t know when exactly the idea of hosting everything myself was born. In hindsight, I’d say that the fact that I still use my old iPod 5 Gen to listen to the music I own, might have played a big role in my plan. Then came Obsidian and the realization that all our files are kept locally and can be 100% managed by us, the users and owners.
Maybe that’s what inspired me to create a local backup of my photos, which are now stored in folders using a basic and simple structure that almost any computer and any regular app can read.
The video above shows the photos being sent to Apple Photos, but I’m not doing that anymore. I now keep them in folders because it’s a way to have them accessible no matter the computer or technology being used. However, there’s another reason. Almost accidentally, I found out that the Apple Photos database was about twice the size of the photos kept in folders.
That not only uses unnecessary storage on your computer but will cost you much more if you are synchronizing and backing up your beloved memories on iCloud. In both cases, Apple is in control and making more money because you are purchasing a Mac with more storage space and subscribing to a larger iCloud plan. I talk more about this in the video below.
Back to my master plan. Here’s what I have already set as local folders in Obsidian:
- All my notes and documents.
- My website.
- Every pin I add to Google Maps, like trip ideas or cool places here in Porto, is also added to Obsidian using the Maps Plugin.
- Like already mentioned, all the materials I use to create my videos are in subfolders inside my Static Containers folder, which I usually access from the computer file system.
- And there’s also more elaborated things, like the Scrivener files of all my books.
My photos are half way there. Like I demonstrated in the video below, they are synchronized with both of my computers and backed up locally with everything else.
But the final plan is that one day, when storage in our mobile phones is on par with computers, I will move the photos folder to my Obsidian vault. For now, only pictures I’m using in my journal — which is also in Obsidian — or any other notes are already being moved there.
And there’s more. Currently, I’m experimenting with the idea of keeping my passwords’ database in the Timeline folder in Obsidian. I chose KeePass after searching for a solution that would give me control of the database. I’m not sure if I’ll stick to it, but as a proof of concept, it’s working much better than I was expecting (there’s a video about it coming up soon).
Again, because the vault is already being synchronized and the database with the passwords is there, I’m able to log in to it from any computer or mobile device, by linking it to the corresponding KeePass app. Moreover, because of my backup scheme, I’ll always have a backup of the passwords on two different hard disks that are in two distinct buildings.
The Digital Caveman
This is certainly not for everyone, but my plan is to move every single digital file to my “cloud” system, which is not even a cloud. It’s just information being synchronized and backed up on multiple computers that are in different places. I call it the Digital Caveman project because it has this “handmade” feel to it and because everything is kept in “my cave”.
I would have bought even more books in Oxford.
I remember seeing people reading and studding in pubs in the movies, but I always doubted it was a real thing.
Our first site as first-time visitors to Oxford was Blackwell’s Bookshop. My wife and I are passionate about books, and that was a fascinating experience, but I was not expecting to see myself immediately entering another bookshop in the same street. Keep in mind that it happened minutes after spending almost the entire morning trying to control myself not to buy all the incredible books in that maze of shelves.
The first book I bought that day was ‘The Rule of Law: A Very Short Introduction’, but I would have purchased many others if I weren’t restricted by the size of the cabin baggage I was allowed to bring onboard the plane on my trip back to Porto.
And the bookstores were not the only ones tempting me. During one of our random walks, we came across a secondhand shop selling all sorts of intriguing old items and, of course, books.
It has to be small—I told myself.
‘The observer’s book of manned spaceflight’ from 1975 is indeed very compact, but there’s so much detail in it. It made me think a lot about how hard it was to write a book like this in the past. For starters, think about all the fact-checking.
In hindsight, choosing this book might have not been only a question of size. There must have been a big role played by my subconscious as well. The store had all these signs inviting people to follow them on Twitter, and I couldn’t resist and had to talk to them about decentralized social media, in particular Bluesky and Mastodon, when paying for the book.
The current state of that other social network and that person, whom I’d rather not mention the name, are making me even stop watching some great creators covering SpaceX. Yes, I’m probably not mature enough to separate things. Or, maybe, I’m just a simple human being with a strong sense of ethics. Anyway, back to the city and its countless bookshops.
This time it was a store practically bagging us to go inside. There were so many books outside, just like fruits and vegetables found in boxes on the sidewalk in small European grocery stores. And there it was for less than £3. ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ has been on my TBR list for a long time, and I had to get it.
How many bookstores are there in this city?
Then there’s all these people studying everywhere. And they are not pretending; one can clearly see they are really trying to master something complicated. The funniest day, however, was when we went to this restaurant for lunch, and there it was, the funniest sigh ever.
In the same place, a girl at the table behind ours literally told her friend that she was staying for just one more hour, and then she would go to a pub and study there. I remember seeing people reading and studying in pubs in movies set in Oxford, but I honestly did not believe that was a real thing. Not only is it true, but it’s extremely prevalent and widespread.
However, books were not the only items I had a hard time packing. As you know, I still use an old iPod, and a few years ago I started a trend. Buying random used CDs at secondhand shops when traveling to different countries. Then, at home, ripping them and adding the songs to my iPod. Of course, I had to grab a couple on this trip as well. So far, only good surprises.
I had to turn down so many interesting titles like ‘Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters’ just because I didn’t have enough space. Yes, I’ll probably end up buying them online, but it’s not the same thing.
If you enjoy reading, you know what I’m talking about, and you should probably organize a trip to Oxford with time to spare in coffee shops and pubs. To read, of course. But remember to leave space in your bag for all the incredible books you’ll be almost forced to buy.
The Most Important Journey
A few days ago, I finally got to the part of this book I wanted to read: India’s independence. I first learned of Mountbatten many years ago, when I was preparing myself for a trip to India and reading everything I could about the subcontinent.
I eventually came across Freedom at Midnight, which is a brilliant book centering on Gandhi’s biography and perspective. Mountbatten’s biography, which is the one I’m reading now, is, of course, based on his perspective. And this is what makes reading both books so unique.
There are other important players in this history, and I hope to learn more about their point of view in the future. For now, I am simply fascinated by what I’m learning from this book, enjoying each new page more than the previews one. To be honest, this moment is what kept me reading it. Even though it is a well-written book, it is also massive and contains so much detail.
In any case, although it was an almost boring read so far, looking back, I now find it invaluable to have learned more about Mountbatten’s personal life and professional trajectory prior to his role in India’s independence. But his participation in the country’s history was definitely what I was looking forward to since the day I started reading this book.
I have always been fascinated by history, which ultimately led me to pursue a postgraduate degree in International Affairs. But what you may not know is that after that I began a Master’s degree program in history. Unfortunately, life had other plans for me and I never finished it.
I’m a huge fan of history because the paths we took as a society in the past explain a lot about the world we live in today. Which also makes me sad because it seems like as a society we often take too long to learn. It appears to be so difficult for our species. We frequently start over again after moving forward.
Anyway, I feel that after this book, it is time to take a break and invest more time into another passion of mine, cognitive psychology. I don’t know if that will make me less sad about humanity, though.
The vision I have for my Obsidian Vault needs a carefully planned explanation
I am delighted to see that the pieces of my Obsidian setup are starting to come together in this organic way. It seems like as I make small changes here and there, my progress gets stronger. In other words, the more I move forward, the less friction there is.
I’m doing my best to document this journey on YouTube and on my site, but the more it evolves, the more this idea that it needs a carefully planned explanation grows on me. I’m still halfway through writing my current book, but I’m already feeling the desire to write another one about how I’m materializing this vision I have for my Obsidian Vault.
And, speaking of the current book, it is taking its toll on me because I chose to write in English. I don’t regret my decision, but it is exhausting to think and formulate ideas in a foreign language.
Similar to my progress with Obsidian, my writing is getting more and more steam as I move forward, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is taking me much longer than usual to finish it. If I were writing it in Portuguese, it would likely already be published.
Well, I will get there eventually.
Have a lovely week, Vlad.
Obsidian as a writing hub
Scrivener and LanguageTool are remarkable tools that I use all the time, but they don’t have an Android App. Luckily, Obsidian works as an elegant bridge that has clients for multiple platforms.
Please allow me to begin by explaining the situation. I’m a Mac user who switched from the iPhone to Android many years ago and have no intention or desire to go back.
That said, I sometimes come across great writing tools like Scrivener and LanguageTool that don’t have an Android App. Thankfully, Obsidian is an important part of my writing kit and has clients for multiple platform. This is the story of how I use it as my writing hub.
Scrivener is where I’ve been writing my books since 2012. I don’t know how others create, but in my case, I usually start by writing down ideas as they come to mind. When there’s enough content and a lot of mess, it’s time to organize the text, and that’s probably my favorite thing about Scrivener. Coping and pasting is harmless, since the draft file has no formatted text, and it is also extremely easy to rearrange chapters by simply dragging them around.
Another crucial aspect of writing is grammar. For a non-native speaker like myself, a little help with synonyms and sentence construction is very welcome. That’s where LanguageTool shines. It feels as if I have an English teacher constantly suggesting changes to improve the text.
Don’t ask me why, but Scrivener never added support to LanguageTool, despite the existence of an API. So, even when using my Mac to write, I can’t benefit from both of them working together. And when I’m away from my computer, things become even harder because none of them have an Android App. That even affects the Supernote, as it is also an Android under the hood.
Thankfully, there is a way to connect all of these seemingly incompatible pieces. Several months ago, I shared a workaround for using Scrivener’s sync feature to have access to your book’s draft as Markdown files in Obsidian. You can learn ho to do it, by watching the video below.
Yesterday, you learned about another part of the puzzle. There is a LanguageTool plugin for Obsidian that uses the same API Scrivener could be using to make writers' lives more comfortable.
By combining both methods — synchronizing the book with Obsidian and using the LanguageTool plugin — we can create the perfect solution to use the spell checker when writing on a Mac or using an Android phone. Which also includes the Supernote. Isn’t that cool?
However, that is not all the writing I do in Obsidian. This article, for example, started as an idea in my Creator Action Container. The note was born there when I was riding the subway and wanted to write some ideas and drafts of a few paragraphs.
I kept working on it the next day, but this time I used Obsidian on my computer. In both cases, LanguageTool was there helping me. When it was finished, I moved it from the Action Container to the website folder to then make it available online, where you are reading it now.
If you’d like to learn more about all of these interconnected folders, please watch the video below.
These represent all the page connections through links or tags within my new website thus far.
Create using Obsidian Graph View
I have something new and exciting to show you!
Well, I’m not sure if you’ll find it exciting, but I’m thrilled about it.
Over the past few weeks, I have invested a lot of time into revamping my website so that I can share with you all my Blog posts and Knowledge Base in one place. Perhaps we can call it a Knowledge Base Blog. Hum, it looks like KBB would be a good acronym. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far.
Oh, by the way, you may be asking yourself why I’m also using Substack to share this post. This may or may not be temporary; however, due to the migration of my website to a different platform, I have lost the newsletter feature that I previously had. Anyway, back to my KBB
Let’s start with the left-side menu. Except for Books, the first group of items—from About me to Ethics Statement—are the same topics (pages) I already had on the other site.
Toolbox and Maker are where I’m exploring ways to share my Knowledge Base with you. As you can see in the image below, there are many topics, and each one of them contains explanations, how-tos, and other types of resources and information to help you learn more about those areas of interest.
However, the cool part, at least for me, is how I’m connecting all that with the blog posts. Think of all the information as widgets I can add to any post. As a matter of fact, embedding them is part of what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks.
Let’s look at the Books section. For now, there are only three books there, but the idea is to keep adding them. The book Algorithms to Live By, for example, is a page with some of my thoughts about it. Anyone who wants to know what I think about the book can go to that page. But there’s another path to that same information. In fact, many paths.
You may be reading a post, like this one, with that same information embedded. In other words, every time I mention that book in a post, I can include that “widget”. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several integrations like this all over the new website.
But there’s more. If you take a look at the bottom of the book’s page, you’ll see the Links to this page list. That’s an automatic compilation of all the pages mentioning that book. And if we go back to the Toolbox, each topic also has (will have) a page like that. For example, vladcampos.com/evernote, vladcampos.com/supernote, and vladcampos.com/voicenotes are automatic compilations of posts about those topics.
Don’t leave yet. There’s more. In many pages on the website, you’ll find words that start with hashtags. Those are tags, and clicking on them will open a list of other pages with that tag.
I am still working on many things, and the structure may change in the coming days or weeks, but the main goal is to keep connecting new content to this web of knowledge.
Back to Substack…
As you can imagine, this intricate structure is only possible on my website, and that’s why I have no idea how to “translate” it to a newsletter. But that is a problem I am leaving to my future self to deal with. For now, I invite you to explore my KBB.
I wish you a wonderful 2025 🎉
I still have a lot of work to do, but this first version represents the initial stages of my vision for a website that is both a learning center and a blog.
Obsidian Publish is far from perfect, and many of the issues I’ve complained about in the past, are still present. However, things changed on my side. I have gained experience, acquired new technical skills, and developed a deeper understanding of topics related to online presence.
Maybe all that helped me understand what my vision was. That’s probably why I now see Obsidian Publish as an appealing option.
My Supernote Manta is scheduled to arrive at my office today. 🤞 If it arrives during the morning, I may be able to share an unboxing video with you this evening.
How to set the number of synchronizations per day on Syncthing-Fork
On 2025-05-23 What is Syncthing-Fork there’s an option to reduce the number of synchronizations per day.
Go to Settings, then Run Conditions, and scroll down, you’ll find the Run according to time schedule option.
A few thoughts on using the Obsidian app on the Supernote.
After a few days with the new Obsidian vault I set up for the Supernote, it’s time to discuss some other little tweaks I made and issues I experienced.
I still haven’t found a solution for the context menus that pop up when I hover the pen over clickable items. In the video below, you can see it happening on Obsidian, but it’s also affecting Syncthing.
At first, I thought it was linked to sideloaded apps, but it’s not happening to all the apps I installed, and I can see it happening when I’m using Obsidian on my computer. In other words, it appears to be a normal behavior found in certain apps, and I’ll have to investigate further to resolve this issue.
Battery
The battery is also draining faster than usual. It’s not something crazy fast, but it was bothering me, so I decided to try a different configuration. Syncthing-Fork has a setting to change the the number of synchronizations per day.
I hope it will improve the battery situation. The drawback is that I’ll have to pay more attention to the synchronization status, but I am fine with that.
Supernote Cloud & Tasks
Since we’re talking about sync, I went back to the Supernote cloud. In my opinion, it’s a better option, since I can see and manipulate files seamlessly on the phone and computer companion apps, where, by the way, I can also manage tasks.
I love how the Tasks app works seamlessly with notes, but there’s one thing that’s still driving me crazy. As you already know, I see Inboxes as a huge waste of time, so when a system has a folder like that the user cannot remove, I just ignore it. However, the Supernote forces me to use it.
On the Mac or Android companion apps, I can open a specific list and create takes there, but that’s still not possible to do that when creating tasks on notes.
Syncthing
Back to the sync topic, the one thing the Supernote cloud was not as efficient as Google Drive, was giving me quick access to my sketches exported to JPG or PNG. But, as I show in the video below, I’m now doing this using Syncthing.
I am still working on improving my workflow to efficiently combine what the Supernote and Obsidian do best, but I am already thrilled with what I have accomplished so far.