New tech, who dis
Finally got a more modern laptop, and currently testing a new phone on android 14.
Not a fan of the way windows now auto downloads and installs updates, with an option to uninstall after the fact, sigh. I'm even on the pro version for the first time, so did I actually waste money in that decision since I apparently don't really have full control of the system now?
Currently, trying out Vivaldi browser.
Installed Sumatra PDF (fastest opening PDF program I've ever encountered)?
LibreOffice (yay dark mode, which has been important to my eyes lately.) HINT, for some reason the default setting for icons is pixelated and looks especially terrible on dark mode. Change the icons to one of the settings with .svg and dark mode, and that will be fixed. I think I settled on using Breeze. Tools > Options > View
Uninstalled Copilot.
Kobo desktop, Calibre and Obok via De-DRM plugin Obok is for Kobo ebooks via desktop (versus using the website file downloads). This method bypasses the need for even using ADE (Adobe Digital Editions) and associated Adobe account. :) BONUS, Kobo is Canadian (founded and headquartered in Toronto), owned by Japan's Rakuten. Elbows Up. If new to Kobo, I recommend this recent podcast interview with Kobo's CEO, starts at approx 44.03. Episode title is 'How Roomba got stuck' from Vergecast if searching on your preferred platform. Also, amazon appears to be shutting down their ebook file access for good incrementally, so that makes me glad I was ahead of the curve.
My old laptop still works, but it's a decade old. As a Canadian, I decided to buy my needed tech now. Who knows how it all [gestures at this seesaw tariff timeline of Trade War 2025] will go.
My current Note system is messy af
An update on my note taking journey. Previous posts here.
I currently have 3 different windows notetaking apps installed; previously I was only using the web browser versions. So that's fun. Not sure if these differences are due to app versus web, or just updates to the services in general the last few years.
Filen Notes
Unfortunately, not going to cut it long term, for me. There's no tally so I can't say how many notes I have here. I'm slowly copying over what I was testing out back to Standard Notes.
I had a few instances where I encountered a seemingly blank / deleted content note. Not sure what happened. Thankfully, saved versions are automatically available, so I was able to retrieve some data, but I think there was some loss based on the previous version dates.
This is my main cloud storage, so I still use it for that purpose. I don't currently use it for synched files, but that may be on the horizon to try.
Standard Notes free tier
Now that I'm using the desktop version, my previous sign-in issues have obviously gone away. There is (now?) a dedicated Undo function.
I'm currently thinking of moving back here fully, using this for just a subsection of notes I wanted synched, or maybe keeping a duplicate of important notes here.
Zoho Notebook free tier
The option to open a note in a different tab is really useful. But, for me the desktop version seems prone to sync errors. Not good.
There's global search, but here, the list of notes matching the search term doesn't show the search term highlighted within the note (but it does on android, huh). You can see the highlighted search term if you search within a single note, though.
So, with all that, after I finish copying from Filen back into Standard Notes, I'm also considering going back to local files with LibreOffice. I don't know if I have the patience, though.
If I can get good file synching in one of my cloud storage services, that may be a good compromise with local files.
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