Matthew Kennard

Just dropped the children off for their first day back at school. Afterwards I went for a coffee with my wife and had to download yet another parking app. I would imagine most people download apps to pay for car parking at the car park itself. So why don’t the makers of these apps prioritise the size of the app? Nearly 100MB…

For a while now I’ve been using Day One for general note taking during the working day. For planning and document creation (e.g. client proposals for new projects) I use Org mode. I’ve recently been evaluating Obsidian, Craft and Org roam as a better place for my work note taking. I’m not going to go too deeply into Zettelkasten but I do want a way to link notes together - e.g. notes on a project should be linked to that project and then to the client.

Obsidian looks like a great system with a lot of potential. However it is, in my opinion, an untidy interface and has a steep learning curve. Definite kudos for including a ViM plugin - however I’ve found a number of things I couldn’t work how how to do using the keyboard (such as switching focus from the search field to the list of results). Given that I use Emacs it seems silly to go down the Obsidian rabbit hole when I should be able to make Emacs do everything I need.

Craft looks beautiful - and has some very clever ideas and innovations. However it lacks clear ways to hook into automation on macOS, no ViM shortcuts for editing and seems focused on creating nice looking longer documents rather than on taking short notes.

Org roam has always been the obvious choice as I use Emacs/Org mode for so much already. Having watched the excellent videos from System Crafters I feel confident that it will fit very well into my existing ways of working. I could do with spending a little time getting some Alfred integration going for adding quick notes to my daily note, but that will hopefully be easy enough.

I will certainly continue to use Day One for my personal journalling due to its excellent support for photos and videos and the iOS client.

It’s beyond the time at which I should have started learning SwiftUI. I’m very much enjoying following some of the Apple tutorials with ViM mode enabled in Xcode 13 beta.

These little guys were returned to the garden after being cleaned off some lettuce for lunch.

I’m mostly happy to see one of my own apps sherlocked by the purchase of Primephonic by Apple. I’ve never really got much traction with my app Classical and to be honest I’m happier to see how Apple Music itself now might become a much better place to be for classical music fans than I am by any plans I had for my own app.

My son at the moment is preferring to do dot-to-dot instead of computer games.

My daughter isn’t yet particularly into building Lego, but she does enjoy playing with it. I’m still working on San Francisco.

Bank holiday breakfast preparation

My transition from shampoo and shower gel in plastic bottles to shampoo and soap bars has been a success. No plastic, less space taken up and quicker to use.

Nice to see they’ve cleaned the water in our local botanical gardens.

I opened my daughters curtains this morning and saw a fox asleep in our garden.

Train Sim World 2 on Game Pass. I’ve been enjoying the Bakerloo Line.

Attempting to photograph a dragonfly

My first visit to the cinema with my wife in over seven years to see a non-Paw Patrol film. Cake and coffee order taken before we went to sit down and then brought to our sofa just before the film started. 🥳

The Cube in Birmingham

I had promised a client a build of an app today. However I’ve got no signal on my mobile - needed to receive the 2FA code so I can get access to App Store Connect. It looks as though there is an issue with a nearby cell tower:

Thankfully it’s not an urgent fix - but a definite annoyance that it can’t be done due to an issue like this!

Toposcope

Each Friday for the past month Apple Music tells me that “Mozart & Contemporaries” by “Vikingur Olafsson” has been released. Each Friday I’ve been disappointed when it turns out the release date is actually in September. Apple is just teasing me.

New release Friday. I’m very much looking forward to playing wurdweb from Apple Arcade and checking out the new classical music releases.

My son sneezed out a wobbly tooth. It might be hiding somewhere in this photo.

Finished reading: The Midnight Library by 📚

Finished reading: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 📚

The only time I find it’s cool enough for a brisk walk at the moment is first thing in the morning before starting work. Today I spotted a “rock pool” that someone has made in the river.

I’ve been having a play with Craft Docs and Obsidian recently. However each time I pop back into Emacs/Org mode to do something I’m reminded how much faster it is to get stuff done in Emacs (with ViM emulation) that it will likely ever be in a less keyboard focused app.