Previous and Next links for my blog's posts (III)
Just a quick follow-up to the first and second post about this topic.
I found the way to name my navigation buttons depending on the subsequent post having a title or not. If it has a title, I want the button to show that title. But if it does not, I want a placeholder text like “Previous” and “Next”.
Once again, MacGPT came to the rescue and gave me this line:
<a class="button next" href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ if .Title }}{{ .Title }}{{ else }}Next{{ end }}</a>
So this is the complete code for the HTML in the Sumo Theme’s Microhook (layouts/partials/microhook-after-post.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Justificar Enlace</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/styles.css"> <!-- Ruta al archivo CSS -->
</head>
<body>
<div class="navigation">
{{ with .PrevInSection }}
<a class="button previous" href="{{ .Permalink }}">
{{ if .Title }}{{ .Title }}{{ else }}Previous{{ end }}
</a>
{{ end }}
{{ with .NextInSection }}
<a class="button next" href="{{ .Permalink }}">
{{ if .Title }}{{ .Title }}{{ else }}Next{{ end }}
</a>
{{ end }}
</div>
</body>
</html>
And this is the result:
Previous and Next links for my blog's posts (II)
I wrote the first part of this short series here, with my first attempt to make navigation links for previous and next posts.
This second part is about setting up buttons instead of links.
And then I wrote a third part, a follow-up about naming the buttons with the title of the subsequent post or with a placeholder text if there is no title.
Keeping up with my experimentation and trying to learn a bit about CSS and HTML and that stuff, I wanted to set up links for Previous and Next posts in my new micro blog My micro.thoughts.
I documented here how I did it for the other blog, Say what, but this time I wanted to use buttons instead of links and I wanted them to look like the navigation buttons that are already present in the Sumo Theme by Matt Langford.
So I first went back to MacGPT to have it make a rough draft of the code I needed, and then I went to the Developer section of Safari and peeped into the main.css thingy (code, file or whatever it’s called), to find how the navigation buttons are set up there.
This was my first result:
Wait, what’s that at the bottom of the buttons? Why don’t they have a line in the bottom border?
At first I thought that it was something about the margin or the paddingor whatever was preventing the existing border from not being visible. I then tried to Ecosia1 some solution about buttons missing some border and I found tons of rubbish. Nothing worked.
Then I thought about looking again into main.css and there it was: there’s a few lines that say border-bottom: none in my main CSS configuration. So I had to override it.
border-bottom: 1px solid var(--button-border) did not work. I went to Ecosia again and I found a possible solution. Yes! I have to tell my Custom CSS that I’m trying to do something !important (!?) What a time to be alive.
So this did work: border-bottom: 1px solid var(--button-border) !important;
And I now have two nice Previous and Next buttons that work like a charm:
And on hover:
I paste here the code I used, so I keep it for future reference. Of course, you can copy it and make it your own.
For the CSS:
.navigation {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between; /* Distribuye el espacio entre los enlaces */
padding: 10px; /* Opcional: agrega un poco de padding para mejorar la apariencia */
}
.button {
display: inline-block;
border: 1px solid var(--button-border);
border-bottom: 1px solid var(--button-border) !important;
background-color: var(--button-background);
color: var(--button-text);
border-radius: 20px;
padding: 0.5em 1em;
font-size: 0.9em;
font-weight: 500;
cursor: pointer;
transition: background-color 0.1s ease-in;
margin: 3px 0;
white-space: nowrap;
}
.button:hover {
border-color: var(--button-border-hover);
background-color: var(--button-background-hover);
border-bottom: 1px solid var(--button-background-hover) !important;
color: var(--button-text-hover);
}
.previous {
text-align: left;
}
For the HTML in the Sumo Theme’s Microhook (layouts/partials/microhook-after-post.html):
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="es">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Justificar Enlace</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/styles.css"> <!-- Ruta al archivo CSS -->
</head>
<body>
<div class="navigation">
{{ with .PrevInSection }}
<a class="button previous" href="{{ .Permalink }}">Previous</a>
{{ end }}
{{ with .NextInSection }}
<a class="button next" href="{{ .Permalink }}">Next</a>
{{ end }}
</div>
</body>
</html>
I really wish that @jsonbecker would be proud of me. I took this conversation he started seriously:
I am desperate for people who want to customize the hell out of their micro.blog to spend like 5 hours learning Hugo instead of continually jumping blogging services as they learn over and over that whatever blogging host you use, customization (if possible at all) will require some knowledge.
-
Yes, I do use Ecosia Search and I like it a lot. ↩︎
My longest running apps
This post by Steve Hodgson made me look into my own apps, and I had fun reflecting on my everyday essentials.
A post elsewhere prompted me to check and I’ve been using Drafts for iOS since early 2012!The earliest app I still use is Atomic Clock from 2008.
These are apps that I have used every single day of my professional and personal life since I first purchased them, they are still essential to my workflows and something tells me that they will remain the same for as long as their developers keep them updated. I will most certainly keep purchasing every new update they publish.
- The very first, my good and trusted friend OmniFocus: July 17, 2008.
- LaunchBar (v 5): January 10, 2011.
- Keyboard Maestro (v 6.2): November 10, 2013.
- MailMate: December 15, 2013.
- DEVONthink Pro Office: March 14, 2014.
I owe my life to all these developers. We’ve been together for long. So thanks, a lot.
Previous and Next links for my blog's posts (I)
Update (2024-10-12): I wrote a second part here, with buttons instead of links.
Update (2024-10-12): I wrote a third part, about naming the buttons with the title of the subsequent post or with a placeholder text if there is no title.
I am happy because I managed to tweak my blog so every individual post has links for “Previous” and “Next” posts at the bottom. This might help readers navigate from one post to another, back and forth. Or at least it helps me navigate my own page better 😉.
First, I searched for answers in the Hugo documentation and other blogs showing tips and code snippets for this framework. I wasn’t able to bring those to my place.
Then I remembered I use the Sumo Theme by Matt Langford, and that it has these wonderful Microhooks that can really make my/your life much easier.
For the actual code, I used GPT-4o via MacGPT, and then through a bit of trial and error I managed to make it work.
I wanted to align the “Previous” post link to the left margin and the “Next” link to the right, so I had to customize my CSS, too.
So here are the steps I need to take if ever want to replicate this.
In the Design page (I’m talking about Micro.blog, of course), I have to make sure I have a Custom theme and that it is active or selected. Then I open the Custom theme to enter its templates and tweak them.
I need to make a New Template, for which I will click on the button at the right top corner. I will call the Template (this is important): layouts/partials/microhook-after-post.html.
This is the code I need to paste in the template’s text field. And then I have to update the template.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="es">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Justificar Enlace</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/styles.css"> <!-- Ruta al archivo CSS -->
</head>
<body>
<div class="navigation">
{{ with .PrevInSection }}
<a class="previous" href="{{ .Permalink }}">Previous... {{.Title}}</a>
{{ end }}
{{ with .NextInSection }}
<a class="next" href="{{ .Permalink }}">Next... {{.Title}}</a>
{{ end }}
</div>
</body>
</html>
The last step is to edit my Custom CSS, for which I will click this button on the left hand sidebar:
This is the code if I want to align each link to the left or the right of the page:
.navigation {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between; /* Distribuye el espacio entre los enlaces */
padding: 10px; /* Opcional: agrega un poco de padding para mejorar la apariencia */
}
.previous {
text-align: left; /* Alinea el texto dentro del enlace a la izquierda */
}
.next {
text-align: right; /* Alinea el texto dentro del enlace a la derecha */
margin-left: auto; /* Empuja el enlace al extremo derecho */
}
Et voilà, I made it. If the post has a title, it shows after the “Previous…” or “Next…” text.
Croissant and Pika look great, Micro.blog is better
There has been a lot of talk about the new Croissant app lately. @Manton started an interesting conversation about this on Micro.blog.
Croissant is getting some great press. Just a few I’ve noticed: Six Colors, MacStories, TechCrunch. I don’t need it because Micro.blog cross-posts to everything from my blog, but would be cool if the app could post to blogs in the future too.
When discussing the desirable support for Micro.blog in Croissant, my dear @Pratik noted a couple of things with which I cordially disagree, drawing a clear separation between the blogging and social aspects of Micro.blog.
[@manton](https://micro.blog/manton) Thought as much. I sent a request as soon as they announced 😊 Maybe if Micro.blog positioned itself as a social timeline service powered by your microblog, it would be considered by default for such apps?
[@manton](https://micro.blog/manton) tbh, the blogging platform aspect is dominant. The social aspects come next. But probably people don't want to start a "blog" (perception of having to do too much) even when their social media account is technically a blog (place where they write)
I concur with @Manton on this. I see no benefit in Croissant since I can cross-post to the very same places from Micro.blog. And I don’t agree with @Pratik’s point of view because, to me, both aspects of Micro.blog (blogging and social) are inseparable and are actually what make this platform’s proposition so appealing to me.
My blog is my home, the place I cherish and where I welcome my friends. I can customize it and make it my own. In my home, I can say whatever I think of, collect the nice things I find out there, and build things to share with the world. I find it wonderful that I (a 50-year-old guy with very little technical skill) can easily connect my blog and my timeline with other people in many other places.
Micro.blog has given me this place of my own and this public square to share, and I am forever thankful for that. Blogging and microblogging in a socially connected environment is what I’ve been looking for.
One more thing: Micro.blog’s value proposition is second to none. I read the following comment and wanted to add something to it.
[@manton](https://micro.blog/manton) Croissant’s pricing makes micro.blog seem like really good value. You get everything Croissant can do and more and a blog for only a couple of bucks more a month.
This comment reminded me of Pika, the blogging platform made by Good Enough. Believe me, I love these guys. I use their Letterbird contact form on one of my blogs, and I seriously like everything they do. I’m sure I’d love to build an easy blog on Pika.
But they can’t compete with Micro.blog. Pika charges a very fair $60 a year. Micro.blog is $50, and for that, it gives you a blog and a social network, a supportive community, a great help forum, tons of plug-ins, more themes than you need, a completely customizable Hugo framework, an ActivityPub user, cross-posting to multiple platforms, and even podcast hosting!
I have a Premium subscription ($100/year) and, on top of all that, I can make up to five blogs (I currently have three), unlimited standalone static pages, a bookmark system that lets me collect and highlight web pages and start a blog post from these highlights, a phone app for notes, AI features to describe pictures, and transcribe audio.
If anything, Croissant’s $20 and Pika’s $60 have made even more palpable how insanely valuable Micro.blog’s feature set is for me.
I really hope Croissant and Pika find their audience since they are both great products made by very fine people. Croissant has a clear goal to grow its features, and Pika looks like it’s purposefully simple by design. I’ll certainly keep watching, but I’m sticking to Micro.blog for the long run, that’s for sure.
I managed to change the favicon(s) for my umerez.eu site thanks to the Favicon Generator and the tips in this page from the Micro.blog Help Center.
So thanks to @moondeer @renevanbelzen @sod @jsonbecker @numericcitizen and all the fine people that share this wonderful stuff.
Today, for the first time in years, my phone lived up to my expectations. I had a draft ready for filing in court and I was waiting for a document from my client. When I received the document, I was able to fetch the draft from my iCloud Files, finish it and export it to a pdf from the Microsoft Office 365 app, digitally sign the pdf with Firm@ fetch my Court agent’s email from my OmniFocus 4 task and send them the brief with the document to have it filed in court three days before the deadline. That’s been cool.
And now I’m publishing this from my phone, too.
I’ve been trying out NotePlan lately, and it’s a fantastic app for macOS and iPadOS. It’s great for taking notes, managing tasks, keeping a calendar, and even Bullet Journaling. The way it gives you date related notes (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly notes), alongside blank project notes, is unparalleled. You have to try it, it’s difficult for me to explain. The developer, Eduard Metzger, is always improving it with new plug-ins, templates, and AI tools. Working in NotePlan is a real pleasure.
However, when it comes to task management, as always, as ever, I’m going back to OmniFocus. I have all my work-related projects (over 200 client cases) in OmniFocus. The features I can’t live without are tags, defer and due dates, perspectives, and the amazing project review system. I also rely on a few Omni Automations.
So, I’ve decided to use OmniFocus for project and task management, and NotePlan for research, note-taking, and journaling. Hookmark lets me link the OmniFocus project, the NotePlan note, and the Finder folder for each client case. Plus, a Keyboard Maestro macro makes it easy to automate the process of creating a new project and linking all these resources together.
My ‘summer cleaning’ protocol is all set, and I’m ready to get back to work next week. Not that I’m looking forward to it.
After reading different productivity tips and posts about it, I wrote my first Week Note today, Sunday, in preparation of the upcoming week.
It’s a summary of the different projects and tasks we got done last week, and an overview of the things we have to work on this coming week number 17.
I wrote it for my team (we are a small team of two people total) and I really hope it helps us stay on top of things and with the feeling that it all has a purpose.
I wrote it in a casual tone, because I want to convey my train of thoughts (is it chain of thoughts?) in a manner that’s not too formal and demanding. I want the week notes to feel like a moment in which we share our common accomplishments and not a billboard of hundreds of cumbersome tasks.
I’m using Workflowy for that. It’s the tool that my teammate likes the most. I’m an OmniFocus guy and, for me, my only source of truth is OmniFocus. But it’s not really a collaboration tool, and my teammate has never grasped its functionality when trying the web version, so it never stuck.
So Workflowy it is. We use it in its most basic of forms: just a very flexible outline, where we jot down every task and commentary on a particular project. I made one new bullet titled “Notas semanales” (Week Notes), gave it an H1 heading format, indented a note for Week 17 with an H2 heading format, and then started writing underneath. Easy peasy. I wrote four sections (each of them is nothing but an indented bullet with many indented paragraphs under it, couldn’t be easier): an introduction so my teammate understands the purpose of this notes, a summary of week 16, an overview of week 17, and a colophon, where I also linked to this interesting scheduling tip (30, 60, 90 by Garrick Van Buren) that I just read thanks to @patrickrhone.
We’ll see. I don’t know if it’s sustainable. I plan to grow up my team shortly, so I hope this week notes really stick and that they become a good source of info about our work for ourselves and for future teammates.
Analog v digital writing tools
I was thinking about analog/digital tools for writing and journaling, and I started jotting down a few pros and cons of both. Personally I lean towards digital, but I’d like to hear your opinions.
Analog tools PROS
- Help deep thinking
- Beautiful notebooks and pens
- Durability (decades or centuries)
- Available any time and everywhere
- Affordable (unless you go down the pen/paper shopping rabbit hole)
- Light to carry (unless you go down the stack-of-notebooks-in-leather-cover rabbit hole)
Analog tools CONS
- Difficult to copy/backup
- Vulnerable to fire and water
- Need lots of storage space
- Bad legibility / Horrible handwrite
Digital tools PROS
- Lots of backup options
- Durability (as long as there’s electricity)
- Lots of linking/referencing options
- Automations
- Rather type than hand write
Digital tools CONS
- Electricity dependent
- Useless in case of zombie apocalypse (no electricity)
- Too many apps to fiddle with
- Expensive hardware
- Only available with battery/charger
This is my paradoxical view on Religion. Rationally, intellectually, I understand that religious beliefs are inherent to humans. After all, our brains have evolved to make images out of our senses and imagination, illusion, myths, dreams, questions, curiosity, are all a product of our ability to construct abstract concepts and to try to make sense of our surroundings. I’m an agnostic myself, but I don’t want a world without imagination, creativity, hope or faith. Nor I think such a world is possible, fortunately.
Yet, emotionally, deep in my own cosmological view of the world and of human beings, I just don’t understand how that faith can be placed in a particular god, a particular book, the interpretation of a particular church, the teachings of a particular prophet. And I understand even less the urge to believe and explain that one’s own view is more valid than others. My emotions are mine, we all have our own emotions, all of them are different, so I, we, must know those emotions are fallible, are just valid for us and, most probably, only valid for a short period of time.
I mean, let me rephrase my paradox: Intellectually, I understand Religion. Emotionally, I don’t.
I was thinking about giving myself time to think and be with myself and my thoughts. I have noticed lately that I’m always looking for my headphones and my phone to watch YouTube videos non-stop in my free time. At breakfast, lunch, dinner… even when I’m shaving in the morning! And I have reached the conclusion that I do that because I don’t want to think about my fears. I’m constantly stressed out with my work, because I have taken up a few projects that are a bit too much to handle and I’m overwhelmed. So I fear failure, and being always late with my commitments. And I also fear that I am not taking enough time to build a team that will help me cope with my excess of work. Above all, I have two deep fears: one is small, I think I can handle it, that I’m not as good a profesional as my ever challenging work demands; and the other one is the big one, the really big fear, that I’m wasting the little time I have in this world, and that, when I look back to my life, the minute before I dye, if I even have that minute, I will regret all the years that I’m giving to my profession. But I really don’t know what to do to change that. So I run away from those fears hooking myself to a constant video stream that switches off my brain. That’s why I think that I need to change that habit, shut down the noise and go back to living with my thoughts.
Sunday
I started to read Don Quijote, Blackie Books edition. The book is in Spanish (duh) and this is the description they provide in English:
THE CLASSIC OF CLASSICS IN AN ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR AND VAST DELUXE EDITION: OVER 700 PAGES, 100 NOTES, A PHOTONOVEL, QUOTES, AND COLORFUL GRAPHIC MATERIAL. Accessible at last: free of academicism, but keeping its full literary power, everyone who has ever wanted to read it will find their edition of choice in Quixote Freed. An agile text, version of Gonzalo Pontón, Hispanic scholar. Chapter selection by Agustín Sánchez, Cervantine authority. DON QUIXOTE IS MORE THAN A BOOK. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza do not live in the page alone. In over four hundred years since its publication, both characters have frequented music and painting, cinema and advertising, theater and poetry, and popular culture. Quixote Freed includes numerous audiovisual resources (film clips, music, poetry, etc.) that are activated via QR codes. A MOVIE QUIXOTE. In 1957, Soviet director Grigori Kózintsev, of Ukrainian origin, filmed what is considered the best movie adaptation of Don Quixote, with Nikolai Cherkasov (Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible) in the leading role. It was the first Soviet film to be released in Spain, in 1967. The full movie is accessible through the QR code in the book. Also, we extracted from the movie the most celebrated episodes of the book and arranged them as a photonovel.
My daughter baked chocolate chip cookies for the first time. She found the recipe online, and apart from a little help from me turning on the oven, she made them all by herself. She was disappointed with the final result and did not like them, she said they’re dull. I did like them. I could eat cookies made out of cardboard.
I took a minute to write down the rage episode I had this week. I’m not proud of it, but I made peace with myself. I took time to write every detail and confront my behavior. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but it is true that it does not happen very often and that, when it happens, it’s a very short burst of anger. I wrote it down on paper and it will stay there.
This looks too much like a journal entry. I don’t like journals. I’m not consistent enough to keep a journal so I don’t like them.
Finished reading: El Guardian Entre El Centeno by J. D. Salinger 📚
I read this book, in English, in the US when I was 16-17 years old and an exchange student there. I had an overall nice memory of the book. But the Spanish translation that I just read disappointed me. I don’t think it does a good job conveying the original’s style and rhythm.
Nevertheless, it is a great book. There’s two things that resonated with me. The first one is the main theme, a teenager’s view of his world and the difficulties he has to reconcile that view, the people around him and his own place in that world. I know young people around that age and particularly one that I think is very close to Holden’s troubles.
The second theme I liked is that of flight and isolation. I sometimes want that for myself. I highlighted a few passages in Chapter 25 that I liked, and I found the original text of The Catcher In The Rye so that I could cite them in their original form.
Finally, what I decided I’d do, I decided I’d go away. I decided I’d never go home again and I’d never go away to another school again. I decided I’d just see old Phoebe and sort of say goodby to her and all, and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I’d start hitchhiking my way out West. What I’d do, I figured, I’d go down to the Holland Tunnel and bum a ride, and then I’d bum another one, and another one, and another one, and in a few days I’d be somewhere out West where it was very pretty and sunny and where nobody’d know me and I’d get a job. I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people’s cars. I didn’t care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody. I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody’d think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they’d leave me alone. They’d let me put gas and oil in their stupid cars, and they’d pay me a salary and all for it, and I’d build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made and live there for the rest of my life. I’d build it right near the woods, but not right in them, because I’d want it to be sunny as hell all the time. I’d cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I’d meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we’d get married. She’d come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she’d have to write it on a goddam piece of paper, like everybody else. If we had any children, we’d hide them somewhere. We could buy them a lot of books and teach them how to read and write by ourselves.
That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.
It was about ten after twelve or so then, and so I went back and stood by the door and waited for old Phoebe. I thought how it might be the last time I’d ever see her again. Any of my relatives, I mean. I figured I’d probably see them again, but not for years. I might come home when I was about thirty-five. I figured, in case somebody got sick and wanted to see me before they died, but that would be the only reason I’d leave my cabin and come back. I even started picturing how it would be when I came back. I knew my mother’d get nervous as hell and start to cry and beg me to stay home and not go back to my cabin, but I’d go anyway. I’d be casual as hell. I’d make her calm down, and then I’d go over to the other side of the living room and take out this cigarette case and light a cigarette, cool as all hell. I’d ask them all to visit me sometime if they wanted to, but I wouldn’t insist or anything. What I’d do, I’d let old Phoebe come out and visit me in the summertime and on Christmas vacation and Easter vacation. And I’d let D.B. come out and visit me for a while if he wanted a nice, quiet place for his writing, but he couldn’t write any movies in my cabin, only stories and books. I’d have this rule that nobody could do anything phony when they visited me. If anybody tried to do anything phony, they couldn’t stay.
I started reading: El Guardian Entre El Centeno by J. D. Salinger 📚
I had a copy at home, a Spanish translation by Carmen Criado. I bought it quite a while ago and was lying around waiting for me to pick it up. I read Catcher In The Rye in English when I was 16 and was staying in Lancaster, PA, for my junior year in an exchange student program. I remember Mr. Schlichter was my English teacher. An awesome one at it, too. So today I went back to JD Salinger, in Spanish this time, and I have to say that, so far, Holden Caulfield does not disappoint.
Sunday
I have given up on my country’s politics. I don’t feel represented by any of the multiple choices that compete in Spain. All political parties, regardless of their apparent ideological differences, have sequestered democracy for their own purposes. They only act for their own benefit and if it serves the purpose of gaining or maintaining power. No political leader talks to or thinks about all the people anymore. When they say “the people”, they are only thinking about “their people”, the ones who voted or could vote for them. Policies are not proposals for the Country’s well-being or progress, they are weapons that are thrown with contempt against the other side of an imaginary political spectrum. There is no checks and balances any more, all State Powers are in the hands of the political parties. Only a few independent judges resist in their every day lives in court. None of them have real power to change anything about how the country is governed.
In the Basque Country, a small region in the bigger State, the two main parties still talk about policy. And I really think they still believe in good policy. The problem here is that of the main political ideology, though, which is nationalism. At the best, it makes me sick how many times a day we repeat ourselves that there’s no better place than this and better people than us. At the worst, although nationalism is cool as long as it looks like a small country looking for its place in the world, we know how much pain and sorrow it has caused in our past, and we certainly know it is a seven headed hydra in the long run.
Looking at my countries (both the small and the big one) and the world around me, my only hope is in the small people. In you and me, in that, the day we meet in the field, because that day will arrive, we will not be willing to kill each other. Instead, that we will believe that we are brothers and sisters that need and want to live together. We will prevail over the leaders that sent us there. That’s my hope.
Hazel by Noodlesoft
After a long time, I just built two new macros in Noodlesoft’s Hazel.
Don’t get me wrong, I have been using Hazel non-stop since I can’t remember. I keep the receipts for the upgrades to Hazel 4 in 2016 and Hazel 5 in 2020, but I’m sure I started using this awesome app long before that. I’d say 2011-2012. The thing is that I set around 50 rules across 4 folders a long time ago, and it’s been reliably managing my files ever since.
Hazel is a wonderful automation tool. It monitors the folders you tell it to and it does something to any file that you put in that folder and matches certain criteria you set up. For example, this is the use case I just built a macro for:
I agreed with a client that they will pay a monthly fee for a particular project. I asked them to note a certain reference number in each payment. My bank sends me the receipt for each transfer in a PDF, so every time I download my bank’s PDFs to my Downloads Folder, which is monitored by Hazel, the app looks for a file with a PDF extension, looks inside the contents of the PDF to see if there is a number that matches the reference number that I gave to my client, looks also for the date of the transfer, and if everything is OK, renames the file with the month of the payment and moves it to the folder where I store my invoices.
This happens automatically so, whenever I want to know if my client is complying with their monthly payments, I go to the invoice folder and there they are, all the proofs of the transfers neatly organized.
🚀
Jokes aside, tech is a blessing and a curse. Especially when it becomes unmanageable. And sometimes I think the only solution to tech problems is more tech. Which is silly but it’s a silly world the one we live in.
That is paradoxical, but quite true. Actually, that’s the route I’ve taken: instead of going analog, I built a this digital garden to make it a place of my own and find a bit of peace of mind. Tech to cure tech madness.
Anyhow, you should read the whole Carnival Roundup, it’s full of interesting insights into the experiences of a lot of different people. #thoughts
Old question from @crossingthethreshold to @vincode
🚀 Maurice Parker - Shortcuts for Micro.blog:
David Johnson Thank you, and a question. If I have two blogs under the same Micro.blog username, can I chose which blog to post to?2021-11-01 8:42 pm
I’m discovering Humboldt by Maurice @vincode and really having fun with the Shortcuts I’m building for iOS and iPadOS. One for publishing text posts, one for pictures, one for quotes…
I just saw this old question from David @crossingthethreshold and I’m sure he’s already got the answer, but this is how I do it. I have two blogs and I want one single Shortcut that lets me select the one I want to publish to each time.
Humboldt has a Select ID action. You set it to Always Ask and it gives you the list of your micro.blog blogs. You can define a variable with the input coming from that list. Then you put the variable in Humboldt’s Post action. When you run the Shortcut, you first choose which blog you want to publish to and Humboldt does the rest.
MegaShortcut
I built one single shortcut for all my text-blogging options. I first choose the blog in which I wish to publish. Then I write a title for the post or leave it blank. Then I write the content. Depending on the blog I chose, the shortcut will present me a list of tags to choose from. If I’m on the Mac, the tags will be picked from a list. If it’s the iPhone or the iPad, the list will be drawn from Data Jar. The publishing is handled by Humboldt, a great tool by Maurice Parker. #geekery