This has been an exciting digital year for me 🤩.
Not only have I discovered a lot of new software and products, but I have also learned a lot along the way.
Obsidian
I started using Obsidian in 2022, but it wasn’t until I switched jobs this year that I really started leveraging it.
It’s been an amazing tool for me. I can quickly make notes in markdown, I can sync them between computers, and edit them on my phone. Combined with plugins and themes it really shines brighter than any note-taking apps I have used – and I have used a lot of them!
Espanso
Since I switched jobs this year, I have had to learn a lot of new things, including new terminology, jargon, and a gazillion abbreviations.
It was hard to remember it all, and I continually found myself having to look up words and terms in my notes. Taking meeting notes was especially frustrating because I often missed words being said, and I had to look up abbreviations and jargon, all the while struggling to write fast enough. I felt I was missing out on a lot simply because I couldn’t remember 50 abbreviations during the first months.
That’s when I discovered Espanso.
Espanso is a cross-platform text expander tool. It allows users to define shortcuts for frequently used phrases, sentences, or code snippets and then expands these shortcuts into their full form as you type. Espanso allows me to store anything from terminology, jargon, or abbreviations I frequently use.
Taking meeting notes became a breeze and the best part is I can use it anywhere. Outlook, Obsidian, Web browsers, etc…
You can really put anything in here, from employee names to phrases, e-mail addresses, and so on. It’s free and open source!
ChatGPT
Needless to say, like most people, I started using ChatGPT for almost anything. It took a while before I realized how powerful prompting can be once you do it right. I still see many people missing out on the full potential of ChatGPT because of bad prompting.
I have also tried many other LLMs, such as Bard and Bing, and locally installed LLMs through LM Studio and Ollama, but GPT is my favorite because it has way more accurate answers.
Directory Opus 13
Directory Opus 13, also known as Dopus came out in Beta this year. It features a whole bunch of new features, but most notably dark mode! 🧛♂️🤘 I am experimenting with dark mode options as the built-in one is not very impressive.
However, Directory Opus has recently switched to a pay-for-updates model which I think is a shame.
Thorium
I also discovered Thorium, a fast and secure Chromium web browser. Although it’s supposed to be faster than Chrome I just use it to compartmentalize different things.
I am not sure if it’s any better privacy-wise than Chrome, but I still like the idea of not having to deal with Google products if I can avoid them. That’s why I use Firefox as my main browser, but sometimes it is necessary to visit the dark side.
The only downside is that there doesn’t seem to be an auto-update for the browser yet.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8
I actually got the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 back in 2022, but I didn’t really have time to work with it until 2023.
It has an Intel 11th-gen Evo Core i7, 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD. Spec-wise, it’s a good laptop, and the most impressive thing is the color uniformity and the screen quality. It runs a little hot sometimes but stays within an acceptable noise limit.
I wouldn’t buy it again because, although the laptop works great for airplanes and situations where you mostly need to watch something on the screen, the keyboard is unsteady if you have it on a sofa or on the lap. I would rather go for a 14″ ThinkPad X1 Yoga or a Macbook Air.
Goodbye Bluehost 🤮 – Hello 1984 hosting 👋
I have been hosting this blog at Bluehost for years because of their unlimited storage plan.
Recently, Bluehost started imposing limits on the unlimited plan, even when I had pre-paid for a three-year plan. More precisely, the only way to keep the unlimited plan was to pay an additional $70+ per year, but only if you pre-paid for an additional three years. This is obviously a scam, and their customer support gave zero fu** about it.
Now I am hosting this blog at 1984, a web hosting company based in Iceland, known for its strong focus on privacy and free speech. Time will tell how it goes, but so far no problems.
New Horizons in 2024
In 2024, I am looking forward to trying some things I haven’t really tried before, such as Unraid, ZFS, Google Assistant, and the future innovations of AI.