Why I switched my notes from Google Docs to Obsidian markdown files, and how I use Obsidian

Obsidian is a note taking app, or as they call it, a "writing app"
- Obsidian is available to download and install on
- macOS
- Linux
- Windows
- Android
- iOS
Warning
- Be careful when switching to obsidian because you will spend days, weeks, or like in my case even months setting it up perfectly, finding the best plugins, setting up templates to take your daily notes and in the end, after a couple of weeks, you will end up dropping everything and use it for what it is, a note taking app
- Don't invest a lot of time watching countless tuturials. Don't end up in the
zettelkasten rabbit hole because you'll end up really confused and spend a lot of time, just start taking your notes in a way that works for you
- Personally, all my notes are technical documents, so I use big files
- I probably should switch to the zettelkasten method, but it's not something
I want to invest time right now, because i know it will take me months
Reasons to switch to Obsidian
- 1. Google docs take a long time to load, if you have big files that contain a
lot of images, good luck
- 2. If you want to perform a general search in your main notes directory for
specific words, you wont find all the results when using the "search"
option in Google Drive
- 3. You need to have internet access to get to your notes, in Obsidian your
files are stored locally but you can still back them up, I have mine in
github
- Yes, you can use the `Google Docs Offline Chrome extension` extension, but not a good experience
- In the video I show you the `Git` community plugin that automatically syncs my notes
- 4. Files are saved as markdown files `.md`, so I can open and edit them in any text editor, not only obsidian, but even in my terminal with `neovim`,
`vim` or even the TextEdit app (notepad)
- Markdown is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting
elements to plaintext text documents
- In google docs, files are saved with the `.gdoc` extension and if you double
click them they will be opened in your browser, you can also download them
using the Microsoft Word `.docx` extension
- Do you really want to manage your notes using the cluttered unintuitive
distracting and slow Microsoft Word application?
- Even if you use open source software like "LibreOffice" you'll encounter
formatting issues
- Some documents look good in Microsoft Office but when you open them in
LibreOffice they don't look the same, or vice versa
- 5. Codeblocks support since using markdown files
- 6. I can upload my images to my Imgur account or store them locally
- Demo on the video on how images are uploaded to imgur
- 7. Vim motions
Mobile app
- There's a free Obsidian Mobile app, but if you want to have your files synced
you have to pay for Obsidian Sync
- I'm not exactly sure, I don't use it on my Mobile
- But if I need to read a note, I do it on the github mobile app, because I
upload my notes to a private github repo
Recommendations
If you want to configure a custom menu bar on macos using sketchybar
• Install and configure ...
---
If you want to jump around your apps using keyboard shortcuts using
karabiner-elements
• 07 - Configure Karabin...
---
Link to my blogpost
linkarzu.com/posts/obsidian/g...
Timeline
0:00 - What is Obsidian
0:21 - Qick Obsidian overview
0:46 - Dont go down tutorial, plugin and zettelkasten rabbit holes
1:55 - Reason 1 load times
3:03 - Reason 2 searches
4:21 - Reason 3 offline access
4:37 - Sync obsidian repo to github
5:26 - Reason 4 markdown format and directory structure
8:12 - Reason 5 codeblocks
9:28 - Reason 6 images locally or in imgur
10:47 - Reason 7 vim motions
11:04 - Mobile app and obsidian sync
12:15 - RECOMMENDATION macOS sketchybar
12:36 - RECOMMENDATION karabiner-elements
13:01 - Migrate only what you need
13:39 - Graph view
13:00 - Calendar, daily notes
14:19 - Link notes

[@alexflores5832]

I see you have a 010 notes file, but inside that file, you have 020 dev? I think your file structure might be a bit of place

[@linkarzu]

EDIT: all the ones ending in -md are files, renamed them from .md because UA-cam though they were websites
Those are directories 010-notes is a dir, and inside it there's several sub-directories, some of them: 005-setups, 010-infra, 020-dev.
And each one of those has other sub-directories inside, and files.
Here'a small sample
├── 010-notes
│ ├── 005-setups
│ │ └── homelab-md
│ ├── 010-infra
│ │ ├── aws-md
│ │ ├── bind9-md
│ │ ├── DBs
│ │ │ └── dbs-md
│ │ ├── Docker-md
│ │ ├── GlusterFS-md
│ │ ├── Hardware-md
│ │ ├── Kubernetes-md
│ │ ├── linux
│ │ │ ├── Debian-md
│ │ ├── networking
│ │ │ ├── networking-general-md
│ │ │ └── vendors
│ │ │ └── mikrotik-md
│ │ ├── xcp-ng
│ │ │ ├── XCP-NG-md
│ │ │ ├── xo-cli-md
│ │ │ └── XOA-md
│ ├── 020-dev
│ │ ├── CSHARP-md
│ │ ├── git-md
│ │ ├── java-md
│ │ ├── python-md
Not the best file structure, I need to improve it, but so far it's ok, I keep changing it when I need to

[@akashp01]

Shouldve made the plunge from vim to emacs instead. With org - interlinking is trivial.
I personally dont prefer md, i feel its a low level language that is not meant to be written in, but for compatibility bw machines. Too complex syntax, imagine pressing shift and 3 for a headline -- too inefficient. Bold ? * * * * Inefficient to write in.
A note taking tool should be personalised, with obsidian since its just chromium - for plugins youd have to rely on people who do webdev. With emacs since elisp is a very beginner friendly language - youre making personalised plugin in your first month and so on.
Also obsidian is very memory hungry which it gets from being a fancy website hiding in plain sight.

[@linkarzu]

I've been hearing a lot of org mode recommendations, how good is it with big files?
I've recently switched more and more from Obsidian to Neovim for my markdown editing, I can even view and paste images, but it's not as efficient with very big markdown files.
I don't know, I love Neovim too much and don't want to cheat on it with emacs 😂😂😂

[@akashp01]

@@linkarzu i think line size is a bottle neck in emacs rather than file size. If properly set up - the impact of length size should be negligible for mega documents. I usually follow the rule of one line for a paragraph with line wrap, but i have not hit the threshold yet in my use.
But i believe if proper care is not taken - emacs can slow down in general. The user must always be on their toes to write efficient procedures and functions, user must be parsimonious and frugal when dealing with any dialect of lisp.
I believe in life, you make the choice of either going the vim life or the emacs life and stick to it, since its costly to start over. Sunken costs and initial investment is a rational criteria how me make choices.
Isnt there a trivial way to set up a sqlite database for notes in neovim and set up an interlinking facility between them?
Check out sirupsen's zk. You can set up a notetaking workflow using vim only.

[@linkarzu]

There is a neovim plugin called "neorg" which I'm going to give a try and see how it goes.
But you're right, I've put way too many hours into neovim as to get started with emacs, even if I use doom emacs I know that would mean months or years of tweaking, and I don't want that at this point in my life.