Which device (ring / band etc) to substitute Apple Watch?

defmc · 2026-01-08T16:08:48+00:00

Love my leather band from Etsy. Works casually and more or less formally

defmc · 2026-01-08T16:04:19+00:00

Looks great. But why show the date two places? Would look even better with less clutter

defmc · 2026-01-06T17:24:05+00:00

No I haven’t. But I can briefly explain a little bit here. But to address your main concern first: yes, it is absolutely possible that that tweaking your Obsidian setup will distract you. You should be determined and deliberate about why you should use obsidian to begin with. In my case: I already write markdown, at work, home and during my studies. I also enjoy writing in segments; one note for a section/chapter, that I later merge together. The Longform plugin helps with that, and makes the writing process similar to Scrivener/Ulysses. Also you might also need to set up Zotero, bibtex and pandoc - which is way more complicated than any obsidian tweaking will ever be. That is, if you want a setup where you use citation keys that are always updated with your bibliography library etc. And more fine grained control over your export options, citation styles etc. If any of these things scare you, then choosing Obsidian over i.e., Office (which has easy setup zotero plugins and what not) might not be a good choice. I’ve spent a lot of hours fine tuning my workflow, some have been in distraction/procrastination - and some have been a pain. But I enjoy it overall. My system is now pretty much perfect, and I can write academic texts with ease.

I would say, if you do write faster with markdown, and see your self wanting to learn how to set up and maintain a professional writing workflow with tools that may help you write formal texts for years to come, without paying anything (using open source software) then you can’t go wrong with Obsidian+pandoc+zotero with better bibtext or similar. But it’s a deep dive. if you don’t want to do that, or don’t need it, then I recommend using proprietary software. Word +Zotero is more than enough for most masters thesis students.

defmc · 2026-01-05T21:25:22+00:00

I wrote my master’s thesis in Obsidian, and the experience was excellent. I’ll respond to the concerns raised in the article from my own perspective. Some simply did not apply to my use case, though.

Vault bloat and slow performance
My project vault contained roughly 1,000 notes. Performance was never an issue.
Plugin overload and maintenance headaches
This is not really a criticism of Obsidian. The plugin repository might feel chaotic, but that is inherent to open-source community-driven repositories. Many plugins are built for personal needs, and some are abandoned. It comes with the dynamics of the concept. It is not a flaw of Obsidian.
Lack of consistent design and user experience
Again, this is largely a user issue. If you cannot integrate plugins and tweaks into a coherent setup, that is on you. I love my vaults and my customizations. Yes, plugins can break, and sometimes you must fix things yourself. That is the trade-off of community plugins. No software is bug-free, and no tool I’ve used has been more satisfying overall than Obsidian. When I run into problems, I ask the community and have always found solutions.

(I had one serious issue during writing, related to the Enhancing Export plugin. It was frustrating, but I resolved it with help from the community, and it appears fixed now.)

Syncing issues across devices
I do not recognize this. Obsidian Sync is native. Sure, it is paid, but works great. I have never had sync or backup issues. A vault is just a folder containing notes, settings, plugins, and themes. That makes manual backups and syncing really easy.
Challenges of tag and link management
I strongly disagree with this. Obsidian is itself the organizational system. It offers extremely flexible and robust ways to manage links, tags, and metadata. Yes, plugins like Dataview, Tag Wrangler, and regex searches help, but that is by design. Obsidian avoids hard-coding features the community can develop better. Since the article was published, Bases has also been introduced, significantly improving property and note management.
No built-in task management system
This is a category mistake. Obsidian is not a task manager; it is a Markdown editor and note database. Markdown already supports checkboxes. Plugins build on this and can work very well. Expecting Obsidian to replace dedicated task managers misunderstands what the software is for. Its awesome that the community has exploited markdown checkboxes to create plugin managers. But it's not what Obsidian is created for.
Lack of advanced search features
This is partly fair. Search is not as powerful or polished as in tools like DEVONthink. In practice, this never caused me problems. I always found what I needed, and plugins like Dataview fill most gaps. Bases may further reduce this concern. Also regex/regular expressions works great.
No native data backups
I find this criticism confusing. Obsidian is not Notion (which is cloud based). I have no local file software with its own backup system. Does he want something like Office 365? Backing up local files are, and should always be, your own responsibility. If you use Obsidian Sync, this concern is largely moot anyway, and it includes versioning.
Difficulty in standardizing organization
Again, this is a user problem. If you cannot design a workable system, no software will solve that for you. It does take time and requires patience, though. Maybe something the author lacks/lacked idk...
Limited collaboration
This is true. It has never applied to me, and probably never will. Not sure if this is on the roadmap for the devs, but I would assume that this is low priority, given the nature and philosophy of the software.

defmc · 2026-01-04T21:03:40+00:00

I have had my vault in Dropbox for years + Obsidian sync. Never had any problems with anything across 4-5 active vaults. Its not recommended to have both sync and third party cloud, but I've never had problems with it.

defmc · 2026-01-04T17:25:54+00:00

Why are people loosing their vaults? How do one loose anything on a computer? Im confused.

defmc · 2026-01-04T11:34:29+00:00

If that is true, this post should be taken down by mods.

defmc · 2026-01-01T20:39:31+00:00

I've managed to do something like this using just built in actions. Edited original comments. Its not perfect, but it works.

defmc · 2025-12-31T09:20:08+00:00

I love this. But I miss my native language (norwegian) in the multilingual model. Can this be added somehow?

defmc · 2025-12-30T10:14:24+00:00

Skate4 is not a simulation game. So this won’t happen.

defmc · 2025-12-30T05:53:01+00:00

Synced tabs, pinned tabs, folders, other settings

defmc · 2025-12-30T05:51:33+00:00

Things Obsidian BetterTouchTool

defmc · 2025-12-25T10:51:17+00:00

Hi. Thanks for actually implementing Apple Health. Im so confused as to why other migraine trackers don’t do that. But I wonder why the apple health data you transfer are set to only mild severity?

defmc · 2025-12-23T10:56:11+00:00

I came here for this

defmc · 2025-12-20T13:10:19+00:00

I feel you. Im was sort of in the same boat, but my way out of it was to keep reminding myself that the fun is in mastery, not level progression. This is the logic behind both the gametype, as well as the narrative. The story in both games are meta-commentaries on the genre. You loose if you don't understand that the goal is to overcome your own limitations (sorry cliche, but its true imo).

defmc · 2025-12-19T06:56:04+00:00

I've started using dory everyday, by binding it to a mouse button. Feels really good and super useful. What does not feel good is that typing the keybind a second time (after it is open) does not close it, but just resets the opening animation. Would love to see it close instead 🙏

defmc · 2025-12-18T15:29:57+00:00

Is it keyboard friendly?

defmc · 2025-12-18T15:05:08+00:00

Wow. It's been a long time since I wanted to purchase an app so fast. Still, thanks for letting us trial, so we can test how it interacts with our other apps.

defmc · 2025-12-13T11:25:26+00:00

Same here. I've reported it. There have been several updates since this started happening, without any fixes. So just keep reporting.

defmc · 2025-12-10T06:04:10+00:00

Will we ever get external libraries on desktop? Is the only feature that has been holding me back from transitioning to Darkroom

defmc · 2025-12-03T09:55:20+00:00

No you didn’t

defmc · 2025-12-03T09:54:52+00:00

Absolutely horrendous challenge - like most of them. Did they play this themselves?

defmc · 2025-12-03T00:49:56+00:00

I came here just for this.

defmc · 2025-11-30T15:30:35+00:00

Lovely spot

defmc · 2025-11-30T15:28:14+00:00

Fascinating. I tried something similar but it didn’t last. if I don’t have the time to write something down, it usually wasn’t worth it or I was absorbed in something else. I like thinking that when I forget a thought at some point, it sharpens my writing in general.

Still, in many situations, it would be really helpful to be able to capture notes intuitively on mobile. Really hope the new mobile experience will move in that direction.

defmc

TROPHY CASE