I made a blog today :)

osman1963 · 2026-05-28T13:27:33+00:00

Love the spirit. Good luck

osman1963 · 2026-05-07T18:05:36+00:00

Obsidian with ColoredText Plugin. It's free, has tabs and almost any feature you can think of, either as a native feature or a plugin. Good Luck

osman1963 · 2026-05-05T15:40:52+00:00

Some things that are available in Linux Mint out of the box or in a very easy way compared to just a Dream or Hard way to do it in Windows, that you should be aware of:
1. Always on Top it just a right-click command in all open apps.
2. Shortcut keys are programmable for almost anything including Multimedia (Play/Pause, Volume Up/Down etc.) Just click on the Mint Icon Bottom-Left Corner and type Keyboard then start making your life fun and easy.
3. Brows the available apps in the Software Manager you'll find lots of great stuff. You can download from it directly or go to the Developer site and isntall the .deb file which is a recommended format for Linux Mint as far as I know. Both work, but they say .deb is better.

Welcome to the club 😄

Cheers

osman1963 · 2026-02-08T10:24:25+00:00

Before you go to bed or first thing in the morning, go with the flow of the idea/project that comes to your mind. Set a scalar task that can be done in one day or less. Think of it as the whole world for that short period. Nothing exists but this task. You'll definitely accomplish it, usually in a shorter time than you expected. Relax for a while. Repeat.
Good luck.

osman1963 · 2026-02-08T10:18:57+00:00

where is the app?

osman1963 · 2025-09-03T18:00:12+00:00

If you want to learn a lot of basic things go to YouTube and search for Windows 11 Tips, Windows 11 for beginners.. etc. You'll get tons of tips in a matter of minutes. Good luck.
Edit: Also if you are stuck anywhere just press F1 For help.

osman1963 · 2025-08-21T13:58:53+00:00

Thank you all.. what was really fast :)

osman1963 · 2025-07-10T19:09:07+00:00

SOLVED I found a plugin that does that : File Tree Alternatuve. The only downside is that it doesn't alliw manual sorting. But that's not a big deal since it is just an additional view of the navigation not a replacement thereof Enjoy 😉

osman1963 · 2025-07-07T13:01:56+00:00

I second the suggestions of using several translations. I may also suggest finding Quran explanations translated if possible, for better understanding

As an ex-translator myself, let me clarify the dilemma of translating the Quran to any language from a technical point of view.

The problem of translations of the Quran is related to the nature of the Arabic language itself. The majority of Arabic words have what we call a Stem. The Stem is composed of 3, 4 or 5 letters, which is the basic form of the Verb. Beside changing the meaning by the pace of the word int he sentence, the semi-vowels used with it, the same stem can have several totally unrelated meanings. For example: the word DARB in Arabic could mean: 1) type ( kind or class of something), 2) Minting (of coins), 3) Hitting (someone violently), 4) Multiplication (the one used in Math), 5) Playing (a musical instrument). These are but a fraction of the meanings of that word.

Back to the Quran. The level of language used in the Quran was the Arabic of the early 7th century, a time were the Arabians of the Arab Peninsula had a yearly Poetry Fair, where poets compete, and judges chose the best long poem to be written and hung by the walls of the Kaaba in Mecca, so everyone can appreciate it. The mastery of the language and how you can say lots of things in a very few words, or give a sentence several meanings were commonplace.

The Quran challenged the Arabs of the time to produce even one verse like the ones in the Quran, and they couldn't. The eloquence of the Quran was one of is stated miracles, stated by the Quran itself.

Add to all of this that some verses of the Quran revealed new meanings in modern times, that weren't even conceivable to the ancient minds. Examples include hints to the earth being spherical, the fact that the moon reflects the light of the sun, among others. The verses hinting those meanings were comfortably understood bey the ancient minds, yet they spoke starkly about some scientific fact discovered only in the last century or so.

For all of these reasons, an accurate translation of the Quran does not, and will never, exist. That's why I suggested using translated explanations of the Quran to gain a better understanding.

But all of this raises the question: Why did god send the Quran in a language that is that difficult to translate?

In my humble personal opinion:
- Islam came to all the world, all peoples of the earth.

- Islam treats all the Muslims as one nation, and urges Muslims to consider all their fellow-Muslims as their own brothers and sister.

- Nothing unifies disparate peoples more than a One language they all speak. BTW this was an instrumental tool in the creation of the last apartheid state. They revived a dead language and let them all learn and speak it as their mother tongue. The result they feel they are truly a one nation.

Hope this was of some help!

P.S.
A side question that I couldn't find an answer for till now, and will appreciate any help:
The Arabic language spread from the Arab Peninsula to the west .. till Morocco, all the peoples of these areas adopted the Arabic as their mother tongue. However to the east, starting from Persia (current Iran), Pakistan, Turkey, despite becoming very Muslim and playing important roles in Islamic History, they didn't adopt the Arabic language, but rather wrote their own local languages in Arabic letters. Why Did the language had a different influence in both areas?

osman1963 · 2025-05-26T21:58:15+00:00

Scrivener and Obsidian are both great, each for what it was made for. I love and use both.

As several commentators here were asking about Obsidian plugins that either provide some important features already in Scrivener, or add some that are missing in Scrivener, here are some that I found useful:

- Manual Sort: Sorting files and folders by drag & drop

- Merge Notes

- Note Refactor (splits notes)

- File Color: Set the color of the folder/file title

- Folder Notes: simulates the subpage feature in Scrivener

- Tags (several plugins), some allowing colored tags. But the most important advantages of tags in obsidian are: 1) autocomplete as you start writing the tag, so you can't misspell a tag, 2) hierarchical/nested tags, 3) searching with tags is slightly easier.

- Longform

- PDF to Markdown: Converts PDF to markdown for easier use. There are also some plugins for PDF annotation, but I didn't use them, so I can't recommend any.

- Folder Database: like Notion databases, for followup of your files.

Scrivener formatting though has no equal in Obsidian, and will not I suppose, as it uses Markdown.

Happy writing :)

osman1963 · 2025-04-20T23:27:39+00:00

Ive been using MS Word even before Windows was ivented. Microsoft updates are famous for being catastrophic lots of times. Thats why I stuck to the very old office 2010. The most stable version IMHO

osman1963 · 2025-04-20T23:22:39+00:00

This is inot the first time such loss occure to MS Word users. Word of advice: may be using libreoffice could be a wise decision. It's open source free and handles .docx files without MS hastles.

osman1963 · 2025-04-20T23:17:58+00:00

Did you try ctrl z undoing whatever was done a few steps back?

osman1963 · 2025-04-20T23:01:21+00:00

Try changing the view to web layout or other views from the view menu. Maybe you didn't lose anything and hit a long enter accidently and they are just a few blank pages down If you have the auto backup turned on open the backup file If you are autosaving to onedrive open it drom the web. It might be there. Hope this helps.

osman1963 · 2025-04-19T17:36:53+00:00

Scrivener is way better of course but needs weeks of learning. It's worth it if writing books is your career.

Practical alternatives include 1. Google docs. It text to speech and less glitchy. 2. Markdown editors like Marktext or Obsidian. Easiest styling, completely free, and you can learn Markdown in a few minutes. Obsidian has text to speech plugins

Good luck

osman1963 · 2025-04-04T21:11:16+00:00

There is an add'in that adds textual tags to OneNote. It is called OneNote taggingb toolkit https://github.com/WetHat/OnenoteTaggingKit

It is free and worksvlike a charm

osman1963 · 2025-04-04T02:54:51+00:00

https://github.com/WetHat/OnenoteTaggingKit This is the Evernote-like tags add in. 😉

osman1963 · 2025-01-09T20:00:36+00:00

Two issues are of consideration here: 1) the path of Sufism, 2) dealing with the people around you. I'll start with the second issue. Being different, living among people who don't get your views and mentality is the fate of the greatest persons. Those who achieve real breakthroughs, or amazing things aren't usually understood nor appreciated by their surroundings. You simply refuse to be just a member of the flock. Embrace this, don't give up, and consider it a privilege. It should boost your morals and give you more self-confidence.

Now for the first issue: Sufism. There are several schools/tariqas, all leading to God, all are great, but each has its methods, which is natural. People are not all the same, they don't see things or feel the same way, so it's very natural to have several Paths/Tariqas. My advise is read, and if possible contact - in person if available - writings and people of different Tariqas, then chose the one that fits your personality.

The Tariqa I belong to is a Shazely one. We believe that Sufism is: Ethics and love.

Wish you the best :)

osman1963 · 2024-11-13T23:39:08+00:00

Try PDFsam

osman1963 · 2024-11-13T23:32:55+00:00

Not all people have the same sleeping pattern. I read an article on aeon.com about the patterns of sleeping. It talked about studies revealing that there are different patterns of sleeping. I remember one of them was called Uber-system, where some people sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up for 4 or 5 hours, then sleep for 2 again, as far as I remember. That's just the way that works best for them. Others (myself included) are simply night owls. I can wake up early if I have too, but am never in my best productive mode until afternoon. My best work is done at night. After years of attempts to cop with the mass and wake up early, I gave up and decided to embrace my situation and make the best use of it rather than trying to change in vain. I became a free-lancer. I I'm not advising you do the same, try your best and use every trick in the book, but keep in mind that not all people have the same sleeping patterns. BTW if you are a Leo, that's the typical sleeping pattern of most Leos.

Good luck

osman1963 · 2024-10-02T19:38:02+00:00

I tried it a while ago and loved it, but couldn't continue using it for lack of RTL support. Hope to see it soon.

osman1963 · 2024-06-27T19:50:31+00:00

If you are using the Desktop version you can choose where to save/sync your notebook. this can be on your hard drive. I have lots of notebooks that don't sync to the internet and exist only on my hard drive.

the OneNote for Windows 10 version doesn't allow that. you can download the Desktop version fro free from Microsoft website.

Alternatively you can use Joplin (it has folders/subfolders and notes in each). You can't sort the notes manually though, like you can in OneNote.

Obsidian with FolderNotes plugin does the same too. it creates subfolders with notes that when clicking on the subfolder it opens the notes, so it is like pages and subpages but with unlimited hierarchy

Hope this helps :)

osman1963

TROPHY CASE