You all remember Evernote, right? For years (beginning in the late 2000s), Evernote was the note-taking tool for many of us. Then, they got weird, started selling merchandise and branded scanners, and made odd tangental mobile apps for some reason. Evernote seemed to have lost focus.

After a couple of years of that I, as someone who loves trying new software, didn’t hesitate to move on to newer, shinier tools for my notes.

Lately, I’ve been frustrated by all of my note-taking options and workflows. I use Emacs and Org-mode for just about everything I write, but I’m still constantly trying new things and it’s exhausting. Org mode can do anything, but it’s not good at everything. It’s good at text. It’s not good at images or non-text files. I’ve gotten reasonably adept at using org-attach and Dired for handling files, but it’s still awkward.

What I need most of the time are Org mode and an Everything Bucket. Enter Evernote.

I’m trying an experiment. I’m using Evernote as my repository of clippings, web pages, PDFs, etc. As I wrote 10 years ago in Digital Recordkeeping, “Evernote is my junk drawer”. It’s really quite good at it.

Using Evernote in 2023 is about as uncool as it gets. It’s old and decidedly un-trendy. And v10 was recently released, rewritten as a (GASP!) Electron app. That might be what I like about it. Using Evernote feels like a small rebellion against the onslaught of “Tools for Thought”. There’s none of the data-entry-intern feelings of using Tana, or the horror scape of plugins that is Obsidian. Evernote is what it is.

I miss having a good junk drawer. I’ll let you know how it goes.

(originally published on baty.net)

January 18, 2023 notetaking software Reply by email

Am I overthinking it? Of course I’m overthinking it.

Let’s face it, I enjoy trying different ways of publishing and tinkering with the tools for doing so. Once in a while, I spread myself a little too thin and consider drastic consolidation. You know, the dream of One True Blog™.

In an effort to figure this out, I thought I’d write down the types of content I post most frequently, and where that content might belong.

Blog Posts. Blog posts are longer posts of several paragraphs or more, and often include images. You’re soaking in it! This is the easy one, blog posts go here on my main blog at Baty.net.

Daily Notes. Daily Notes are all the little things I think about throughout the day. They’re incomplete, inconsistent, and not ready for prime time. I post these all over the map. I’ve written them on my wiki, at daily.baty.net, and as part of my main blog under the Journal heading. Most recently, they’ve been going to baty.blog because I quite like how that site looks and works (it uses Tinderbox for publishing).

Social Posts. Social posts are a subset of my Daily Notes. They’re the things I want to share socially. I don’t have rules around what qualifies. It’s just me thinking, “Hey, I’d like people to see this.” For many years, this was Twitter’s domain. But later, and up until yesterday, social posts had been going to my Mastodon account.

Photos. Photos have, since 2004, gone to Flickr and, more recently, to Glass. But they also belong everywhere, depending on whether I want to add some context or not.

Yesterday, I restarted my subscription to Micro.blog in hopes of combining a few of the above into a coherent stream at jack.micro.blog. I’m not sure it’s working out the way I’d hoped.

Micro.blog is great because it handles posts of all kinds, and can optionally feed them out to the “fediverse” via ActivityPub. People using Mastodon or other services like it can follow me on Micro.blog just the same as if I were also using a Mastodon account.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that the distinction between things I write as a daily note and the things I write for social networks overlap, but not completely. Many of the things I write on baty.blog are not meant for general consumption. The difference is that on baty.blog, every little thing I write doesn’t end up in someone’s social feed, begging for commentary, likes, or whatever. Sometimes I’d rather not have to chat about (or defend) something I’ve written. Sure, the daily notes are public and available via RSS for the truly interested, but otherwise are mostly just for me and the few lunatics who visit the site or subscribe via RSS.

This means that Micro.blog can’t actually replace Baty.blog. But can it at least replace Mastodon? I think so. My only hesitation is that if I’m not using Micro.blog for all the great things it can do, do I need it at all? The community is fantastic, so interactions there are always pleasant and fun. But it’s kind of like Emacs in a way; If I’m going to use it, I always feel like I should use it for everything. Know what I mean?

I’ll keep fiddling with it, but right now we’re all going to have to deal with me posting to three places: baty.net for blog posts, baty.blog for my daily notes (although this could end up moved to daily.baty.net soon), and jack.micro.blog for social posts.

Am I overthinking it? Of course I’m overthinking it.

OMG I just remembered I wrote basically this same post less than a month ago in Say vs. Share. What is wrong with me? 😆

January 13, 2023 Blogging Reply by email

I took the same walk, but this time I brought a digital camera (Fujifilm X-T5). It’s just not the same. Maybe it’s the 23mm Fuji lens that I don’t love. Or maybe it’s just that I know they’re digital. Whatever it is, I prefer the film shots from the last two outings.

January 13, 2023 Photography Digital Fujifilm Reply by email

I took the Hasselblad for a walk today on the same route as the one last week with the Leica MP. It’s a lot heavier! This was a roll of Delta 100 that expired in Jan 2011. I didn’t know what to expect, but it looks ok to me.

Tower

Weeds

Weed

Weed

January 9, 2023 Photography Film Hasselblad Reply by email

This has been a tumultuous week for me, photography-wise. Early in the week, I made this silver gelatin darkroom print of a 35mm frame of HP5 film.

On my walk. Ada, MI Silver Gelatin print (Leica MP, HP5)

It’s a photo of some weeds I took while out walking. That’s it. But I made it using my favorite camera and it’s a “real” chemical photograph on actual paper. I like it very much.

Then yesterday, I took the following self-portrait using my new Fujifilm X-T5 digital camera in my home studio.

Studio Self-portrait (digital)

Here’s my dilemma: I like them both, but never equally or at the same time. One moment I love everything about shooting film with my Leica and printing using only light and chemistry in the darkroom. It feels like making art, even when the objective technical quality is lacking. In fact, the lack of technical quality is what I look for when shooting and printing film.

Then, a moment later, I can’t understand why I’d bother with all that when I could simply shoot digitally and easily produce a clean, sharp, colorful self-portrait using strobes and backgrounds without all the finger-crossed guessing and expensive failures.

What all this means is that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to commit to a single form of photography. There are too many fun and exciting options to limit myself to just one. It also means I’m unlikely to ever develop the “Baty Aesthetic™” that I always think I should have. It means I’ve no “vision”. Oh well, it’ll have to be OK that I’m all over the place, creatively.

January 7, 2023 Photography Reply by email

I like the way prints look with a small black border around the image, like this:

Darkroom print hanging to dry

I know some people file their negative holders but that means no cropping and there’s no way I’m precise enough with framing to not crop about 90% of my images at least a little.

What I did instead is cut a piece of poster board ever so slightly smaller than my usual print size. I place this over the image after making the initial exposure and do one more quick 5-second exposure for the border.

This works, but it’s difficult getting the board lined up evenly. For now, I’m writing that off as providing uniqueness but I’m still looking for something better.

I taped the edges with dark tape so it’s easier to see in the dark.

I almost always print 6″x8″ on 8″x10″ paper, so this will be fine most of the time. If anyone has a better technique, I’d love to hear about it.

Example scanned print

UPDATE: I received the following tip from Nick Fanzo: “It’s more accurate to cut the board so you hold it to one corner, expose, and then move the card diagonally to the other corner and expose again. You’ll get more even borders.”

That’s much better!

January 5, 2023 Photography Analog Darkroom Reply by email

I took the MP on my walk and was determined to shoot an entire roll. It was overcast, dreary, and the path I walk is pretty boring, but I did my best and made it through the roll.

Weeds on my walk

Path

More weeds on my walk

Self-portrait in mirror

This roll was shot at 800 and developed in HC-110 (Dilution B) for 7.5 minutes.

January 5, 2023 Photography Leica Film Reply by email

The first roll of 2023. Shot in the Leica MP with the 35mm Summilux. Also, the first roll scanned using the new Epson V850.

Pond near the storage unit

HopCat interior

My desk

Accidental flash

January 4, 2023 Photography Leica Film Reply by email

If it behooves you, instead of thinking any more about Twitter—hit us with some PDFs, some incomprehensible sociology, a fact about your town, some poetry no one cares about, political theory that will never land, obscure social history, climate links, math things, some tech so obscure 20 people use it. We want your inner noise. Just push the gas on your own ephemeralism and launch us into the future.

Paul Ford, Mastodon

I feel like taking Paul’s advice and posting fast and furious on my One True Blog™. I’d like to anoint baty.net as that blog. Hang on.

January 3, 2023 Blogging Reply by email

January 3, 2023 Reply by email