VoodooPad

links for 2007-10-26

VoodooPad

VoodooPad icon

VoodooPad is a standalone wiki-like desktop notepad application from Flying Meat software, for Mac OS X. It is generally user-friendly, and even neo-wikizens can grasp its concepts quickly. Some GTD adherents have begun experimenting with the program as their main action repository.

You can download VoodooPad for a free 15-page-per-document trial — or try out the feature-limited VoodooPad Lite with no page limit — to get a sense of what it’s all about.

Check out Getting Things Done With VoodooPad for ideas of how GTD and VoodooPad can fit together.

Tips

Under the Pages menu is “Run as script” which will take the text on a given page and run it in the terminal as a script. All sorts of applications.

To utilize VoodooPad as a sort of blog or journal, use date strings for page names, e.g. “2005-03-24”. You can then create month pages (“2005-03”) and list+link the days out there for archives. Upcoming meeting or appointment? Create its day ahead of time, then you’ll have a visual reminder of it when you get around to that day. (This tip applies to most wiki ware.) I use this for meeting notes, putting them on the proper day and linking them to related Project or Department pages. (Back Links really help here.)

As usual, learning the keyboard shortcuts will speed up and otherwise improve your user experience tremendously. For example, create a new page using the Cmd-Shift-o (letter o) shortcut instead of Cmd-n and it will either create the page if it doesn’t exist, or take you to that page if it already exists.

Notanda vs VoodooPad

Updating the site globally today, so you will notice some peculiarities in the feeds. Do not be alarmed. ;)


Continuing the thoughts from yesterday (2005 12 26), another idea I’ve considered is trying VoodooPad as a backend engine for the site, then using its web export feature. Up until recently, however, that feature has been quite lacking. With the new 2.5 release, I’ve thought of revisiting and exploring the possibility.

One severely cool factor is the built-in markup interpretation, so that if (for example) you write using Textile, VoodooPad can interpret it on the fly during export. You can set up a plugin template, two scripts for before and after processing, and other stuff.

How my original yyyy/mm/dd needs might be handled I still need to figure out. :)

Screen time. Journaling. VoodooPad vs Plaintext. Reps. Decisive Indecision.

With my efforts to reorganize my various projects underway and some semblance of order descending o’er the battlefield, I imagine that a new way of being may alight as well: one that has less ‘screen time’ than before. I’ve already drastically reduced my TV consumption, and I think a corresponding reduction in computer usage is also in order. Unless I’m writing, or doing writing-related research (or maybe cooking and need a recipe), I’d prefer not having the bloody thing on all the time. Computers fit into life, not vice versa.

I’ve so much I want to do (writing, reading, cooking, exercise, family and friends) that I am becoming more jealous of that which takes away from those things.

A desktop picture came up on my laptop today with a graffiti of a television and the words ‘This Machine Lies.’ I need to track down where I last left off in Bleak House before getting sidetracked.


Things are really coming together nicely. I’ve transferred the bare minimum of cards for carrying on myself to a plastic sleeve I’d been using redundantly for some items. Now just one small packet not much bigger than the cards themselves, with Driver’s License, ATM/Credit Card, Health Insurance, Office Pass Key, and Gym Card. Other things like AAA, Blockbuster, CostCo, etc. stay in the wallet, which (for now) stays in my backpack, but which will probably wind up in the car. So much nicer!

I’m feeling the urge to get on the bike soon. Depending on schedules and weather, I’m going to try to do that this weekend, if not before.


Mmmm. New legal pads. Mmmmm.

Still conflicted about the VoodooPad cutoff. On the one hand, I don’t regret handling the journal in plaintext files, at all. On the other, well I do miss the wiki-nature of the thing. Perhaps this will be worked out sooner than I think with the completion of Notanda — a script could handle uploading of text files to the localhost database. Or something. Stuff to think about. For now, between the Moleskine analog and this digital, it’s good.


I will be upping my sets during today’s workout to 2 sets x 12 reps — LifeCircuit reps, which means 6 at full capacity and 6 of increasing/decreasing weight. Assuming this goes well, in a couple-few weeks I’ll move to three sets.

Later, perhaps moving to the Workout 3 stage mentioned on that page, four times a week: M,Th (chest, shoulders, triceps) and Tu,F (back, biceps). 4 sets of 8-12 reps.


My arms are vibrating. ;)


On the other hand, maybe I will wind up ordering VoodooPad. ;D God, I don’t know why I’m so indecisive about this. Or rather, too decisive back and forth.

Maybe because there are good parts to both.

Too bad VoodooPad isn’t open source, ‘cause then I could fart around with integrating it with Notanda.

Wiki and text files. Traditional Easter fare. Ooutlines, contexts.

One reason I might still upgrade to the full version of VoodooPad is if I could do some scripting to automate things with the live website.

OTOH I’m beginning to obsess on the text-file way of doing things again thanks to some reading on 43 Folders, not to mention:


I was just reading up on some traditional Easter fare. In the really old days, lamb was the traditional meat dish and still is in some parts of the world. I think though in the US ham has taken over as the main item. Eggs have been an Easter dish forever, of course.

From what I was reading, the Pennsylvania Dutch (who weren’t really Dutch but rather German) like to use glazed hams at Easter. One of their side dishes which sounds like it would go really well with the ham are some pan-roasted potatoes.

Also on the Easter food front is a British tradition of having hot cross buns. The theory was that any bread baked on Good Friday would never go moldy and would have special healing effects. The Brits would make bread with crosses on the top for Easter — which is where the name ‘hot cross buns’ comes from. Now, the Penn. Dutch also like to have homemade rolls with their Easter dinner too, so we could have some of our own ‘hot cross buns’ too! :)


I think I might split my ‘Currently’ ooutlines into Office and Home. Seems like it would make sense and reduce visual clutter. Would make sense for the HPDAs to do that as well.

It’s part of the whole ‘granularity’ thing — dividing things into the proper number+scale of categories. Like, for example, my categorization last year (Body, Cooking, Family+Friends, etc.).

My Do lists took on a higher-level last year, which worked fine until I started getting dozens and dozens of items, like this week when my brain melted.

So with the split of Office and Home, what about splitting it further into Writing, etc.?

What about re-consolidating them (since I don’t want a dozen ooutlines open simultaneously) into one ooutline, but each category with its own section? Seems like I did this before during my initial experimentation. Problems arise in the addition of the time factor — answering questions e.g. what needs doing on Monday?

Of course GTD talks about the idea of location-specific lists, or rather context-specific lists, so that if you’re in your @Office, you have your office list, if you’re away from everywhere but have your phone, you can use your @Phone list, etc. Which may be more what I’m talking about. Some things can be done anywhere.

Need to read some more.

There are differences among Topics and Contexts and Activity Types, and I have a feeling I’ve been mixing the three.


I wanna get rid of my wallet.

Take only what’s absolutely necessary (ID, Credit Card, throw it in a pocket Moleskine, write down the numbers/stuff that’s absolutely necessary. And be done with it.

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