Tidbits 2023-W18
Of Cameras
I have an X-H2, and I'm loving it. I've written a longer post about the camera (it's almost ready to publish), but I just wanted to quickly mention this and post a few pictures. It's a different kind of love, based on another set of criteria, but I'm really enjoying what it brings to the table.
It's funny because most of my Kage buddies are all in on the X-T5 and hold very little affection for this one—which I fully understand. I even shot a film about it. But I had a very specific rationale in mind, and I'm not at all disappointed.
Of Plain Text and Syncing
I recently had an issue with Obsidian: it was refusing to launch. I'm using insider builds so I thought I'd run into a bug of some sort, until I noticed iCloud Drive was having problems syncing some of the app's folders. Syncing any folder, apparently. I crossed my fingers and decided to wait it out.
I wanted to write the Mock Summer post, so in the meantime I simply opened IA Writer (which I hadn't used in months), created the doc in the appropriate directory in my Vault, and went to work. A few minutes later I checked on Obsidian and iCloud was working again, so it launched without a hitch... and there was my post—filed in the right spot, ready to go. I just applied my blog template to insert the proper tags, metadata etc, and picked up from there, literally mid-sentence.
With my subscription still active until next August, I sometimes glance at Ulysses updates in the App Store. Not really interested anymore, but curious. It's darn pretty. It has Projects now. And lovely colours. But plain text is freedom: nothing hidden, all content accessible, all the time.
Now, about iCloud though.
The service has always been mostly rock solid for me, across all apps. But I've been seeing syncing issues a lot more often in the past couple of weeks: it's never for long, but it's enough to be an annoyance. Yesterday, however, one text file from my Mac got completely stuck in limbo. The iPad just wouldn't finish the 2kb sync (!). I waited, I restarted...no go.
So I decided to take a look at Obsidian Sync, and I've taken the plunge.
Recent issues aside, storing my Obsidian vault on iCloud was always reliable enough. But Sync provides a whole new experience: granular control over the syncing process, versioning, end to end encryption, and zero delays. This last point is immediately obvious, because waiting had been a normal part of my Obsidian experience until now: a few times a day, when launching or switching to the app, it would scan the vault for modified files, and settings. Nothing overly problematic, but still up to 10 seconds here and there.
I can now confirm this was entirely due to iCloud's data management, and the app needing to check all the necessary pieces were still in place.
With Obsidian Sync the vault is stored locally, on every device. Syncing becomes an internal process, entirely controlled within the app, and the results are night and day. There are no delays whatsoever, everything is instantaneous.
Obsidian is free for single individuals, so the way I see it the addition of the Sync service means I'm paying for an app that's now at the centre of my workflow, one that's replaced multiple subscriptions, and it helps the developers as well.
I also recently learned this is a Canadian company: a bit of patriotism can't hurt, right?
Have a great weekend :)
