I tried to submit my "exit interview" when I canceled my subscription but, the web page froze. Oh, well!I have a habit of copying my responses before hitting the Submit button. So, here is my answer to "Why did you decide to cancel?"I wasn't very organized. Collected too many tabs and turned Workona into an expensive Bookmark manager :(Ironically, Workona made it too easy to save tabs, but not easy enough to retrieve them. The onus is on the user to have good organizational skills BEFORE startin...

I finally got around to parsing the Workona bookmarks. I had 789 bookmarks! I'm going to look at this list every day until I deal with each one. Some will be saved to Reader and given appropriate tags. Others will go in my TiddlyWiki for quick reference on Puzzles and KDP.In a way, I think bookmarks are antiquated. If your browser has autocomplete enabled, that serves as a 1st-tier bookmarking service! I type the first letter or first few letters to reach frequently visited sites. Of course, I n...

I recently exported all of my data from Workona and canceled my recurring subscription. Based on how I work, Workona became little more than a 2nd-tier bookmark repository. I'm not even sure if that is the proper way to describe how my good intentions were overrun by persistent bad habits. I had a chance to explain myself during Workona's exit interview. Normally, I wouldn't bother telling the company why I'd canceled; however, over the past few years, I've corresponded with people who work at W...

I lost some information in a program called Infobase. When you stop laughing, I'll tell you how I got it back. Are you done? Okay, so, I've been testing Infobase since late January, 2022. It's clunky and weird, but I liked having my notes in a single window for reasons. Whenever I'm doing research, I open a plain text editor to paste links and jot notes. I will save the text file until I have time to clean it up and store it in Infobase. After I move text file contents, I often keep the...

Digital clutter is not just about the mess of files, folders and storage devices overwhelming us. It's also about the visual clutter on our monitors and laptops. Personally, I can only take so much. That's why I'm happy to have found a freeware app called Infobase, thanks to Deanna McElveen, at OlderGeeks.com.The main issue I have with the otherwise excellent Globonotes is that, if I choose to keep my notes visible, each one is an individual "sticky note" on my secondary monitor. I could hide no...

This is going to be short and sweet.Over the years, I have acquired more than half a dozen USB keys (flash drives, memory sticks, plastic thingies.) I just ran most of them through a secure eraser app.They've been retired to a little plastic box, just in case ...Whatever will I do when I need to transfer a huge file?Dropbox. ...

With the new year comes my usual resistance to resolutions. I have nothing against those declarations; I merely refuse to regurgitate the same list of unsustainable objectives that I failed at 25 years ago.But, my resolve to declutter my digital world has gathered steam. I'm happy to expound on this topic for the benefit of the five people who read this blog.First, I had to define the parameters of decluttering. Bookmarking, File Maintenance and Email Management represented the three major sourc...

What if we attempted to live a filter-free digital life? I'm not talking about artistic filters or cigarettes, though the latter would probably be a really bad idea. No, I'm talking about Gmail filters.Some filters in Gmail are downright useful. Being able to delete unwanted email, sight unseen, is a time-saver. However, the filters that "move" incoming email from the inbox to arbitrary labels seem to invite us to spend more time clicking from label to label than just reading the emails one afte...

I use a service that helps me keep my websites GDPR-compliant. In early October, 2021, the service alerted me to changes in the GDPR that mandated logging cookie consent.Remember Sarbanes-Oxley? I'm sure the financial institutions have come to grips with it but, when it first came out, businesses complained that it was too onerous.Well, this latest GDPR requirement seems entirely too onerous! Obviously, I'm not set up to do my own logging, otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this. The issue, for me...

Digital clutter is in the eye of the beholder. One man's heap is another man's folder. Mo' software, mo' problems. If you need 10,000 hours to master something (spoiler: you don't), you would need a decade to master just ten programs! During that span, nine of them would have become obsolete and the other one would have become so far removed from its origins that you still wouldn't be able to use it to its full potential.The solution, of course, is to master the art of creating a wiki. Not just ...

I just realized that the key enabler for Shiny Object Syndrome is curiosity. While that may seem obvious, I promise you that I hadn't considered it until just now. Curiosity is not a bad thing, nothwithstanding its relationship with "morbid". I think that it simply needs boundaries.Rule #1: Don't Give Scissors to a CatIf a tool is not useful, why have it? Unless you are a collector, you should save your money and closet space for other things.Rule #2: If the Cat Must Have Scissors, Choose Plasti...

I tend to make too much of relatively trivial things. It's a mindset thing, so I am not going to bore you with why. Instead, let me bore you with a brief discourse about the most mundane tool in the Digital Diet's arsenal:UNSUBSCRIBEThe ability to unsubscribe is tempered by the phantom Fear of Missing Out. I've remained on lists in hopes that the content would someday be life-changing. I've stayed in forums to nurture imaginary relationships. Bah! Unsubscribe.Shiny Object SyndromeSince impulse p...

Since this is not a review post, here is the tl;dr (411):Workona wins!Workona has workspaces, within which I can save tabs as well as bookmarks called resources. Whenever I switch to a different workspace, the open tabs are swapped out with whatever tabs I had open the last time I viewed the workspace. That's nice and all, but I have a few tabs that I would like to be available at all times.This goes against the core philosophy of Workona, which aims to enhance focus by removing distractions. So...

Ugh! I can't bring myself to delete my account. Luckily, I don't have to. I'm just going to stop paying for it. One of these days, I may actually close it. For now, I don't need to make a hasty decision, since Evernote basically can become free cloud storage:This is the key bit, from the Evernote Help & Learning Center:Your subscription won't change until your current billing cycle ends. Once your subscription runs out, your subscription will be canceled, and your account will automatically ...

Microsoft Office is a glorious suite of productivity software, supported by the same clown car that swerves over everything that Microsoft owns. Let's see who the clowns are, crammed into the 1990 Volkswagen Beetle:Accounts - I have personal and business accounts, each with it own, MS enforced email addressCrapware - It's not exactly crap, but most laptops come with a trial of some version of OfficeAuthentication - This is actually good, but causes confusion, because both accounts authenticate t...

That headline is a bit of wordplay: considering things at length is actually the opposite of liberating. Essentially, it leads to analysis paralysis. That's where I am this summer.First of all, I bought a new laptop. I wanted something more modern. I have a 2 TB solid state drive. From my understanding, SSD's have some disconcerting properties. Since I may be misguided, I will not repeat my thoughts here. Suffice it to say that I am hesitant about loading it up with software.Secondly, I'm in the...

I was just talking to my friend, Mitch Mitchell, about clipboard replacement apps.This is not going to be about clipboard replacement apps. Do your own research. LOLNo, what I want to mention is that I may have yet another tool in the Digital Diet arsenal. During our conversation, I noted that I used to use Quick Cliq then switched to Ditto. In the very next sentence, I said, "But I must not need it, because I never reinstalled it."There. Try turning off a program or two and see if you can get b...

I need a new sticky note application. Globonote is great, but... [note, I found a solution!!]Warning! If you have multiple displays, Globonote might not be for you.At first, I loved Globonote. It replaced my physical Post-it notes with little windows. I used it for everything from reminders, to-do's and blog post notes to webinar notes and my ever-changing Johnny Decimal Index.Every once in a while, Windows 10 forgets that I have two displays. Or it switches them. When this happens, application ...

You can ignore this post, unless you are interested in learning about Johnny.Decimal.I posted in the Johnny.Decimal forum, sharing my intention to use TiddlyWiki for my JD Index. [update: I decided to use this app, instead]A JD Index is a vital component of the Johnny.Decimal system. With it, you are able to track your numbers, which means that you'll always know the next available number in each AC (Area / Category)Here is part of the thread, where I expanded on pre-pending the AC.ID to each fi...

I was so impressed by an article that I feel compelled to write about it.First, here is the article: How I Got Out of Idea DebtI consider myself to be a creator, with all the god-like omniscience that implies. Games, programs and stories. Lately, I've been focusing on puzzles: the Venn Diagram intersection of those three interests.Over the years, I have outlined more than a dozen puzzle concepts, even to the point where a whole series of interconnected challenges were set up, just waiting for me...

Okay, so the debate is taking place only in my head. Let's listen in (no affiliate links in this post):Elby is analytical and into efficiency. Arby is whimsical and full of creative ideas.Elby: So, this cabinet metaphor is creaking under the weight of information overload.Arby: The forest metaphor isn't much better. I like contextual searches.Elby: I ain't got all day for that! Every document should be two clicks away.Arby: That's over a mile!Elby: Stop playing around. We need to find a better w...

To the extent that our web hosting and Internet service providers allow it, our domains and websites are the ideal "storefront" upon which to hang our shingle. The irony in that, of course, is the flaw in the analogy. In cyberspace, no one sees our shingle. there is no Main street.Instead of a shingle, we need a bullhorn. Most folks use Google to shout, "Look at me!" Some folks piggyback on popular platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Whatever bullhorn we use, the experts tell us...

Everything is trying to become the tag-end for the ubiquitous phrase, there's an app for that. In so doing, companies are forcing its customers away from the desktop and traditional browser-based connectivity.You can call AAA Motor Club and navigate an insane, computer-led menu or, you could download the app before you need help.You could call a taxi and wait forever or, you could use the Lyft app.You can call your local pizza shop and hope the order-taker correctly transcribes your request, or ...

Sorry, Trekkers and Harry Potter fans, I'm going to be talking about URL redirects.Many years ago, when I still believed that I was going to become an Online Money Mogul, I joined a membership site called WealthyAffiliate. (Kyle and Carson, are still at it, bless their hearts.)One of my favorite features of WA was the ability to create those cool links that--when you hovered over them--looked like this:www.mysite.com/go/productyoumustseewhen you clicked one of those links, you would be redirecte...

I don't plan to make this a thing because then, it would become a chore. One of the coolest things I've read this week comes from David Weliver, of MoneyUnder30.com:I could give you 800 pages on the mechanics of personal finance— how to budget, pinch pennies, use snowball techniques to pay down debt, and perfectly allocate your retirement portfolio for age and risk tolerance. Most of you wouldn’t read it. Why would you? That stuff’s boring as hell. Let’s face it, some of you would read it and co...

I just got an unanticipated bonus from Burner Mail. A few days ago, I signed up for access to "An Important Report." I used a Burner Mail mailbox, so that the emails would not be forwarded to me.Then, I promptly forgot about it.When I finally logged in to the mailbox, I discovered that the report was attached to a subscription offer at 75% off. Also, it expired last night.Oh well!Burner Mail just might be the cure for Shiny Object Syndrome! The urge to click can be satisfied, guilt-free, as long...

Over the past two weeks, I've noticed a wonderful side-effect of using the Burner Mail web service: I get so little email directly, that new, unfiltered stuff no longer overwhelms my default inbox in Gmail! Why is this a big deal? Well, it means that my email workflow has stabilized. Here is the significance:I can be sure that I will not miss anything important in my filtered emailsI no longer have to update those filters to add new addressesI can get through my Inbox in less than a minuteFilter...

Cloud storage is neat. I love having a way to collaborate with clients and to see random spreadsheets created by number-crunching gamers. On the other hand, I hate OneDrive. LOL. I feel like a broken record on that note, but whatever.I suspect that people who suffer from Shiny Object Syndrome love all the free storage on offer. But, unless you have a business need for cloud storage, I believe you're better off using iDrive to backup your most important stuff and then buying some large, portable ...

The developers at Standard Notes did a thorough review of my account activity from Jan. 29 to Feb. 5th and confirmed that no modifications were made to it. So, my blog posts were not saved on the server. In addition, the sync issues I was experiencing kept the account disconnected from the server.The good news is that the developers are making note of my case and working on a solution that can prevent data loss if a user has to re-sync with server. I don't know what any of that means for real, f...

I got an email from AppSumo Pixelied. The main topic was their roadmap. Dawood Khan, CEO and co-founder, had some interesting bullet points:Hey Mitchell,I've been told Sumo-lings love transparent roadmaps.In case you didn't know, we have our public roadmap with all the important features and updates that we will be rolling out in the next coming months. Check out our roadmap HERE. Here are some of the important highlights from the roadmap:3D & Realistic MockupsLogo CreatorLive Collaboration ...

This was probably my fault. Let it serve as a cautionary tale for those who like to back up personalized settings (AppData and its siblings, cousins and distant relations.)Usually, when I reinstall Windows, I restore Appdata before I install the software that uses it. 90% of the time, the reinstalled software carries on as if it had never been violently ripped from its non-contiguous hard drive sectors.Standard Notes appears to be that one out of ten programs that don't play that shit.I managed ...

After a good night's sleep, I woke up with a burning sensation. Ha-ha, not that one. I wanted to know how to download older version of Evernote. A nifty video came up on a Bing search results page:How to Revert Back to the Old Evernote - Downgrading from Version 10 (Latest 2020 Evernote)In less than 90 seconds, Amy shows the speed difference between Evernote version 10 and legacy Evernote version 6. She provides the download link in the description, in case you're interested. (If you are interes...

As I continue to recover my data from offsite backup, I keep thinking of ways to make the latest instance of my laptop environment better. One idea is to duplicate the offsite backup locally. I'm an impatient person.iDrive has an option to backup files locally. I'll do a couple of practice jobs to ensure that I set everything up properly. If all goes well, I can have local backups from which to restore...next time. Because, I'm impatient.If you use iDrive, here's a tip: be patient. During a larg...

I'm sure everyone has a nightmare tale of laptop meltdowns, unrecoverable backups and precious data lost forever. I do too, but this is not one of them.After having been burned by my own incompetence, I put many protocols in place to mitigate the next, inevitable disaster. The protocols were activated this past weekend, when I stupidly decided to cave in to Microsoft's Ransom Note:Windows UpdateYour computer needs to restart so we can hose your system. When's a good time for you?[ ] Now   [ ] Ri...

My wife got a new laptop and I gleefully offered to blow away the hard drive on her old one. This is the ultimate digital purge! In the old days, the most dangerous command you could give your computer was: Format C:\Ah, so innocent, weren't we? We had no clue that data could be recovered from hard drives after such a catastrophe. The simple truth was revealed to us when Peter Norton released his Norton Utilities.Anyway...In light of the revelation, the next logical utility class was DeleteShitF...

One of the joys of finding products by startups and solopreneurs is the opportunity to directly impact future development. Over the years, I have developed relationships with WordPress plugin authors, DonationCoder developers, Excel developers (not Microsoft, just "little guys" making add-ins and custom utilities), half a dozen specialize utility developers and even an InDesign add-on creator!If you've ever been a beta tester, you know what I'm talking about. Nowadays, I'm more likely to interac...