Got a “Busy Developer’s Guide to ActivityPub”?

Earlier today, Dave Winer said on Micro.blog that there should be a “Busy Developers Guide to ActivityPub”. In 2001, Dave wrote a “Busy Developer’s Guide to SOAP” to help provide a “cookbook” for the SOAP protocol. I took a look around and sent Dave some links, but thought I would capture them here as well (I included them in my OPML Zettelkasten file as well):

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 5

I was able to add over 10 links again to my ZK file (open tabs and from some searching to answer a question). I created two sub-categories under the Tools category, will see how that goes. I thought some about social bookmarking site Pinboard, and did some searching to see if there were other sites like it (that maybe I could use as a model or example), but this page was typical (Twitter/Pinterest/etc). That was not the thing I had in mind – oh well. I am still planning on duplicating the ZK OPML file using Markdown files and Hugo, will keep you posted

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 4

I was able to add over 10 links today to my ZK file (today from my big link list and some open tabs). I created at least two more categories, and I like seeing my ZK growing. If I keep up this pace, I will have over 300 links in a month organized by categories and tags. Still ahead: duplicating the ZK using Markdown files and Hugo, and also playing with XSLT files to transform my OPML ZK into a tag-based ZK. I hope to make some progress on this during the weekend!

Another thought: when I started a work weblog, it was work at first. Once I got into the swing of things (adding more content), it became more and more useful. As I have been blogging more over the past two weeks, I find I am linking back to previous posts where I have “done some digging” in the past. My point is this – what you get out of something depends on what you put into it. Adding 10 links a day to my ZK seems doable, and I am creating a resource for myself (and others) that will be useful in the future. 

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 3

I was able to add another 10 links today to my ZK file (mostly taken from yesterday’s posts – it was EASY to copy outline headlines from other OPML files in the Drummer editor). I then had enough subject headings that I decided to re-arrange the order to be alphabetical. Of course, this was EASY in the Drummer outliner, so yay for that too. Just a note to pass on – the little orange XML icon in the upper right corner of the ZK page shows the raw OPML of the file.

I was able to make progress on the Markdown front, in that I FINALLY got the Hugo static site generator to render a site for the theme I wanted to use. Yesterday, I was struggling with configuration files and setup, and then found this page from Bryce Wray acknowledging that the Hugo Quick Start page needs some updates (at least for Windows users like me – YESSSS!). Also, I became aware of the fact that many Hugo themes have an “exampleSite” folder built in the theme directory, and I found a post from Infinite Ink describing how to get that to render in the Hugo development server (another YESSSS! can you tell I was a little frustrated?). My hope is to have a parallel zettelkasten using Markdown files by the weekend.

Followup on “Tools next to tools” post by Ken Smith and activism

I really liked this post by Ken Smith on how FeedLand has a link-blogging feature (to help easily publish items of note) and his repeated call for activism and how tools can support activism. I thought that was great how Ken added a link to a “Get involved” page on how to be a part of how his NASA news product is put together.

My contribution to this discussion is to point back to two posts (Looking for tools for a citizen’s toolkit and Using non-violence techniques to achieve goals) where I collected some resources for training for activism. Ken, how can you and I get these into some of these things you are publishing? You talk about “Almost nobody’s helping us educate ourselves on activism that has a chance.” Well, let’s do something about that.

To start, I have just created a public OPML file with the links from these posts, it can be viewed here. If you have other links to add (or if other readers have links), I will add them. Then, you and I should continue to refer to this list whenever the subject of “how to learn how to be an activist” or “how to get involved” or FILL IN THE BLANK HERE comes up. How does that sound? Let me know what you think – over to you!

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 2

I was able to add another 10 links to my ZK OPML file (did you like how I shortened that name?), have noticed a few workflow things in these first two days. First, I am assigning links under a category outline heading, but I am also adding link for each item and usually have at least two tags per link. Second, Drummer usually allows me to select text by click/drag when I start editing, but at some point, I have to enter links manually (adding a href tag, etc). This is a drag, but I am pushing on. Third, I started by reviewing feeds in my reading list app, added those first to the ZK file, then added other saved links until I got to my goal of 10 links.

So far, adding 10 links at a time is taking at least 30-45 minutes. I am not sure if I can keep up that pace, but again I am pushing on – time will tell.

I have looked over several themes for the Hugo static site generator as a tool for using Markdown files for a zettelkasten, my initial choice will be the Fluency theme (Github, demo), as it seems to feature the ability to display content by tags.

Some links of note for ZK info that I found during my Hugo search (guess I will have to add these to my ZK file!):

Starting my OPML zettelkasten

As mentioned in my post yesterday about an open zettelkasten, I proposed using OPML and Markdown files to capture info. I am starting with using OPML to create a collections of links and analysis. I am using the Drummer outliner by Dave Winer to create the OPML file, and a Drummer feature to display the file openly on the web (see here to review the outline). In the outline, links are grouped by topic, but I am also using Drummer to edit the attributes of the individual entries to add the attribute “tags” and to set that attribute to one or more tags as appropriate. I hope to develop some XSLT style sheets soon to be able to provide visibility into the entries by tag groupings. My goal is to add 10 links a day (I have thousands!) and see where it takes me. Other thoughts:/ideas: archive the OPML on Github, same for the Markdown files.

Feel free to contact me with ideas/comments/links/whatever!

Thinking about starting an open zettelkasten

In yesterday’s post on Chris Aldrich’s overview of zettelkasten techniques, I asked about seeing the zettelkasten itself. He replied saying most of the content was in his Hypothesis account, and sent me a pointer to an entry. I read through a bunch of pages on zettelkasten stuff yesterday, and I am thinking of starting an open zettlekasten. With a nod to the Working Out Loud crowd, I am going to outline my initial plans in this post.

The item that Chris showed me was a picture and short caption describing what the picture meant. From this, I could see that an item/card in a zettelkasten could be just a reference to something with a short description. A type of information that I collect on a regular basis is links to posts/articles/things that I read in my feed reader. I have wanted to organize/classify all of these links, but have struggled to get started. I looked at Tom Critchlow’s wiki on his site, and saw a number of references to links where the link and an excerpt or summary was provided. I also saw an article on ZettelKasten.de about filtering flow from RSS feeds into a zettelkasten. From another ZettelKasten.de post, quotes and excerpts from sources are part of the chain of increasing value of knowledge within a zettlekasten system. Finally, Chris Aldrich, in an earlier post, gave his own advice for starting a commonplace book – “The general idea is to collect interesting passages, quotes, and ideas as you read”.

Based on this survey, I am going to experiment with collecting and organizing links within an OPML document and in Markdown files. Both of these methods of capture should be able to produce an organized output (OPML using XSLT style sheets, Markdown files using Hugo to render them (hopefully like Tom Critchlow’s wiki, even though he used Jekyll). For my five regular readers – let me know what you think!

PS – I noticed that yesterday I misspelled “zettelkasten” – sorry!

Zettlekasten – the recipe looks great, show us the beef!

This morning, I saw that Chris Aldrich has written an excellent overview of zettlekasten-note taking techniques and history. Ton Zijlstra comments that the article is great, and is itself a product of a zettlekasten, so Chris is “practicing what he preaches”. I agree with Ton’s compliment, but I still have one nagging qualm – what does the zettlekasten itself look like? In July 2022, Chris Aldrich called for public examples of zettlekasten output, which he has created a great example in his recent post. But what about the zettlekasten itself? As I state in the title (a play on the classic Wendy’s hamburger commercial) – show us the beef! Show us what was collected and how it was collected so we (humanity) can try to learn from your experiences. Of all my looking through Zettlekasten.de, I have found only one post with semi-specific information about actual zettlekasten cards/notes. Sounds like a 30-day challenge is in order here…