→ The Arc Browser ∞

Finally got the access to the Arc browser.

Quick overview of what it is.

It is build on top of Chromium browser engine. But adds difference experience altogether. Benefit of using Chromium is that most of the extensions that work with Google Chrome already work. In fact, one installs the extensions from Google Chrome webstore itself 😄

Most awesome feature that made me want to try it is that it will *Auto-close inactive tabs` after 12 hours (default - can be increased to 24 hours, 7 or 30 days)

They have and publicize the keyboard shortcuts. All browsers have keyboard shortcuts, but other the usual ones to open and close new window/tab, I hardly use any.

I also tried Notes that can be shared with anyone. I’m unlikely to use the share functionality. But the Easel - which allows to draw (and share) seems interesting.

The concept of Little Arc is interesting. It is a smaller (hence Little) floating browser window.

They also have split view which I’m yet to explore. Seems useful when using bigger monitor.

If you want to try it yourself, here is an invite link

→ Nano Emacs ∞

NANO emacs looks quite amazing, polished. Unfortunately, evil-mode is not turned ON by default.

One thing I’m going to try is to combine NANO theme (and some related packages) with Minemacs.

Minemacs has evil mode and keybindings which are close to Doom and I had no problem switching to it.

NANO emacs README has instructions on how to install just the theme and other parts, so that might do the trick.

🤞

→ Memos: A lightweight, self-hosted memo hub ∞

I’m not sure what the main feature of this app.

Memos can be anything

Somewhere it says “Twitter like”, and it does have different visibility settings. Default being “Only visible to you”, but it can be changed.

It also has user management, so it may be useful for say family with 3-5 users, may be smaller start up 🤷‍♂

I think the best part is ability to self-host. Maybe on Rpi, or in house server (If considering for family)

For a small startup, cheap host may be better.

All the data is stored inside ~/.memos folder locally, which is mounted inside docker container.

Docker seems to be the only officially supported/documented/the easiest option to get started. They also have well written document for deploying to render (I might try it if I stay with it for a while - or not 😄)

Since all the data is stored in ~/.memos (in a SQLite DB, if it matters) it is very easy to migrate to different machine.

Currently, my real .memos folder resides inside Dropbox, and a symlink from ~ points to this real folder. So I can access/update the same data from two different machines (I tested it, it works)

→ Minemacs ∞

I came across this new starter configuration, described as “Minimal Emacs config for daily use” via Sacha Chua’s Weekly Emacs Newsletter ¹ If you are Emacs user, you should subscribe. You don’t have to share your email unless you want to. She shares the links on Mastodon² (and other social apps)

Back to Minemacs 😄

It supports emacs versions 28.2 and above (But I got it working with 28.1³)

It is kinda refreshing. Doom Emacs is quite solid, and I’ve tweaked it to my liking over the years, but wanted to try something new.

The developer is very responsive.

I also discovered org-roam by perusing through source code. (Hopefully another post about org-roam soon)

I think you should give it a try.

→ D2 Playground ∞

I’m not sure whether they launched this recently, or it was always there (As in since I looked at D2 couple weeks ago)

Nevertheless, it is quite nice.

If one is not used to CLI and/or does not wish to (or can not, due to permission on say work machine) install it locally, then playground the best option.

It has all the options the CLI provides (At least the most widely used options)

One can

• export the images
• Change Engines
• Change Themes

What else do you need ? 😄

The playground also has sample code right below it, so one does not need to refer to the documentation (Especially during initial days when one is still figuring things out)

Emacs D2 Mode

It was only a matter of time before there was Emacs mode for D2 😆 and here it is. I’m yet to try it though.

Using VSCode

I installed and used VSCode on office provided MBP yesterday. It is not like I have not used it in past. I tried vscode-vim plugin for modal editing. It allows you to embed neovim in VSCode (So all the configuration of neovim is available here.) But on my old machine, it was slow. (I also tried VSCodium, thinking it might be faster. It wasn’t) I used it exclusively for Dendron (my PKM) cause it is mainly VSCode plugin (While it has command line tools, the main strength is as VScode plugin)

Emacs Mode in Shell

I have been using Emacs for several years now. But I switched to (and stayed with) Emacs only because of evil mode. I had been vi user for decades before that. Even today, I use (Neo)vi(m) occasionally. Right now, I’m writing this in Helix editor, which is lot closer to modal editing of vi, than of Emacs. So there. I am aware that various shell support vi mode, but the default is Emacs.

D2 Layouts

D2 allows me to generate diagrams from the same source file using different layouts It comes with two built-in layout engines : Dagre is the default : Other one is ELK This needs to be specified explicitly as : D2_LAYOUT=elk d2 in.d2 out.svg and here is the output

D2 : A modern diagram scripting language

I came across D2 on Mastodon I think. (Like most things. But I can’t find the original toot 🤷‍♂) I used mermaid.js earlier. In fact, I also added mermaid support for this theme. Benefit of Mermaid is that since it is generated by mermaid.js, I don’t need to save and include the image in my blog (and worry about mismatched filename and/or path, resulting into broken image.) On the other hand, not many hugo themes support mermaid, but link to an image is supported by hugo and every other SSG.