I Didn't Need a Task App. I Needed a Coach.
Todoist, Asana...these task manager apps worked well but ... What finally stuck was no app at all: markdown files in a git repo, with AI doing the part every app left to me. Self-hosting, part 5.
Tools
A collection of 7 entries.
Humans are always building something — physically, mentally, with a clear purpose or a wandering mind. Big or small, the right tool at the right moment can quietly change the colour of your everyday life.
Series
From WordPress to Astro, on My Own NAS
Why I moved twenty years of blog posts off WordPress onto a static Astro site served from my own NAS, and what AI did and could not do along the way.
Goodbye Imgur — Images on My Own NAS with MinIO
Images were swelling my Obsidian vault. How they moved from Imgur to a self-hosted MinIO server on a Synology NAS, including the two failed attempts before it.
Mac or Windows?
I became a Mac user by accident in 2005 and mostly stayed. After an iPad, a Chromebook, a Surface and some Linux-only tools, the question is no longer which is better. It is what the work needs.
Why My Folders Are Numbered 00 to 99
Every folder in my notes vault starts with a number: 00Hub, 01Family, 02Work, 11Timeline, 99Guide. The system behind it, what it borrows from Johnny.Decimal and Zettelkasten, and what five years of real life did to it.
Why Obsidian Won: Fifteen Years of Note Apps
I tried Evernote, OneNote, Notion, Bear, Joplin and Logseq over fifteen years. Why Obsidian finally stuck — and why the tool mattered less than the habit it forced me to change.
Building a Home AI Stack with the Help of AI
A local AI platform on a mini PC: ollama on an AMD GPU, chat over my own notes, a daily investment-news digest. Built by someone who couldn't have built it alone, with AI as both builder and tutor. Self-hosting, part 4.
