January 4, 2024

You don’t need new apps (or to search the web) to get things done

• You don’t need a new app to run a tagging system on your files¹
• You don’t need a new app to take notes²
• You don’t need a new app to check what takes up disk space and clean your drive³
• You don’t need a new app to rename multiple files⁴
• You don’t need a new app to merge pdf⁵
• You don’t need a new app to play music, podcasts and videos⁶
• You don’t need a new app to convert music files⁷
• You don’t need a new app to follow websites, blogs, pages, et cetera you like⁸
• You don’t need a new app to write/edit text⁹
• You don’t need a new app to count words in a file¹⁰
• You don’t need a new app to review edits someone else made (i.e. accept/reject edits like in Word)¹¹
• You don’t need a new app to do computations, pivot tables, process text (or numbers)¹²
• You don’t need a new app to read webpages offline¹³
• You don’t need a new app for your zettelkasten¹⁴
• You don’t need a new app for a spreadsheet¹⁵
• You don’t need a new app for producing “beautiful” documents - an old one will do¹⁶
• You don’t need a new app to manage your mailbox like a super human - an old one will do¹⁷
• You don’t need a new app for your address book - an old one will do¹⁸
• You don’t need to search the web to figure the commands you need to run your thing - you can do this locally¹⁹
• You don’t need to search the web to find new programmes or utilities - you can do this locally²⁰
• You don’t need to search the web to display time of a time zone - you can do this locally²¹
• You don’t need to search the web to figure local time given the time and date of a different time zone - you can do this locally²²
• You don’t need to open your browser to check that you are connected to the internet²³

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1. Use grep: https://yctct.com/tag↩︎

2. Use a text editor and text files.↩︎

3. Use the utility du; to learn more read: https://yctct.com/check-disk-space↩︎

4. Use rename.ul; read: https://yctct.com/rename-multiple-files↩︎

5. Use pdfunite; to learn how to use it read: https://yctct.com/merge-pdf↩︎

6. Use vlc, nvlc or cvlc↩︎

7. Use ffmpeg; see https://yctct.com/tagged/ffmpeg↩︎

8. Use a RSS reader.↩︎

9. Use Vim, Nano or the text editor is already installed on your computer↩︎

10. Use wc; to learn how to use it read https://yctct.com/count-words-file↩︎

11. Use diff and patch; to learn more, read: https://yctct.com/diff-patch↩︎

12. Use Datamash; to learn more read: https://yctct.com/tagged/datamash↩︎

13. Use Pandoc↩︎

14. See: https://yctct.com/zettelkasten↩︎

15. Use Datamash: https://yctct.com/tagged/datamash or LibreOffice installed by default on GNU/Linux Trisquel↩︎

16. Use Pandoc and LaTeX: https://yctct.com/tagged/pandoc↩︎

17. Use Mutt: https://yctct.com/mutt-gpg-mbsync-msmtp-notmuch↩︎

18. Use abook↩︎

19. See examples on the man pages↩︎

20. Use apropos: https://yctct.com/cli#apropos↩︎

21. Use date: https://yctct.com/timezone↩︎

22. Use date: https://yctct.com/local-time↩︎

23. Open a Terminal and run $ ping www.trisquel.info↩︎

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I do self-funded research and I'm writing a book.

> What's the book about?

About technologies and agency.

Meaning, technologies can foster agency. No doubt. But I am also asking:

Can usage of technologies give us a sense of empowerment while in fact undermining our abilities?

I posted a summary of the prologue on the homepage: https://yctct.com/

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office applications personal computing gnu linux trisquel command-line interface (cli) text processing shell literacy