I’m old by the standards of the youngest generation using the internet. I’m a millennial, but I’m not quite in the highest tier of millennial, which means when the internet began to take off in homes with dial-up, it was more in a state of fad.

Something people either thought was great or something people looked down on. Not much has changed in that regard, I guess.

This meant only the cool yet geeky teachers knew anything about it. Looking at you Mr W. Thanks for my first email address!

However, given my age and the newness of it all, there were no coding classes. All of my computer lessons included typing, how to make a word document, using email, and using DOS because without DOS you couldn’t play games. Hello Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, and Wolfenstein 3D.

That said, I was also of the Geocities generation, so HTML (HyperTextMarkup Language) was a thing that eventually made its way onto my radar, but again I was too young to be taught this in school (and I went to schools in rural areas). So in came the greatest resource I had ever known: Lissa Explains HTML

HTM-WHAT?!

I never had to learn anything more than extremely basic html to make my own Geocities for whatever my fandom obsession was at the time coughs Friends coughs, but it did teach me a valuable lesson in knowing I didn’t have to memorise everything and it was okay to have a cheat sheet for the things I couldn’t remember no matter how many times I tried to learn it.

Seriously, the hours I spent on Lissa Explains HTML, wondering why I couldn’t just remember this stuff I used and looked at every day was maddening, and disheartening.

In the world we live, this is one of the most valuable lessons I can pass on to anyone. Technology is constantly changing, which means for the layperson - like me - it’s inefficient to try to learn everything. It’s good to have the basics, and there is nothing wrong with needing cheat sheet.

In fact, I’m currently hating the fact its referred to as such. There’s no cheating here. There’s no test. It’s a resource to better help you.

Resources - like cheat sheet, but without the added guilt

I’m reminded of this as I explore a new-to-me software called Obsidian, which is a knowledge base and note-taking software that operates on Markdown files. If the last half of that sentence made absolutely no sense to you, you’re not alone. I have no clue what Markdown is. Apparently there’s a Markup as well?

When I first downloaded it, I felt overwhelmingly uncomfortable. Like, it looked like it would take a lot of time and a lot of effort to learn how to use it, but that’s not true.

I felt the same way about various new software programmes, websites and social media changes in the last couple of years at the onset of using them. I simply needed resources to learn how to use them, and Obsidian was no different. So, off I went to find tutorials!

Quick, into the depths of the digital unknown!

The first video I tried was definitely for people who already understood the Markdown/Markup language stuff, so that was no good to me. I didn’t even know the basics of what they were talking about, but I was not to be deterred.

Luckily, the next video I found was accessible to someone with my level knowledge of Obsidian and Markdown files. Nicole van der Hoeven’s How to Get Started with Obsidian video was everything I needed.

I then watched two other videos by Nicole and I can now use Obsidian with a basic competency that allows me to make this blog post complete with proper hyperlinks, text formatting, and a gif.

And if there’s something I don’t get? Someone has probably covered the topic - like Nicole. If I had the money, I’d absolutely join her patreon, which brings me another point: support the people who are making your life easier by making knowledge accessible.

That’s another blog post for another time.

But I want to know, what are some resources that make your life easier? It can be anything: software, websites - literally anything!