Been Busy

2025-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been busy.

This month, I had 6 quizzes, 4 tests and 3 major deadlines. All of which had to take priority over almost everything else.

My finals are still approaching, so I’m not sure if I can blog more. At the very least, now I have a one week ‘break’. I’m going to keep it short, but I just wanted to mention a few things that seriously helped me throughout this really stressful month.

Notesnook and the Monograph

A screenshot of the Monograph, with some sections censored for privacy.

I used to be pretty disorganized. This meant that I would constantly forget about deadlines and other important dates. Unfortunately, in my university, there are a bajillion places that I had to pay attention to for announcements. As a result, I decided to create a notepad where I keep track of all these quizzes, tests and deadlines (‘Upcoming Q, T & D’ as I called it). This proved to be integral to my workflow and allowed me to plan for the present and next few weeks.

Notesnook has this free feature that way too few people talk about: Monographs

Monographs are essentially public notes. You can password-protect them, make them self-destruct after view, or you can leave them there (they are, by default, unlisted). Every Monograph is static, so it does not update automatically - and I love that. So, I can edit the note locally on my computer/phone and then ‘publish’ it again (under the same link) when I believe it’s ready. So, what does that have to do with me?

Well, I thought that it would be helpful to my course-mates if I made the note public, so I published it as a Monograph and shared it with them. I’m glad I did, as it turned out to be helpful to them as well and they also helped me if there was anything missing. To my course mates reading this, a major update is underway but it’s going to be gradual. Stay tuned!

I’m planning to subscribe to the Notesnook Education Plan to fully take advantage of Notesnook and to support the developers. I have been using it since the v2 era, and I believe it’s one of the best FOSS notetaking apps. It’s up there with QOwnNotes (which I use to draft my blog posts). Check out /uses for more cool apps I use.

Daudix’s Calendar

I think this angle goes hard, print yours now with the link below!

Despite being a computer science student, I still prefer using pen and paper. It’s in my blood I suppose. Back in high school, I would print out a calendar to use. For me, it’s a lot easier as I would be more likely to remember stuff if I wrote it down rather than if I typed it. Furthermore, keeping track of multiple digital calendars is not fun.

For the past year, I’ve been using Microsoft’s Hummingbird template. However, once I stumbled upon Daudix’s Portal-themed calendar, I knew I had to use it. I’ve always been a fan of the aesthetic and lore of the Half-Life universe (despite not finishing a game from the series. I’ll get to it, I promise). This seemed like the perfect calendar for me. It was also fun to show it to my friends who have played Portal, and they love it as much as I do.

The calendar has seen extensive use this month with all the important dates (so plenty in fact I had to gamify it to cope. Creatively dubbed: ‘Stronghold Protocol’) and man I can’t thank Daudix enough for creating it. I wish him all the best with Ametrine, I look forward to using it once its complete :D

I Gotta Do Better

This is my first year and first semester in uni. I’ve made a lot of nice friends, and they’ve helped me a lot. I want to thank them and apologize for my deficiencies. It’s not even finals week yet and I’m already tripping all over the place academically. I have about three weeks to prepare, and I am on that grind now. I’ve also realized that I need to balance my time right, as working all day is not sustainable as shown by my results and mental health. Going to the Surau/Mosque more often has helped me a lot to clear my mind and soul as well. Oh yeah, don’t forget to sleep early.

I did not keep this as short as I had promised lol. My bad.

This post marks Day 3 of #100DaysToOffload

Cleaning My Gallery with a Sponge

2025-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

I switched to Linux around two years ago, and I’ve been so engrossed in the FOSS world that I’ve become accustomed to hating on every piece of proprietary software I come across. However, I’ve mellowed out since and adopted a more reasonable approach: I would prefer to use FOSS, but if the proprietary software is just that good, I’ll use it.

This is how I felt when I discovered Sponge.

No-frills, fun, and probably the most effective way to clean your gallery.

A Little Obsession with Storage

My first smartphone was an ASUS Zenfone 5. No, not the iPhone X clone, the 2015 one with the… Intel Atom chip (I know, right?). It came with a meagre 8GB of storage. This seemed like a lot to me back then but a few games and photos/videos were enough to fill it up quickly. Every time that dreaded ‘Your phone is running out of space’ notification popped up, I would have a minor crash-out. This habit carried over to this day, where I feel a little worried every time I fill up space on my device, compelling me to go on a cleaning/optimization spree.

Sponge’s Ingenious Use of the Swipe System

Sponge's UI

When you launch the app, you’re greeted with a percentage of your cleaning progress. When you choose to start cleaning, it sorts your gallery by month and reveals how many images/videos there are and how many you’ve processed. Once you select a month, you’re shown the deleting interface, and that’s where Sponge really shines.

The way Sponge works is reminiscent of the Tinder ‘Swipe Left/Right’ matching paradigm that took the dating (and software) world by storm a decade ago. When you swipe to delete, the app does not immediately delete your selected items, allowing you to confirm or undo your decision. There’s also a settings option that gives you a choice on whether to send your selected items to the trash or delete them completely.

This workflow makes going through my gallery a lot more pleasurable and intuitive, compared to using my gallery’s built-in delete system or my laptop’s file manager to sift through the thousands of images and videos.

Funnily enough, I just realized why they named the app ‘Sponge’.

So Good, I Got the Premium Sponge

Unfortunately, cleaning videos and other non-essential features are locked behind a paywall. Thankfully, Sponge Premium is a one-time, lifetime purchase and it’s also great value for money at RM 26.99 (~$6 USD). This is the first time I’ve ever spent money on an in-app purchase for a proprietary program (outside of games), and I’m very happy with my purchase.

Once again, I highly recommend this app if you’re looking for an effective and simple way to clean your gallery. You don’t have to go through them all at once. Personally, I spend around 30mins a day just cleaning my gallery and I save between 300MiB to 3 GiB+ just doing that, daily!

Muelsyse - Showcase