Losing access to Obsidian
Hi. During my college days, I established a Zettelkasten through Obsidian, a software which helps link notes. Since starting my new job however, my work laptop does not allow me to install Obsidian or any other custom software. As a result, I am unsure how to proceed with my preexisting Zettelkasten.
I am aware that Zettelkastens do not depend on external software programs to be useful, but I will admit I have been more reliant on this technology than I'd like (appreciating features such as pictures), and have grown comfortable with it. I have considered getting the mobile version of the software or switching entirely to raw markdown files, but I am wondering whether there are other alternatives.
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
Ah yes. Corporate policy.
My wife had a similar struggle when she switched jobs. They had VS Code installed on work laptops, though, so she managed to use that to maintain her notes.
Switching and living with different limitations can turn out to not be that bad once you lean into it. Sascha and I lived inside an editor that didn't have links for years, for example. You eventually get good at it, too.
If they say you cannot install any other software, can you run software that doesn't need to be installed? -- There exist applications you can put on a USB thumb drive and run from there, no installation required. There are also conversion tools to put installable applications on thumb drives: https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/create-a-portable-version-of-any-application-in-windows/
If everything else fails, using a browser-based solution to access your notes may be your best bet. We haven't discussed these in recent years, I believe, so maybe ask for recommendations if you feel you need to go down that route.
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
@Avatasato How about just buying an inexpensive laptop and running Obsidian on that? I was forced to do the same thing to run some engineering software. I think the laptop I bought was about $500 or $600 (Canadian). I realize that may be a step to far, if you have many other, more important ways to spend your money, but at least it's an idea.
I "can" do that, but it requires me to lug an extra laptop around.
I've explored this route (not in-depth), my laptop does not read from external USB sticks. I don't know how, and have no intention of overriding it. Still, I will continue to see if other data storage methods are ok, I do like your suggestion.
If you can get your Zk at home as text files into a Dropbox folder, the you can access it Notational-Velocity-style using any browser in Textdrop.
Textdrop even has a special password access mode if your work blocks authenticating to Dropbox.
If you're down for it, you can run cli tools from a usb. In which case you could use zk (https://github.com/zk-org/zk). But you'd need to get used to doing things in the terminal / with a code editor.
I'm a core maintainer of zk, for full transparency. Although, that's not why I'm replying of course. But somehow it feels necessary to state.
There's also an obsidian plugin for neovim (but then you'd need to learn editing neovim). So you could maintain some of the same obsidian-esq character in functionality.
That all being said, if your employer doesn't let you install anything on your computer, they'd probably have an aneurysm if they found out you were running binaries from your usb hahah.
Best to ask first I guess...