Below is a half written vlog post on how it has taken me 5 years to hone in on how to take notes from online courses as well as learn tools and technology.
1. I was working for a domain name company and one of the senior engineers recommended that I learn Vim.This got me down the rabbit hole of learning how to interact with a computer applications only by using the keyboard. As a way to learn I found the YouTube channel ThePrimeagen where he showed how to configure his Vimrc config file. This is where I then learned of Neovim and then I learned via his YouTube videos of TJ’s Kickstart repo of easy way to get Neovim workable fast for my level of knowledge.
2. I enrolled in multiple Coursera courses including the non-credited professional certificates of “IT Support by Google” and the “Project Management” course by Google. The one issue is that I would take these courses at home, the library, during the day in my spare time and at coworking spaces. I had a big and heavy mac laptop with iTerm, so I started to use my dads old surface pro with WSL Ubantu, then a old windows computer which I put Fedora on and most recently a iPad with Termius. Since I had continued to watch ThePrimagine, I learned that he uses Github to store his SSH credentials so when he changes computer he pulls his data from the cloud so its not a pain in the butt to redo all the SSH credentials. So I thought that instated of using Google Docs, I should start commit directly to Github for my notes. This also helped me learn Git and Github commands better. But there was one issue, I had different versions of Neovim on all my computers and tablets, and it was starting to get frustrating how all my folders were in different locations on all my devices. Thus, I started to learn about cloud Virtual Private Services. After seeing so many Linux content creators sponsored by Linode, now Akamai Linodes, and after alot of hesitation I went with the cheapest Nanode 1 GB with Debian. I am super happy.
3. The last tool that I cant imaging being without is TMUX. When I SSH into my Linode VPS, I immediately type out TMUX which gives me the ability to easily create, tile and organize my main NVIM session, but also quickly navigate and create new files and run code files that I write when I take notes in other online courses. For example I am taking notes in Markdown files for Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, but I sometimes switch other courses I am taking for a change of pace and a motivational treat. These include “Google IT Automation with Python Professional Certificate”, “Programming with Google Go Specialization”, or I resume my EdX course “CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript”.
4. Right now I don’t know what else I will do with future tools as I am pretty happy with my journey so far, but the most recent one I am trying to get better with is a new ergonomic keyboard “Advantage2” from Kinesis. I am painfully slow right now but again its a long term skill I want to gain, and relieve some of the pain of writing on hard laptop and squishy surfaces pro’s keyboards.