My Digital Garden

This is my Digital Garden. A living notebook of information, tips, and etc. I find useful to share with others. Many pages pages are unfinished and unpolished

What is a Digital Garden?

Digital Gardens are a metaphor of Gardens but for information. The concept is similar to how Gardens are tended for overtime and maintained. Old, dying stuff is removed and new things are added. Some things last for a very long time.

The Garden metaphor is often used in contrast to the Stream which refers to things like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and other content which is usually ordered by time and which is constantly being added to new items. Instead a Digital Garden has a certain number of items which are updated over time similar to how a Wiki has a single page for each topic or sub topic.

Garden vs the Stream Link to heading

When thinking about this idea of maintaining a digital garden a great way to explain it is in contrast to the stream. There is a difference between the time-based information we receive in streams (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, RSS) and information we curate and refine like wikis.

The difference means we need to start thinking of the information we handle in different ways. Specifically, that it exists in different states of consumption. Things we find or learn on social media is mostly passive versus things that went in our wiki or digital gardens as having been fully consumed and understood.

Programming Link to heading

I mostly try to write down things which would be useful to my friends and family learning to code. I would checkout the Learning to Code page to get started with my advice on that. It’s probably also worth just reviewing some tips on being productive, because staying focused and making progress is a huge part of learning to code on your own.

Some other good pages to look at are the generic programming and scripting pages. I haven’t really created pages per-language yet because I don’t think I had enough to justify them before.

As a programmer, it’s good to spend time learning about git, ssh, linux, and databases.

If you want a really cool way to manage your Operating System, dotfiles, and project environments you should checkout Nix and NixOS.

As a programmer you should absolutely pay attention to Ergonomics of your desk, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and various devices because it’s easy to get hurt otherwise.

Cloud and Infra Link to heading

Cloud is a big topic. I have a few pages about IaC, AWS, and security in the cloud, but just as relevant are the pages about backups, databases, and networking.

Outside the cloud I recommend checking out the self hosting and a comparison of various ways to host things online. You could realistically host everything you need at Home using a Mesh VPN like Tailscale instead of running it on the cloud or in a rented server.

There are also some other important pages like:

Stuff I’m Interested In Link to heading

Misc Notes and Tips Link to heading

How to get your Memoji for profile pictures
Set your Memoji as your iCloud picture in iMessage and then download it from icloud.com in the browser by inspecting your profile picture on the page.