To recap, the requirements I set for this systems are the following: Be digital. Support multiple devices and syncing. Allow the user to remain in full control of their data. Be easy to set up. Being Digital In order to tackle requirements 2 and 3, requirement 1 will have to be fulfilled. In other words, the system will have to be bundled into an app. As most people already have their phones on them at all times, there is no more convenient option than just using an app and not needing to bring any additional equipment with oneself on the go. ...

Core Concepts Before starting with this project, I want to cover some core concepts I want. Namely: Ease of use All commonly-performed things (e.g., adding a task, scheduling a task) should be the easiest things to do in the app. Reducing usage difficulty is key to making me stick to using it. Out of sight, out of mind. I tend to get easily distracted by what I should be doing due to excess information. Thus, for dashboards or similar screens where I only need to be aware of what I need to do next, all events that I can do nothing about should be hidden away or made less prominent. The inverse is true. For example, on a task management screen, I want all the tasks I am able to complete right now to be visible so that I am aware of their existence. Multilevel Prioritization I like to have at least two levels of priority. An example of this “multilevel” prioritization is having two categories, personal projects and schoolwork. Obviously, schoolwork is prioritized over personal projects. Within the schoolwork category, there could be my assignments which are prioritized by deadline or difficulty (or both), while within the personal projects category, there could be “IoT alarm clock” and “Desk lamp, " which are prioritized as I see fit. I feel like this is necessary because I have many categories of tasks in my life, and having to prioritize all tasks in one prioritization level makes things messy. Creation + Scheduling separation For me, I notice that I tend to have two modes when it comes to creating tasks: idea mode and scheduling mode. In idea mode, I come up with tons of discrete tasks, while in scheduling mode, I figure out when I want to execute those tasks. I think it is important to keep these two separate, as when I come up with tasks, I’m often in situations where I don’t want to dwell on the idea for too long (commuting, in the middle of another task, etc). Therefore, if I have to schedule it, I might do it hastily, or worse, I would skip marking the idea down altogether as it is too much of a hassle. Subtasks I feel like it’s important to have subtasks because one major way to reduce the friction when starting a task is to break a task down into smaller pieces. However, if I simply turn all subtasks into full tasks, it makes the system very cluttered. Evaluation Using the core concepts discussed earlier, I will now walk through some existing systems I have attempted to use. This is going to be how I’ll isolate some good ideas from things I have already used. ...

Background I have rather terrible self-organizational skills. For the last 4-5 years, I’ve essentially been just winging it. To meet the deadlines and requirements given to me by life, I’ve been using solely a calendar (for tracking very important events) and sheer will. In a nutshell, I’ve just been controlled by the demands of life. Tasks are usually only done when the deadline is looming over me, and I have almost no hobbies. I do however manage to rapidly complete projects if a sudden wave of motivation hits me, but if hardships hit or it takes longer than expected, the project gets abandoned. And yes, having a heavy procrastination problem is a given. ...

Note: This isn’t going to be an explicit guide on how to add a dongle to any ZMK board. I will create a post for that later. Background I’ve since daily driven the Swan40 for quite a while, and it’s been working perfectly… on my desktop. Since it’s been working out so well, I wanted to make another one to have on-the-go, for use with my laptop. However, this is where some problems appeared. ...

In this module, we will be taking our first steps towards optimizing the 3D printing process. Why Optimize? Yes, the default settings in the slicers mentioned in the last module should work for most cases, but the issue is that they are designed to be a catch-all solution. In simpler terms, they are designed to be able to avoid

Introduction For the “A Guide to 3D Printing” bundle, the idea is to create a practical guide for people who currently view 3D printing as a black box that creates their desired 3D models in real life. You may check out the current posts here. Initial Difficulties For basically all my life, I’ve always been the learner, never the teacher. While trying to compile my knowledge into articles, the biggest difficulty I had was with structuring. Since pieces of knowledge tend to be connected with other pieces of knowledge in a web-like way, it is very tricky to structure everything such that the knowledge can be understood linearly. ...

NOTE: This bundle will be focusing on FDM/FFF (Fused Deposition Modelling/Fused Filament Fabrication) 3D printing. In layman terms, the type of 3D printing where plastic filament is involved. Prerequisites To follow this section, I suggest having the following: A functional 3D printer PLA filament A computer Objective After reading this article, you should be able to: Find 3D models from online sources Use a slicer to turn a 3D model into gcode Successfully print a model Understand the general 3D printing process TL;DR: You should have the bare minimum of understanding needed to print a 3D model. ...

Tricks In my goals for this project, my number one goal was really the battery life. However, on a tiny split keyboard, I have not seen any good battery mounting methods that do not involve tenting the keyboard to make space below it or having it on the side. I want the battery to be part of the keyboard such that the keyboard’s physical footprint doesn’t have to extend too much to accommodate for it. ...

Note: You can find the relevant files of this project in the Swan40 GitHub repository. Goals Hardware On-off switch (Like the Corne) There should be a switch to disconnect the battery on the hardware level. Usage of a XIAO nRF52840 It should utilize Seeed Studio’s XIAO nRF52840 as the controller. (This was a cost-cutting measure; the nice!nano, a commonly used bluetooth microcontroller, costs about 26€ a piece excl. shipping, while this board costs only $10.) Software ZMK It should use ZMK as its firmware. Design Large and flexible battery capacity The PCB should allow for mounting of large and small batteries. There should be at least two battery mounting options. The battery mounting spots should be able to accommodate up to 1000mAh LiPo batteries. 3D-printed case It should be possible to mount the board in a 3D-printed case which does not tilt or raise the PCB significantly. Melted PCB traces The traces should be melted using the Round Tracks plugin. (Because it’s cool!) Aggressive column stagger (Like the Ferris Sweep) The column for the pinky finger should be aggressively staggered.

Disclaimer This is not intended for the average reader. Lots of keyboard jargon is used for the sake of convenience. A Little Background Just skip to the next post if you don’t want to hear my life’s story :D I’m really into keyboards. In particular, mechanical keyboards. I started just about how most people enter this space: “Clicky keyboards are cool”. Well, that is, until they were annoying. Since then, I’ve been on and endless pursuit of the “perfect” keyboard. Here’s a brief timeline, with my Typeracer speeds attached: ...