Some Ideas That Just Didn’t Work Out
15 April, 2025
When you write, you hope that all of the ideas that pop into your head lead somewhere. Often, that’s the case. Just as often, you get ideas that don’t pan out, in which you lose interest, or which collapse under their own weight.
Let’s peel back the curtain at Open Source Musings and look at some ideas for posts (one or two of which were suggested by readers) that didn’t go anywhere.
Logseq
When I first heard of Logseq, I thought it was an application for viewing and analyzing system log files. Nope! As it turns out, Logseq is one of the raft of so-called personal knowledge management tools that have become all the rage in certain circles.
In 2024, I spent some time with Logseq. It reminded me of a similar application called Obsidian, which I looked at elsewhere. Everything I said about Obsidian applies to Logseq. While I took about three pages of notes about Logseq, I just didn’t feel like repeating myself in this space so the post went into the digital dustbin.
Zen Browser
The consensus, at least in some corners of the online world, is that the development of web browsers has become moribund. That web browsers have become boring. I’m not sure if there’s anything wrong with the latter, but OK …
One new browser I’ve been hearing quite a bit about is Zen Browser. There are people who go ga-ga for it. There are others who decry it as a knock off of another browser called Arc.
After taking Zen Browser for a lengthy test drive, I didn’t see why either camp feels the way they do. To my eye, Zen Browser is just Firefox (on which it’s based) with a slightly different face. To be honest, after a few days I got bored with Zen Browser and uninstalled it.
Various Utilities
I love a good, simple application — whether running graphically on the desktop or at the command line — that does one or two things and does those one or two things well.
If you’ve been reading this space for any length of time, you know that I’ve written about more than a few pieces of software like that. But what you don’t know is that for every utility that I write about, there are two or three that fall to the wayside.
Why’s that, you ask? Often, those utilities don’t work in the ways in which I hoped they would. Sometimes, they’re just too complex. And some just don’t click with me. In any of those cases, it’s not worth the time and effort to write about them.
Gnumeric
When it comes to spreadsheets, my needs are simple. Very simple. In fact, for most of what I do spreadsheet editors like LibreOffice Calc and Calligra Sheets are overkill. Still, I use the former because it’s there.
But I’ve always liked Gnumeric, though I haven’t used it in many a year. I started planning a post about Gnumeric, but abandoned the idea. It would have been a short post and would literally, because of how I use a spreadsheet editor, only scratch Gnumeric’s surface. I just wouldn’t have been able to do that piece of software the justice it deserves.