Vintage Digital

Vintage Digital is a one woman business in Derbyshire with over 30 years’ experience in website creation, business mentoring and consultancy. I believe that it’s never too late to make your dreams real, and that technology, used well, can help you achieve your goals.

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Tiny Tools for the Tiny Web

I was blogging back in the mid 1990s when tools were sparse and you needed HTML skills. I designed my own blogs until Blogger came along and then I embarked on a journey through a variety of tools and content management systems. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, being online was fun - it was creative, quirky and a little eccentric. There was community. Somehow we found each other (commenting on other blogs was the way to go) and followed each other's exploits. Websites were basic. Publishing was the thing. And then came other tools. While WordPress is not...

October 23rd, 2025 tiny web

Swap Attention for Connection

I've fallen down a huge rabbit hole of late - investigating the idea of the tiny web, a pared down version of online tools, a less overwhelming way to engage. Fewer newsletter subscriptions, lighter weight apps, reduced input and increased output. It's not the first time - I've been here before. But, what I'm discovering, thanks to Lightpage and Sublime, is that there are others. I've been doing geeky, techie stuff for the past 30 years. But many of the women I know who are my age, didn't go down the same path. They are savvy in so many ways...

August 14th, 2025 tiny web

Reliving the Good Old Days of the World Wide Web

The good old days of the Internet, around the mid 1990s, were a heady time. Every day was an adventure, falling down rabbit holes, uncovering new websites, finding kindred spirits, being superglued to the screen until the wee small hours. It was the era of the blogger, blogrolls and a sense of community. I loved it. Before long I had a blog of my own, initially hand coded in HTML, later moving on to sites like Blogger and then WordPress. I can’t remember the exact words but one of my blogs was described as quirky and eccentric by a reader....

August 4th, 2025 tiny web

Why I'm Unapologetic About Using AI

This morning was the perfect storm of ideas and magic moments. It started with a tweet about AI, spotted as I doom scrolled while drinking my morning coffee. ““Everybody's an artist now. Everybody's an author now." Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO” I contemplated these words later as I stood in the chicken run gazing upwards as a flock of honking geese flew overhead. Later, Dickie Bush got me thinking about regrets and how we need to have too few to mention. I use AI every day. I love it! Working with AI has enabled me to be more productive while keeping...

July 26th, 2025 AI

A Dream Tool: Lightpage Living Notebook

I came across a new app recently. Via Rob Hardy. I casually clicked on a link in one of his posts and discovered Lightpage. Described as a living notebook, I was intrigued. Anything related to your pursuit of living belongs in Lightpage. My AI Toolkit I use a few AI tools - Voicenotes, Kortex, ChatGPT and Chat in Twos. They all fulfil different purposes. Voicenotes: for recordings at the farm, some of which are published, random recollections, meeting notes. Kortex: this is my new digital garden, all my writing lives in Kortex as well as related resources and references. ChatGPT:...

June 15th, 2025 AI

Take Note - Your Writing Will Thank You

I had no idea what I was doing when I started using Obsidian. I’d seen Ali Abdaal talk about Roam Research, a tool that had transformed how he organised his life. It led me to the concept of a Second Brain. The opinion on Roam Research was divided, and it was expensive, so I searched for alternatives and came up with Obsidian. I began to create my own Digital Garden which I put online using Obsidian Publish. Inspired by people like Nicole van der Hoeven, I noted furiously, often up in the middle of the night when an idea took...

April 24th, 2025 writing

AI is very Marmite Right Now

I’ve always been a bit of a geek. Going back around 30 years, almost the start of the public internet, I thought all my Christmases had been rolled into one when I first got online. Very soon, I had my own blog, was coding websites in HTML, and beginning my quest for the perfect domain name. I’ve always been an early adopter. Most of my career was built around eCommerce and digital projects. There were always personal side projects - more websites, podcasts, video interviews, eBooks. And more domain names! Then, in 2021, I discovered digital gardens, Second Brain, PKM...

March 24th, 2025 AI