Today's Deep-Dive: Linkdig

Welcome to the Deep Dive.

First off, before we jump in, a big thank you

to our supporter, Safe Server.

Absolutely.

They handle hosting for software,

kind of like what we're talking about today.

And they really support digital transformation.

You can check them out at www.safeserver.de.

Great support.

Really helps make this possible.

It really does.

OK, so let's be real for a second.

How many browser tabs do you have open right now?

Like, honestly?

Huh, don't ask.

Dozens, maybe.

It gets messy.

Right, dozens, hundreds.

And your bookmarks.

Is it like this perfectly organized library,

or is it more of a digital junk drawer?

Definitely leads towards junk drawers sometimes.

Things go in.

But finding them again, that's the challenge.

Exactly.

Finding that one link you know you saved,

it feels impossible sometimes.

It's that classic information overload we all deal with.

It really is the modern struggle, isn't it?

You find so much good stuff, online articles, tools,

tutorials, but actually keeping track of it,

retrieving it when you need it, are standard ways,

like browser bookmarks.

They just don't quite cut it after a while.

They really don't.

And that feeling of knowing you found something amazing

and now it's just gone.

Yeah, lost in the digital ether.

Which is exactly why today we're digging

into a tool designed to tackle that specific problem.

It's called LinkedIn.

We've been looking at its GitHub repository,

the official website, trying to figure out, you know,

what's the deal?

Is it actually helpful?

Especially if you're maybe new to managing links seriously

or even this whole self-hosting idea.

Yeah, our goal here is really to unpack what LinkedIn is,

try to cut through some of the tech speak

and explain why you might want something like this

instead of just, you know, your browser's bookmark bar.

Right.

We want to highlight the features

that make organizing easier

and maybe make that term self-hosted

seem a bit less scary.

Definitely.

We want you to see how it could actually help you,

you know, capture and organize

all that valuable stuff you find.

Exactly.

From chaos to clarity, hopefully.

Perfect.

So let's start with the what.

It's called a self-hosted bookmark manager.

Okay, bookmark manager.

Simple enough, it manages bookmarks.

But self-hosted, that one sounds a bit technical.

What does it mean in simple terms here?

That's a great question

because self-hosted can definitely sound intimidating.

But the core idea, it's actually pretty simple.

Just means you run the software yourself

on hardware you control.

Okay.

Instead of relying on, say, Google Servers

or some other company's cloud service,

think of it like owning your own filing cabinet

in your office versus renting a small locker

in a giant storage unit complex.

Ah, okay, so the filing cabinet is mine.

I put my stuff in it.

I control who accesses it.

Exactly.

Your data, your links, in this case, stays with you.

You're in control.

It's not on someone else's platform.

Got it.

So I own the data, I run the software,

and it's specifically for links,

unlike my browser, which does a million things.

That's precisely.

It's purpose-built.

And the name, Linkding.

It's apparently quite literal.

Oh, yeah.

We found in the docs, it's just Link plus Ding,

which is German for thing.

A link thing?

Yeah.

Basically, a thing for your links.

Simple name, simple tool.

That seems to be the philosophy.

I like that.

No fancy jargon, just link thing.

Okay, so why use this specific link thing

instead of just soldiering on with browser bookmarks?

What's the real pain point it solves,

especially if you're just starting to feel overwhelmed?

Well, you touched on it earlier.

Browser bookmarks just don't scale well, do they?

Yeah.

Folders get nested like crazy.

Searching can be hit or miss.

Oh yeah.

Finding something from six months ago is a nightmare.

The sources really emphasize that link thing

is built to be minimal, fast, and easy to set up.

Minimal and fast, okay.

It's designed to cut through the clutter.

It's not trying to be your email client or your calendar.

It's laser focused on making, saving,

and finding links really efficient.

Okay, that focus makes sense, simplicity and efficiency.

How does it actually deliver on that?

Let's talk features.

What are the key things that make it work?

Well, the first thing you notice, I think,

is the user interface, the UI.

It's deliberately clean,

really optimized for just reading your links.

When you open it up,

there aren't tons of buttons or ads or menus everywhere.

The focus is just on your bookmarks,

making it easy to scan or search.

A clean interface.

Yeah.

Yeah, that alone sounds appealing

compared to some browser bookmark managers I've seen.

But, okay, even with a clean list,

if you have thousands of links, it's still a lot.

How does it help you organize them

so you can actually find stuff?

Right, and this is where it really differs

from just using folders.

Linking uses tags.

Tags, okay.

Yeah, instead of trying to force a link

into one single folder,

you can add multiple tags to it.

So say you save an article about, I don't know,

baking sourdough bread with ancient grains.

Okay, niche.

Ah, yeah, you could tag a baking sourdough recipe,

ancient grains, maybe food science,

whatever makes sense to you.

Ah, I see.

So later, if I just want any recipe,

I look for the recipe tag.

If I'm specifically interested in sourdough,

I use that tag.

And if I want that specific article,

maybe I combine sourdough and ancient grains.

Exactly, it gives you loads more flexibility.

You're not stuck in that rigid,

one place only folder structure

that often doesn't really capture what a link is about.

Yeah, that makes way more sense

than trying to decide if it goes in recipes

or baking or some crazy sub sub folder.

Right, tags let you slice and dice your collection

in multiple ways.

And that clean UI makes it easy to see your tags

and filter by them.

The whole point is finding stuff again, quickly.

Effective retrieval, not just saving.

Okay, got it.

Now there was another feature mentioned in the sources

that really stood out to me,

something browsers definitely don't do,

archiving the content.

What's that about?

Why is that important?

Ah, yes, this is I think a really key differentiator.

Websites aren't permanent.

Pages change, articles get moved behind paywalls,

entire sites just vanish.

If you only save the link, the URL,

you're just saving an address to something

that might not be there tomorrow

or might look completely different.

Okay, so how does LinkedIn help with?

It offers automatic archiving.

When you save a bookmark,

you can set it up to also save a copy of that page's content.

A copy?

How?

The docs say it can do it a couple of ways.

It can save a local HTML file,

basically a snapshot of the page

as it looked when you saved it,

stored right alongside your bookmark data.

Whoa.

Or you can configure it to submit the page

to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine,

which helps preserve it publicly too.

Either way, you're saving the information itself,

not just the address.

Okay, that's actually a game changer.

So my save link isn't just this fragile pointer anymore,

it's backed up by the actual content now.

It makes your collection much more resilient

against link rot and disappearing content.

All right, that's huge.

So we know what it is, why it's useful,

better organization, finding things,

keeping the content safe.

But how easy is it to actually get links into LinkedIn

while you're just browsing the web?

Because if adding links is a pain,

nobody's gonna use it, right?

That's a super important point.

Usability for saving is critical.

And they seem to have put thought into this.

The main ways mentioned are browser extensions.

Okay, standard stuff.

Yeah, extensions for Firefox and Chrome.

You're on a page, you click the LinkedIn button

in your toolbar, add your tags,

maybe a quick note, hit save, done.

Nice and simple, click tags save.

Pretty much.

And for other browsers, or if you don't want an extension,

they also have a bookmarklet.

A bookmarklet.

Remind me what that is again.

It's basically a little snippet of code you save,

just like a regular bookmark in your browser's toolbar.

When you're on a page you wanna save,

you click that bookmarklet and it pops up the dialog

to save the link to your linking instance.

Ah, okay.

So it works almost anywhere you can have bookmarks.

Exactly, very versatile.

They also mentioned it can be installed

as a progressive web app, a PWA,

which means you can kind of install the website

like an app on your computer or phone for easier access.

Multiple easy ways to capture links then.

Good.

What about the info for the link itself?

Like the title, description, do I have to type all that in?

Oh no, thankfully.

That'd be tedious.

It automatically fetches the page title

and it tries to grab a description from the page metadata

and usually the little site icon, the Faticom too.

Okay, cool.

So it does the basic legwork for you.

Yeah, less manual entry makes saving quicker.

Definitely.

And I think I saw something about sharing links too.

Yes, that's in there.

If you set up LinkedIn to allow multiple users,

maybe for a family or a small team,

you can share bookmarks between users on that instance.

Okay.

And you can also create public share links

if you want to share a specific bookmark

or maybe a tag with people who don't have an account.

Got it, useful options.

Okay, let's circle back to that self-hosted thing.

We know what it means now running it yourself,

but for someone who's maybe

never run their own server software before,

even if it is designed to be easy,

it still sounds a bit daunting.

How does LinkedIn make setup easier for a beginner?

That's a totally fair concern.

And the product seems very focused

on making this accessible.

The key piece of technology that makes it way simpler

than it used to be is something called Docker.

Docker.

Okay, heard of it, but still sounds a bit technical.

Can we break that down simply?

Let's try.

Think of Docker like a standardized shipping container

for software.

Instead of you having to get the software,

then figure out all the libraries it needs,

install a specific database,

configure everything just right.

Docker packages,

linking in all its dependencies together

into one neat box, one container.

You install Docker itself,

which pretty straightforward in most systems.

And then you basically just tell Docker,

hey, run this LinkedIn container.

It handles all the internal setup bits for you.

Okay, that's a much better analogy

than setting up servers in the basement.

It's like pre-packaged software

that just needs the Docker player to run.

Kind of, yeah.

It dramatically lowers the barrier to entry

for running software like this.

And because LinkedIn itself is designed to be lightweight,

it uses a simple file-based database called Syncolite.

So you don't need to set up

a separate complex database server.

The sources suggest it's also pretty low maintenance

once you have it up and running.

Low maintenance, music to my ears,

especially for someone just dipping their toes

into self-hosting.

Exactly.

And what about getting started?

If I have years of messy bookmarks in my browser,

can I bring them over easily?

Oh, absolutely.

That's essential.

It supports importing bookmarks from the standard format

that all browsers use for export to Netscape HTML format.

Okay, good.

So you just export from Chrome, Firefox, whatever you use,

and then import that file straight into LinkedIn.

It gets all your history in one place.

And you can export back out, too, if you ever need to.

No lock-in.

Crucial.

Nobody wants to re-bookmark hundreds of things manually.

Okay, we focused a lot on the basics,

the beginner experience, which was the goal.

But the sources hinted there's more under the hood

if you need it.

Briefly, what else can it do?

Yeah, without getting lost in the weeds,

it does have more advanced features.

Things like bulk editing, changing tags,

or deleting lots of bookmarks at once.

You can add notes to bookmarks using Markdown,

which is nice for adding more context.

And we mentioned the multi-user support.

And for the technically inclined, there's a REST API,

which means other applications or scripts

can interact with your LinkedIn data.

Okay.

So it starts simple, but there's room to grow

if your needs become more complex.

It doesn't force the complexity on you upfront.

That sounds like a really good balance.

Scales with you.

All right.

Okay, so zooming back out then,

what's the big picture?

The core appeal of linkless sending

for someone feeling swamped by links.

I think the real appeal is about bringing

intentionality and control

back to how you manage online information.

It offers a simple, fast, and importantly reliable way

to capture things you find valuable

and actually retrieve them later.

Right.

And by being self-hosted,

especially using something like Docker that makes it easier,

it puts you in control of that data and that process.

It helps you move from just letting potentially useful

information wash over you and disappear

to actively building your own

searchable personal knowledge base.

Building your own knowledge base.

I really like that framing.

It's more than just bookmarked.

It's about curating your slice of the internet's

useful information.

Okay, well, as we wrap up this deep dive,

maybe here's a final thought for you, the listener,

to chew on.

Given how much information flies past us every single day,

how much truly valuable knowledge are you encountering

that you're not effectively capturing?

Are you actively building your personal library of insights?

Or are you mostly just letting the pages turn?

It's definitely something worth thinking about.

Indeed it is.

And that brings us to the end of our look at LinkedIn.

Once again, a huge thank you to Safe Server.

That's www.safeserver.de for supporting the show.

They help make hosting software like LinkedIn possible

and support digital transformation.

Thanks for tuning into the deep dive.

Thanks for tuning into the deep dive.