I've gleaned little in the way of useful tips for constructing a Trello project of this sort. Except to split boards when they get too big. Still looking. Best to just start as everything can be altered later.

I know I'll need a lot of cards which will translate into lots of boards. I've not seen a way of organising boards into hierarchies or folders so I'll use names as a substitute to make the alphabetical sort work - a zettel board on Birds can be called  zetBirds.

OK,  found a way of doing it using cards with links to other boards. This ought to be really flexible and have unlimited capacity.

But I've no shortage of old routers with USB connections, and the router not having an Internet connection is probably an advantage.

Watch out with that. It is very easy to create a "double NAT" problem in your network when using old(er) routers in your network. While you may not notice connection issues immediately, it won't take take long before you'll encounter vague issues, on which you'll spend hours troubleshooting and not to mention visits to the hairdresser for fixing the hair you pulled out during those troubleshooting sessions.

If you really want to have a go at storage, you could try solutions like FreeNas or ProxMox on a spare computer (a desktop with a few SATA ports on its mainboard). You'll only need a monitor keyboard and perhaps a mouse during the installation of such software. Afterwards you can "kick" that computer in the proverbial (ventilated) corner and more or less forget about it. You can then manage your storage using your browser.

Initially much more work to setup and yes, it requires time and consumes electricity, but you'll have a nice and fast storage solution for your whole network, which is easy to expand/reduce to your needs. It is also easy to sync data to/from your all your local devices, to automatize this syncing and making (incremental and/or differential) backups from the collected data on this spare computer onto a portable drive for offsite (or protected on-site) offline storage. A central storage location makes it also much easier to filter what you want to backup into the cloud.

Went through those motions myself practically 15 years ago. Used CentOS (Linux) in the beginning using 1 boot drive and a software RAID (spread over 4 drives) setup, but ended up changing that to Ubuntu Server about 10 years ago as the mainboard of that computer failed. Changed the mainboard and case (for better ventilation internally), mounted the drives again and because of the software RAID it took little time to softwarematically mount that into Ubuntu and ready to run again. Last month I changed one of the drives in the RAID setup for a new one. That and an annual cleaning of dust has been the only hardware maintenance I needed to do. Pretty much set and forget.

FreeNAS, ProxMox and similar software have made all the above much easier to setup, easier to use and are easily as reliable as the setup I created.  The initial extra work has given me reliability and with that came a piece of mind that easily justified the costs of the barely increased energy bill.

That does make sense. My original thought was that I don't have much use for a NAS in practice,  which is why I stopped using mine years ago, so it felt like possible overkill.  I was assuming that setting up an otherwise unconnected WiFi router with an attached disk wouldn't interfere with anything. The router wouldn't be connected to the network or the Internet. I'd only turn on when I needed to use it which would help security.  Not that anyone else lives within half a mile.

afaics, the rest of the household is happy with all their stuff on their devices or in the cloud.

But I don't think it would be any harder for me to repurpose an old computer than an old router.
If I ever need to move on from the memory stick.
Most stuff can live safely enough on the net.

I will admit that possibility landscape has changed since I achieved high speed broadband instead of crawling and intermittent. Long distance WiFi to the hub at the top of the cathedral tower in permanent line of sight. Internet suddenly became as reliable as the power supply. 

Hi Dormouse,

I am the creator of Notezilla. We do have an Android and iPhone version. We just added dark mode to the iPhone version. The Windows version doesn't support dark mode yet. But we are planning to add it in next major version. Let me know if you need any other help.

Regards,
Gautam Jain
https://www.conceptworld.com/Notezilla

Hi Dormouse,

I am the creator of Notezilla. We do have an Android and iPhone version. We just added dark mode to the iPhone version. The Windows version doesn't support dark mode yet. But we are planning to add it in next major version. Let me know if you need any other help.

Regards,
Gautam Jain
https://www.conceptworld.com/Notezilla

Gautam Jain,
Is it possible to sync notes between phone and pc without use of notezilla.net?  Can notes be synced when both devices are 1) on the same local network, 2) the devices are connected via usb 3) using one's own private cloud service? 
Thank you 

Interesting.  I am going to take a look, though at this point it seems like my system is ahving issues loading googleplay apps???
By any chance have you looked at any of the nextcloud sync offerings.  joplin?  Carnet looks like it has alot of promise.  I like that you can record audio notes/memos.  Much of the functionality of google keep is sloted for the future.  And being open source in nature I imagine there is a way to export as text or will be. 

Nextcloud is rather easy to get up an running
App description
App

joplin?

Yes, I've looked at Joplin. Quite liked it - which is better than most. But I've decided that Markdown is a very bad thing for people like me, which rather takes away its purpose.

ED : I've found that I can just about concentrate on the preview. And it's not needed if Txt only. Gets the job done.

Quote from: Dormouse on May 26, 2020, 10:10 AM

I've decided that Markdown is a very bad thing for people like me

Mostly.

As presently incarnated.

I do realise that I need to explain my thinking - and it has taken quite a lot of thought as well as trying it out in many different apps - rather than just making a singularly bald statement. I considered giving it a thread on its own,  but the issues are part of the fabric of this thread and so it is probably best here.

I'll have to do it bit by bit though.  I'm too hungover with hay-fever to maintain any coherence in a single post.

As far as I can determine,  the major user community pre-evangelism was made up of web writers and programmers (and others used to working in text editors). Possibly still is.
This, I believe, explains how it has been developed. And some of the assumptions of the community.

The principal competition is a class of software originally developed so that secretaries could use computers to type and format letters,  documents and envelopes. Originally huge single purpose minicomputers. Probably the major usage that drove the expansion of the PC market. Then, with Windows, leveraged by Microsoft in its quest for dominance, it soon squeezed out desktop publishing. Being competitive required compatibility with Word formats and being feature rich.

The emphasis on formatting naturally produced complex document formats.
WYSIWYG was much-loved but not so easy to achieve. Home users loved it, using mice and GUIs.

WYSIWYG was much-loved but not so easy to achieve. Home users loved it, using mice and GUIs.

... but programmers not so much. Possibly because they knew what it might hide. And they were keyboard warriors with masses of memorised shortcuts. Which saved them time as their hands never needed to leave the keyboard. Most journos too; early newspaper systems weren't great at GUI.

But that was never me. Despite using a typewriter since I was a child and teaching myself to touch type on one in my teens. Despite being a very fast typist. Most of the time my hands weren't near the keyboard and I was looking at the screen and thinking. When I was on the keyboard,  I was typing words.

But preferably not using a word processor. I've always avoided those for actual writing as much as I can. Nothing to help me as a writer,  many irritations interrupting my thinking. Liked outliners from the beginning because they gave a bit of organisation, faster access to my writing and irritated less.

The majority of people learned to use word processors at school and that's what was made available when they went to work. With  GUIs.
But programmers had their text editors,  keyboard shortcuts and numbered lines to help them navigate. And using them meant being used to working with syntax mixed visually with content.

And for my style of editing the mouse is faster than the keyboard.

And possibly the key fallacy - Markdown is NOT readable.
It is decipherable but not readable.
Maybe it's different for programmers who are used to reading instructions mixed with content,  but for most people it's not readable even they have learned the instructions.
It would be easy to do a little experiment.
A markdown file with a few a variety of text formats and a few headings. And 3 nouns formatted red and a different 3 formatted green.
Take twenty subjects who have learned markdown: give half the markdown version and half the published version. Compare reading speeds. The next day ask them all to recall the red words and then the green.
I'm sure that the difference in reading speeds will be substantial and that those seeing the words in colour will have a much greater recall.

The implication is that formatting instructions mixed with text impair both reading and processing. I accept programmers may be immune.
Most writers have periods of reading what they have written interspersed with periods of writing. My case is that Markdown interferes with that.

Personally,  I just write text. Bits of formatting added later. If needed. Accepting Hemingway's maxim that writing should be separate from editing, if not the need to be drunk half the time. I don't care about document formats at this point and txt is fine. And text is what I want to look at,  not markdown instructions.

My need for WYSIWYG is during editing,  not writing. Then I need colour. And other things.  And I need to actually see it, not just have it identified.