As so often happens, life inspires me, or at least gives me a reason to think, and in many cases write about what is going on. Today it was a simple question from a coworker. “I’m looking for a diary program” Simple enough, there are tons out there, but the second half of the question was the more difficult part, it needs to be freeware. Well, that cut out most of the apps/programs i knew of. A quick search on the web for “journal” (actually my original search was for jounal, which was little help – damn fingers, sometimes they don’t move fast enough) found a number of freeware or at least shareware apps, but most are nothing more than a simple text editor and have very little style to them.
My mind went to an old app i knew of Macjournal – but i was looking for a windows app so i poked around a bit and we tried a few, all of which failed to wow, and that is when i thought i’d check out MacJournal just to see what it looked like now, being as i hadn’t used it since it went from freeware to a licensed product (sucks when that happens) and when i clicked on the download button was surprised to find that a windows version was available as well WinJournal – Ahha. Well, the name makes sense. So i downloaded both and installed them – one on a windows machine and the other on my trusty MacBook. (http://www.marinersoftware.com/download.php) the GUI looks pretty much the same on either, and there really is no learning curve to the app/program, you just open it and start journalling. Simple enough, and i’ve always been a fan of simple.
A few minutes of playing later and i’ve got my test entries done and i can see how it could be very useful for someone wanting to throw notes and memos down somewhere, add in a few photos, weblinks, etc and just keep things in one place. Pretty useful, but i have to wonder about keeping a journal or a diary on one computer. Why not use an online service and make is accessible from anywhere? From home, from work, from your PDA or smartphone?
That thought led me to pondering the other use of a blog. Sure its short for web-log, but that doesn’t mean it has to be visible on the web for all to see. With any posts you make you have the option of making them private and keeping them just for you or for a chosen few to see. A blog can be a place to throw your ideas, comments, musings and even quick links and pics for future use – and isn’t that what a journal is for? So why not make it a virtual journal, and be able to get to it wherever you can log on from, and also, let someone else’s server store it and keep it backed up for you – there’s an added bonus right there.
Both have their pros and cons i imagine, but for me, i don’t like being tied to one machine so the online version is very appealing, and beside its free. Now if you are the type to be stuck without the internet then a web version is going to do you no good, so i can see how a locally installed program would be better for you, but in this day how many times are you without the internet really? Eww the thought of that gives me the willies… no internet… yikes. how would i keep in touch with friends? a phone you say? – how barbaric, next you’ll be suggesting using paper to record a journal on – how 20th century.
tcg
barkerp 