When Blogging Doesn’t Cut It
21 May
I probably have as many blog posts in draft form as I have published (or maybe even more). Some of the posts remain in draft form just because I haven’t had time to research and provide good information. Sometimes I just decide that what I am writing is more of personal information and I am just writing it to get it off of my chest.
So I went out in search of a good system to be able to journal. I wanted something that would keep me focused, would be simple to use, was secure and was free. What I found was virtually nothing. There are variations out there, but nothing that was of much interest to me. There are some software packages out there, but the problem for me is that I am not always on the same computer, to I would have to sync. That and I am a minimalist, so I don’t really like to install things on my computer if I don’t have to.
So I set out to write daily in a journal. But again, that is hard to remember to bring with me wherever I am. And then I wasn’t able to find the full-text search on it. I know that I wrote about last year, but I was having trouble finding it. So I tossed that out the window.
So what was my solution? Well, as a programmer, of course it was to create my own application. It does everything that I need it to (and even if it doesn’t, I can add features, which will keep me focused). And then I decided to open it up to the world. I am not sure how much interest there will be for it, but that is ok, because I wrote it to use it myself. Anyone else making use of it is just an added benefit.
So, I leave you with this- ToJournal.com
As another programmer named ‘Brandon’, I faced a similar issue: I wanted a simple computer-based journal with taggable entries and sorting by date. I thought about developing my own solution, but I settled on using Evernote in order to save time and attention. Evernote has a web interface if you want it and applications on an impressive number of platforms. The only drawback for me was that notes aren’t sync’d over HTTPS unless you have a $5/mo Premium subscription (it’s less if you pay annually, but I’m not confident enough in this solution to do that now).
I took a look at the Evernote product. It looks nice, but my issue with it is the lack of structure. I have this tendency to stop writing journals if I am not prompted constantly. This is something that I was able to build into my application.