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Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

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Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#1

Post by mindrun »

After I heard good things about writing a personal journal from some friends a few months ago, I also started writing one myself.

But I recently stopped writing because I noticed that the Application I was using is saving all entries completely unencrypted in the Cloud. I started searching around a bit but didn't find a good alternative which keeps my notes save and also easily editable.

Because I don't want to switch to writing into an analog notebook or something like that, it brought me to the point of thinking about providing a good alternative by myself.

Thus I'd like to hear some thoughts and ideas from other people who also like writing a journal. Do you write your thoughts down? If so, where?

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#2

Post by manmukh »

Were you using Day One? It stores unencrypted entries in iCloud/Dropbox and has the weakest password protection system I've seen. Your password isn't even synced across different devices, you need to set it each time for each device! I haven't yet stopped using it but I'm looking to make the transition to something else.

OneNote allows you to password protect and encrypt an entire section, so you could make a journal section an store all of your entries in there. It works quite well from my experience. Evernote also offers encryption but you can only encrypt a selection of text and it can be inconvenient to have to encrypt each entry separately. Both options have mobile/desktop/web apps.

Another option is a private Wordpress journal.

A lot of people here recommend using a physical journal and a pen (I'm planning on going this route eventually). You could also use good ol' text files synced with dropbox (or something else) and encrypt them yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#3

Post by arh68 »

I used to keep all my passwords in Emacs w/ Org Mode. You can encrypt a heading, or an entire file, with a GPG key. This could work. Just store it in Dropbox/etc. If you trust Dropbox's encryption, just use a simple j.txt as manmukh says.

Or you could just email yourself, replying forever. That's pretty easy.

[link, almost forgot] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/encrypting-files.html

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#4

Post by mindrun »

manmukh wrote: post #2

Were you using Day One? It stores unencrypted entries in iCloud/Dropbox and has the weakest password protection system I've seen. Your password isn't even synced across different devices, you need to set it each time for each device! I haven't yet stopped using it but I'm looking to make the transition to something else. OneNote allows you to password protect and encrypt an entire section, so you could make a journal…

Yep, that's the app I was using before I figured out that it doesn't encrypt my entries. Also it doesn't have a web-view, right?

I thought it might be great if I would build a great-looking web-application which also has a well-documented API (you can't say that of any great journaling app out there).

I think especially for people who are traveling 'round the world - and don't keep devices like an iPhone, an MacBook, etc. with them - it would be perfect (many of them are still using Internet Cafés).

But of course, the most people are writing on their own devices. For them, we could write some native apps later.

Another tiny question: Would you pay for a service like that? I mean a few dollars /month. In my opinion, there's currently no complete service out there, which focusses only on journaling.

Okay, maybe a few poor-designed and -developed ones.

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#5

Post by mindrun »

arh68 wrote: post #3

I used to keep all my passwords in Emacs w/ Org Mode. You can encrypt a heading, or an entire file, with a GPG key. This could work. Just store it in Dropbox/etc. If you trust Dropbox's encryption, just use a simple j.txt as manmukh says. Or you could just email yourself, replying forever. That's pretty easy. [link, almost forgot] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/encrypting-files.html

Thanks for those suggestions! For hackers (who also mostly write on their pc) this could be a way to journal. But for the most people, that's not really an option.

I also think in the longer term, that's not the right way to accomplish this - because it's not really made for journaling and thus also too complicated, in my opinion.

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#7

Post by skylark »

I keep a daily journal which I save in a Word document. I don't particularly mind if it goes up in a ball of fire one day - I find that I never really go back to look through what I've written in the past.

For me, the journal's purpose is not to document my life. The journal is a daily check in - a tool which forces me to be honest about my current situation and evaluate what I can be doing differently or better. There's just something so real and raw about putting my thoughts into something physical. It forces me to really grapple with the issues I'm facing in life and come up with actionable solutions.

Even though that's my experience with journaling, it most likely won't be yours as well. Journals turn the lens inwards and magnify the things which are most important to you. Some people use journals to vent. Others just want to document the experiences they live in life to keep a history of what they've done.

You probably won't know what benefit a journal will give you until you just start doing it. Give it a week or two - do it before you sleep or right when you wake up. Before you know it, you'll be hooked. Or not, the cost is so low you might as well give it a shot.

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#8

Post by [deleted] »

skylark wrote: post #7

I keep a daily journal which I save in a Word document. I don't particularly mind if it goes up in a ball of fire one day - I find that I never really go back to look through what I've written in the past. For me, the journal's purpose is not to document my life. The journal is a daily check in - a tool which forces me to be honest about my current situation and evaluate what I can be doing differently or better. The…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#9

Post by manmukh »

mindrun wrote: post #4
manmukh wrote: post #2

Were you using Day One? It stores unencrypted entries in iCloud/Dropbox and has the weakest password protection system I've seen. Your password isn't even synced across different devices, you need to set it each time for each device! I haven't yet stopped using it but I'm looking to make the transition to something else. OneNote allows you to password protect and encrypt an entire section, so you could make a journal…

Yep, that's the app I was using before I figured out that it doesn't encrypt my entries. Also it doesn't have a web-view, right? I thought it might be great if I would build a great-looking web-application which also has a well-documented API (you can't say that of any great journaling app out there). I think especially for people who are traveling 'round the world - and don't keep devices like an iPhone, an MacBook,…

> Would you pay for a service like that?

I wouldn't. There are enough free options (e.g. onenote, email, physical journal, etc.) that work just fine for me. I personally don't see the value in paying for a service that uploads and syncs my journals, even if it has a really nice interface.

Re: Ask HN: Are you writing a journal?

#10

Post by brudgers »

I keep a journal on paper. In part because technology is a distraction both in the moment and from a management perspective for exactly the reasons you experienced. I've toyed with Emacs org-mode and Microsoft OneNote in the cloud, but nothing really beats paper for me because I have control over the process...and getting away from the computer means that I can wonder about the answer to a question rather than stopping my writing and Googling it up.
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