Unlike many other journal style programs, Journal is NOT your typical day planner, day runner, appointment reminder or project manager. It does not have daily time tables, pop up reminders on your screen that you are late for an appointment, display how far behind your latest software project (or any kind of project that matter) has gotten and it doesn’t have any fancy chart capabilities to see how your time is managed. There are already enough day manglers on the market to keep the mere mortal busy evaluating them for a lifetime.
Now that you have a good idea what Journal is not, it makes things a lot simpler to understand what it is. No doubt that Merriam-Webster probably said it the best :
Journal : a brief account of daily events
Journal is a personal diary type of application in Macintosh style. It allows you to record each day’s events for one calendar year at a time (remember it’s a diary, not a planner). When the year is full, you simply start a new Journal file for the next year.
Of course, it can keep track of three different types of reminders or schedules which can be recalled on any month’s display throughout the calendar year.
Journal is also “disk smart” so that you can use the preferences to set your floppy disk size, and then Journal will record a year’s worth of information on a single floppy disk. Therefore you don't need a backup program to save your Journal files. A floppy is all that is required.
With any diary, you will no doubt enter in very personal thoughts. With real-world diaries you get a physical key to lock up and secure these thoughts. The key was what one would term a “suitcase” type which could open anything from a suitcase to the old bus station lockers. This really didn’t really provide a secure feeling. With Journal you can elect to encrypt your diary file using a specific password (don’t forget it!) so that unless someone knows your password they would have a better chance of winning the next state lottery than gaining access to your personal information.
I suggest you examine the help topics to gain a better understanding of what Journal can and can not do. If you are looking for the ultimate answer in time management software, keep looking since this isn’t it. If you want to keep a personal diary and have the added ability to do minor event scheduling/reminding, then Journal will fit the bill nicely.
This is a shareware version. Basically it’s only limited in a couple of areas and should provide you with a good example of the least you can expect from Journal should you decide it has merit and you would like to register and support it. In the event that you decide to support it, the shareware fee is $20, and for that you will receive the latest version of the program on disk plus a printed manual. Send in your registration and where you obtained your copy of Journal to :
Mel Patrick
8056 - 164A Street
Surrey, B.C.
Canada, V3S 7S7
Please allow a couple of weeks for delivery. If you support Journal and have suggestions, they are always welcome - but please keep in mind that Journal is first and foremost a personal diary program. The event reminders/scheduling were only added for convenience since you will be using the program daily.
