I'm curious, what do the journal programs do that a word processing program doesn't? (Just please don't make it sound too good or I'll want to buy one!)

What I've done is just use Word Pad, putting the newest entry on top so I don't have to scroll to the bottom of the document to start writing again. I make a new document for each year. If I want to go back and find something, it's easy to use the Edit/Find feature and find a keyword within a document.

Erica

I just use notepad which is on all Windows machines.
The easiest way to open notepad on Windows is to go to your Start menu, then select "run", then make sure field is totally blank and type in "notepad" and it will bring up a blank file. You can save this to any directory on your computer. You probably will want a shortcut on your desktop so it is easy to find next time.

I have a text file currently that is titled jour010105.txt. I started it on January 1 of this year. I enter ".LOG" on the first line at the top of the file. This causes a time stamp to be entered every time I open the file. I enter plain simple ordinary text. I have some "keywords" I use that help searching later.

For example: TODO: precedes every list of items I need to do. The good thing is I can enter these as I think of them. Then I can search back for any old ones to make sure I've done. There are many many other tricks, too numerous to enter here.

Eventually, on a file, you will get a message from notepad telling you "out of memory". This is because there is a limit on the size of the journal file. When this happens, I just start a new one using the date. I start in the same directory as all my other journal text files. They go back many years. I put phone calls I need to make. People I talk to , random thoughts, whatever. It is very free form but because I can search for anything it works. I do need to kind of think sometimes when I make an entry to use language that will make it easy to search for later if that is what I think I will need to do.

The really good thing about this system is that it can be used and read on any operating system whether Windows, Macintosh, Linux or IBM or even those little palm pilots. Plain ascii text is a universal language. Always has been and I would bet that it always will be.

I would be lost without my electronic journal. I make a shortcut so all I have to do is click once. The only hard part is when one journal file fills and you need to transition to a new journal file but not really very hard.

I highly recommend "plain text". Besides being universal, the file opens very quickly with "notepad.exe" on my Windows system. Not like Microsoft Word files which take much longer.

On other systems, there will be some other text reader. Worst case is that you may need to find out the name of the text reader and define it when you transfer your journal file to the new system. I think the hardest part of this system is that you have to be comfortable with the file structure on your computer whether Dos or Windows XP or Linux. Because you will probably be copying these journal files at some point, possibly even renameing them, etc. I don't think I'm assuming too much computer knowledge. I just love having it so simple. I use notepad files for lots of other things besides my journal, such as my big shopping list I check for shopping for groceries, my list of videos to choose from when we want to rent something, list of possible menus I use when I trying to plan dinner, on and on.

--Alice