Please see my about page for more information about me, if interested.

This first entry has been written by hand, but in I plan to make the blogging part of my journaling workflow in the future. I will also update this post (if I remember to) if my current journaling approach changes.

I have written two other blogs in the past (first one about travel, and second one about bureaucracy in Finland) but I chose to keep those anonymous so no links will be provided (nor will they be updated, it has been years since I did anything to them).

Background

I have been fan of journaling for as long as I remember. Paper journaling seemed cumbersome at the time, though, but writing journals once they become available on computing device of some kind seemed like a good idea at the time. I failed to both conserve data from my oldest machines, as well as get into a writing habit, so the earliest attempts are lost either for real or in practice (I do not know how to find them in the maze that is my computing hardware and backups if they exist still somewhere).

However, I think I have kept almost all of my journal data from 1999 onward (and also texts written on two earlier blogs). So here’s a summary on how I wrote them - what I wrote about in them I choose not to write about, except perhaps in aggregate some day.

Mobile journaling solutions

I think I probably want to classify the journaling solutions I have used by how I have used them. Interestingly enough, my first prolonged use was on a mobile device and not a computer, despite quite horrible user interface available at the time.

First iteration: 1999-2006 on Palm Pilot

The initial attempts at writing a journal started in 1999, once I got my hands on Palm Pilot device. I had couple of them over the time, and writing a journal on that was definitely cumbersome, and did not last long. I still have lot of prized (but mostly very brief) entries from that period.

Second iteration: 2006-2009 on Sharp Zaurus (kopi)

I think I got my first proper mobile Linux device (Sharp Zaurus) in either 2005 or 2006). The earliest journal entries I have from it are from 2006, and that was a blast. It had a keyboard - and while it was small, it was still much better than writing stuff down only on a computer. I think I changed the software I used on the Zaurus couple of times during its lifetime.

Current iteration: 2008-now on IOS devices

I have had number of different solutions for mobile journaling on assorted IOS devices (iPhone, iPad) once I gave up on Zaurus (the hardware was not going anywhere, and the software was feeling more and more dated).

The actual earlier software varied a bit, but I used Plaintext app for number of years, and subsequently I moved to just using (Apple) Notes app in the cloud. I put journal entries in specific folder, and synchronize those (rarely) to my computer using relatively simple family of scripts; I have tooling to:

  • extract desired files from iPhone backup (started in 2009, still valid but not used for this anymore)
  • parse them if necessary
  • produce chosen desktop journaling software format output

I used to extract actually data from iPhone backups, but nowadays I am just using iCloud-synced Notes data using Python (library appscript) for accessing them.

Computer-based journaling approach

First iteration: 2003-2005 - raw text files

I do not actually know which software I used at the time. It was probably something along the lines of Linux + emacs + text files with date for filename in some folder. It worked reasonably well, and I kept doing that for couple of years.

Second iteration: 2006-2019 - Journler

Gradually I wanted bit better discoverability (categories, better search), as well as .. to be blunt, way to make the journal not just plain text. At the time I switched my personal computer to an early Intel Apple Macbook after years of Linux use, and therefore I looked for a Mac solution. Journler had been recently released at the time, and fit the bill well.

Unfortunately that did not last as long as I had hoped; the development ended in 2011, and it soon broke (didn’t quite work or compile) on the recent MacOSes at the time. I made my own trivial fork which made it compile at the time, and I used it for some years more, but the writing was on the wall - I couldn’t stick with moribund software forever.

Finding a replacement I was happy with was quite hard though; in no particular order, my requirements were:

  • open source software, or open source(ish) formatted data
  • maintained
  • no monthly fee (In general I do not believe in that, with some rare exceptions where I have not found free or buy-to-own alternatives)

Current iteration: 2019+ - Bear

A colleague at Aiven remarked offhand to me about Bear. I looked at it, and while it was bit too simple for my liking I liked the elegance of it.

In no particular order, it was:

  • pretty

  • there was free version available

  • it was actively maintained (although admittedly the development seems at times quite slow)

  • it used Markdown as its notation, making it easily hackable

Migrating data from Journler to Bear was somewhat challenging, as Journler had proprietary database with RTF(ish) entries within. I wrote a converter tool for it, which converted the set of RTFs + category information into Bear Markdown with tags. While it was not quite foolproof, it was good enough, and I could import my data to Bear.

Getting data out of Bear was quite simple as well (I do not particularly want to deal with lock-down case in future in case I decide to move to something else), as it has both in-app export functionality, as well as SQLite -based database where the Markdown files and associated attachments live and due to that I could e.g. extract things I care out of there on demand without even starting the app.

Work log

In addition to personal journaling, I have gotten into habit of making notes during work. They are useful for referring to e.g. commonly used commands, what I did earlier, or what I should do later.

These have been mostly text files in Emacs, using various Emacs modes (records, outline, org). Once I leave the particular place of work (or consulting gig), I essentially throw them away (they may be in some directory or backups somewhere, perhaps, but I do not actively conserve them nor merge them with my personal journals).

For me this feels somewhat sad, but it is what it is - most companies have quite odd NDAs in their employment agreements, at worst case without upper bound on duration, and it feels safer simply to drop the things written during work there than actively conserve them and risk potential lawsuit later on.