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Comment by gglitch | Hacker News Reader

How do HNers keep a diary? I feel like I've done it all: pleb notebooks, fancy notebooks, private blog, public blog, apps (DayOne), Emacs modes, text files in a dir, photos, plaintext, markdown, html. Seems like everything comes with a compromise. I love the custom Emacs mode I made, but then it doesn't include photos and I can't easily do it with a phone. I loved DayOne, but then they forced a change on their storage policy, which reminded me of the stupidity of paying a business for a proprietary system. I've used Apple Notes, but then I wonder about getting the data out of Apple Notes. Pen/paper are great, but slow, and (comparatively) fragile (I know, I know, pen/paper will last a thousand years; but believe me, you don't want to drop your paper journal out of the canoe). Etc etc.

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I actually make private Facebook wall posts to myself. It's great, easy to see and scroll through any time, and I can also add my friends individually (or a list of them) at a time when it's appropriate to share. The interface is great, I can comment on my own thoughts... I know this won't get any fans in this crowd but I think it's great.

I have been keeping a journal in a private ikiwiki instance for several years now. Basically, I set up an ikiwiki blog that generates a static website, served by Apache over localhost. Files are in markdown, and kept in git. I do searches via "git grep". The static site is for easier browsing.

I've added things like "topics" (sub-blogs based on links to a topic page) and "people" (ditto). A topic is a page and automatically shows (via ikiwiki inline) all the blog posts that link to the topic page. A person is also represented by a page, and similarly lists linking blog posts. Topics are usually using a meta link directive in ikiwiki, whereas people use a person/lastname.firstname link to achieve the same.

I wrote a little tool to make admining topic and person pages easier, and to easily add new blog posts and attach images or other files to the blog post. http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/jt/ has the code; I should probably write this up some day.

I've published some of my journal, related to one of my hobby projects. http://liw.fi/obnam/journal-dump/ if you're curious, though from server access logs I know nobody is.

I keep my journal private mostly so I can be more honest when I write. If I need to, I can be rude and impolite and use quite dirty language, which I wouldn't if I was writing in public. Also, some topics are private and nothing good will come from disclosing them.

I think this is such a hard question, I've been trying to figure out a way to do it, also.

So far my best answer is to do Jekyll, with every post 'published: false'. I like it because I can include LaTeX and probably even Lilypond.

Flaws are I haven't figured out easy photos, and haven't figured out how to journal from a mobile device.

I'd also like to encrypt my journal but I'm not sure how to combine that with git and searchability.

I've had relative success with org-mode. I figure that's the emacs mode you're talking about.

I have a capture template that automatically catalogs the entry to the right date. It comes up in a new window and I just write whatever I'm thinking. It works for me because it's so easy to hit C-c j when I'm doing anything at the computer and then I can write all I want. And if I want to make two entries on the same day, I can. The template has a little area for a title.

I've managed to journal a few times a week every week for over a year now.

2016-07-21 08:19 Journal format

Picked up from jrnl.sh. One text file per year. Single-line title starts with timestamp. No specific daily routine, just making an entry whenever I want to take notes. Usually plans or work log for personal projects.

It's basically a bunch of files (named like YYYY-MM-DD.md) in an encrypted DMG volume, which is stored in a Dropbox folder. I also have a shell script that decrypts/mounts it + open the folder in vim, and also encrypts/unmounts it (given the option). I have a special syntax for tags, which helps me find related events.

What I like is the fact that I can just grep the whole thing to find relevant information.

I'm using the previous version of DayOne as I want it to use Dropbox rather than their sync system. I'll keep using it until the app no longer works.

I've been considering trying to put together an org-mode compatible mobile app that would support photos (syncing them to the same Dropbox folder), but that's tricky.

I've used Day One [1] for a couple of years now—it's for Mac and iOS. It syncs quickly, effortless to use, adding photos to entries is really nice, good search functionality, etc. You can treat it more of a power tool too with tags, separate journals, etc.

[1] http://dayoneapp.com/

People used to attach instant photos (think of Polaroid cameras) to their journal... and that was it, basically.

I guess you/we will have to find a compromise.

Put the text files in a Dropbox dir. Now you can edit them on your phone.

modded bulletjournal.com

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