randomor

I do. Went so far as creating an app for it cos I can’t stand using note taking apps or other badly designed tools. It’s called ZenJournal: https://thezenjournal.com/

This is great! I was using something similar before creating ZenJournal. Alternatively, you can also:

- Create a private Twitter account

- Private Slack community/channel

- Private Keybase account (E2E encryption)

There are drawbacks with all these though because they are not specifically designed for logging but for fast social interaction over the web, it affects things like UI, security, readability, and searchability, the advantage is they already have a load of features as you outlined. A journaling app could learn a lot from the design patterns of low-friction social apps though.

I created ZenJournal for this exact reason. I've used it continuously for the last year and a half, in contrast to all the dozen other apps I've tried. It was actually showcased here a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876939

However, my focus is more manually inputted private thoughts, ideas, and todos, not an information dump with all my activities like what you described.

The app is essentially saving an array of logs with timestamps, so technically it should be easy to merge and blend it with your other automated logs from other devices, but currently, it's kept intentionally offline only with no syncing function.

I found the biggest thing for me is speed to log, ZenJournal accomplishes this with a super quick open and log interface, and also provides a Discreet Mode feature that will help you log in public spaces.

It's also very fast to search because you can simply type ? to start searching.

For those looking for a cross-platform alternative, I'd recommend a private Twitter account too: - It supports most media types. - It exports. - There are many clients and ways to automate it.

It's unnecessarily online to me and the information density is too low with the redundant profile picture and revert-chronological timeline, which is not easiest to read (a private Slack channel or Telegram chat will fix this).

I'm one of those backend developers who created this app that was showcased here last week (ZenJournal): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876939 I started my career as a mobile dev so getting back to mobile from web was not very scary to me although I've forgot most of what I've learned 7 years ago. Luckily React Native is an very easy entry point, because I still sometimes help with frontend tasks at my work with React, so that's what I used.

For notes, I use Apple Notes. For organizing thoughts, I created an app called ZenJournal that was showcased here last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876939

Are you saying the app doesn’t prevent you from just adding blank logs as entries? That’s also intentional as a way to do separators. :)

Thanks for the feedback! Although edit is something I rarely had the need to use, I agree it’s probably something that i have to add. Love the idea of having a marker to differentiate.

About the spaces, yes you can add an empty line if you want. I’ve used it to add a separator. Sometimes I also just start or end my log with an empty line it also will separate logs if they are logged within five minutes(so they are auto grouped together).

Are you using the iOS version? Would the Discreet Mode be useful to you at all?

Please help spread the word and leave a review in the store if you can. Happy holidays!

Wow thanks! I spent two weeks to create that space illustration myself so I guess it’s worth it... :) please give it a review or spread the word so more people can find it.

Thank you! Yes the video is a bit fast. I’ve slowed it down since my first draft but still too much content to be fit in the 30s.

Right now I'm purely solving a personal pain, so I'm just offering it for free because I have to publish anyway and I kinda enjoy the process. As soon as there are enough requests coming in for features that I personally don't use, like syncing, appearance (color, fonts) customization, prompt questions etc. I'm going to experiment with a freemium model to make this more sustainable. This is also why I haven't open sourced it yet, because I want to leave room for experiment and make this sustainable long-term.

Thanks for noticing: https://thezenjournal.com/#privacy

Pretty deliberate about the policy. I don't care about third-party analytics, especially in a journaling app.

I use this to app sometimes multiple times a day, on the go. But I wanted to make sure the experience is as close and stress-free as pen & paper.

Thank you for the shout-out! Will add that to the feature list. What's your desired font?

Very valid concern! Currently it exports to and restores from JSON so it's already 10x portable than most journal apps.

I've been using this app for the last year and half consistently so it's hard to quit this habit now.

In the event that I can no longer update this app, it will be open sourced. I’m also considering OS it before that so more can contribute.

Also, right now the JSON format is extremely simple with a log key and timestamp key and anyone can create a compatible app. I'd recommend it as the new hello world project instead of a to-do list app. :)

Maker here. A while ago I wanted to find a journal app that would allow me to type my thoughts and ideas into a stream as if chatting or tweeting. I couldn't find anything. Most current journaling apps are either bloated with irrelevant features or require too much efforts like notifications, answering random questions, multiple taps, too much whitespaces, or forcing you to come up with a title. So I decided to create it using React Native, and V1 was published last year, and had gained a small user base.

ZenJournal 2.0 offers a few unique features other than a single-stream focused interface where you can open and type:

- Unified search and type: you can type '?' into the log entry point and start searching. - Discreet Mode: you can double tap your logs and it can obfuscate everything so you can comfortably journal in public spaces or show off your past efforts. - Pull to graph: you can pull from your stream to see a heatmap of your past 100 days. - Hashtag auto-suggestion. Organize everything using #hashtags and tap to search.

V2 was just made available on iOS App Store today, with Android coming in the following months. Let me know if you have suggestions and feedback. Thank you!

So I was researching on product launches. I'm surprised this hasn't been submitted before.

Here is a post summarize the research: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2018/01/19/much-needed-resear...

I also found a similar post on Reddit: http://minimaxir.com/2015/10/reddit-bigquery/

Any other posts like this for HN or other communities that you know of?

Only had experience with Cypher, really liked it. It will be interesting to see how Neo4j responds to this. Regardless of tech specs, the fully-managed Neptune vs a community version on AWS Marketplace seems to give Neptune unfair advantage.

Since the Evernote announcement, I've been trying to find an open source alternative. This one is the closest I could find. Notable features:

- Markdown - Image in Markdown - Notebooks and tags and searching - Encryption - Dropbox sync - Open source and built on Github Electron

Missing features: - Mobile support (android coming, iOS client missing?) - Better searching - Importing Evernote notes - OCR?

Would be interested in what's coming up. What replacements have you been using?

I started reading the one about tools, went to hiring, and realized this needs to be reposted here. Timeless.

Most popular time from 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2078361

Interesting angle approaching this problem, from a continuous log cacheable on the client. Just downloaded and used demo briefly so take this for whatever it's worth: - What about a sidebar for the issue detail, instead of a floating window? - A send button when posting comment, not just CMD-S - The issues list could use some bigger font size and spacing

The ticket price of traveling in-between these two cities(Beijing and Guangzhou) by high-speed train is higher than the flight, which makes sense, considering the airplane is significantly cheaper after taking-off. The same logic with hyperloop vs. planes, one is designed for between-cities commutes, one for cross-country/continent travel. Personal story, now my mom can have her breakfast at my hometown, take the high-speed train for 2hrs to the closest international port Guangzhou and make it to the 1pm flight. It used to be 7 hours.

Chinese here. Off top of my head, with about the same area of land, divided by about 5x more population, let's say about 5x time denser? Personally, I grew up in a "small town" with about 100,000 people, we call it a small town because relatively, it IS a small town. I do not have any statistics to back it up, but the density level of that third-level township feels to me to be higher than Brooklyn NYC.

I saw a product idea for a product adoption platform where the end users could adopt maker's product and provide feedback along the way, no money involved as Kickstart. Human feedback is usually more motivating than self-conjecture. Thanks for the reflective piece.

There is then the other scenario when candidates put out a well thought out letter after few hours and only to hear no response, black hole. I, for one, do not really get systems like jobvite and no email and direct human contact for hiring developers who you "value".

I know it's not made for anyone outside of the company, but why not? Trade secrets? It would be an interesting read to other people too, and they might also have the experiences of reading "The Umbrella" on software craftsmanship...

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/steven-sinofsky-talks-windows... another video on D9 with talk heads