Could you keep a journal using your word-processing software? Sure, Minneapolis-based Mariner Software acknowledges. But why would you when the company’s recently released WinJournal 1.0 (for Windows-based PCs) and MacJournal 4.1.2 (for Apple computers) make journaling easier and hook you up with several hot trends: blogging, podcasting, and scrapbooking?
Onscreen interfaces and toolsets let you “nest” journals within journals and search to find exactly what you wrote and when in past entries. WinJournal and MacJournal each provide two levels of security: password protection and data encryption—the digital-age equivalent of a diary padlock.
If you want to open your journal to the world, Mariner’s applications ($35 apiece to download, $40 for boxed versions) will support popular blogging services, such as LiveJournal and Blogger. You can also record spoken journal entries and export them as podcasts.
Private or public, it’s easy to dress up entries with varied fonts, colors, and digital pictures. That might just convince scrapbooking fans to ditch their acid-free-paper albums.
