Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with diary and resolved

It's the small blue journal in my second desk drawer down

dawkins_7 — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 12:30:13 -0800

If you keep a diary or other secret papers, do you have a plan for what happens to it if something happens to you? For example, if you keep a journal or diary that you would rather your family not see, do you have a trusted friend in charge of getting it and destroying it in the event that something happens to you and you can't get to it?

I've seen some previous AskMe questions about what to do with old diaries but this would be a current diary that you need to keep going and need to keep the pages, for whatever reason. (Keeping it in a digital format is not an option for various reasons.)

I keep mine at work so that's good for keeping it away from prying eyes at home but I'm thinking about asking my boss or my best friend to come and clean out my office if something happened to me and make sure that particular journal gets destroyed.

I'm not interested in ways to encode the diary or change how I keep it since it's really working for me the way it is now.

I was just curious if any of you have any plans like this in place.

I want to start writing a journal. Can you recommend me some kind of journaling software?

_Seeker_ — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:11:01 -0800

I want to start writing a journal. Can you recommend me some kind of journaling software? I don't want to use any kind of online service, I just want some kind of offline, desktop program.

Basic requirements:

works on Windows 7

it's free of charge

Would be nice if:

it has password protection

it also supports Linux

it is open-source, or at least doesn't save the entries in some kind of binary format file

the database file can be synced to Drobox

How do you track & use ideas from your previous sketch books, journals & diaries?

ooklah — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:43:21 -0800

For those that keep a journal/diary/sketch book: When you start a new book, how do you continue to track and use the good ideas and projects in your old books that you'd like to pursue? I regularly keep a book that holds my thoughts, daily summaries, ideas, meeting notes, sketches, etc. I'd like to come up with a system or work flow that helps me get the most out of my books and prevents me for losing good ideas. Keeping all of these out on my desk is slightly impractical.

Anyone out there ever digitize and catalog a large number of books like this? (I have 25 or so) IF so, how did you deal with the digitized info?

Lastly, if anyone would like to share pointers on their personal method for journaling and marking up your books to keep track of items, I'd appreciate your insight, links and collective wisdom. Thanks!

Can you help me index and annotate my brain for my daughter.

nickjadlowe — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:44:03 -0800

I have a health condition that may end my life prematurely. I am an "older" parent of an only child who is currently 8 years old. It's important to me that I leave a record of who I was. Can you help me with strategies to help me "index and annotate" myself for her, so that when she is older she could have an idea of her father as an adult beyond just the Daddy that I am to her now? Currently, at her age she "feels" and knows me as the loving and involved father in her life - her Daddy. To me, this is the most important legacy I can leave her. But as she grows older, she may wonder more about "who" I was and what kinds of things I thought about in an adult or intellectual way. I would like to give her the opportunity to know the adult man I was once she is old enough to wonder or care. I don't have this sense of my relatives that have passed away and it feels like an unfortunate hole in my understanding and perspective of them. To some degree, that translates into feeling like a hole in myself.

Can you help me with strategies to help me "index and annotate" myself for her?

I have thousands of books in my library that I have read, but that number could be reduced to perhaps a couple hundred that have had a very important impact on me. Of these 200, I have lightly and sporadic annotated about half of them as I initially read them. Of course, I can electronically collect and/or make printed copies of important email and online correspondence I have had over the past 10 years. I plan to keep a daily journal more diligently from now on.

What I would like the end product to be:
- Searchable by keyword, date, and other basic meta-data such as persons involved in the correspondence.
- Somehow "linked" (for lack of a better word). For example, I would like to be able to search for a date and possibly know the book that was being read on that date, a list of the passages that I highlighted in that book, the annotations I made with respect to each of those items, and perhaps a link to my personal diary entry on that day. "By Date" is just one example; it would be nice if the same could be done by "Topic of Interest", or by "Book", or by "Author."
- If possible, I would like to have this in some form of hard copy since it seems impossible to predict what current electronic forms of storage will be easily and practically accessible years from now.

My current idea:

- Re-read and more thoroughly annotate the materials most important to me. Apply consistent tags, keywords, and meta-data. I imagine the annotations being autobiographical in nature.
- Tag all email and other online correspondence with same.
- Transfer all of this to some program.
- It seems like Scrivener might be a good candidate, as it allows chunks of text, pictures, links, etc to be organized and combined in different ways and then be exported for print as PDF's, e-books, etc. It also seems to allow for the keyword tagging, linking, and footnoting.
- For example, I could make a bound book (or ebook) that was everything ordered chronologically, another one organized by topic, and so on.

I realize this may all sound somewhat egotistical, and I understand that it may in fact never be looked at. But I'm looking at it as a personal project that, just in its undertaking, may afford me some perspective, closure, and peace.

Please provide suggestions and tips as to how I can better go about this project. For example, would purchasing only ebooks from now on make this easier in some way? What are your recommendations for an organizational tool? Can you point me to similar projects? Can you suggest a "best practices" routine? How would YOU do it? Assume I have roughly 1-2 years to do this. Much thanks.

Can I create a modestly secure diary online using Wordpress, .htaccess, and a few tricks?

jspierre — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:39:56 -0800

I want to access my personal diary from anywhere - and keep it as secure as possible at the same time. Here's my idea on how to do this...what do you think? I have a personal diary I want to set up on the internet for my use only - it will be private, but I need to be able to access it anywhere - from home, my phone, my laptop, etc., so I do realize there are inherent insecurities, but I plan to make it as secure as possible and well-hidden. Here's what I'm thinking of doind - am I'm being a total idiot or could this work given the limitations I agree to below?

1. The Setup
The server is a Linux VPS with sufficient power and RAM to run all necessary services; assume the server and VPS are sufficiently hardened. I am in complete control of the server and it serves only personal websites and email accounts (no one else's sites are on my server). The diary itself will be running the latest version of Wordpress. Software choice is not negotiable.

2. What I'm not concerned about
Obviously, administrators of the server the VPS is on can access anything on the VPS should they want to. I'm not concerned about that. The diary contains nothing illegal and it wouldn't interest anyone who doesn't know me. However, as with any diary, it would probably interest those who DO know me well, especially the things I may say about those people that would be unflattering or rude. Therefore, my concern is more that the diary itself is kept from (a) Search Engines, (b) The casual peruser, (c) those who know me well and might attempt to "break in" to the diary should they know it exists. I am well aware that a true "Hacker" could probably get at the diary and my server without much difficulty, but again, this information is not valuable, would at mose be embarassing if released, and would not really interest a hacker in any case. The security should just be enough to keep away people with only low-to-modest technical ability. Also, moving the diary offline or into my home is not possible or desired.

3. How I plan to set up security
a. It will be hosted on a directory within a subdomain of a domain; both the directory and subdomain will be nonsense words and letters. For example, http://x993zhd.mysitename.com/jjkda86111. This, I believe, will make it difficult to find when combined with the next item:

b. The subdomain itself will use .htaccess HTTP password protection and will have exactly ONE username and password that will be acceptable. Both the username and the password will be random, nonsense, words and letters that are not related to any other password or username I ever use. I believe this should prevent the site from being findable by search engines (since the spiders cannot crawl past the password authentication stage) AND should prevent anyone from getting in by trying to guess common usernames and passwords. Also, csf/lfd will automatically block the IP address of anyone who gets the username and password wrong five times in a row and will simultaneously notify me via text message if that occurs.

c. I will use the "Registered Users Only" plugin with Wordpress. This plugin will not allow ANYONE to view the diary/blog without first logging in (I've used this plugin before and it works perfectly). I will set up EXACTLY ONE username and password that will be, again, nonsense words and numbers that, again, are completely different from any previous nonsense words and passwords. Also, creating any new usernames and passwords will be disabled within Wordpress. That combined with the next item will ensure that no one can just randomly try guessing the user name and password to access the blog.

d. I will use the "Limit Login Attempts" pugin with Wordpress that will automatically permanently block the IP address of any user who attempts incorrectly to enter a user/password three times in a row.

e. I will use the "User Access Manager" plugin with Wordpress which will restrict the viewing of all posts to only those users I designate. If you are not on the "allowed users" list, you see nothing but a blank page. This is a catch-all solution in case either c. or d. above fail or are hacked past.

f. I will use the "Log User Access" plugin to keep a log of every time the blog is logged into. That way, I can review it periodically to see if there are any dates or times inconsistent with when I believe I actually logged in.

g. I will set Wordpress to "Block Search Engines"...just in case.

h. I will review the website statistics monthly to see what IP addresses successfully connected to the site and ensure that only my own IP addresses show up.

So, basically, to access my diary, I would need to first browse to the special, nonsense URL, then get past HTTP authentication using a nonsense user name and password, then log in to Wordpress with a different nonsense user name and password before I will even be able to see my diary or add to it.

Now, given the security level I'm after (keep it away from the general public, search engines, and those who know me well, none of whom are extremely tech-savvy), does this approach meet that goal? What am I not thinking of or should I add for additional security or peace of mind?

Help me find this book that is about a drug addict who steals bikes in Amsterdam to feed his drug habit. It is a diary-style of book.

darkgroove — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:32:41 -0800

Help me find this book that is about a drug addict who steals bikes in Amsterdam to feed his drug habit. It is a diary-style of book. I was reading an urban magazine a LONG time ago (within 10 years) that covered things like graffiti art, music, clothing, etc that had a review of a book. It was a lifestyle magazine that seemed more urban (hip-hop, etc) but was not especially african american (more like Maxim, less like The Source).

Anyway, there was a book review for a book that I believe was called "40,000 Bike Locks" (it could have been any number (10,000 to 50,000) and it may have been spelled out) that was about a thief in Amsterdam that stole bikes to feed his drug habit. The 'book' was a diary of his exploits, stealing bikes to pay for drugs. It sounded like a wild ride through this guy's life, who took down all the events that occurred.

The description of this book seemed interesting and I made a mental note to read it. The mental note is still there, but the exact name of the book isn't. To make matters worse, I vaguely remember trying to find the book back in the day when I read the article, to no avail as well. Could this review have been completely false and made up? Or am I just forgetting the facts completely

Help me find a book that is like "Diary of a Spaceperson" but is something else.

-harlequin- — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:29:44 -0800

What is this faintly-remembered book, if not "Diary of a Spaceperson"? It was a book of illustrations of a future tourist trip of the great sights of the (fanciful future) solar system. Like "Diary", it was similar to the Terran Trade Authority books. More clues inside... Everything I remember about the book exactly matches "Diary of a Spaceperson" by Chris Foss, but I ordered this book, it arrived, and it is not the book. Here is some of what I remember:

- It was a large book of space illustrations in the Chris Foss style, similar to Terran Trade Authority books such as Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD.

The tour of the solar system included planets/illustrations such as
- giant (blue-ish?) creatures (of neptune?) with necks kilometers high to allow them to filter feed up above the clouds.
- a restaurant made out of the skull of one of these creatures?
- a safari location, with illustrations of the hunting weapons, including a futuristic looking bow+arrows.
- a (las-vegas-like?) resort or something, where (much like "Diary of a Spaceperson"), there were a lot of hot people (and humanoids) in scanty/sexy outfits.

Any idea what this book could be?
Thanks!

How to make my diary not suck?

mono blanco — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:28:44 -0800

How to write diary entries I actually want to read? Life's interesting. But when I try to do a diary I never want to read it later. It's either I ate blah blah or I think blah blah. Got any tips for making the recording as interesting as the original?

i think my boyfriend read my diary

my_thai — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:16:30 -0800

I think my b/f read my journal and is mad at me for what I said. Not sure how to ask him if I'm right. After a disagreement with my boyfriend I wrote some fairly mean things about him in my journal. Specifically I wrote that he was weak. Actually, I think that he's not as assertive as he could be, but when I'm pissed off and venting in my diary I call it 'weak'.

The journal was in my work bag. Yesterday when I was working out he had to go in my work bag for something he needed. He's been acting weird ever since.

The thing is, if he violated my privacy, he deserves to feel bad, however I hate that he thinks I feel that way about him. And I hate the idea that I've hurt him.

I keep asking him what's wrong but he won't say what it is, probably because he doesn't want to admit to doing this. I'm afraid to ask him directly just in case he didn't read it and I'm just being paranoid.

What in the hell do I do here?

Super Simple offline (time-less) diary/calender?

hasna — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:58:17 -0800

I'm looking for a super simple offline daily diary/agenda application. Something like iCal. I spend most of my time overseas, and just want to be able to look back, year(s) from now, and see what I did. Have suggestions? I already journal on an infrequent (weekly?) basis. But it's usually more of philosophical rambling /slash/ emotional purging, than a chronological memoir of my day. I also use iCal to schedule out my regular appointments (tutoring, exercise, sleep, children to school, etc).

What I want, though, is a very simple Mac application where I can, in calender format, make very simple entries about what I did that day, without having to put times on them, or even have times there at all.

Example: Met my new friend Steph today, spent most of the day in Sultanahmet. Had beer for breakfast (!!), got lost on the way to Taksim, met a random American friend and had MORE beer, then came home late. Awesome day!.

The kind of thing where I'll be able to look back on 6 months, or 1-2 years from now, and remember exactly what I was doing; put myself back in that moment. Hindsight is always 20/20. I deeply regret not having done this in the past (for China, Peru, Mexico, Mali, Guinea..).

Yes, I realize that what I'm describing is the typical paper diary, but really I'm just looking for an offline (maybe?), Mac-compatible calender/agenda application that will allow me to do such a thing. I already keep multiple blogs, but they rarely contain my day-to-day happenings. Again, I'll emphasize: super simple, no flashy features. Just click on a calender date to enter/read what I did that day. That's all. Maybe bold/italic, but even that is optional. seriously, that simple.

Any tips? Thanks in advance, mefites! :)