Welcome to August 2010!

For those of you interested in anniversaries: 10 years ago this month I sent out the first newsletter for The Journal. You can check out that first issue here:
The Journal Newsletter – August 2000

According to the “How I Use The Journal” article that I wrote back then, I had 29 total categories, 11 of those active. Today, I have 97 total categories, 61 of them active. Which seems like a lot all of a sudden.

I was pleased to see that the first Tip in that first newsletter (“Faster Daily Entry Browsing”) is still valid, even though I was writing for The Journal 2 at that time. How to change the default category font, though, is different (easier) today than it was then (click on the “Category” menu and choose “Change Default Font for …”).

In that spirit, this month’s Tip updates the old tip “Adjusting the Security Level of The Journal” for The Journal 5.

Welcome to July 2010! (Yes, I know, it’s almost August. Summer seems to be cruising along, non-stop, forcing me to catch up.)

This month history blogger Laura Donaldson gives us some pointers on how to keep a journal for future historians, and we have a tip about inserting media files in your entries.

Today, 18 June, is The Journal’s 14th birthday. In “software years”, this qualifies as “mature”, I think. Possibly even older than me. =)

The Journal has worked on every version of Windows since Windows 95, and now works on Windows 7. A lot has changed in the software world since 1996, including The Journal. And yet, quite a bit remains the same. In The Journal, there are still category tabs, and a calendar with an entry tree automatically organized for you by date, and you can still format your text (this has always been important to me) pretty much any way you like.

I tried to find an old screen shot of The Journal 1, but I seem to have misplaced them all. That’s probably just as well. It was quite ugly, in a Windows 95/Visual Basic kind of way. 😉

This month’s tips are about The Journal’s default folder paths, and how to rename a Journal Volume. Plus, we have a new set of writing prompts.

May always seems to be a busy month. Especially this year, as my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. We threw them “a bit of a do”. Very fun, and great to see all the siblings and most of the grandkids and great-grandkids (my parents’s grandkids and great-grandkids, I mean; I have neither; so far). I hope your May has been full of family and fun, as well. =)

I also released an update of The Journal 5.1 this month. See “The Journal News” below for more information.

We have a new set of writing exercises, and in the tips section I discuss the difference between “Save Journal” and “Backup The Journal” and “Save Entry As…”

Welcome to April 2010! (Off topic: Weren’t we supposed to have spaceships on the way to Jupiter about now? 2010 and all? No? I read too much science fiction as a kid? Ok…)

This month Jono Martin shares some handy auto-replace strings, and, as always, we have a new set of writing exercises.

March 2010. Already. And now nearly gone…

An update of The Journal 5.1 (Build #417) was released the beginning of this month. See “The Journal News” below for more information.

This month’s tips talk about a new HTML export option and point out that there is no “Right Way” to use The Journal. Plus, we have a new set of writing prompts.

I hope everyone had a happy St. Valentines Day. =)

The Journal’s Web page got a makeover in the past few weeks. Feel free to drop by and look it over. My thanks to Beth Gardner of Show Presence Design for her help with the new Web page.

This month’s tips explore using The Journal over a network and options for sharing categories between users. Plus, we have a new set of writing prompts.

Happy (Slightly Belated) New Year! =) This month’s tips describe how to use (or not use) the new day planner view for reminders, and how to see your MS Outlook calendar reminders in The Journal. Plus, we have a new set of writing prompts.

This month’s tips describe how to use the new ability to wrap text around images in your entries, plus how to recover a category from a backup. And, of course, we have a new set of writing exercises.

This month we have a couple tips for backing up The Journal, and a new set of writing prompts.