Freeware Applications

DES Journal

[Version described: 1.02]

DES Journal is a simple application that lets you keep a daily journal. The journal is kept in a note attached to an untimed event on the appropriate day in the Date Book. When you create a new journal entry, DES Journal starts the entry with a text string you can set. The text string can include a special character sequence that DES Journal will replace with the time at which the entry is made. DES Journal also lets you specify the name of the untimed event.

Many Date Book replacements already include functionality similar to that of DES Journal. For example, Date Book+, a built-in application on the Handspring Visor line, includes “Daily Journal” entries that are almost exactly what DES Journal provides. DES Journal is therefore functionally redundant if you are already using one of these products.

Despite this, DES Journal is useful even on a Visor. As a separate program, DES Journal can be assigned to one of the application buttons; this is not possible with Date Book+. Many users, like me, find keeping a daily journal sufficiently important that they are willing to dedicate a hard button to it; for such users, DES Journal is quite valuable.

DES Journal has one trap for the unwary, however: while the “add” button on its main screen creates a new entry in today’s note, the “delete” button on the same screen deletes the entire note being displayed. This can be disconcerting until you figure out the way to delete a single entry is to navigate to the appropriate date, select the text of the entry, and draw the backspace Graffiti stroke.

Although DES Journal lacks the categorization, template, and long entry features of Narara’s DayNotez and the integration with the calendar of journal entries in Date Book+, it can be a valuable addition to your Palm OS arsenal. If you are in the habit of making a large number of time-stamped notes throughout the day—or wish to acquire this habit—you will likely find DES Journal valuable.

There is also one trap in getting DES Journal: the version at FreewarePalm is, for some reason, a beta version that has substantial problems on PalmOS 3.5. The “stable” version is available only from the Dragon’s Eye Software site.

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Copyright © 2002 Brian Hetrick
Page last updated 29 November 2003.