Dear Diary…
That said… I’d like to start a journal. Any text or word processing software would work, but the entire family uses this PC and I’d rather not have the kids reading Dad’s diary. I guess that a blog would work as well, but it seems a little overkill and I’d rather not have to bother with logging on.
Does anyone have any sugestions for a simple way to keep a somewhat private journal on a home PC?
You could buy a jumpdrive and store it on there. I would also make sure to back it up to another medium, perhaps floppies (if your computer has a drive).
You could use the jumpdrive (you can get one with more than enough space for $20 or less) for day-to-day storage and then whenever you get online, just email yourself a copy as a backup (assuming you get online at least once a week or so).
Can’t you just use a password-protected MS Word file? (Assuming you use Office.)
Could you throw it into a .zip or .rar file and password-protect that?
We use Windows XP, and everyone has their own user ID. My children have passwords for their IDs, because they don’t want me to see their ‘stuff.’
Would this work for you?
What about LiveJournal + private entry + never friend anyone?
To me, the big question (which you can answer better than we can) is “how hard will the family try to find this journal?”
If the answer is “Not hard, I just want a sense of privacy” the answer may be to name it something boring or nondescript “dadstuff4work” and put it in a folder which doesn’t sound particularly secret. Naming the file “Dadsdiary” just sounds to me like you are asking for trouble.
If the answer is “Hard. Really hard. Why do you think I ask this qustion?” the answer may be to take advantage of some technological solution which will be posted by someone other than I.
Thanks, folks. I think that I’ll either LiveJournal or buy a jump drive. Honestly, I’ve wanted to try portable storage for a while, so I may try that.
Eureka, it’s not any big deal, but I have one son who really likes to bug Dad (yeah, he takes after me) and this seems like an aggravation that I could avoid.
I’m with Theologue. Password protect a word document. Should work pretty well. If you just save it on a portable disk it could still be accessed if you happen to leave it in the computer or lose it.
I “hide” files all the time. You could mark the file as “hidden” in properties then chance explorer’s optins to “not show hidden or system files” (turn it back when YOU want to see the files, of course).
Or, you could rename the file to something operating system-ish like “sys32_drivers.sys” and create your own subfolder in C:\Windows. Put it in there. If anyone found it, they’d have to rename it back to whatever.doc to even open it, and that’s only if they suspect a reason to. They’ll likely just assume it’s some sort of system file and move along.