Back to the good old paper diary!

It's definite now. I will move back to my good old paper diary. And I am looking forward to that!

No more worries about data formats. Much nicer to scribble remarks about things that happen in my diary with a pencil. Much nicer to save the paper diaries.

Old writings

I have dug up some old writings and published them on this blog. The writings are from 1996, and I published them here with the correct date. The writings were originally written in English. I did translate them in Dutch, and perhaps I will publish the Dutch version on my Dutch blog.

I am interrested to know if people like this sort of stuff on my blog. If so, I may publish some more writings of the same period. Totally different stuff. Stories taken from the comments of assembler programs I wrote in the late 80's-early 90's. Those comments were written while I was thinking about how to attack the problem solved by those programs.

The pieces uploaded now are:

• Dreamy Mornings
• Changing Colours
• Different Skies

Back to the good old paper diary?

A short while ago I got a new phone. A smartphone. This smartphone contains, as all smartphones, and even a lot of not-so-smart-phones, an agenda function. I have started using this function, and all-in-all it is not really bad. However, I may revert back to the good old paper diary anyway.

A couple of years ago, I have had a PDA, a personal digital thingy (apparatus, assistant, artifact, anything-else-starting-with-an-a). I used the diary function on that thing as well. A disadvantage was that when the batteries of the PDA ran out, all data was lost. To keep my diary available in those circumstances I had to frequently synchronise the thing with my PC. I am not really good in keeping batteries of devices loaded all the time, and I am also not very disciplined in synchronising stuff between various devices. When the PDA was overridden (yes, by a car; the PDA died in the accident) a couple of months after I started using it, I decided to go back to the paper diary.

The smartphone I use now does not loose its data when the batteries go empty. So that disadvantage is no longer there. Synchronisation is still the same story.

I also use my diaries as a sort of, well... diaries. Not only as agenda for appointments. Also to make notes about things that happened. Sort of like a paper blog. I like doing that, and I also collect my old diaries. If I would definitively move to an electronic diary the notes would be in the phone. I do have a special application on my laptop to retrieve the agenda an all notes and such. I can even see and edit that stuff on my laptop. And I can't help the idea about formats that may change over years, having to work with nuts and bolts in later years to retrieve the information. And what will happen if I go to another phone, something that will definitely happen in a couple of years?

Making entries in the smartphone is easy. The thing has a full keyboard. Reading and using the agenda function is quite reasonable. Overviews are a bit difficult. Editing and viewing on the laptop are fine. And still I am contemplating to move back to my paper diary. And the thoughts in the direction of moving back are getting stronger every day.