This is a review I did of MacJournal for the Nosillacast Podcast hosted over at Podfeet.com - A Technology Geek Podcast with an EVER so slight Macintosh Bias! I am posting here because it is a new way of thinking for me… I am an old-school computer geek but the people in the Mac community are changing my perspectives. I’ve done magazine reviews in the 80’s but this will be recorded as an audio review for a podcast show. How far have we come since I first laid hands on a computer in ’78!

This is Jim, aka Deverill, from Key West. In celebration of the arrival of my first Mac USB microphone I thought I’d do a review of a product that has really impressed me.

I am also using the product I am reviewing to save the typed version for the show notes and my blog. More on that in a minute.

The product I’d like to talk about is MacJournal written by Dan Schimpf and distributed by Mariner Software at marinersoftware.com. MacJournal is a tool for journaling and blogging and brings together the utility of a nice editor, the tracking of a good organization system, the security of your little sister’s diary – stored in a bank lockbox, and the Mac goodness of simplicity by interfacing well with blogs and other systems automatically. There is a full 85-page manual included which is also very well done that covers all the details so you can imagine that there are too many features to cover completely in this format but I’ll hit the highlights.

The latest version, Version 5, has been rebuilt for Leopard and Snow Leopard and looks absolutely wonderful. No Windows or Mac Classic interfaces here, it’s pure modern Mac style complete with calendar, inspector, and other well-done panels to help create your masterpieces. It is nicer than TextEdit but not as gaudy as Microsoft’s Word. Just right for a tool that you can use to get in and get out but yet powerful enough you can perfect your document without ever leaving the program.

MacJournal handles every type of media: text files, PDFs, Quicktime movies, images, and can even store files it doesn’t recognize. You can record audio entries to your journal or blog and it will even record video with your iSight! You know I said I will post this on my blog? I’m going to use this audio ability to include this recording too so the visually impaired don’t have to rely on Alex to read it to them. He’s a nice guy and all, but I thought this would be a good use of the feature to give it a more personal touch.

With MacJournal you create journals which are like separate binders into which you place pages or, as they call them, entries. In my case I have a journal for work-related information, one for ideas or future products, one for a course I am taking and one for each of the websites I run as WordPress blogs. Inside an entry you can, of course, enter text either by typing or pasting but you can also insert images and screen captures. Audio and video recording is done by using the recording bar interface which is built in to MacJournal and can be placed directly in an entry. Each entry you create has a title, date, tags, status, priority, rating, size and content. Status has options to help organize your entries such as not started, underway, needs review and completed. Perfect for collaborative blogs or documents at your job.

A common feature among the better Mac programs is the ability to create smart journals. Using this you can combine any entries from all your journals into a single smart journal. Perhaps you want to be able to access all the entries about your new car in one place – just tag the entries “New Car” and create a smart journal. The companion feature to this is Entry Aliases which are like file aliases in Mac OS X. They allow you to put a pointer to a entry in a different place. This is especially useful if your need doesn’t warrant an entire smart folder but just a pointer to another entry somewhere else.

There is also a Quick Note window available that lets you press a shortcut and enter information into a compact note window without having to go back into the MacJournal program. It’s great for doing research in a browser and storing your findings without ever leaving your page.

MacJournal is not just some little kid’s diary program. It is a full blown application with very good security so it can be trusted with everything from corporate secrets down to the note you wrote to the cute little red haired girl you have a crush on and only guys like the CIA can find out what you said. Hopefully they won’t be that interested in your journal. The journals themselves can be locked with a password. You can store the password into your Keychain if you like, but this is optional, as is the password hint. After locking a journal you can click it again and choose to encrypt it. This uses AES-256 encryption which the U.S. Government says is good enough for Top-Secret level documents.

Of course a tool like MacJournal has the complete set of sorting and searching facilities. It’s always easy to find that entry you are looking for, but the features seem to never end. If you insert an image into an entry you can scale it right there to window-width, 25, 50, or 75% with built-in tools. No need to leave the program to find your favorite graphics editor. This thing will even auto-discover Wiki-like links to other entries! Just click a button and your internal linking is automatic if you like. Tables and lists? No problem, it does them too. Messy import? MacJournal will automatically do a wide range of cleanup such as removing e-mail quotes, smileys, removing multiple spaces, removing HTML tags, and so on.

Do you wonder if you are overusing that new vocabulary-building word you learned today? What about how many words you have in that term paper you are writing? The statistics panel will give you this and more in a single place.

Of course Growl support is built in. I love Growl because I set it to speak and I hear when a new mail comes in and can choose to ignore it if I’m busy since Growl announces who it is from and the subject. This and other features can be set in the extensive preferences choices you can use to modify MacJournal to be the best for you.

My favorite feature is the ability to update blogs. I have several web sites that I run and it’s always a bit of a hassle to log in to the blog, do the password thing, go to the posts and click Add New. Nothing bad but to do several sites with several entries is time consuming. With MacJournal I just go to the journal that is linked to the website I want to add a post to. When I create an entry and get it the way I want I just right-click and select Share and one of the options is “Send to -the-name-of-my-blog-“ and when I click that it’s done. No logging in, no browser windows, nothing, just blogging goodness. This works with most of the popular blogs such as WordPress, LiveJournal, Blogger, TypePad, MovableType and more. This is especially nice when you combine the ability to embed YouTube videos into an entry to the blog posting. Way better than using the blog interface.

The program has built-in support for MobileMe, but I have found that by saving your journals into a dropbox folder you can access your journals from anywhere. Mariner Software has a great licensing policy. They allow you to install one serial number onto two Macs but only if you are the only one using the product. This is great for me because I have my computer at work that only I use and then my iMac at home. Dropbox makes for the perfect sync mechanism in my case.

One final feature is the abilty to export to podcasts, MicroSoft Word, RTF, HTML and many other formats. You’ll never be trapped by a discontinued product but I have a feeling that Mariner Software isn’t going anywhere for a long time based on the quality of MacJournal.

MacJournal is available for iPad, the iPhone and Mac and in ten different languages. I have not tested it because I do not know what to look for, but the web site says “MacJournal is 100% Accessibility-supported.” which is totally awesome and sets the standard for the rest of the developers out there that should be taking note!

MacJournal is available from Mariner Software for $39.95. An upgrade is only $14.95 and they also have versions for the iPad and iPhone.

Check it out – MacJournal is a great software product and I think you’ll be happy you did take a look. Mariner Software has other products too so look around while you’re there – you may find something else.

My friend Captain Craig Jiovanni at the best Key West fishing charter boat, the Ultra Grand Slam, has an article to that effect as well. He told me that he’d not seen any oil when he was out either.

Too often fear drives what we do and we don’t rely on God to protect us. Perhaps it’s because we have stepped out of covenant with Him or perhaps we just don’t have a close enough relationship with Him to know how capable and desirous He is to help us. Or maybe it’s just a bad day and our faith is weak. Whatever the cause we need to let Him help us back up to our feet, brush ourselves off and just replace that fear with faith that will bring any problem to its knees!

I was cleaning out old notes and found this so I thought I would share… it is in the theme of New Perspectives, even though it is a bit negative, since it seemed “everyone” thought this would be a good thing – even though I heard polls said as many as 87% of Americans were opposed to it by the time it went to vote.

Senator Nelson, Good day, sir.  With all the respect due to a United States Senator I would like to make the following comments in response to your recent email.

You stated in your recent email that “it will let folks happy with their insurance keep it,” According to the bill from the best source I could find, in Title I, Sec 102, (a)(1)(A) it says that no one can enroll with an individual health insurer after day 1 of Y1.  Every time a citizen changes jobs they have to be enrolled in a new plan so that person’s choice ends when they change jobs.  With the current economy that may happen at any time for most of us.

Furthermore, (b)(1)(A) of that same section says that after 5 years any new plans that still exist in competition with the government plan must conform to it exactly.  Again, this removes choices.  If I choose a plan that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover cancer, that should be my right.

Regarding removing pre-existing clauses, I agree that it is abused by the insurance companies.  I also feel, however, that insurance is a reimbursement for loss.  If we want to revise the healthcare system then including insurance limitations such as this simply muddies the water and distracts from each individual issue.  Health care coverage for everyone doesn’t necessarily mean insurance for everyone.

You say it will require insurers to cover everyone.  In this great country that we are blessed to be caretakers of momentarily, we have the right to refuse service to anyone we choose… right down to McDonalds.  Why should the insurance companies, or any business for that matter, be forced to provide service to everyone?  In a free-market system, the ones that reject too many customers go out of business naturally, we don’t need the government telling businesses how they have to be run.  If the businesses aren’t smart enough to decide this then the consumers who can refuse to use that business are.  This holds true for forcing doctors to perform procedures they are morally opposed to as well as for whom I design web pages.  Should I be forced to make web sites for bars, adult entertainment, and terrorist cells if I oppose such things?  As an attorney, if you today had a private practice, how would you have felt if the government told you that you had to represent everyone that came through your door? It’s not the government’s place to tell businesses whom they must serve.

If we are simply concerned about those who legitimately want coverage and can’t afford it then why don’t we just increase the income level qualifications for Medicade instead of wrecking the entire system?  It makes us feel that there is more to it than just ‘insuring the poor’. You mention something that I am very much for.  I’ll add a couple of others:

• Eliminate waste in the drug (and medical) system. Reduce the overcharges.  If I go to a doctor that charges me $800.00 and he is part of an insurance plan it gets marked down 50% or more. Let’s charge what it’s worth and no more in all situations.

• Change the ridiculous amount doctors have to pay in malpractice insurance and lawsuits.  If there are demonstrable damages then sure, make the negligent doctor pay that, but millions of dollars of punitive protection simply destroys the good doctors that do a great job and yet have to pay the insane premiums.

• Put in place incentives for young people to become doctors.  With the costs and red tape there are fewer reasons to choose that profession and it shows.  The free market can’t force out the bad ones because in some cases that’s all there are.  In Key West we do not have many specialties represented so we have to “make do”.  I am diabetic and yet there is no Endocrinologist here to treat me so I’m being treated by a cardiologist – an extra expense for which I feel badly but what am I to do?  Travel 200+ miles round trip for a checkup?

• Discourage illegal immigrants from using our hospitals for run-of-the-mill problems and only admit them for serious injuries. I don’t want anyone denied service, but there are too many “stomach bugs” being treated in hospitals at our (great) expense.

By all means, keep the government involvement to a minimum where possible.  It is needed for programs such as Medicare, but for normal business let the free market do its job, which it does well.  Help out if it is out of control, such as inordinate lawsuits, but otherwise the market will take care of itself.

For instance, look at General Motors. When I was a child we would have seen GM fold.  Their assets would have gone as far as possible to pay their creditors.  They would have been replaced by a larger Ford or a brand new company and the void would have been filled.  If they can’t run a business successfully then they don’t. Instead we have given billions of tax dollars to the same basic crew that failed the first time.

Without consequences there is no change. The same should be true of insurance companies.  We have never needed the government to run businesses in the past and don’t need it now.

Thank you for being there to represent ‘we the people’.  I suspect it is a thankless job for the most part and even with different views I greatly respect and appreciate your work to keep us going.