Will newspapers die?

A post over at BlogHerald asks the question of bloggers: Would you miss newspapers if they died?

I worked for 9 years in the newspaper business, mostly in weeklies but also in two dailies. Even then, however, these were community daily newspapers. From that perspective, it is hard for me to see newspapers dying anytime soon.

Still, larger newspapers definitely face a growing challenge. Most are trying to adapt, but they are doing so with varied success.

The real question facing the industry is how do they migrate from their current model to the online model, melding the two while being financially viable? In other words: How do you make as much money online as you do in print?

My answer to the BlogHerald question: Yeah, I’d miss my “paper” newspaper.

Bush blames Congress

President Bush met with reporters in the Rose Garden this morning to address the rush on gasoline in New Jersey over the weekend.

In his statements, he did little to address what could be done but to rehash old themes: drilling in Anwar, building more refineries and keeping taxes low on the oil industry.

He blames Congress for not blindly following his programs without asking questions. The president should be reminded that he has had a Republican Congress through much of his administration, and even those Congresses were not quick to pass his energy bills — which have been roundly criticized as nothing but handouts to the oil industry.

Granted, this is a real problem. Both parties need to put aside their partisan bickering and deal with this issue. Given the tenuous state of our economy, continued increases in gas prices could devastate us.

20 bottles of wine and a sunburn

Our journey began last Thursday, traveling from Jackson, MS, headed to Jamestown, NC. This was our first long car trip with the kids.

We stopped overnight in Gwinnett, GA, just outside of Atlanta. The next morning, we continued on to NC, where we visited with some old friends from Forest, MS.

The purpose of the trip was a wine festival featuring 19 wineries from North Carolina. The Taste Carolina Wine Festival was a one-day event held at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market in Colfax, NC.

To say we enjoyed ourselves was an understatement. We were without the children, with old friends and sampling a wide variety of wines. (I’ll share my observations on the wine in a separate post.)

Because of baseball practice for one of the Howell children, we decided to start our tasting after lunch. We arrived about 1 p.m. Despite a crowded event, little time was wasted getting through the gate.

The pourers also kept people moving through the various tents, as well, without skimping on the discussion of the wines and vineyards.

About halfway through, my wife was already feeling the effects of the tasting. (This is a combination of her low tolerance and the fact that she has drunk very little in the past three years between being pregnant with and nursing our two children.)

We were standing, the Howell’s and the Hall’s, discussing the number of bottles we were going to purchase. Tara, my wife, wanted to make sure we were not going to go overboard.

My estimation was 15 bottles for us (five for Tara and 10 for me — I’m the wine lover).

“Fifteen!” she explained with bugged eyes and a slight look of shock. “I was thinking more like five total.”

Then something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.

“Ooooh. Are those desserts?” she asked her friend as she turned toward the neighboring tent. “Come on, Denine.” And the two were off, all discussion of how much we were to buy gone from her mind.

We ended up with 20 bottles of wine per family. The festival threw in the sunburns for free. And though I’m sitting shirtless for most of today (nothing can touch my neck), it was a great time. We hated to leave and travel back.

Wines from the Taste Carolina Wine Festival

I am not a wine connoisseur, nor do I pretend to be. That said, I enjoy wine.

I enjoy drinking wine, reading about wine and learning about wine. One day, I’d love to take a class on wine tasting. That would be nice, and it might increase my enjoyment of wine marginally. But more than that, it would just be one more thing in which I’m interested that I’ve further explored.

To me, one’s enjoyment of wine is not dependent upon how much you know about it. I’ll admit that the more you know about what you are tasting, the more heightened the experience can be. But in the end, your enjoyment can be as simple as: Do you like what you are tasting?

Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, wrote:

The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.

With that in mind, here is an overview of the wines I most enjoyed at a Taste of Carolina Wine Festival on Saturday. If you find the tasting notes to be elementary, then perhaps you should drink a bottle and decide for yourself.

I’ve listed my top two wineries respectively, but the others follow only in the order of tasting.

Cerminaro

I tasted many wines from here, but I noted only four. They represent the best of the six. I purchased all six.

What made Cerminaro the best tasting that while I found a better red and a better white other places, their wines were consistently good and reliable across varietals.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Winery description: Not available.

My thoughts: Not as full-bodied as I would have liked, but a smooth, full flavor. Nice spice to it. Just a solid Cab.

DeChaunac

Winery description: Not available.

My thoughts: Semi-dry. Nice nutty flavor with a smokey hint. Very reminiscent of a chianti, with a hint of plum. My favorite red of the tasting at Cerminaro and my second favorite red of the event.

Vino D’Oro

Winery description: Not available.

My thoughts: An easy-drinking wine. Light fruit flavors, with a hint of sweetness.

Seyval Blanc

Winery description: Not available.

My thoughts: Crisp. Dry. Hints of citrus. This is a great wine for a warm afternoon. My second favorite white of the event.

Thistle Meadow Winery

North Fork Red

Winery description: Made from Australian grapes, this blend of 70 percent Cabernet and 30 percent Shiraz offers a rich, deep red color and a full taste, nicely rounded with oak. Full-bodied.

My thoughts: This was the least favorite of the four reds I tasted here. It was a typical, mid-level blend in my opinion. It was a nice drink, but nothing special.

Vieux Chateau du Roi

Winery description: This big red wine offers a great berry and cherry aroma. Made in the style of Chateauneuf du Pape, this Syrah blend (with a little Mourvedre) won a silver medal at the Dixie Classic Fair in 2003.

My thoughts: One of my top five reds. A great spice. Nice, rich flavor with just a hint of oak. As they state, a great aroma — one of the best of the wines there.

Devil’s Garden Red

Winery description: A full-bodied spicy and deeply colored Chilean red wine, with flavors of black cherry and plum. It offers a hint of anise, and a lightly toasted vanilla finish.

My thoughts: My favorite red wine of the day. And wouldn’t you know they were out of it when I went to purchase it. This would make a great compliment to a hearty meal or the centerpiece to an evening of wine tasting.

Lumina Winery

Oleander Rossa

Winery description: Big, bold and bountiful with loads of rich black fruits and oak. Plenty of tannin and structure.

My thoughts: It tastes much like they describe, though it was not as big and bold as I prefer. It was a bit thin for me.

Allison Oaks Vineyard

Proprietor’s Blend

Winery description: …Creative and unique blend of hand-picked Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel and Syrah grapes fermented in small batches to bring out it’s distinctive taste.

My thoughts: One of the best red wines I tasted. Plenty of tannins that led to a rich finish. A hearty enough wine for a heavy steak, but still approachable for sipping.

Uwharrie Vineyards

Noble

Winery description: Full bodied and fruit forward passion to the extreme. This wine is soft, sweet, and reserved with wild berry overtones. It captures the essence of picking the fruit right off the vine and placing it in the bottle.

My thoughts: This would make an excellent sipping wine. Great to enjoy after dinner or on a cool afternoon outside. A lighter red, it had plenty of flavor but few tannins.

White Syrah

Winery description: The dark red Syrah grape is harvested and immediately pressed to create this exciting color. Finished as a semi-dry, this wine is subtle with wild berry character and a hint of spice on the end.

My thoughts: I do not like blushes, but I enjoyed this wine. It was dry enough for me to enjoy, and it offset its sweetness with a nice flavor of berry.

Autumn Creek

Niagra

Winery description: Not available

My thoughts: Semi-sweet wine that both my wife and I could enjoy. I prefer a much dryer wine on most days, but this was nice, smooth and didn’t make me feel as if I was drinking Kool-Aid.

Chardonnay

Winery description: Not available.

My thoughts: An unoaked Chardonnay that I found appealing for its dry, sharp taste. I’m not a Chardonnay fan, and I will only try unoaked Chards. This one was not “impressive”, per se, but it was nice. (And for a Chardonnay, nice is about as good as it gets for me.)

Grove Winery

Traminette

Winery description: German-style grape with Gewürztraminer parentage generates a spicy, crisp wine that’s perfect for Asian fare, sausages, duck and other rich food. This estate grown wine offers a floral bouquet and light herbal and spice flavors with citrus undertones. The 2006 Traminette is finished dry and was harvested earlier than previous years for higher acid balance.

My thoughts: A spectacular white wine. This was my favorite white of the day. It was the only white that provided the fruity crispness and spicy finish I enjoy.

Merlot

Winery description: Nice looking fruit from the great 2005 vintage. Estate grown. Barrel aged. Gold medal winner in the 2006 Mid-Atlantic Wine Competition.

My thoughts: An excellent Merlot. I enjoy Merlots the least of any red, but this was nice. It had an even palette with a fleshy finish.

Stony Mountain Vineyards

Sangiovese

_Winery description_s: Not available.

My thoughts: I drank a lot of Sangiovese wine when I visited Italy. We brought home a lot of them and have since gone through them. For whatever reason, I’ve never purchased a bottle in the states … until now.

This wine had a nice earthy taste to it, with hints of dark cherry. It also had a good bit of acidity to it, more than I remember from the bottles I had from Italy. Still, a really nice wine. I’ll have to purchase other Sangiovese wines after I drink this bottle. I seem to really enjoy them.

Stonefield Cellars

Bicentennial Red Blend

Winery descriptions: Not available.

My thoughts: This was a nice blend, but I’ll admit to it being nothing spectacular in the tasting. It was a thin red, one that would make for good sipping.

That said, I purchased it because it was newly bottled for the 2008 Greensboro, NC, bicentennial celebration. I’ll let it age a year or so and then try it.

Other tastings

In all, I tasted wines from all 19 wineries. Many were fruity wines or muscadine wines, none of which thrilled me but were a big hit with my wife.

I will give honorable mention to Weathervane Winery. They had the best fruity wines of the bunch, some real unique flavors. My favorite was Rooster Red, a Chianti with cranberries. My wife loved the Tropical Wave, a kiwi-flavored Gewurztraminer. I tried their reds, which were nice. To be honest, though, by this point, my palette was shot.

iWork vs. Office

Macworld just wrote a great series comparing Apple’s iWork ’08 to Microsoft Office 2008, trying to discern whether or not Apple’s entry into the world of office suites could replace the reigning king.

For my part, I use both. For word processing, it’s Pages all the way. (If I’m doing a lot of sharing, then I’ll switch over to Word. But I create all my word processing docs in Pages to begin.)

Ditto for presentations and Keynote. This is the one app where I think Apple is far superior.

However, its the spreadsheet work that keeps me hanging on to the Microsoft product. If I’m just working on something for me (or something that needs only to be shared via pdf), then I use Numbers. For what I do, it has a far superior interface.

That said, if I’m sharing with other Office users, I use Excel. The exporting to Excel format in Numbers does not translate into useable Excel documents.

Here’s the Macworld series:

• Pages vs. Word
• Numbers vs. Excel
• Keynote vs. PowerPoint
• iWork vs. Office: Can they get along?

In the last one, several people comment about Export vs. Save As. For me, I don’t mind the Export function. It better fits my workflow. But I see how others might not like it as well.

15 tips to save money setting up a new office

I’ve had more than a few experiences setting up a new office, or taking over a severely out-of-date office in need of an overhaul.

If you are not careful, you can rack up an expensive pile of invoices before you ever get down to doing any real work only to find that what you have doesn’t quite meet your needs.

Here are a few tips to ensure that not only do you save money setting up a new office but that you also address all of your needs.

1. Outline your needs

This may seem straight-forward, but too many people jump straight into buying the desk or getting the newest computers. In reality, those things — while big ticket items that need to be carefully thought out before purchased — aren’t what’s going to kill your pocketbook.

It’s the filing drawers you don’t need and the extra work tables you do that will pile on the expenses.

If this is a home office or a small shop (two- or three-person), simply think through your workflow. Don’t forget the business side of life (i.e. how you will file invoices, keep up with manuals, store supplies, etc.)

If you are looking at a larger operation, go the extra step of diagraming work spaces. Think through as many of the nuances of your business as you can.

Spending a little time here will save you much money down the road.

2. Skimp on the desk

Desks should meet some simple needs: Hard surface on which to write with a keyboard tray for ergonomic purposes.

Personally, I hate drawers, though I still get desks with them for most people in the offices. Drawers cause clutter and items to be lost. Less drawers can save you in office supplies. Trust me!

3. Buy comfortable chairs

When setting up an office, there are a few places where you should not skimp. Chairs are one of them. Take the money you save on desks and put it here.

That does not mean you have to go purchase a $750 ergonomic chair. However, you would be wise to consider one that meets your budget. In the long run, the more comfortable people are at their desks, the more work they will get done. Past that, you can help cut down on posture problems. (Coming from a relatively young man with a bad back, that will mean a lot to your co-workers.)

5. Buy Mac computers

I’ve heard the arguments about Macs being more expensive than PCs. And, perhaps there is some truth to that if you compare a solid MacBook with a bottom-feeder PC you get from Office Depot. But, you get what you pay for, my friends.

That said, Macs are easy to use, easy to network and are not as susceptible to viruses and spyware. They also hold up much better than PCs, especially when it comes to having to replace hard drives.

If you are concerned about the lack of tech support for Macs in your area, don’t be. First, you will need tech support a lot less. Second, purchase the Apple Protection Plan if you are not computer savvy. Their help desks are phenomenal. If you are the least bit computer savvy, rely on the online forums and help articles. It’s a great database, and I’ve rarely had to look anywhere else for what little has ailed my Macs.

6. Be smart on computers

Not everyone needs the latest MacBook Pro. In fact, if you don’t need to buy a new computer, don’t. Go with a refurbished model or purchase a slightly used computer from that guy who has to have the newest everything. (Trust me, they are everywhere.)

7. Buy second monitors

Here’s another place where you should not skimp. Dual monitors will increase your productivity. I cannot fathom working on some projects without a dual-monitor setup. The only time I sacrifice this setup is when I decide to work from a mobile office for a while. (See more about this in the last point.)

But do not purchase just any old cheap monitor. In addition to increasing productivity, good monitors will help with eye strain. Too, creative professionals will benefit from the clarity of their screens.

8. Look at software alternatives

I’m not a fan of Google Docs, but there are plenty of free office suites out there. Likewise, you can get away with iWorks for a lot less than Microsoft Office.

Depending on your business, decide what you need and search online for those price-savers. If you are going to be working with lite graphics that take only a 1/1000th of PhotoShop’s power, try Pixelmator or another alternative.

9. Go cable for Internet

OK. I hate AT&T. While I have their DSL service in my home office, it is only because I will not give up my DirecTV for cable to get Internet through Comcast.

That said, if you have the choice between AT&T or a cable high-speed provider, go with cable. In many instances, it will be cheaper, and you get cable to boot. Too, cable is up to four times faster than DSL.

Now, not everyone will have the simple choices of two or three providers; some will have far more choices. But the point here is to shop around. In today’s fluctuating market, deals are ever changing. Make sure you leverage this to your advantage.

10. Make the right choice on phones

If you can get away with it, I would go with all cell phones and unlimited data plans. Most people prefer their cell phones to landlines. Too, we increasingly communicate with e-mail, SMS and IM.

If you feel you need a phone system, then consider going with an online system. To do this, you will most likely need a T1-type internet connection. So keep this in mind when choosing the right Internet provider.

11. Spend money on “amenities”

Do not sacrifice coffee makers, refrigerators and water coolers to save money. If anything, buy premium coffee or contract with a service to provide coffee.

Your workers will spend more time at the office than they will awake at their homes. Make sure they are comfortable. It will pay off with increased productivity.

12. Go mobile

This goes back to Nos. 5 & 6 in a way. Buy laptops where feasible. Then, allow or even encourage people to work away from the office from time to time.

To facilitate, make sure you have one or two PC connect cards to help save money on the wi-fi fees from Starbucks. Again, this is an “amenity” that will pay off in increased productivity and creativity.

13. Hire an accountant

Depending on your business, I’m betting your strong suit is not handling the books. Therefore, do not torture yourself with it. Hire an accountant to handle your books, payables and receivables.

Outsourcing financial-related aspects of small businesses is common today. You will most likely be able to find someone who is a semi-retired accountant or business manager who enjoys doing what you hate and has made a go at doing it freelance-style.

So support other independent-minded entrepreneurs and outsource your biz office.

14. Buy an OCR scanner and a shredder

If you outsource your business office, this will be an absolute must. Past that, you can forgo the need of filing cabinets by taking your paper life and making it digital. The best on the market is the ScanSnap from Fujitsu. I swear by them.

Also, get a decent shredder. Shred every bit of paper that comes your way, especially those with sensitive information. Ditto for old credit cards or those stupid credit card offers.

Again, these are two areas where you do not want to skimp, especially the scanner.

15. Try a “mobile” office

And finally… don’t rent office space. This will not work for every kind of outfit. However, it might work for more than you think. If your business lives largely on your computer, cell phone and online servers, then why rent an office?

If you consult, then take meetings at the client’s office or at a coffee shop or in the park.

Need some quiet time to work? Go to a library or a book store or that park where you are going to meet your client later in the day.

Got a small amount of product but not enough for a warehouse that does not require storefront space? Rent a storage building instead. You can get climate control for cheaper than an office space.

Seriously. Arm yourself with a laptop, a cell phone and a PC connect card. Buy a printer for the house or use the thousands of dollars you are saving to print at a print shop. Then, make the world your office. It’s the most liberating feeling you will ever have.

Bad spelling, poor grammar will ruin the greatest of content

The idea behind two recent blog posts has been rambling around in my head for a couple of days. The question comes down to this:

Can bloggers with good content get by with lousy spelling and grammar?

The prevailing thought from Penelope Trunk, whose post started the recent debate, is that they can. She doesn’t understand why people don’t just shut up about spelling and grammar mistakes, citing several reasons. Among those reasons, spell check isn’t perfect.

Everyone knows that Spellchecker misses some words. And everyone knows that sometimes we think we are making a stylistic choice when we have actually made a grammar error.

And anyway, it’s nearly impossible for us to catch the errors that Spellchecker misses. If it were tenable to proofread one’s own stuff, then there would never have been a copy editor to begin with. And there is research to show that if the first and last letter of a word are correct then our brain adjusts for all the letters in between. (My personal favorite of all Spellchecker problems: form and from. Try it—there are so many cases when both words will get past Spellchecker.)

So don’t bitch to me that I should use Spellchecker.

Over at BlogHerald, Andrew G.R. is less forgiving of top blogs who allow habitual mistakes of this nature.

It is my belief that the majority of bloggers would rather spend their time coming up with something interesting to write about rather than looking up the difference between a colon and a semi. Plus, since many bloggers have adopted English as a second language, you can’t expect things to be perfect. However, I do admit that I take notice of typos on several top blogs and scratch my head over their level of caution. While it doesn’t make me doubt the validity of what they are talking about, it does raise a red flag.

In her post, Penelope goes on to make four other points about why bloggers such as herself often have simple mistakes in their work:

1. Spelling has nothing to do with intelligence.
2. You don’t have unlimited time, so spend it on ideas, not hyphens.
3. Perfectionism is a disease
4. Use the comments section for what matters: intelligent discourse.

Granted, I wholeheartedly agree with her spelling not equaling intelligence point, or at least I hope it does not for my sake. I’m a horrible speller. That said, the rest of Penelope’s article seemed a little resentful to me.

Undoubtedly she’s been hammered a few times in her comments section about poor spelling or odd grammar choices. And, she is correct, that comments sections should be more about discussing the content of a post or article than correcting honest mistakes.

That said, if habitual spelling and grammar problems are indicative of a site, then you can bet that readers will soon leave.

The very idea that someone has good ideas so they should be excused from proper spelling or grammar is, to an extent, offensive and a tad bit insulting. It almost says that we can allow ourselves to be lazy because we had a good idea. It’s that kind of thinking that leads to the dumbing-down of a society.

I certainly can understand Penelope’s frustration with the continual public pointing out of her mistakes. That said, taking the extra time to proof spelling and grammar will save a writer the time spent venting about people pointing out mistakes and the resources exhausted on a blog post about it.

No Doctor Who, just Sarah Jane

Imagine my disappointment when I realized my plans for last Friday night fell through. There would be no Doctor Who. I would be forced to wait another week.

Instead, I would find solace only with The Sarah Jane Adventures, which I was looking forward to watching as well.

This will not be a lengthy review. The short story is this: I liked SJA, but I didn’t love it.

To me, Elisabeth Sladen never really hit stride until late in the episode. One of her three sidekicks was extremely annoying. The other two were OK, but we’ll have to wait and see.

That said, it was a fair start. Good enough for me to watch next week and see if any improvement has been made.

As for Doctor Who, he returns next week on the SciFi Channel here in the U.S. And this time, I’ll be watching. (And the teaser looks AWESOME!)

(Now leaving Doctor Who Geekdom and returning to my regular life…)

Keep electing judges in Mississippi

There was a time when I believed we should change the way judges are selected in Mississippi. Instead of electing them as we do now, I thought we could limit the amount of undue political influence in our judicial system by having the governor appoint judges and then the Senate confirming the appointees.

Then, in 2003, I had an interesting conversation with a former Supreme Court justice who agreed that reform was needed but maintained that taking the choice away from the voters was a dangerous road down which to travel. Instead, he put forth a familiar argument of his for capping political expenditures in judicial races.

While I did not wholeheartedly embrace his plan for caps, the late Armis Hawkins in fact changed my mind about elected versus appointed judges. Perhaps it was the merits of his argument, or perhaps it was his sheer brilliance of which I was in awe. Either way, I left his office in Houston, Miss., that day with a different outlook.

Our judicial system, whether it be on the county level or in the highest court of our state, must remain above reproach when it comes to the taint of favoritism. Some would argue that politics is at the very heart of such a taint, but I believe otherwise.

In an appointed system, the judge is beholden to the people who put him there. He answers to no one but the powerful and the few who control his fate.

But in an elected system, a judge must answer to those he serves from the bench. In this system, he serves masters of all stripes whose level of power and influence are justly equal through the casting of a sole ballot.

This issue — whether to appoint or to elect judges — will be an important one in several judicial races in Mississippi this year. For the purposes of full disclosure, I’m closely involved in one of those races. Thankfully, I’m blessed to be working for a candidate with whom I agree on this topic.

(As an aside, political consultants often work with candidates with whom we disagree on at least one or two issues, but with whom on the average we agree with their stances. So far, I’ve found very little about which I disagree with my candidate.)

That said, I urge you to consider what it means to a society when the powerful try to take away the influence of the people. Doing so breeds far more corruption and greed than does the political system on which we were founded.

I, for one, cringe when I hear people decry our political system as nothing but corrupt. These people forget that this system was designed during the throes of a revolution.

Politics may not be pretty, but it allows for a democratic approach to choosing those who govern over us, who make our laws and, at least in Mississippi, who interpret those laws. The means to an end may be unpleasant for some, but the end is a just means of securing representation for us all.

And when it comes to how our judges are selected, I’m thankful for Mr. Hawkins. He set me straight.

Journler is my ‘killer app’

There is no short supply of blog posts and online articles either looking for or claiming to have found “the killer app” for a Mac.

In truth, when it comes to using a Mac, I agree with posters at this ArsTechnica forum thread that say it is the entire experience of using a Mac that is the “killer app”, not just a single application.

But were I to choose that one app that is most pivotal to my workflow, it would have to be Journler, by developer Philip Dow.

Journler has been part of my workflow system since shortly after I switched back to using Macs in 2004. Prior to the switch, I was using Microsoft’s OneNote as a PIM, and I really enjoyed it. But the lack of a Mac version sent me in search of the application that would be my heart-and-soul on the computer.

After dual trials with Notebook by Circus Ponies and NoteTaker by AquaMinds, I settled on Notebook. It is an extraordinary app that more than met my needs. But the interface never felt intuitive enough to the way I worked. I always felt as if I struggled to get things out of it the way I should.

So my search continued, and I settled on Journler. I’ve never left.

For those like me who enjoy seeing how others use their favorite software, what follows is an overview of how I use Journler in my daily work.

Journler in brief

On his Web site, developer Philip Dow describes Journler this way:

Journler is a daily notebook and entry based information manager. Scholars, teachers, students, professors, scientists, thinkers, the business minded and writers of every persuasion use it on a daily basis to connect the written word with the media most important to them.

Journler is different from most PIMs in that it is organized according to date and not topic. But do not let that paradigm disturb you. With tags and smart folders, you can quickly and easily have a topic-based drawer from which to pull all your needed information. Furthermore, Journler allows arranging posts according to projects, which gives it a more familiar approach to managing information.

But it is the ability to integrate with the rest of your Mac applications that makes Journler so powerful. You can add contacts from Address Book, photos from iPhoto and save Web Archives by dragging sites straight from Safari. Too, you can add video, audio and still photography directly into Journler entries.

If you import a photo file created in Pixelmator or a text file created in TextMate, Journler will either display the file in its interface or allow you to open it in its original program with one simple click.

Plus, Journler is fully searchable. Users can search entries, tags, projects and most files stored in the database. It makes it great as an archival system for email or invoices. Add to it the power of a ScanSnap scanner, and you can begin the migration to a paperless life.

Research assistant

Journler makes a great research assistant, whether your project is large or small. When I begin working on a blog post, I start a new entry in Journler. Then I switch to Safari and begin my research, dragging Web sites I’ll either cite or use in my post into Journler. If I just need a snippet, simply highlight the text and use the Services menu to clip to the entry you have active.

If I am using external (paper) documents, I’ll scan them, save them onto my desktop and then import them into the entry (I delete the original file after importing it).

Once my research is complete, I select all of my bookmarked sites from the side drawer and open them in Safari. That allows me to flip through tabs and collect any information I need. If I have pdf documents, I open them in a separate Journler window for use as well.

Then, all that is left to do is write. (I use TextMate to apply Markdown and upload my post.)

Project management

When I start a new project, I create a new project category in Journler. Then, I create a smart folder that finds all entries with that project name.

Next, I outline a few generic tags that I know I will use in the project. For instance, if I’m customizing a Web site for someone, I know I’ll use tags such as “site_ideas”, “content_needs” and “issues”. Then, I create nested smart folders that find each one of those tags.

Right now, I’m managing a Supreme Court campaign. I’ve got a project in Journler for it, with several smart folders nested under that project. I track everything from phone calls and meetings to messaging and fund-raising within Journler. Since this is a relatively new project, I only have a few entries. By the time election day arrives, I’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of entries.

Once a project is completed, I simply delete the smart folders. The entries remain, and I can always search them later if I need to reference something for whatever reason.

Journal and archival

One thing I started this year was to write a daily journal. There is nothing scientific about this. It’s a free-flow of thoughts. At times its personal, sometimes its about a project on which I’m working and sometimes its more of an outline of things that I want to do. That’s the simplest use of this program.

In addition to a written journal, I keep an archive of invoices, home files, tax documents and just about any other type of written correspondence that needs filing for future use. I simply scan the documents and save them to Journler. If I must keep the hard copies — say tax documents — then my wife files them away. If I don’t need the hard copies, I shred them and move along toward a paperless life.

If I purchase something online, I either save the receipt page as a webarchive or print the page to a pdf and save it in Journler.

Adding tags to all of these entries allows me to sort them according to my needs. So when tax time rolls around, I can easily sort my archives by business deductions or health care deductions or whatever I need.

Conclusion

Journler is an Everyapp. Its usefulness is limited only by the user’s imagination. It is scriptable, and you can find a plethora of scripts for various tasks. Furthermore, Journler is backed by an active community of users.

Journler’s pricing structure has evolved over the years. It started as freeware, then moved to freeware for personal use and shareware for non-personal use. Today, Journler is fully shareware with a price tag of $34.95. (Dow struggled with this decision, which you can read about here.)

For me, there is not a more important program on my MacBook Pro. Without it, my entire workflow would be thrown into chaos.

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