NICK PEERS
One of the biggest weaknesses of blogging – the online equivalent of keeping a diary – is that it’s so public. Sure, you can lock down your blog, but unless you’re hosting it on your own local server, it can leak online despite your best efforts.
Lifeograph (http://lifeograph.sourceforge.net) is designed to provide you with a journal that’s offline and – through password-protected encryption – private. It’s clean and simple to use, but dig a little deeper into it and you can get even more from it than simple text-based scribbles.
First steps
Look for the Windows installer download under Downloads on the Lifeograph web page. There are Linux and Android versions there too. At the time of writing, the latest version was 1.6.1. Download and install just like any other applications. After installation, launch the program to find yourself at the main program screen, which will provide you with a list of all recently opened diaries (it’s possible to set up and run multiple diaries to keep various aspects of your life separate) once you’ve created some. The first time it appears, you’ll see a handy ‘If this is your first time with the program, click here to start right away’ button to create your first diary file. Choose a suitable location on your hard drive and provide your choice of filename (with .diary extension) before clicking Save.
First, encrypt your diary for greater security: click the diary’s filename in the right-hand navigation pane to bring up its properties screen. Next, click the Edit button followed by the diary icon to its right to bring up a pop-up menu. Select Encrypt, then add a password – the diary will be encrypted using AES-256, and you’ll need to enter the password to open the diary in future.
As an extra security measure, Lifeograph logs you out of your diary (and saves it) after 90 seconds of inactivity – look out for the countdown timer popping up and giving you a ten-second warning (click anywhere within Lifeograph to cancel it). You can temporarily disable this by clicking the ‘v’ next to the Log Out button and clicking ‘Disable Auto Logout for This Session’. Permanently disable the feature – or change the expiry time by clicking the burger (three lines) menu to the left of the Log Out button and choosing Preferences.
While you’re at the Preferences screen, you can change the date format from the default (YYYY-MM-DD), toggle the formatting toolbar on/off in diary entry view, and show a preference for the dark theme.
Your first diary entry
You’ll see an empty entry for today has been created, currently blank. You switched from read-only mode earlier (if not, look for the blue Edit button and click it), so you can start recording your thoughts. It’s as famili
