Earlier this year while I was writing in my journal, the application crashed. Well, that happens sometimes with any application. I went ahead and restarted the application. To my horror every single journal entry was gone! Years of journal entries wiped away in a single crash. I was extremely furious that an application crash would do such damage to the data it manages. Thankfully, I am one of those people who believes in back-ups. I was running Time Machine and was able to go back and retrieve my data. I did end up losing a few days of data. That is better than losing all of it, for sure. But, this event got me thinking: I need a solution that is not dependant on this application. It has crashed several times before, but never lost data. This was the last straw, so to speak.
Through some searching around the Internet I learned something about my own machine. Mac OS X has the ability built in to make encrypted disk images. What I ended up doing was making a disk image to hold my journal entries which would not be make one file at a time using Text Edit. Instead of holding all my entries in one giant, single-point-of-failure database, I would record each entry (usually just once a day) in a simple text file using Text Edit.
Here is what I did so that you can do the same for your self:
- Open Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities)
- Click on the New Image icon to create a new disk image
- Enter a name for your disk image (ex. My Journal)
- Select the location for it (I recommend your home folder and not the desktop, I'll explain why later)
- Choose the size of your disk image. This will depend on what you plan on storing in your secure disk image. If you're just placing journal entries, start with 50 or 100 MB. I'll show you how to increase the size of an existing disk image below.
- For format, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- For encryption choose 256-bit AES Encryption (more secure, but slower)
- For Partitions choose Single partition - Apple Partition Map
- For Image Format choose read/write disk image
- Click Create!
Here is what your setup dialog box should look like:
After you click the CREATE button you will be prompted to choose your password for this disk image. Make sure you uncheck the option to "remember the password in my keychain" unless you want to make it easier for someone to get into your data, for example, if you have friends or family that share your computer account. I chose to not remember the password in my keychain so that each time I open my journal I am prompted for the password.
Once you enter a password, Disk Utility will create your disk imae and mount it (open it) and you will see it appear on the your desktop. This is the reason why I recommend you put your disk image file in your home folder - so that you don't get confused between the disk image file and the mounted folder on your desktop. It makes it quick and easy to see if your journal is open. If you see it on the desktop, you know it is open. How do you close it? Just eject it like any other disk.
Organizing Your Journal Entries
Once your journal is created and open on the desktop, you can begin creating your journal entries straight away. Here is how I chose to organize my journal, you may find it helpful or may have your own method for keeping things organized. The beauty of this system is that you can do it however best fits your needs.
Organizing by Date
When I open my journal, the first thing I see is a folder that I created for the year. In this case, since I just started doing my journal this way in January of 2010, I have one folder so far named 2010!
Notice the file naming convention I have adopted as well. Again, this is to help keep things sorted nicely regardless of the time/date stamp on the file itself. I put the year first, followed by a dot, then the month followed by another dot and then the day followed by a dash and a title for my journal entry. Remember, I am just using Text Edit to make my journal entries. If Text Edit crashed while I was typing, the worst thing that would happen is I would lose one entry, not all of them. Of course, if you lose your disk image file, you'll lose everything which is why you still must keep important files backed up. That's just the way it is with computers.
The other advantage to this method is that I'm not restricted to using Text Edit. I can use whatever editor I want to create my journal entries. If you want to use Microsoft Word instead, go for it! Or maybe you want to use Apple's Pages application or OpenOffice. It does not matter. The key to this system is creating a separate file for each entry and securing those entries with disk image encryption.
Add Some Color!
Here are some things you might want to do to make your journal a little more personal and exciting. You can add a background image or color to your journal folder. You can also change the icon you use to represent your journal instead of the default, white disk icon.
To change your background on the folder, right-click on the folder and choose Show View Options or press CMD-J. Then, on the background section of the view option dialog box, choose Picture (or color if you just want a color) and then drag and image from your system to the image well on the view options dialog box:
Want to change that boring, white disk icon? Grab your favorite icon and put it in there! How? Here is how:
- Find an icon you like on your system (don't have any? Go to www.interfacelift.com and get some)
- Click on the icon you want and press CMD-I to Get Info
- In the dialog box that opens up, at the top, will be the icon you can copy. Click on it and you'll notice it highlight. Press CMD-C to copy it to the clipboard.
- If you want the icon you choose to be on the disk image file (my journal.dmg) and the mounted (opened) disk image journal, then repeat these steps for each. Locate your disk image file or the opened disk image on your desktop (remember, do this one for each or it will only take affect on one or the other) and select it and press CMD-I to Get Info. Click on the existing icon at the top of the info dialog box and press CMD-V to paste your new icon in place.
Here is what mine looks like after I copy and pasted the icon image:
Quickly Accessible - Put It In The Dock
To make your journal quickly accessible, place it in the dock on the right-side of the dock divider (where documents go). Drag your .DMG journal file to the dock and there ya go!
Close/Eject to Lock
To lock your journal when you are done working with it, remember to eject the disk from the desktop. I usually make sure no folder is highlighted within the journal mounted disk image and then I press CMD-E to eject. This will lock it so that the next time you open (mount) the disk image, you'll be prompted for the password. You can also right-click on the journal icon on your desktop (when it's mounted/opened) and choose eject.
Take It With You
You can also take this journal with you to other Macs that you might have access too via a USB thumb drive. Just copy your .DMG file to the thumbdrive and take it with you. You can open the disk image journal from the thumb drive or copy it to another system if you choose. Just remember to eject it when you're done to secure your memories.
How To Resize A Disk Image File
As time goes on, and you add more journal entries, you may find the need to expand the size of your disk image file. If you need to increase the size of your disk image, here are the steps.
- Open Terminal (located in your /Applications/Utilities folder)
- Enter this command in the terminal: hdiutil resize -size 200m ~/myjournal.dmg
The ~/myjournal.dmg represents the file name of your disk image in your home folder. The 200m means make the disk image 200 MB in size. You can of course choose to make your disk image 300m or 400m or whatever you need.
That's it! Enjoy your free journal. Get those memories recorded!
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