Mémoires Review: Quick and Easy Journaling
-Nice iCal-like date selector
-You can save to a custom location
-Few features
-Limited import an export formats
It’s the beginning of the new year, so it is time for new year’s resolutions. Many people want to eat healthier, work harder, start projects, etc. One resolution that could help us all, though, is journaling. It can help you get your mind onto paper easily, without anyone else having to see. And if you just want a simple journal for your Mac, Mémoires can be your best friend.
Mémoires is really just a journal, nothing more. If you are looking for something that also includes tags, blogging abilities, and even more features, you may want to look at MacJournal or Journler. But, those two are also $15 more, so you might not want to look into them if you just want journaling.
Mémoires provides a clean and simple interface, similar to iCal. There is a calendar in the upper left-hand corner, where you choose a date to see all entries for. However, if you click on a date that is not the current date, and add an entry, it will be added to that date. I guess if you wrote an entry on a piece of paper and forgot about it for a week, this could help you. But it can also make things very confusing. Mémoires only provides two fields for each entry: a title and the entry. This makes it simple, so you can focus more on the journal, and less on adding tags and other things. In the entry field you can add special formatting and even images, which provides flexibility for what kind of entry you want to do.
Like many other journaling applications, Mémoires provides an easy way to encrypt your journal. You just go to File > Encrypt… and then choose a password. The whole journal will then be encrypted, so if you forget your password, your journal is gone. Unlike some other journaling applications, Mémoires allows you to choose where the journal will be saved. So if you want to have it on your MobileMe, you can. But Mémoires doesn’t provide regular MobileMe syncing, so to sync between two Macs, you must have it saved to your MobileMe.
If you are switching from one of the journaling programs mentioned above, Mémoires makes it really easy to import your data. You just go to File > Import…, choose the application, and Mémoires will create a new journal with the data in it. Mémoires also allows you to export to RTFD, RTF and TXT formats. Although you cannot import and export to as many formats as in some other journaling applications, you are not completely locked in to the Mémoires format. And actually, you don’t even need to export your journal to view it in another application. If you open the .memoire file in any SQLite application, you can view your data right there.
Mémoires retails for $19.95 and you can download a free trial from the site. It provides you with a clean and simple interface for writing a journal, but does not lock you into one format. Although it does not have as many features as others, that also means that you can focus more on content and less on extras. If you are thinking of starting a journal this year, then you will definitely want to check out Mémoires.
I agree with you on the few features thing. Not enough good points/outstanding features to go for $19.95.
How come you didn’t review v2.0 that was released three days ago?
@Lempa this was written when v1 was the current version.
Might be good to update the review then… because who knows, perhaps the new one is much better than you make out the previous one to be.
An additional note: the new one is 29.95 USD…
It is rather simple…
“Journler is provided free of charge and always will be. No matter how often Journler is updated or what additions are made, you will have free access to all of its features for an unlimited time.”
– Philip Dow, August 2006