The Beginnings of CloudDiary
When you solve your own problem, you create a tool that you're passionate about. And passion is key. Passion means you'll truly use it and care about it. And that's the best way to get others to feel passionate about it too.
-from "Getting Real", a book by 37Signals
I've had the opportunity to travel quite a bit in my life so far. I've moved (with bag and baggage) to about 5 cities in the past decade. I've also owned numerous personal journals (my favourite being the Moleskine I still have) over the last decade. I noticed that every time I moved into a new city, I would somehow misplace my journal. So I'd walk into a bookstore, buy a really nice-looking notebook, come back home and start jotting down my ideas, random notes to myself, thoughts about certain things etc. But a few months down the line, I'd somehow misplace the diary, or I wouldn't have it when I really needed it, i.e. when a certain thought really struck out and I knew I just had to write it down somewhere. So, turns out that over the past decade, a lot of my thoughts have just been scattered across various incomplete personal journals and notebooks, and it's a pity that they're not all consolidated in one place.
I've also found myself using GMail to send an email to myself every time I thought of something worth writing down. While it kinda works for to-do's, keeping track of thoughts through GMail just seems inconvenient and that's not what it's built for, so the GMail design is unintuitive for anything else other than creating conversation with others.
I've also used stuff like Penzu, Evernote, Springpad - but none of their designs appealed to me. Penzu was ok for taking notes in class, but it wasn't cozy enough to write down my ideas, and random observations of the world around me. Evernote, Springpad, and even Penzu to some extent had too many features that I wouldn't ever use, and all those buttons would make the interface look really cluttered. So, I decided to scratch my own itch, build a private journal, and solve this problem of mine for good. And, that's how CloudDiary was born.
CloudDiary is the simplest, coziest private journal you've ever seen. It's also closest to the real thing. Give it a try. I think you'll love it.
If you like it, I'd appreciate if you can spread the word.