journaling
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Beautifully chronicle and share your life with StoryPress
On the surface, StoryPress looks like any other photo journal app, but its unique mix of audio, visual and written storytelling is far more captivating. The oral traditions of storytelling are a lost art. These days, we tell all of our stories on social media, pictures and texts. While I'd rather converse on Twitter than anywhere else, something is always lost in translation when you can't hear someone's intonation. You miss out on some of the "heart" of the story. That's where StoryPress comes in. It blends the best of both worlds. It captures the spirit of oral storytelling and puts it in a digital package. Available for the iPad, iPhone and also on the web, the app lets you share every aspect of your life, not just what's happening right now. Reflect on your childhood or college years. Chronicle parenthood, travels or holidays. Recount milestones and funny moments. Use the app as a diary, so that you never forget those small, but important, moments. To help you tell your stories, there are templates called story guides. Each story guide prompts you with a different set of questions. Every question represents a chapter in your story. Some of these questions can get pretty personal. The "living bio" template asks you about your relationships with your immediate and extended families. How close are you? Do you like each other? Are holidays fraught with fighting? Okay, it may not ask that last question, but you get the idea. There are also questions about your spiritual beliefs and personal philosophies. This might seem like a turn off, but it's the point of the app. It wants to create a full picture of who you are and how you've lived your life. If you're using it to catalog deeply personal events, StoryPress gives you new way to get introspective and reflect on your life. You don't have to get personal. Record significant or funny moments, like marathons, weddings or simple get-togethers. To get started, select a story guide topic. Tag each chapter with "who," "where" and "when." Then, upload a photo or video. Next, click the microphone button and start telling your tale. When you are done answering one question, swipe to the left to reveal the next one. You do not have to answer every question in a story guide. It's up to you how much information you want to share. If you don't find any of the guides relevant or helpful, you have the option to create a custom story. While you don't make typical status updates, StoryPress is a social media app. You follow people just as you do on any other network. However, there is a "private" option so that you don't have to share every story with your followers. If you did want to give a Twitter or Facebook-like update, you'd have to create a new chapter and record your status. Not everyone is going to like this app. Recording yourself telling a story can be awkward for a lot of people, myself included. Despite that fact, I really love StoryPress. By verbally telling your story, you add layers of context to key events and memories. If you want a fun, beautiful and unique way to chronicle your life, you need to give StoryPress a try.
Day One for iOS updated to 1.10, adds PDF export option
Day One, the award-winning journaling app for iOS (and Mac) has been updated to version 1.10, adding PDF export and printing support. With the update, the entirety of your Day One journal can be exported as a single PDF or you can choose custom entries for export based on tags or date range. TUAW's own Steve Sande did a comprehensive review of Day One for iOS and Mac and had many positive things to say about it. Certainly, if you're in the market for a cross-platform journaling app for Mac and iOS, you should definitely check out Day One. Day One for iOS, available for US$4.99 on the iOS App Store, is a universal app and syncs seamlessly with its Mac counterpart, available on the Mac App Store for $9.99.
Patented iOS journaling system could revolutionize searching on your device
If your favorite iOS device could log every song, phone call, app download or other action with location and time stamps, searching for anything would be a lot easier. For instance, you could ask "What songs was I listening to when I was on my bike on the Cherry Creek bike path yesterday?" or "What apps did I download while I was in Barcelona?", and you'd get an answer. Apple received a patent (#8,316,046) today that describes a system-wide journaling capability providing just this type of everywhere, all-the-time tracking of actions. As described in the patent and diagrammed above, the system would track actions from a number of services and store the journal in "the cloud." An interface similar to the one described in the drawings below would be used to search in time and space for events or actions (left), then displayed by location and event (right). Of course, Apple patents are no indication that a product will ever make it to market, but it's fascinating to see what is going on in the labs in Cupertino.
TUAW TV Live: Bloggers talk about blogging tools
Good morning, afternoon, or evening, depending on what part of the world you're coming in from! Today we're going to be talking about blogging tools on TUAW TV Live. I consider personal journals to be a kind of self-blog, so those tools will be covered as well. Of course, I can't use every blogging app out there, so I'm looking forward to hearing what the denizens of the chat room have to share. I'll also have a special guest on the show today -- former Cylon sensation Mike Rose. Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. You'll be watching the show in glorious HD! Based on a suggestion from Doc Rock last week, I'll be "chirping" URLs for applications and sites discussed during the show using the Chirp app. To receive the chirps, download and install the app on your iPhone by clicking the icon below. If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.
Day One 1.8 adds photos, geotagging, more
My favorite app for both iOS and Mac, Day One (US$4.99), has received an update to version 1.8 that adds a number of features to inspire your imagination in personal journaling. The iOS version is now available, while the Mac edition is still in progress. What's new in Day One? The app now adds photos to your journal, a great way of adding memories of a special day or person. On the iOS app, photos can be pulled from the regular Photo Library or snapped on the fly, and there's also integration with the awesome Camera+ app. The Mac app allows images to be dragged and dropped right onto an entry, or loaded through the standard Finder Open dialog. Any one of your journal entries can now be geotagged as well. The iOS app uses Foursquare for check-ins at your favorite places, and a small map with a pin showing your current location is added to the entry. Want to comment on the weather? The iOS app has the ability to automatically add a small color icon showing the current temperature at your location courtesy of HAMWeather -- when viewed in the current beta version of the Mac app, that information appears as a line of text. For those who like to add rich text to their entries, Markdown buttons are now available in the edit bar in case you forget your Markdown shortcuts. Version 1.8 also adds a word and character count feature to the edit bar in case you have set a personal goal to write a certain number of words per day. I'm still totally in love with this app and have used it daily since February 27. Day One makes it incredibly simple to keep a personal journal, and the new features turn a good app into a great one. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Can the Project 365 iPhone app make you a better photographer?
Photographers have always known that the more pictures you take, the more you learn about photography. Digital photography has made it easy and inexpensive for photographers of any experience level to take as many photos as they want. In addition, the advent of fairly high-resolution phone cameras has added the touch of having a camera with you almost all the time. In 2004, a chap by the name of Taylor McKnight started taking one picture a day and posting the photos as a way of chronicling his life and what was important to him. Over the year, he also found that he become a better photographer. The classic photography website Photojojo published his post about the process in 2006, and the rest is history. There are now thousands of photographers who are shooting their way to better pictures one day at a time. Developer Alvin Yu has made it possible for any iPhone owner to create their own Project 365 portfolio through his free Project 365 app [iTunes Link]. The app is quite simple; launching Project 365 shows you a monthly calendar with a blank area for each day. Tapping on the date allows you to add a photo, either by taking one or adding it from your photo library. Once you've chosen the photo, you can add a caption, then send the photo either to an email address, to Facebook, or to Twitter.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that deals with dysfunctional emotions and feelings in a structured manner usually involving journaling, and reflecting on your journaled thoughts. The idea is to discover incorrect thinking and emotions. It has been found to be effective in quite a number of disorders including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and OCD. CBTReferee [iTunes Link] $4.99US, was written by Andrew Arrow to assist in his personal therapist-directed CBT. Finding himself always needing to carry around a notebook, since negative thoughts and feelings happen at random, he built quite a simple app for his own use. Finding it personally effective, he decided to put it in the app store, not really knowing if it would be useful for others. Feedback he received convinced him otherwise. The app contains a brief description of CBT and clear instruction on how to properly utilize the app. It's just enough information to get started, and doesn't bog down in theory, so you can get up to speed quickly. When a negative thought occurs, the app directs you to write it down immediately. Once done, tapping the next button takes you through a screen of ten potential fallacies inherent in your entry. Some of these include: Nothing or All (black and white thinking where one small flaw kills an entire concept), Conclusion Jumping (assuming facts that don't' exist), Emotions as Evidence (assuming that if you feel a certain way, it must be true), and many others. With the journaled text visible, scroll through the list and check any of the options that you think may apply to your statement. Next, you are presented with a type-in screen titled: Referee Says, where, based on your statement and the options you have chosen, you try to write as objective an assessment as possible, to negate the statement.
