Does anyone have a suggestion for how I can add entries to my Day One journal without having the app installed?
The problem I want to solve is that I want to be able to write on my work Mac and have the entries saved in Day One, I don’t want any text/images to be left on my work Mac.
See Importing data to Day One - Your Journal for Life | Day One for some options for import features provided by DayOne. I’m guessing you are best served creating a Plain Text or CSV file on the Work Mac, then emailing/saving/whatever to transport the file to your home mac, then importing to the Home Mac. And deleting any trace of the file on the work computer, of course.
This might work for you:
Yep, this an alternative. Currently I have a shared Notes folder where I can create documents that I then move into Day One and delete. But I would really like to have something where I can quickly bring up some kind of “note window”, write something and then have it sent to Day One without me having to do anything.
Hmm, I wonder if could write some automation that would send text files into Day One … hmmm.
Thanks for the idea.
I didn’t realize this was possible, thanks for telling me about it. This might be useful for me in some cases, unfortunately not in this case: work is required to log all in/outgoing emails, so even if I removed them from my machine they would still be logged. I could of course use some web email but that would still leave an email that I would need to remember to remove … and I would need to log in to a private email account on my work machine. Yes, I realize that I might seem a bit paranoid and that I should use my own devices but …
But this email to Day One feature could be very useful in a few other situations, so I’m grateful for this tip.
To be honest, if you are concerned about the company having an email of your DayOne writings, then they probably also have some sort of controls and/or monitoring on other pathways of data OUT of their machines. Mixing senstive personal with company assets may not be what you want to do.
Perhaps invest in your own iPhone/iPad with DayOne. Can even get a portable keyboard for easier writing. With one of those devices, the entry will sync without you “doing anything” other than enabling the sync to the Mac at home.
They are working on a web interface, which would solve some of the problem.
I agree with @rms , your own device (and not on company Wi-Fi) would be best. You could also take photos of your screen if you need evidence without sending that evidence over the network.
Creating a text file, sending, then deleting will leave the contents of that file behind, unless you take measures to securely erase it. You might use a usb drive for temporarily storing the file.
Do you have 1Password? You can create secure notes in it, and they have a web interface.
Stating the obvious, but there is a lot to consider.
Just remember that if you see the text on your work computer, it is in memory and maybe even on the drive in some form, if only a temp file. But temp files can often be recovered in whole or in part.
This is true even of web content. We like to think that browsers show is content on some server out there, but what they really do is show us content FROM some server out there – first downloading it and saving it on the hard drive (usually in one of thousands of temp files deep in some folder hierarchy).
In other words, if you don’t want it to exist on your work computer, the best bet is not to create it there. Of course, it’s less likely to be discovered in the remnants of some temporary browser cache file the system knows it can overwrite than in an email sent folder or a file actually saved to disk. Security isn’t all or nothing.
Plugging in any kind of USB drive (self-powered spinning or thumb) into my work laptop triggered a “DON’T DO THAT” message! Even when I just wanted to make my own backup of some crucial project that I had been working on.
Your absolutely correct, the thing is that emails etc are public by law and can be requested by anyone. It’s way less likely that cache files etc are requested. So what I’m looking for is basically a “black hole” on my computer where I can write some text, submit it and it’s gone from my computer. I’m not worried about the network traffic, or that people at work are looking at this, I don’t want to have private documents (nothing to do with work) that can be requested as “public documents”.
If I wanted to keep something really secret, I wouldn’t be using any kind of network connected device … probably not any kind of electronic device
@tf2 is right. What you are asking for does not exist on a work computer. Most companies spell out a policy where you, the employee, have no expectation of privacy on a machine that explicitly belongs to the company and is not for personal use. There are lots of software tools and appliances that can and are used to detect and enforce variation from such policy.
Yes, but we don’t have those restrictions… but documents on our computers, email, etc can be requested. So I can, and do, install software.
And yet you said “I don’t want any text/images to be left on my work Mac” in your original post. And later, “So what I’m looking for is basically a black hole on my computer where I can write some text, submit it and it’s gone from my computer.”
I’m fairly technical and yet I was never sure how far my company’s restrictions extended. And restrictions like these tend to evolve, especially in response to security incidents, of which you may not even be aware.
Got it. So the concern is not your employer discovering your personal content (pretty sure I wouldn’t want mine to see my musings on life, career, family crises … ). Rather, it’s open-record requests and the like.
Then you probably want to avoid email, and I would guess that temp/cache files and the like aren’t a big worry.
I would think your best bet is probably something web based of your own, until they get the official one going.
Yep, this is exactly why I want it
Absolutely, but in this case I’m not worried about my organization do.