One of the best freeware programs for the Mac was from Dan Schimpf called MacJournal. It was a notebook, day planner, diary, journal, and personal organizer all rolled up in one. As of 2005, MacJournal 3.0 will be owned and distributed by Mariner Software and it will be a commercial product. There is a sale going on right now that runs until Jan. 21st, 2005, and it will allow you to purchase the new MacJournal 3.0 for only $19.95. After that, it will cost you $29.95.

The new version is a nice improvement and is just the beginning of what you can expect from MacJournal in the coming months. I love the new blogging abilities and the look and feel of the program has matured with this latest release. Here is the feature list:

• Online blogs supporting LiveJournal, Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, and more

• 2-D Quartz rendering technology making graphically rich journals
• Nested, multiple journals and Entry Keywords efficiently organizing your entries. Have one for your work log, and have another for your personal journal.
• Password protection and AES-256 encryption providing maximum strength security
• Multiple file formats, exporting your data to Microsoft Word, RTF, HTML, and more
• Rich Text Editing where individual entries can have multiple colors, fonts, kerning, spacing; really anything you want. In addition, you can now drag image files from the file into entries! Rulers can also be displayed to further help you align things.
• Powerful searching capabilities to search all of the entries in all of your journals with one click.
• Print any entry to a printer or PDF file.

• Mac OS X Toolbar functions are available as items in the customizable toolbar in the main window.
• Spellcheck while composing entries.

• MacJournal backs up any and all activity within the product.
• Complimentary support to help solve questions or issues.

[Continue reading MacJournal 3.0: A Rebirth of Sorts]