I like keeping an electronic journal, but I don’t like keeping it on
my home computer for reasons having to do not only with privacy but
with data loss. If I forget to back up my journal and my computer
burns down or something, I lose my memoirs. If it’s a real fire, and I
have my backups on site, I’ll lose them too.

One of the best places to keep digital data so that it’s easily
accessible is on the Web. Trouble is, if you put it in a blog, it’s a
hassle to add to it - not a big one, but enough to keep you from
being spontaneous. If you use one of the many online backup services,
you either end up paying or putting up with ridiculous storage limits
- then, if the company goes belly-up or you forget to pay them, you
can lose your data without having a fire. And they aren’t spontaneous,
either.

All of these problems can be addressed quite simply. Open up a
“secret” Gmail account, and post to it by e-mail. You don’t have to use
Gmail’s e-mail capability at all, but what else have you got? You’ve
got two-plus gigabytes of free private storage of anything you can
stuff into or attach to an e-mail message; world-class search
technology to help you find anything in your diary that your little
heart desires; a storage facility run by a multibillion dollar company
that’s fanatical about protecting data, isn’t about to go out of
business, and who, since it makes its revenue from (easily ignored)
advertising, won’t be asking you for money any time soon - if ever.
Backups? Google runs so many servers that they build their own! At
this writing they still require an invitation to get a Gmail account,
but any acquaintance of yours who’s got one will have dozens of
invitations, so just ask.

Voila! Secure storage, virtually unlimited, and the ease of writing a
simple note to keep your journal up to date. If you’re paranoid, you
can encrypt your stuff and store it as attached files, but frankly I
think it’ll be a cold day in hades before Google wants to read my
mail. And what if it does? First of all, I’ll never know it - and
who cares? Google doesn’t know me, and if I had anything incriminating to
write about at my age, I’d be bragging, anyway.