Review

By SARAH KLEIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 14, 2003

It's My Diary

• Systems: Windows/Macintosh
• Company: JournalTEK
• Price: $29.95

It's My Diary is a very neat program. It's an electronic diary where you can stash memories. It is a scrapbook, too, with separate pockets for family, school, relationships, holidays and other subjects. You can personalize these labels; I changed "sports" to "story themes."

The first thing I like about this program is that it's very private. If you want to get in, you have to enter your name and password exactly as you did the first time you used the program.

Diary entries are arranged by date. After you have selected a password, you may pick a background design. You may choose from backgrounds called astrologica, enviro, groovy kaleidoscope, romantica, spiral, Y2k or antiqua. My favorite is enviro, which is blue and has little dolphins and turtles. But you can switch to a different background, such as astrologica, which is dark blue with moons and stars.

The scrapbook allows you to insert pictures, text, videos or audio. I put in my favorite paintings, which I had drawn on the computer, by clicking on "picture" and moving the file from my documents section. It's really cool! But you can't file a picture under one of the subjects, such as holidays. Instead, you have to retrieve pictures by the date you filed them.

A child who wants to keep many secrets from a pesky brother or sister would definitely enjoy this software.

-- SARAH KLEIN, Times correspondent

Personal Tech today