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Engineer Journals

Engineer Journals

Engineer Journals

(OP)
Hello Group,

If this belongs in a different forum, please point me in the right direction.
Engineers sometimes keep journals to log their daily activities, and work results.  I am looking for software that serves this purpose.  It should be able to easily combine text, images, videos, flowcharts, and sound clips into a single entry, while maintaining a pleasant appearance, and ease of use.
Blogs, accessible through the intranet, were considered, but I do not think the typical blog format is suitable for the task. If you use blogs for this purpose, please let me know.
Is anyone aware of software that is built for this purpose?

RE: Engineer Journals

You might take a look into 2007 Microsoft Access I opened it once and found it was way different than the 2003 version. I Dont know if this will help but its worth checking into.

RE: Engineer Journals

MS Outlook has a Journal tab.

RE: Engineer Journals

I don't keep a strict journal, but I use MS outlook notes for important entries/records of informal telecons, etc.

RE: Engineer Journals

(OP)
I don't think MSOutlook will be able to incorporate all the data types.  I failed to mention it before, but I would like the program to be stored and run from a server.  I starting to lean towards an intranet blog.  I've heard Word Press is good.

RE: Engineer Journals

go buy a journal book and write your entries or daily activities.  I find that by writing daily entries in a journal logbook, I can remember far better than relying on a dam computer.  yes, important work must be documented as this relates to your accomplishments.  usually, after a year or so of retaining documentation or related material, i end up discarding that material.  Yes, I still have my journals dating back to the late 80's.  Only about a dozen and they do not take up much space.

I know/understand, it is a personal choice and your situation may be different (i.e. legal wise).

good luck!
-pmover

RE: Engineer Journals

Have you looked into PowerPoint for combining all those different media?

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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RE: Engineer Journals

(OP)
No, I have not looked into PowerPoint.  I will, now that you mentioned it.  Thanks.

RE: Engineer Journals

You should take a second look at MS Outlook & the Journal function.

A Journal entry can keep as file inserts all file types.  It does not display them, but it keeps them.  You can double click on any of the inserted file to open up and view.  And you can email the Journal entry around, including all inserted files.

You also have the capability of stashing all relevant emails in a Journal entry.  You can also log time for discussions, set appointments, categorize, etc etc etc.  There's some powerful functionality in MS Outlook, despite all the hate mail and invective Bill Gates receives.

But one thing you should consider is whether or not your work will ever wind up in a courtroom on a liability case.  Then handwritten log entries in a bound research note book is essential.  Any electronic entry can be forged and won't necessarily hold up under scrutiny of the court.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Advanced Robotics & Automation Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com

RE: Engineer Journals

I'd be hesitant to keep a lot of stuff in Outlook, after suffering a disaster from the "2Gb bug", which afaik is still not fixed.

Outlook keeps everything in one big file.  Okay, fine.  The file can be no bigger than 2Gb, because of filesystem limitations that existed when it was first written.  Okay, fine.  It gives you a warning when the file is almost 2Gb.  Okay, fine.

Problem: The warning comes too late.  When you get it, the file is already too big for Outlook to handle.  MS offered a downloadable 'fix', a program to truncate the file.  It does; it truncates it in such a way that the file is still quite large, but _all_ of your data is gone.  Unrecoverable.

Photos, and especially videos, will cause the file to grow too large quite rapidly.  Then they are gone.  Data.  Photos.  Videos.  Everything.

I have takne to using Notepad to keep text files for each project, with related files in the same subdirectory, in their native form.  

Putting all your eggs in one basket leaves you susceptible to basket failures.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Engineer Journals

Blogs require too much coding if you need to do anything except just type words, so I agree with not using one.  I also don't recommend relying on Outlook, also having lost much recently.  MS Word might give you what you need, but its file sizes and bloat quick.  A drag and drop blog would be good.  Don't think that exists yet.

Matt
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
sw.fcsuper.com
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group

RE: Engineer Journals

One of the engineers here was using a software that basically created a .html or xml format document as I recall, kind of a web page.

I can't find the details now and he got canned a little while ago.

I didnt' like it much because although I could view the files I couldn't cut and paste from them etc.

Also he just created a file for each project so it wasn't a comprehensive log as such.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Engineer Journals

I used to just use a website. New entries went in at the top. If I felt like it I'd write separate pages on some results, or else just use pdfs.

The advantage was that EVERYTHING on my pc could be linked to it.

The disadvantage was that it was a bit difficult to back up. I can't see that it is more difficult to back up than anything else though.

My internal customers really liked it, which makes a change from writing reports that elicit no comments.

I used to handcode the html, since basically you only need to know about 4 html tags to write a page.

The format was strictly


title

words

picture

link

repeated ad infinitum





Cheers

Greg Locock

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RE: Engineer Journals

I just use MS Word whenever I need to write something down that I may want to search for later.

I try to keep things simple, and easy to use, with little investment in the setup because Lord knows, it takes forever to write it down. smile

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Engineer Journals

I've never kept a journal as such.  In the old days, I used to create "howto" documents in simple text documents.  I include the basic stuff (anything I don't know) as well as the quirky stuff (things you really ought to know before you venture into this).

Nowadays I create them in HTML in a public directory.  Whenever I have to go back to it or work on the same thing again, I update the "howto" with any new bits.

It means that other people can also look at what I've done or just read all I know about it without having to bother me.

What's surprising is that these files have been burned on CD and are still being used on site, years after I've left the company.

RE: Engineer Journals

If you have the entire MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook) then add MS project, and Visio --- you have everything necessary to keep track of all of your activities -- and everything is able to be e-mailed, copied, printed and combined into a single document. A journal will reference all of the related docs.

Just my opinion but has worked well for me. Just organize the folder, sub folders, and file names accuratly.  

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