Privacy & Security: here are some more comments from the survey

“My journal is very personal, I don’t think I would like it to be available online, or to have workers that would put it together for me look through it”

“I would be concerned about the privacy. My journal isn’t something I want the whole world to have internet access to.”

“What are the chance of someone hacking into the system? It may happen!”

“I would not want an online journal, because if someone found out my password, they could break in and read my journal. I would literally rather die! Also, I think a journal is the best when authentic. Sometimes i type my entried when pressed for time, but actually writing down my entry, I believe is more valuable. Good idea about the pictures though. I would be interested in some kind of online, photo journal, with each photo put a little snip it about where it took place, or what you did, and then have it bound, in book style, now that would be cool. Interesting survey!”

Response: Privacy and security are super important. We are building into pyxlin’ a 128 MB encryption password login. We will be writing a blog post about this issue later, but that encryption is the same encryption used for online Banking.

Handwriting Comments

“I think that this is an interesting idea with great potential. However, to me, half of the value of journal writing is having it handwritten. Also, some feelings cannot be expressed in a typewritten record like they can be with a pen and paper. If my journals were put into a book, or online, I would feel like the personal and human side of it was lost.”

“i think this is a really great idea! i love the fact that you would be able to pull it up at anytime and see all the past entries! the only thing i would miss but i am grown up now would be to see the handwriting and how it changes but i guess it wheres out so i love this idea!”

Response: Yes for many, handwriting is a huge deal and yes I think that it looses something. I suppose you just have to weigh out the pros and cons. Handwriting vs Speed, Photos, Security, Usability, and Archive. pyxlin’ will not be for everyone.

Here is another great comment:

“This differs from Google’s services (blogs, sweet email(aka: journal), etc) by making it printable into a book, but I’m not going to pay money for stuff Google already provides for me. I think what you’re doing is great, but unless I am capable of customizing the book PRECISELY (before printing), then quite frankly I’m not really interested. I would suggest that you get into the AJAX programming that Google utilizes to create little web apps so a person can interactively position pictures, text, etc. Particularly Google Notebook and Google Docs, as they already have a built-in publish to PDF feature. If I could send you a PDF and you could print my book exactly as the PDF looks and then send it back to me (including several options for page sizes, etc) then you have yourself a customer.”

Response: I loved this comment. Everything this person talked about from customizing PRECISELY to AJAX are already in the works. We are currently building the world’s first online typesetting system (meaning you won’t be stuck with internet fonts). I think you will be pleased.