I'm writing somewhat off topic today but I feel that this is justified. On the left hand side of the site in the Links section you will see David RM Journal and I want to focus on this great piece of software today. I've had this software since 2003 and pretty much use it every day.

When you first look at the software you might think that it provides an effective journal but look deeper and you will find much more. The basic concept is to provide you with a way to record pretty much anything you want to, you can make daily, weekly, monthly entries, provide loose leaf sections to write notes, books or many other things.

The Journal allows you to insert graphics, it can create tables, there are are a whole host of reminder functions and with some creativity you can format templates so that each time you need to record specific information there is a template that you can use to help save time and effort.

David Michael is the author and is continually communicating with the software users. There is a Yahoo forum where users can put their views on enhancements and where problems can be solved (although there are never many of those).

For bloggers the Journal is ideal as it has the facility to post directly to a whole range of blogs (Blogger, Typepad and WordPress just some examples). For me this is an ideal solution, I can type my post in the Journal and then write it directly to the blog so I know I always have a copy to refer to on my computer.

There is a monthly newsletter that shows how many different ways people have found for using the software, it's really quite enlightening what some people get up to when the creative muse is upon them!

The Journal software is $39 for the basic package although there are add-on packages which can be purchased to add even greater functionality.

So, if you are looking for an indispensable piece of software then the Journal would be a true candidate in my view.