P-140 Electronic LogBook

The goal of this project is to replace word processors and text documents for general purpose note taking. I use these documents myself, and they are suboptimal for regular and extensive note-taking. They usually do not have adequet searching or organisation functions for individual “notes”, and treat the entire document as a single block of text.

There are surprisingly few logbook type programs out there, most of them seems to be either text processors, or build into complex time management or team projects software. My aim is to create a simple program designed to automate and simplify regular notetaking.

One of the unique features I am thinking of adding is file integrity verification. This is where the hash of a file is stored somewhere secure, such as a server, every time the file is legitimately saved by the program, and compared to the current hash during verification. If the program has been modifed (IE if the log has been falsified, dates changed, etc) the hashes will not match, and the verification will fail. By requiring each user to enter a password before changing a file, and preventing even logged in users from changing dates, data integrity can be guaranteed. This would make the log program very useful in a legal context, if the contents of the log were subjects to an intellectual property lawsuit. Being able to prove that a certain entry was made at a certain date, could help win a case. Writing in a regular note-taking program would not have this feature, and dates could be easily modified.

I have discovered that, in many cases, paper log books are “Legal Instruments“, while electronic log books are less likely to have this status. Having a program like mine, with data verificiation, could change that.
Patent lawsuits and IP lawsuits are very common, and inventors, engineers, and scientists could use any tool they can get to protect themselves.

I have also considered adding some support for team projects. This program would not be designed to compete with dedicated team project solutions, but I could add a feature to allow certain users be added to teams, and to read the logs of other team members. This could improve efficiency and communication within a team, and also reduce the learning curve of new members joining a project which is already underway.

I wish to also allow the user to update the logbook from multiple computers or locations, by using some kind of client server architecture. Since the main logbook program will not be located on a server, I will have to have the user specify one of the logbook programs as the “master”, and every other logbook program will sync with this. So, for example, if the master program is the users development machine, and they go home and work on their log on their laptop, the contents of the laptop’s log will be synced with the master log the next time they switch the development machine on. This is similiar to how some email programs work, and avoids the need to have an always-on server.