Log Book Keeping

As a engineer and a member of the IET I have tried a number of ways over the years of keeping a logbook. In my option keeping a well documented and up to date log book can be worth its weight in gold. But with technology advancing there are new ways to do this, but do they work and what is the best way forward.

The good old A4 red or blue hard back lined log book has been around for years. I worked with one cEng engineer that over a four year period went though sixteen or more of them. They were very well indexed and his written accounts were the equivalent of a J.R.R Tolkien for electronics engineers. He also used to account on management and the errors of their ways as well as crediting other engineers for their workmanship. Why? Well at the place we worked, management used to like reading them from time to time and for this ex Marconi engineer it was his way of poking back at them. The logs books were full of circuits, pasted in screen shots and traces from the scope. These were fantastic books and he could find anything in them. However to find entries without his help was taxing and took time.

With computers it’s much easier to search information so for many engineers it’s better to write up your logbook entries electronically. This means you search back for key words or project names and find the information much quicker. However I have not found a method or application that lets me use a electronic logbook that matches that of a hard back book.

First off some people use notepad or word, this is ok but notepad will not let you paste in scope traces or pictures. Word will allow this, but drawing a circuit either has to be done in a different application or you have to draw / sketch it by hand and then scan it in. Well if I’m going to do it by hand then I may as well write it up by hand too!?

Another option that I have used if to have a Wiki. Here at ebm-papst we have a design Wiki that we each have a page that we use as our logbook. Allows us to type up our daily life, record how long we spend on differing jobs, ie writing blogs! The Wiki also allows us to cross link to each other’s log books, as well as to dedicated project pages that we have set up. In fact the Wiki is designed to be a ebm-papst design wiki on just about anything we do from projects, log books or any other technical application we want to write up. Hence, becoming a collaborated resource of information that any of us can search.

It sounds like a fantastic way forward – but I still can’t scribble in drawings and for some reason I still find it hard to sit at a keyboard to write up notes. Computers are all very good but you can’t just lug them where ever you like. Ok I have a laptop but its not the sort of thing you can perch on your knee and take notes with, and there is no way I could draw in a drawing package with a track pad!

I’m guessing there are a few people thinking now that what I really need is an iPad – well you would be right, I want one anyway. But maybe in time someone will come out with a logbook app that allows me to do everything above, draw using a stylus and scribble notes on something that I can truly lug around under my arm. Ok I may not get away with dropping a iPad but it’s pretty much as close as you can get.

So unless someone knows of some killer application I can run on my Laptop, I think technology just has not caught up with my tatty old school, red hard back, lined log book and a blue Brio.