qwelog is the simple personal logger that's so easy, you'll use it.

To install, just do the following in your terminal (you may need to be root)
git clone https://github.com/dafyddcrosby/qwelog
cd qwelog
make install

To create a keyboard shortcut in GNOME 2, on the task bar click on 
System -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Then click 'add', put in 'qwelog' for the name and
'/usr/bin/qwelog' in the command, then apply. Click on the shortcut to set what
you want the keyboard shortcut to be.
