set up a wiki

I uploaded DokuWiki to my webspace (http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki) and it was easy as pie.

This wiki is php based, but does not rely on MySQL which made things a little easier. Saves pages as text files. I am playing with MediaWiki which looks more powerful – but having fun (not!) with MySQL right now.

I’ve been aware of the whole personal wiki thing for a while, and was interested in trying it out, but never did because (1) it seemed too techy and difficult and (2) I didn’t know what I’d use it for. But there’s something I’m working on now that requires some way of organising my thoughts and ideas, as well as keeping track of links, references, things to do, sources of info, document structure, etc.; I was planning to attempt to do it on paper, but it occurred to me that I finally had a good reason to try out a wiki. So I did, and it’s been great so far. Not hard to learn to use, and it’s been good for bringing a bit of organisation and structure to my sometimes rambling and unfocussed thought process.

I used PBWiki, which is both hosted and free, so nothing to download and install and nothing to pay. So easy, a very useful tool, definitely one I could see myself using for other things (though I’m not sure just yet what those other things might be).

Yep, I set up my wiki at www.blatantlyhelpful.org and it was very very easy…

First I installed XAMP (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) then I installed MediaWiki (http://www.nat32.com/xampp/wiki.htm).

Then, every time my mind crystalizes around a new idea, I incorporate it into my private wiki.

Cool, huh? :-)

from instiki.org. Running on my USB key. It installs in two steps, and is about 3 MB configured. Quick, dirty, ruby, and easy!

Went with MediaWiki, the same stuff that powers Wikipedia. It’s really cool.

more tech to learn.