Wiki on a stick

No, its not the latest fair food, but it is tasty! I think everyone knows what a Wiki is due to the enormous popularity of Wikipedia, the online user editable encyclopedia. While Wikipedia is an amazing way to put a Wiki to work, its not the only way. Some people have written books with Wiki software, made their personal webpages, etc., while most Wiki software needs a database and webserver, thats not true for all.

While looking for a way to track projects, to-dos, calls, contacts, etc. I came across TiddlyWiki. TiddlyWiki is a way to have your own personal Wiki that you can take with you on a memory stick. All you need to edit the Wiki is an open USB port and a web browser, you don’t even need to be connected to the web. A TiddlyWiki doesnt take up much space on your stick either, because its a single file webpage. I have two TiddlyWikis that help me stay on top of projects currently and neither is even close to 1MB in size! I can view and edit my Wiki’s on my Mac at home and my PC at work. It works better with Firefox, but will work with IE. I absolutely love the flexibility to get at, edit and use my information. Oh, and adding information to your personal Wiki could not be easier than, clicking a button to add a new post, naming the post and begin typing the info, choosing a tag and clicking save.

Lets talk a little bit about the power of a personal Wiki. A personal Wiki can bring together a Calendar, Contacts, Todo lists, small chunks of information, dated posts, if you can put it in a Word document, it can go in a Wiki. Need a blog, available only to you? Need to keep snippets of code you use often in one place? I found TiddlyWiki while looking for a way to keep chunks of information that I get from all over that apply to a certain subject together. Pictures, info from emails, contacts, links, snippets of data from documentation- I could go crazy searching in many different places for that one thing I need. Now I can search my Wiki, look at it by date, or tag the information based on what I find important (i.e. contacts) and later look or search for the information based on my tags. Plus, since its a webpage, you can link information from one post to another, out to the web or over to files on your PC.

In order to make full use of your Wiki, you will have to learn a new way to make the posts look like you want. When I say “look like you want” I mean ordered lists, headers, colored text, nested lists, etc. Its not as simple as using a text editor where you highlight and click a button, but I wouldn’t call it difficult. Please dont let this deter you! But to get started, really you only need to know a few simple codes, and the rest you can learn as you go. TiddlyWikis and its derivatives include a post that has examples of how to make your text pretty. Also you may want to tweak the interface a little, cleaning up posts that are included by default. But maybe thats just me, its a webpage, so I feel the need to tinker.

There are many flavors of TiddlyWiki’s, so it should be easy to find one that fits your needs.
Original TiddlyWiki
(If you find that this flavor works for your needs, you can skin it, with prettier colors)
TiddlyWiki GTD**
TiddlyWiki GTD Plus**
Always Online? Want to have your Tiddly hosted for free? Try one of these:
Tiddlyspot
Monkey GTD**

**GTD stands for Getting Things Done. Learn more here.

Whew, longest post in a while. I am just so exited that I found a good way to keep track of all the little bits of information I have to keep track of. Take some time, click the links, read the opening page and see if you need a Wiki on a stick.