Exploring Wikis: Tiddlywiki

TiddlywikiThe genius of the Tiddlywiki is its simplicity. The wiki is a self contained single html file that has inside it all the code formatting and data that magically becomes a wiki when viewed with a browser.


Thus the tiddlywiki could run off a webserver like apache or carried around in a laptop or USB drive. You could also have your Tiddlywiki  hosted online.

Tiddlywiki has the ability to be customized. Snippets of functionality, referred to as Tiddlers developed by a vibrant community of developers, can be  imported into a tiddlywiki as required by the user. The "tiddly tool" include contact/address books, clocks, browser,Mindmap tools, GTD tools and more.

 Many customized versions of Tiddlywiki are available, thanks to the efforts of these developers Below are a few useful links from Lifehacker for those who choose to explore this little marvel:

Host your TiddlyWiki at Tiddlyspot
GTD Tiddlywiki
Monkey GTD Tiddlywiki
Adding an addressbook to Tiddlywiki
Tiddlywiki Student Edition
TiddlyVault

TiddlyTools
Grab Text for your TiddlyWiki with TiddlySnip

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Exploring Wikis: Instiki

Instiki

Instiki is another tool used to build Wikis. It is built using Ruby on Rails and runs as a standalone server. It can run on Linux, Windows and Mac.

It provides the usual features of wikis including version control, access to multiple authors,etc.
In addition, it provides the ability to add RSS feeds to postings, regular expression search,etc.

The instiki website lists many web websites that use instiki. This wiki is a easy to install and decently user friendly. I have it instaleed on an XP box on my home server. In my experience, itis slow across my home network.

Have you used instiki? How? Please let me know your experience with this wiki tool.

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Exploing Wikis: Mediawiki

Mediawiki


The word wiki is derived froma Hawaiian word for 'fast'. A wiki is a collaborative website used by individuals and organizations used for the organization and management of knowledge. A wiki can be easily edited by all those authorized to edit it. Typically wikis make it easy to edit,add new pages, make changes to existing pages or revert to previous versions of pages in the wevbsite. To enable this functionality, Wikis keep track of changes made to them.

Individuals can use wikis for note taking. Students could use a wiki as a collaborative tool. At MIT the project teams I belonged to used Wikis for knowledge,schedule and status management. Organizations use wikis to track projects, maintain manuals, to brainstorm ideas and as a repository to share and access information.

A wiki can have one or more adminstrators who may set the access privileges(read or write) to all those who use the wiki. In these series of articles we will take a look at several tools used to create wikis.
Wikipedia is probably the most well-known wiki. Theoretically it is the
encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The reality is that there are only some authorized to make changes to Wikipedia. Dedicated administrators monitor Wikipedia and act as gatekeepers to its contents. In these series of articles we will look at different tools used to create wikis.

Mediawiki
Do you want to make a wiki out of the same raw-material used to create Wikipedia? You can and you can do it for free. Mediawiki can help you set up the wiki. Earlier we took a look at XAMPP a software application suite that creates a website with the Apache webserver and has it running in minutes. Once you set up your Apache webserver with the MySql database, you can quicky install MediaWiki to it.

When you do install Mediawiki, you have a wiki that has the look and feel of Wikipedia. Lifehacker has a couple of great articles on installing and running Mediawiki. Mediawiki installed on a websever on your home network may be a great way to collaborate with family members and share useful information.

I plan to write about several tools used to build wikis. I'd like to if you have favourite wiki application and if you do what you like about it. Please answer this query in the comments below.
Related articles:
Customize MediaWiki into Your Ultimate Collaborative Web Site
Geek to Live: Set up your personal Wikipedia
Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick

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