Monday, June 9, 2014

Wiki On A Stick-- like a pile of cards in your pocket.

It is Monday... a good day to talk about something I love, called “Wiki on a stick” (0.13.0 Beta 1)


My uncle Dick was an engineer, he would always have a stack of IBM cards in his shirt pocket-- you may not remember them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card) but they were great... he wrote little notes to himself on them, phone numbers, to do lists, combinations for locks... directions.

Fast forward 20 years, to the early days of Apple Computers, and the creation of “HyperCard”-- a sort of program for early Mackintoshes, which presented hyper-linked “cards” – the predecessor of web pages, which you could navigate around and between by clicking. It took a bit of work to create a new card, and to put comments onto the cards, but the stack was modifiable by the user...

Of course now one has big Wikis (from wiki wiki = “quickly” in Hawaiian) like Wikipedia to manage information on a large scale, and thousands of people work on structuring the information for simple access and navigation.

But I want the old thing my uncle had... a stack of cards that fit in my pocket-- but electronic, private and free. It can handle little notes I write down-- perhaps a poem I find on Face**** or a book suggestion. I want to be able to find all these poems by searching for “poem” without having to remember secret keywords or processes.

The solution I have found, which is a single “HTML” file that resides on my computer, is “WOAS” or Wiki On A Stick. It could live on a memory stick-- it doesn't need a database (as many Wikis do) and it is dead simple to use. You access it from a browser that is capable of saving .html files (I use Firefox, Chrome and IE also work-- though you may have to add a browser extension called TiddlyFox)

Click “New Page” to create a new page
Write in a title, write in or paste in the content, save it.
Done.

You can also make lists of pages, set it up for making a diary (search for “diary” – it will tell you how to modify the file to allow diary entries)

You can encrypt some or all the pages, so nobody else can see the content. This is especially useful for diary entries. I don't think you can search encrypted pages-- haven't tried.

Then I can make connections: Good poems or readings for funerals. Sermons I liked, sermons I preached, readings I have used, good places to eat... the links can be anything!
You can also create whole websites with this, then cut and paste the content-- or there is an export function that makes normal, non-modifiable HTML (for example, for a resume or a posting on Blogger!)

I have not yet found the holy grail – a private, confidential stack that also works with Android... but since I tend to use my WOAS for written content, rather than whatever Android is good for, I am happy with it on my PC. (I still can't cut and paste on my tablet... and typing is a chore)

I suppose if I put the .html file on “box” or “dropbox” shared with my Android, then it would appear as a file on my android and I could at least navigate through it to retrieve information.

Please tell the folks who are working on this free project that you love their work, and maybe even send them $10 to say thank you.

Then start clicking and collecting your own “stack of punch cards”