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”
