Explorations in TiddlyWiki land

I'm been enthralled by TiddlyWiki this past week or so. The more I dig into it, the more opportunities I find.

In my quest for the ultimate personal note taking applications I looked at various solutions, from the classical Office documents that are not flexible in terms of tagging pieces of content and organising a notebook like a diary.

At my work facility, we are using OneNote: it's got the versatility of adding pages easily in a set of hierarchical sections, sub-sections, pages and sub-pages. It can embed entire documents as well or link to them. But, with all its power, OneNote requires to be installed on all the computers that I am using for me to open my Notebook at various place at work and at home. I am a bit daunted by the complexity of of the whole OneNote application and have misgivings about its being around for a long time.

The next cool application I've been using is Web On a Stick (WOS), which is really a full blown web server running Apache and major open source applications, such as Drupal, Workdpress and MediaWiki to name a few. I've been using the latter extensively to record my thoughts, references and plans in a non-linear way. I found it very useful, also I am missing a Wisiwig interface, which I'm told exists as a plugin. I have not taken the time to install it though.

Now comes TiddlyWiki. I tried it a few months back and at the time simply did not get it. I did not know where to start with it, how to customise it to my liking and how it could be quickly put to work as a notebook. So last week, I came back to it on a whim, and this time it clicked. I was able to start using it as a daily journal and to record thoughts, things to do, now or later. And I have seen amazing applications of TiddlyWiki: whole web sites, GTD (Getting Things Done) documents, etc.

So what's to TiddlyWiki?
I like the fact that it's self-contained. I mean that the whole thing is in a single HTML document, which is fairly portable: all you need is a web browser on a machine which can run Linux, MacOs or even Windows ;-). Next, it's great to capture non-linear thinking, like going back to projects over time, and it help make all the links that one needs to retrieve things very quickly.

The basic concept is to encapsulate pieces of content (text, scripts, macros, pictures, links, podcasts or videos) in "tiddler" that you can tag (or have the system tag them for you), with a wiki style editor.

Then the interface, lets you organise your content, i.e. tiddler in a number of ways, having them appear or disapear at will on the page.

Gone is the tedious folder hierarchy, if you can name what you're looking for, you can retrieve it.
Last goodie for now: there is a dynamic and enthusiastic community of developers out there to make you life easier, including Jeremy Ruston , the creator of TiddlyWiki, Eric Shulman of ELS Design Studios, and many others.

Check it out!

Links of interest:
The TiddlyWiki Vault - thanks to Dave and Blanca Gifford
TiddlyWiki review by tifrap
Can't Live Without It, TiddlyWiki by Cynthia Russell

My Web2.0 Virtual Office

After reading this great post by Eric Dupin on "My life without software and with barely a computer" (sorry, the original text is in French), it came to me that it may be of interest to describe my personal productivity environment.

I've been using Windows, in various versions this past 18 years from 3.1 to XP in my work environment. Coming from the Apple IIe and Mac world in the pioneering years (1983 to 1989), the move was wrenching at the time, much like driving a Ford model T, after years of enjoying a classy Porsche 911. But, by work necessity, I tried to make the best of the IBM PC/Windows environment.

With the advent of the web, I recently took the decision to explore tools that would free me from the ever increasing race towards more cycle-hungry operating systems and thick desktop applications and would enable me to potentially work from any computer, wherever I am connected.

Although, my journey of discovery is far from being complete, here is were I am at this point. First, I decided to have a go at Linux as an alternative to Windows. So I erased the latter on a Thinkpad T22 that I bought about 5 years ago and installed PCLinuxOS, a distro that compares well with the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse etc. It's been fairly painless to install, although I had a bit of a struggle with the Broadcom wireless network card.

So, on this laptop, that I upgraded to 512Mb of RAM from the initial 256Mb, I am happy surfing the net with Firefox. I use Google Reader to check my suscribed feeds and I tag websites and resources of interest using del.icio.us. Google Notebook is a nice complement that helps me clip information of interest, categorize it and add notes on the fly.

Open Office seems to be a valid replacement for MS Office, although I have not completed the conversion yet. I think the next step is going to be about finding online replacements of these desktop productivity tools. The big advantages that I see in moving in that direction are:

• Storing files on a remote location enables the ability to share them with my friends and co-workers
• I can reference them in blogs or websites with their URL
• I don't need to think about backing them up, although having a copy somewhere is always a good idea

I am also a big user of mind mapping software. I like MindManager in Windows and I've tried FreeMind, an open source software which is OK for basic mind mapping in Linux. Recently, a friend indicated comapping, a mind mapping application that is completely hosted on the web and allows for co-editing of mind maps in real time and remotely. It's an impressive tool, with all needed conversion capabilities from and to freemind and MindManager. We intend to use it to record minutes of our teleconferences live.

Another area of growing interest for me is social networking, mainly through Linkedin and Viadeo. I find that in addition, I have a need for a contact manager to make sure that I follow up with my network contacts in a timely way. I've chosen Highrise, by 37signals, the providers of Basecamp, the project management tool of fame. It provides me with the necessary functionality to log my contact history, details and tasks. It's a great resource, even with the basic free license.

Lastly, I am addicted to Getting Things Done and use Todoist, a neat online facility with good flexibility and Gmail integration (which I haven't gotten around to testing so far).

What productivity applications have you found on the web that you particularly like?

Interesting link:
Linux and Open Source Blog (from which the picture above comes - thanks)

Post update at 18:03:
Check this article on CIO Magazine: Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X