Personal Removable Media Wiki

A currently utilized accessible media device can be used to contain a PersonalRemovableMediaWiki DonaldNoyes.ThinkingOutLoud.20120920.20140420

Replaces PersonalFlopiWiki

Managing the size (number) of pages in a PersonalWiki to make it portable, since the WikiEngine and its pages could reside on person removeable media such as

The first four are probably obsolete for current purposes (2014), and the last one (InternetFileSpace?) is the most versatile.

A friend of mine had a OnePileFilingSystem upon which he stacked the papers and correspondence he worked with. The most recently worked with paper was on top. When he had to go through his pile to find something he needed, he afterward placed the paper on the top of the pile. He purged the pile every so often by throwing away about 1/3 of the pages nearest the bottom since the least used or referred to pages would make their way downward. It was a sort of "RankedArray??" of information. He never had more than a couple hundred pages in his pile. It would all fit in his inbox.

This would be a GoodIdea for implementation, one which resides in a purposefully LimitedSizeWiki? so as to be contained on a media as small as a FloppyDisk?, or as large as a DvdRw?. -- DonaldNoyes

How achieved:

Each time a page is referred to, or when a page is created, it receives the ranking of the topmost page in the stack. which is either MaximumPageNumber? or the ranking of the top page plus one. If adding one to the top page results in a number greater than the maximum, The top page is assigned a number less than the maximum by at least ten or twenty, and the page ranking of those under it reduced by the same number (which has the effect of throwing away the bottommost pages. This would then be repeated periodically so that the maximum number of pages is always less than or equal to the set maximum.

Optionally the pages discarded from the floppy wiki could be stored in a directory on the host machine's hard drive. (This could make the pages which might be linked to remaining pages on the flopiWiki available by an InterWiki linking mechanism.

One might have several FlopiWiki? s, each on a separate floppy which might correspond to some organizing scheme associated with a member of a team, member of your family, categories, subject, or projects.

One might incorporate several pages similar to the TiddlerWiki? within the page base to extend the capabilities, thereby creating non-linear notebooks within it.

Content on a high activity limited size wiki would be limited to RecentChanges

You'd be limiting the entire wiki to RecentChanges basically.

With the PersonalFlopiWiki, the number of pages would be set to somewhere between 200 and 500 pages. (to be determined when the FlopiWiki? is finally a finished program.) This number might represent several months or as much as a year's worth of Changes (dependent on activity) If only 5 new pages occur for each day, the period resident might be up to 3 or more months. Pages that are changed would only be repositioned at the top, and would not add to the number of pages resident. Remember I'm talking about a Personal (or Subject) Wiki, so the activity would not be like this wiki where typical activity is nearly 100 active pages with 15 being new pages

Wikipedia allows you to list the last 50, 100, 250, 500 or even 1000 changes. I mean, yes the time factor is gone but still, I think it would be like reducing the wiki to RecentChanges.

Scaling Extends Time and Residency

However this concept could be scaled to a larger media and the much higher limit of pages with a corresponding greater length of residence. Since we live in an age where relevant information becomes archaic fairly rapidly, this concept might be useful in maintaining manageable sizes and content that is relevant. With the larger scaling the content might correspond to RelevantChanges? or Developments.

If the media is changed to a ZipDrive or a FlashDrive?, the number of pages one can store increases 100 to 750 fold over a simple floppy. (Presently FlashDrives? hold from a few hundred Megabytes to 32 Gigabytes, ZipDrives? now can contain from 100-750 Megabytes).

-- DonaldNoyes

Donald: Perhaps I'm 'spoiled' by having too many toys, but all I did was drop RyanNorton's WxWikiServer version of EddiesWiki onto a usb drive that I plug into my lap top while I'm out and about or my home or work systems or any internet cafe while I am travelling. Given the price performance of these devices and their ubiquitous usefullness, I did not see any reason to spend my time writing code. -- HansWobbe.

Hans: A FlopiWiki? is a misnomer. But since this page was started when they were the things you put in your shirt pocket instead of a bunch of punched cards, the name persists. A usb drive works fine and I have one which holds 500gb which just fits! But since that is overkill for what would be within a FlopiWiki?, I carry instead a small 4 gig SD flash card and a small usb adapter, so I can use it in either way with my laptop, or any other device (including my camera) that utilize it. (Even my All-In-One Canon MX330 can use it - scanning in a jpg mode, I can include Hand Written Notes, Calendars with scribbles, Receipts, Business Cards, Tasks Listed, digitized photos, and myriads of other stuff. This is part of my strategy.

Added to that strategy recently is WikiBatics and document display Via Kindle, which reads pdf files directly. Perhaps one might load segments of WardsWiki assembled via WikiBatics to it.

You may carry around PersonalWiki when there is no internet connection but at least you have an access to a computer (with a usb port).

I am experimenting with this idea these days.

I am using a wiki written in Python. I turned the python scripts into an exe file with py2exe. I put them on my usb 2.0 flash memory. When I am at home or office, I attach the usb memory to the computer and I have a PersonalWiki running there. When I am outside with my notebook computer but have no wireless access, I can still use the WikiOnPortableStorage.

You may do this with iPod series as well.

-- JuneKim

This is a fantastic idea. Can we figure out how to make a wiki server that will autostart on any pc, mac or linux? That would be truely awesome.

Is WikiOnPda address that need? Or do you want portable WirelessDevices to serve pages to other people besides yourself? -- dl

For Windows XP SP2 and above, you can create a file called "autorun.inf" in the root of your USB drive partition, containing something like: 

 [autorun]
 action=View or Edit Wiki
 shellexecute=\path\to\mywiki.html  [If you're using a browser-based wiki like TiddlyWiki]
 open=\path\to\mywikiapp.exe        [If you're using an executable wiki like WikidPad]
 icon=\path\to\someicon.ico         [Optional]
 label=My USB Key                   [Optional]
The path to the document, executable, or icon should start with a backslash, but it's relative to the root of the USB partition (since the drive letter can change).

FlexWiki has fantastic support for this through the fwsync program. That allows you to download the whole wiki, edit it, and then submit your changes back (after merging them in). This works really well for someone who wants to TakeTheWikiHome?, or TakeTheWikiOnATrip.

TiddlyWiki and the other "one-file" browser-based wikis on PersonalWiki work very well for this. If you put one of these on a USB driver, you can view and edit your Wiki on any computer with a USB port and a JavaScript-capable browser

Hi, just came across this page. A couple of years ago, I developed/configured a wiki on a memory stick. It is jspwiki running on jetty, and will run on PC or MAC. I called it notestik. It autostarts on older versions of windows, but newer versions are fussier about letting apps start. Notestik starts up with a little tutorial and when the server has started, the tutorial allows you to switch over to the wiki. Initially empty, you can put whatever you want in there (of course). JspWiki is serious strength, and could support a team without any problems. Search works etc.

If you want one , contact me at noelbbyrne@gmail.com

Regards, Noel

CategoryOrganization

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