TiddlyWiki For The World!

Tagged as: Geek, Useful Apr 15

You might have heard of a wiki. Then again, you also might not have heard one it. It’s a method of displaying user-modifiable content. That is, it can be changed by the people looking at it. This is different than things like this blog where I and I alone get to write. The wiki has been gaining notoriety since it allows the collaboration of knowledge, especially over the Internet.

The name wiki gets its name from Ward Cunningham, developer of the very first wiki. It’s actually Hawaiian in origin (wiki means fast), but you can read more about that at Wikipedia’s (appropriate since it’s one of the most well known wikis) page on the wiki.

The TiddlyWiki

So now that we’ve got the foundation knowledge in place, I wanted to share about the TiddlyWiki. (It still strikes me as an amusing name.) It is touted as a personal non-linear personal web notebook. I like to think of it as a central place where you can store whatever you want. It’s pretty easy to use after some initial adjustment. It is a single html file just like any old webpage.

To use it just open it up in any web browser, and you’re ready to go. Double-click on things to change them, and you can start creating new tiddlers (entries) and deleting ones that you don’t need. Saving your changes saves the information into that exact same html file. So all of the data and the framework are contained within a single file. As long as you have a web browser, you can modify your file. And what computer out there doesn’t have some sort of a web browser nowadays?

This file is the perfect size for a portable usb drive. It starts off empty at about 250KB, but it doesn’t grow all that quickly since only the new text that is added is stored.

The TiddlyWiki is a method that is open to different uses. And there are many.

Some uses for TiddlyWiki

• Web Journal - save links and articles that you find online
• Blog - extremely easy to write and publish (just put the html file on a web server and it’s published)
• Personal Journal - just have the file with you wherever you are, and it’ll be safe from prying eyes
• Collaborate on projects - one person can write and the changes will be instantly available for anyone else to see

There are many ways to store information. You could write it on paper, you could just remember everything, you could use a Microsoft Word document, whatever. So here are some reasons why you’d use a TiddlyWiki instead of one of those other methods.

Advantages of TiddlyWiki

• Basic tags (which allow you to quickly see all entries with a particular tag)
• Quick searching as you type into the search box
• Self-contained (it’s a single file)
• Portable (I guess that’s always relative, but it’s small in size)
• Interactive feel

Server-side Implementations

Personally I’ve been using a version of this that’s on my server. I tried a couple of different products, but MiniTiddlyServer was the easiest and most straightforward for my PHP-enabled server. All I needed to do was download the zip file, put it onto my server, and off I went! Update: Check out my own TiddlyWiki

For those without their own server, TiddlySpot seems like a reasonable free solution.

My Reminder System

Tagged as: Idea, Learn, Tip-For-Life, Useful Mar 14

Remembering something is usually a case of you did or you didn’t. I’ve often found it amusing for things like birthdays when people will say that they remembered, but they just didn’t say anything about it. Really…well that’s hard to imagine.

The thing is, some people have better memories than others. Everyone is different and is able to remember things in different ways. Laugh if you must, but I remember wanting a photographic memory like Cam Jansen when I was a kid. Then I could rapidly flip through books and not need to study! How wonderful that would have been! But alas, my dreams did not come true. Even now I often wish for a better memory.

But just as remembering something is pretty binary (i.e. you did or you didn’t), those of us lacking in the memory department have to make do with what we have. Otherwise we will be mocked. Who will mock, I do not know. All I know is that mocking will occur.

3 Memory Aids That I Use:

1. Remember The Milk

   (RTM for short)

   Besides having a pretty amusing name, this is a website whose sole purpose is to create TODO lists. It’s refreshing for a website to be so singular in its purpose in this day of do-everything-until-we-take-over-your-life websites. In any case, I initially signed up for an account on the site, thought it was cool, and promptly did not hardly ever use it because visiting another site everyday wasn’t too practical.

   But then they developed a Firefox extension that changed that up! They developed an extension for placing an RTM pane whenever a Gmail tab is opened! It maintains the overall look and feel of gmail so you (or at least I) don’t feel like it’s out of place at all. Since I much more often have a browser tab open for Gmail, I was much more able to use the service. And I have. And it’s great!

   The concept is nothing new, you just put in due dates. But since it’s in front of my face at least once a day (since I check my e-mail once a day), it’s actually useful. And it’s on a remote server so I don’t need to worry about losing it or keeping different lists in sync.

   So there are 2 ways to use this baby:

   • Gmail for RTM extension
   • RTM website

   Either will do, just do.

2. Phone calendar

   Okay so I don’t have a smart phone. But that doesn’t mean that my phone is dumb! (Ha…ha…)

   But almost all phones nowadays have some sort of calendar feature. And that’s fine and dandy for checking what the date is. But there is often also the ability to schedule events. So I use my phone (a Motorola, by the way) and put in reminders for certain things that I need to get done.

   This is especially useful when I’m out and about. Often my phone is one of the few things that I’ll carry with me. I could actually text message a reminder to RTM which is cool. But I’ll be honest, I’m cheap when it comes to text messaging. And Verizon charges $.15 per message. For the amount of reminders that I put in for myself, that could get pricey. Haha laugh if you want, but the calendar reminders are free.

3. Google Calendar

   Calendars have been around for ages. The print versions are still quite popular and understandably so. But as computer usage becomes more and more prevalent, we are transferring much of the things that we do in tangible form to things that we can do through using the computer.

   Personally I use the Google calendar, but really there are many such applications floating around. I figure that I already have a Gmail account, so why not. (Of course, this line of reasoning sounds that in my post Google’s Taking Over The World…And I Don’t Like It.)

   Anyways, a nice feature of Google calendar is that I can have it e-mail me before the event occurs. I don’t use the application everyday, but awhile back I input all of my friends’ birthdays. Now it will e-mail me the day before someone’s birthday, so I’ll never egregiously forget a friend’s birthday!

   Granted, it’d be better if I just remembered. It would show that I care more. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I don’t want to make a mistake! It’s my failsafe, if you will.

   • Google Calendar website

Do you have other tips for fellow forgetful fellows (or gals)?

Yelp Like You Love It

Tagged as: Food, Review, Useful Mar 03

One thing that the Internet is an amazing tool for is the ability to draw on collective knowledge. By being so easy to reach more people, we are able to better understand things. We can, as a society, collaborate and pool our individual pieces of the puzzle to form a more completely picture. I’m getting away from myself with the metaphors. Anyways, I think that one of the more useful applications of this for me is yelp.com.

Basically I like to eat, and yelp helps me do that well.

So yelp isn’t at all a new website, and I kind of think that a lot of people have already heard of and/or used it before. But it doesn’t matter because you know what? I get to post whatever I want to since this is my site.

I meant to post this quite some time back, but I’ve been sitting on this post for a really long time. And the only reason is because I wanted to upload a picture before I posted a link to my yelp page. How lame is that? How hard is it to get a profile picture nowadays? It took me all of 2 minutes to accomplish that strenuous task.

Personally I’ve found this site to be pretty helpful, and I think that it’s worthwhile to me to be involved with it. The premise is that reviews will be made by people that actually go to different establishments. While I use the site mainly for food, they do have reviews of everything from shopping to entertainment to health centers.

The most useful thing to me seems to be that you can limit your search by location and see a map of where these places are in relation to where you are. Because even though I might be looking for some amazing food, I’m not exactly willing to drive 50 miles to get said amazing food into my mouth. But 5 miles for some pretty reasonably tasty food? Yeah I could go for that. You can also further filter the results based on more specific criteria such as food ethnicity.

Running off of a 5-star system, it’s easy to quickly see how popular a restaurant is. For more in depth (and often rather interesting) reviews, there are the user comments. These usually range from the short and not-too-helpful to the long and exceedingly useful. Many reviewers will describe their entire meal experience, and it helps you get a feel for what a restaurant is like without actually having been there. Sometimes you can find very useful menu suggestions in the comments as well. To reward reviewers, you can designate their comment as one that you thought was either cool, useful, or funny.

There is even a social aspect to this site as you can add friends on it. I’m not sure if that’s something that I’m really going for. According to yelp, I currently have no friends. Haha let’s hope that’s only on yelp!

My own page, with my reviews and info, is derekwong.yelp.com. Check out some places that I’ve been to, but more importantly let’s all help each other out by supporting quality establishments. You’ll be thankful that next time you’re looking for a place to go to on your hot date. Because we all know that the key to the hot date is the food. Personality? Eh. Charm? Blah. Looks? Well you can’t help that anyways.

Everyone Should Use OpenDNS

Tagged as: Geek, Learn, Useful Sep 10

Have you heard of DNS? Well if you haven’t, in short it is what allows you to memorize “google.com” rather than “72.14.207.99″. Every time you enter a website address into a browser, the browser first has to retrieve the actual numerical address (called an IP address) that corresponds to it so that it can actually access the website.

A real-world analogy would be looking up a phone number in a telephone book. You likely don’t memorize everyone’s number. In fact, you probably don’t know all too many by heart. But you can easily remember someone’s name, right?

So each time you enter the address, your web browser has to ask a DNS server to give you the IP address. Very often, your ISP will have a DNS cache to more quickly give you the IP address.

Something everyone should consider using is OpenDNS. It is a couple of DNS servers that are able to specify on your own computer to always use instead of whatever it is that you would otherwise use. Why is it good? Well OpenDNS offers things like safety from malicious websites (e.g. a misspelled website that causes you to arrive at a malicious website) and speed (likely from optimized servers) to name a few. Try it out, and see if you can notice a difference. I have and I do!

There are instructions at the OpenDNS website for every operating system, and they take but a few minutes.

Is The 40-30-20-10 Rule Too Ideal?

Tagged as: Idea, Money, Useful Sep 04

There are many sources out there for how to get money, how to invest money, how to save money, and so on and so forth. But in reality, money is a fairly simple concept that seems to get muddled and complicated because people have such a vested interest in it. And because analysts want to keep their job of explaining the complex to the uneducated.

Basically you earn money (or you find it, or you steal it, or whatever) so that is what is coming in, and then you spend it (or you give it away, or you lose it, you know) and that is what is going out. So what’s the best thing to do? Well spend less than you earn and you should do right fine. Makes sense huh?

A while ago I read about a basic rule for which one could ideally budget and limit one’s spending. It’s called the 40-30-20-10 rule for obvious reasons. The very quick among you would have already realized that those numbers add up to 100 and that would seem to represent 100% of your income. So what do the rest of the numbers represent?

• 40 - Savings
• 30 - Necessary spending such as rent, food, bills, etc
• 20 - Free expenditure allowing any possibility of spending on entertainment, gifts, and otherwise unnecessary for living types of things
• 10 - Tithe

When I first read that, it seemed pretty easy and straightforward to me! However, I am wondering if it’s too easy to look at on paper but perhaps a bit too difficult in reality. How many people do you know who only live on 30% of their income? It sounds extremely conservative doesn’t it? You’d require a much better income just to be living an average lifestyle. Of course, I think that’s kind of the point of this budgeting scheme. However, I honestly don’t think that too many people could adhere to this type of drastic budgeting change from their own methods because they have come to expect a level of “luxury” in their lives.

I think that this is a superb idea, and I will try to stick with it as much as I can. I’ve been working on The Budgeteeer (although that’s not what this post is really about), and I’ve been using this budgeting as my budgeting inputs. It’s been going alright thus far, and I actually have personally increased my savings category since my necessary expenditures are currently not as high. It’s nice, but I’m wondering if it’ll always be so.

Have many people heard of this plan? Would/could/will many practically use it?