Software Experiments
Lisa is working on a geek cheer for me, something that will be the equivalent of the Roll Tide! I give her when she is following Alabama women’s gymnastics meets. It is my way of showing — well, not interest exactly — but understanding that something important that I don’t really understand is going on.
This afternoon, I turned on Apache (it comes with on OS X), enabled PHP, installed MySQL, loaded ImageMagick, and set up MediaWiki on my laptop. Mostly because I wondered if I could. Turns out it isn’t difficult to do. [Insert to-be-determined geek cheer here.]
I also figured the wiki will be fun to play around with, to see what it can do as my own private sandbox. One thing I am interested in is seeing if using a wiki instead of a collection of text files as a brain dump helps me to better map out my thinking. If it gets really useful, I will deploy it to the new web host.
Why do I think a wiki might work for this?
Considering that Spotlight is supposed to find anything so spooky-fast Apple is promoting it as a step ahead of “the archaic file folder metaphor”, some might think it doesn’t matter how many text files I create, because I won’t really have to keep track of them. (Once I upgrade; I don’t have Tiger yet.) Gmail doesn’t have folders, instead preferring search-friendly labels. But I think my brain learns (and remembers) things by making connections, connections that extend beyond a collection of search results. So I wanted a software tool that will make it easy to make connections on the fly — and that is what I think a wiki will be good for.
I also downloaded and installed NeoOffice/J, a port of OpenOffice.org that doesn’t need the X11 windowing system — meaning it behaves and looks like any other Mac app. Cause some times you really do need a spreadsheet. And those times should not require forking over big bucks or opening windows more Spartanlike than the original Trek crew quarters.
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