Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Knowledge center on a USB key
Today I have created a portable knowledge center in the form of a private wiki and weblog hosted on a USB key.I've been using wikis for my private information storage as well as for professional knowledge sharing for quite a while now. The problem related to having several knowledge storage wikis (in my case one at work and one at home), is that you end up using just one of the wikis and when you haven't got access to that specific wiki you loose the advantage of having one. The conclusion is that you should only have one wiki and you should always have access to it.
I have also used weblogs, personally as well as professionally, for quite a while now. A weblog is a perfect tool for keeping track of time spent as a consultant. I store information about what I do everyday, so that in case I have to look into my history with a client I can easily do that. I obviously need to have access to this type of weblog at the office, but it's very useful if I can also access it from home.
So how do I figure out how to have a wiki and a weblog that I can always access? Well, there seems to be two possible solutions: Put it on the big old Internet or put it in your pocket. Since I don't really like having that confidential and personal information on the Internet, I have decided to go with the carry-it-in-your-pocket solution
A wiki and weblog placed on a USB key, is that possible? The answer seems to be yes. I have put a bundle of Roller weblogger, JSPWiki, HSQLDB (file based database) and Tomcat on the USB key and I am currently testing it.
The bundle is not just seperate pieces of software, it also contains an integration of JSPWiki and Roller weblogger, that let's you create links to the wiki in the weblog and in general use wiki syntax in your posts. When you have unzipped the bundle you have done what's needed, you just need to launch Tomcat and you're rolling (cheap joke I know). The only requirement is that you have a JDK (minimum 1.4) installed on the host machine.
Before I have added content to the wiki and the weblog it weighs in at around 24Mb. I'll try to post about my experiences with this knowledge management solution.
16:55 | Permalink | Comments (8)
8 Comments:
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Posted by
dalager, at 4/8/04 17:42 -
I just got home and plugged in my USB key and it works smoothly!
I have come across two issues:
1. The wiki seems to have issues if I change the tomcat port, but I'll figure that out and write some notes on what needs to be done.
2. In the jspwiki configuration file there's a path that needs to be changed (points to \tmp which wont work on Windows), but it's just one property that needs to be changed. I'll see if the bug is reported.
I need to give some credit to Mikkel for the idea about putting a wiki on a USB key, but since he's in the process of moving, his server is not up.Posted by
Thomas, at 4/8/04 19:18 -
Ah. And there's even space (in most cases anyway) to fit in a JDK to be installed on Mr. Average's computer if your crashing on his couch.
I must say it sounds cool.
Wouldn't it be an idea to sell pre-stuffed usb-keys as a cheap alternative to palm-pilots etc? Wiki, weblog and a calendar would do it in most cases.Posted by
dalager, at 4/8/04 19:36 -
This sounds like a great idea. I'm curious, though, if this is a portable solution, did you install the JDK on the USB key?
Posted by
Tris Hussey, at 4/8/04 21:13 -
@Dalager: I don't believe that it could replace handheld devices since their force is that you can use them wherever you are (like I use my P900 on the bus etc.), but it's definitely a good idea to sell USB keys containing the mentioned functionality. So where can we buy this Dalager device ;)
@Tris: I must confess that I have Java installed at home and at the office, so it's not a 100% portable solution. I do however suppose that it would be possible to include a JDK on the USB and make sure that the JAVA_HOME variable is set to point at the USB jdk in a startup script. Sounds like something I'll have to test :)Posted by
Thomas, at 4/8/04 21:30 -
Thomas,
Thanks for looking into it. I've written a post about it on my blog here:
http://blog.larixconsulting.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/4/118535.html
Like I said, it does have potential...it's just the JDK issue, I think.Posted by
Tris Hussey, at 4/8/04 22:19 -
@thomas: oh, I'm working on it. I've outsourced the prototyping to a code factory in southern Europe ;-)
Posted by
dalager, at 4/8/04 23:07 -
@thomas: oh, I'm working on it. I've outsourced the prototyping to a code factory in southern Europe ;-)
Posted by
dalager, at 4/8/04 23:18
Wow!!
That sounds really awesome.
Can't wait to hear about it!