If you are following this blog it is most probably because you are an inquisitive person and want to learn something new. I personally love reading about, trying out and learning new things but have always found it somewhat difficult to record information gleaned along the way in a cohesive manner. Especially unstructured information like text snippets, web links, images, and other document types. Or just a random idea that crossed my mind for further examination later.

There are obviously lots of different ways to skin this cat. I have always wanted to produce something like my personal Wikipedia, but without the effort and inflexibility of running a full-blown Wiki software on a server.

Enter the wonderful work of Jeremy Ruston and others that produced the TiddlyWiki. Essentially a stand-alone one-person Wiki written in Javascript and all contained in one single .html file. To quote from their site:

Have you ever had the feeling that your head is not quite big enough to hold everything you need to remember?

Welcome to TiddlyWiki, a unique non-linear notebook for capturing, organising and sharing complex information.

It has a built-in markdown-esque formatting language and being Javascript the possibilities for customization are just endless. Look around the site linked above for examples of crazy stuff people have done with TiddlyWiki (or TW for short) and a massive amount of plugins.

Even though it's called "a personal notebook" that doesn't mean it can't be shared on a web server. In fact the TiddlyWiki site itself is run that way. If you want to do that but take away the interactive elements and just present static pages, that can be done also.

I love being able to record new crumbs of knowledge, cross-referencing them with existing artefacts, and being able to search this growing knowledge base. I keep the TiddlyDesktop application open on one of my virtual desktops all the time, so I can jump to it with the press of a keystroke.

What's also great is the possibility of taking your TiddlyWikis (you can totally have more than one) along on your mobile device(s). There are apps for iOS and Android that make referencing that body of knowledge easy. While you can edit them on the go, I find it easier to do that on a computer with keyboard and mouse but that's up to personal preference of course.

I hope you will give TiddlyWiki a shot and see how you like it. The sheer power can make it a little confusing at first, but concentrate on the basics and you can be up and running in no time. All that with free software that no-one can take away or limit your access to.

Ah, and none of this cloud-syncing nonsense designed to hoover your data into some vendor's proprietary database.