Digital notecards

Do you wish you had a better way of organizing the notes that you take? Not just putting them in a notebook but having them in a format where they could be drawn on easily to synthesize new thoughts by making new connections?

I've wanted to do that since my freshman year of college where I would summarize the salient parts of BYU devotionals and then file them away on notecards. Alas, the notecards are lost, the insights clouded by time. While those loss of the notes does not diminish my experiences of attending because of Spirit I felt on those occasions, I do wish I could have all of my notes I'd ever taken in one central repository. There they would be available as I would prepare lessons or ponder the Gospel. Each note-taking experience would be part of an infinite evangelical crescendo.

Recently, I believe that I have happened upon a workable solution. A wiki! Much like Wikipedia, it would allow me to have pages of content that is search-able, linked to internet sources, and in a format that could be easily disseminated. As of the moment I have a personal wiki that I am building. Already I find that it is going to represent the organization I have craved.

This is how I did it (on Mac OS X):

1. Download MAMP. This package installs Apache, MySQL, and SQL for database management.

2. Create a database in PHP for use my Mediawiki. Open up MAMP and click on the link "Open Start Page." That will open up a window in a web browser. Click on the tab at the top called "phpMyAdmin." Click on the database tab and create a new database. Call it "wikidb." Then click on the "privileges" tab and then click on the "Add new user." Type in the username, select the tab "Local" for host and then type in your password. In the "Global Privileges" section, click on "Check all." Then push "Go" at the bottom left.

3. Install Mediawiki, the same software used by Wikipedia. This is done by following the instructions here under "Download and Install Mediawiki."

4. Point your browser to http://localhost:8888/wiki to configure. Follow the instructions here under "Configure Wiki."

5. Start building your Wiki! A special format is needed for adding entries to the Wiki. This "Wiki-Markup language" is discussed here.

**Note: I've slapped together these instructions without spelling everything out. If you are interested in more complete instructions for building your own Wiki, let me know in the comment section below. -D