I don’t know about you but I got sick of adding favorites, printing articles, trying to remember certain tools I used, techniques in code, or whatever the case was. I’d manage this information by adding them to favorites, writing this down on paper, tossing it in the garbage because I can’t stand clutter and then wish I hadn’t, etc. The point? Other than your team’s Wiki (if you have one), just use a wiki for yourself to organize YOU at work and to keep a nice repository of information for the following items to keep your productivity up:
- Work Urls
- To-do List
- Things you worked on list (good for a resume)
- Urls to websites or articles you like or has most value to you
- Example code you’ve done that you want to remember
- Organize your project docs
- Keep a list of passwords or contact information
- Keep a list of cheat sheets for code
You name it, a wiki can allow you to keep a running tally of resources you like to work with when you go from job to job. keep adding sections for new places or clients and add to the wiki. It is like a personal knowledgebase and you only need one thing, a wiki! It’s much easier to keep things in one place and runs over a database.
I recommend a .NET based open source wiki called ScrewTurn Wiki for this as it runs over SQL Server. Back up your wiki and port it to whatever computer you like in the future. A wiki lets you add all sorts of information (Urls, docs, lists). The latest RC 3.0 is in .NET 3.5.
And here is the ScrewTurn Blog to learn even more about recent happenings.
Some sites currently using ScrewTurn Wiki (easiest way to find these is search by “Powered by ScrewTurn” in Google):
Dario Solera (Owner of ScrewTurn)
Ninject Dojo
StatSVN
.NET Open Space 2008
CMU-Portugal Program
TaskClerk
Cruisers Running Club
SignumFramework
Alex Lindgren's wiki
ISWE Wiki
Screwturn Tips
MyCloudApp.net (Azure Services Platform Info)
Hooked on LINQ (really nice example of utilizing Screwturn)
TFS Examples
SQL Injection Wiki
Jasinski Technical Wiki
OpenNETCF Community Wiki
AirData Wiki
Team Foundation Build Recipes
Projee.com
IOS Crash Analysis and Rootkit Wiki
BritishMicro
SIROY WIKI
Also see the ScrewTurn Wiki Plug-in List including a Syntax Highlighter.
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The docs are “ok” at best so here are my quick instructions to help you understand quickly how to get ScrewTurn Wiki configured to use a SQL Server Database.
This is based on version 2. of the wiki. The RC0 3.0 has improved the process a LOT so if you are not using the RC, this should help you save a lot of time and frustration for older versions of the Wiki.
Steps:
1) Download the ScrewTurn wiki source code
2) Compile it
3) Run it and once the site comes up, on the left nav, choose “Administration”
4) Log in. The default username for ScrewTurn Wiki Administrator is “admin”. The password is configured in the following key below in the web.config and is typically “password” out of the box:
<add key="MasterPassword" value="password"/>
5) Create a blank database in SQL Server (2005 or 2008, works in both)
6) Give adequate rights to that database (modify, etc.) to a user you specify in security for SQL Server for that database
7) in ScrewWiki Administration, click on the Providers tab. Select on one of the MSSQL providers and then click “Configure”
Paste in your connection string. This connection string must work and make sure it’s not malformed! Because once you put the connection string in then save, ScrewTurn Wiki does an automatic check for auth and it will fail if the connection string is malformed or the values are not correct, or the user you setup in SQL Server is not right or doesn’t have the appropriate security to the DB you created. If the connection string fails, you’ll get a strange generic message such as “The provider refused…blah blah blah”. If you get weird errors, check the log under the System Log tab.
8) Once you’re able to save your connection string without error, highlight the provider again and click the Enable button.
9) Repeat these steps for the other SQL provider.
10) Once you have both providers working with that connection string and enabled, check the database to ensure that the tables were created. By configuring and enabling the providers, ScrewTurn Wiki automatically creates the needed tables in your blank database:
11) Now you need to perform once more step. Change all the default providers to use the MSSQL providers instead of local in your Provider tab and click Save:
12) That’s it! Anytime you add data such as categories or content to ScrewWiki, it should show up in your SQL Tables, not the local file system.
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