Projects, and taking notes

I've been looking into ways to keep my thoughts, and ideas on multiple subjects ranging from the Spiritual, all the way through to Electronics and (shudder) Work.

I think I've finally settled on a way that works best for me (as they say; your millage may vary).

I have multiple machines and can be at any number of them when I get a free moment, or the spark of thought finally reaches my brain on a subject, and I either need to note it down, add a link (or 10 links), and be able to return to it later to fully explore it, or keep track of it.

* TiddlyWiki (Home Page: http://www.tiddlywiki.com)
* Dropbox (Home Page: http://www.dropbox.com)
* [ and for the paranoid: Truecrypt (Home page: http://www.truecrypt.org) ]

Tiddly Wiki is a great little piece of java script. It can be a bit disconcerting on downloading it that you're left with a file called "empty.html" (I think I got it multiple times till I figured out that I had got all that I need).

To put it simply, and quickly;

* Download the empty.html file, and put it in a decent location.
* Rename it to whatever you want (perhaps call it something that matches it's goal: 'Electronics.html', or 'MeditationNotes.html')
* Open it in any browserClick "SiteTitle" in the "GettingStarted" entry, and Edit it, click Done.

Depending on your browser, you might get told that a script is trying to write to disk. This is the script attempting to overwrite itself with the new data (including your changes). I actually keep telling Firefox to Allow, and to remember, but it never does. However, it does show me that auto saving is operating, and I'm okay with knowing that.

Now it's a case of, having a new link from someone in Facebook; open the Druid.html file, 'new tiddler', add it in.. Or perhaps hit the "ThingsToLookAt" Tiddler, and add it to the bottom of that entry. Actually need a journal entry, click the new Journal, and add the data (CTRL-Enter to save without needing a mouse click). With Auto-Save activated, the file is updated, as well as tagged. Capitalize a word, or add [[ ]] around a word, or phrase, then once saved, click on the word to open a new entry called that. Instant Wiki, no server needed.

Next, is to place it where Dropbox can see it, and once the script writes itself, Dropbox syncs it to all other connected computers. If it's sensitive info, then perhaps creating a Truecrypt volume of 20MB, within Dropbox, and storing the html file in that volume will give you enough (don;t forget to dismount the Truecrypt volume to have Dropbox sync it to the cloud though... thankfully, Dropbox only syncs the binary changes of the Truecrypt volume file).

Maybe just keep the TiddlyWiki on your USB key fob, and sync it another way.

It might not be foolproof, but I'm finding keeping multiple files on different topics in a TiddlyWiki directory in Dropbox a quick way to keep my ideas from leaking over multiple txt/bookmark files, emails, or even paper).