Having talked to various people about “Wiki on a Stick”, I thought I’d better have a go. The first page that I found was one at MediaWiki – which is the one I’d seen before. I intially tried the method with Uniform Server3_3, though that started to look rather fiddly (and quite large, given that I only had a 64 MB stick). So I then tried the Alternate approach using WOS portable. That was much more straightforward to install, however, once installed I couldn’t get it to work on my PC in the office at all. I decided that it was most likely to be the University set up – so tried my tablet. I got a bit further this time (i.e. the server started running). However, I still couldn’t get MySQL to run. Remembering that I had MSSQL on there for Perception testing, I tried at home. Still the same problem. I did get it running from the hard drive in the end, but that required me to download & install the earlier version of WOS – which didn’t have a “Small Edition”, so the overall size was over 120 MB.
I had a further google, and it seems that there are other ways of installing a server on a stick, however, I suspect that given the fact that I couldn’t get it going on the University PC would mean that this isn’t a sensible approach if we’re thinking of getting students to use a wiki on a stick for note keeping, so another approach.
So, I’ve found two “Wiki on a stick” options that don’t seem to require a server. While I rather like the sound of t StickWiki , the fact that it only runs in Firefox, while not a problem for me, wouldn’t necessarily suit students, so TiddlyWiki seems to have the edge. It’s tiny! Basically it’s a 159kb html file that can be downloaded. It contains all the JavaScript required to allow you to start to build a wiki. I think that it will take a bit of playing with to get to understand how to use it, and I’m rather unsure of its accessibility. I’ve tried a couple of the accessibility tests on the AIS toolbar, and the results don’t seem too good.
As it was so small, I’ve put StickWiki (even smaller) on the same USB stick & will see what the pros & cons of each are. (So far StickWiki seems to be working in IE as well as Firefox, and I think that I prefer it).
Hi Emma,
I’ve tried most of the same in exploring Wiki on a stick or external hardrive and found WOS portable quite useful. 🙂
Alternate approach using WOS portable … I couldnÂ’t get it to work on my PC in the office … most likely to be the University set up … I did get it running from the hard drive in the end, but that required me to download & install the earlier version of WOS
I believe WOS 1.1.2 with MySQL 5 have some problem with the user permission table format, that I didn’t manage to sort out. Anyway, WOS 1.1.1 with MySQL 4 works well enough for me.
which didn’t have a “Small Edition”, so the overall size was over 120 MB
You can manually trim down WOS 1.1.1. Currently I have the full WOS 1.1.1 with MediaWiki 1.6.7 initial setup totalling about 140MB. That breaks down to (i) apache2 20MB, (ii) mysql 61MB, (iii) php4 18MB, (iv) php5 24MB, (v) phpmyadmin 9MB and (vi) mediawiki 9MB. At least 20MB can easily be trimmed by deleting php4. Quite a bit more by deleting unused language files from the packages.
However, I intend to have my wiki being portable on a 30GB usb 2″ harddisk, so the odd 100MB is okay for me.
so TiddlyWiki seems to have the edge. ItÂ’s tiny! Basically itÂ’s a 159kb html file that can be downloaded.
TiddlyWiki is nice and small. I like the tiddly concept of displaying all selected tiddlies in one page, instead of wikis generally displaying only one article per page. However, TiddlyWiki has the drawback of not be easily edited by more than one user simultaneously.
Hence, I’m much happier on WOS portable. Especially, after I just managed to suss out the WOS Security Options Permissions Order that allows other users/IPs to access my wiki. 🙂