TiddlyWiki + TiddlySnip + TiddlySpot as a Google Notebook Alternative

Last January, Google announced that they will stop supporting Google Notebooks.  FInd out more in their official blog.

Although they promised to keep the existing notes intact, I though that it was a good opportunity for me to look for alternatives.

Come TiddlyWiki.  TiddlyWiki is a single-file, self-contained wiki for managing micro-content, written in JavaScript.  And there are lots of compelling reasons to use it.  Some of which are:

• It’s a single file – meaning it’s portable, you can easily save it in your USB drive or upload it somewhere
• It’s self-contained – The single file that is a TiddlyWiki contains not only all of your data, but all the machinery to edit and manipulate it
• It’s a wiki – it allows collaboration
• It manages micro-content – so it’s really well fitted for small notes not like other wikis which I think are more page-oriented

Tiddly Wiki

One thing that I like about GNotebook is that it allows you to take clips while browsing.  This is where TiddlySnip comes in.

TiddlySnip is a Firefox extension that enables you to quickly add notes, references or bookmarks to TiddlyWiki.  Sadly, the development of TiddlySnip is currently on hold, and there’s a major problem with the current version that renders it useless for Firefox 3.  Momentarily, we’ll have to make do with an earlier version.  ( Don’t worry it works quite well. )

Once you’ve installed the extension, you have to set some options, through Tools > TiddlySnip Preferences.  Make sure to check “Enable ‘TiddlySnip this Page”.  This adds an option in the context menu that will let you clip selected sections of a website.  ( This should be a default behavior, won’t you agree? )

Finally, we would want to save our TiddlyWiki somewhere accessible.  Storing it in a thumb drive is great, but what better place do we have other than the internet (who doesn’t have access these days?).

TiddlySpot is a site that offers free hosting of TiddlyWikis.  Yey!  Registration is as easy as choosing a site name and a password.

Now that is a signup page!

Now that you have your own TiddlyWiki page, you can spice it up with your own themes, scripts and plugins.  A word of caution, be conservative with plugins because they can make your page really slow.

Finally, keep in mind that TiddlyWiki is meant to be a note taking tool, so don’t try to build an entire website out of it.  If you need something that’s like a blog, get a blog.

Enjoy!

Some useful links:

Themes – http://tiddlythemes.com/

Scripts/Plugins – http://tiddlyvault.tiddlyspot.com/ http://tiddlytools.com/

Wiki – http://tiddlywiki.org/

References:
http://tiddlywiki.org/