Sometimes technical, sometimes not, never a kitty

Wikis are an all-too-often misued application, but they do have their places.  One place I think wikis work well is as personal note/organization apps.  Hanselman likes Tiddlywiki, but I found it to be very heavy in JavaScript, and I didn't like the way it flows or organizes information.

I recently discovered Screwturn Wiki.  Screwturn is an open-source .NET based wiki with a nice feature set and a very simple design.  It's a simple design, stores data in XML files, and the interface is more intuitive to me.  There are some advanced administration tools, and you can even make the wiki private.

Several distros are available, including one (the Desktop Edition) which includes a customized Cassini server.  You can install this edition on systems without IIS installed (I didn't test this on a system without .NET 2.0 installed, since all of my systems have it).  Because it contains its own server, and OOTB data are stored in XML files, you can simply copy the application to a thumb drive, and use it as a portable app.

The application installs in c:\program files\ScrewTurn Wiki Desktop Edition; simply copy the ScrewTurn folder to your thumb drive, and uninstall it from your parent system.  You can then start the spp from the thumb drive, update the physical path in the startup dialog, and you're off to the races.  Your data will travel with you wherever you take your drive.  One hint--assign the same drive letter to your thumb drive on all your systems.  You can see more about the operation at http://www.screwturn.eu/DesktopEdition.ashx.

The admin pages provide a full spectrum of file, page and user management tools.  Providers can be added for storage in SQL Server, and the default layout can be tweaked via the admin tools.  Individual pages can be made private, locked from editing, or rolled back to previous versions.

The simplicity of the design (and lack of unnecessary JavaScript effects) has an additional bonus--with some tweaking to the skin, this wiki would work from a Treo 700w.  I can post to it, but the interface is smashed up on the small screen, so some tweaks would smooth that out.