Create a Personal Wikipedia for Your Pocket

Imagine the power of a personal Wikipedia on your thumb drive. TiddlyWiki can be your personal notepad, FAQ or reference guide with the ability to search just like Wikipedia.

TiddlyWiki is a software program like MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia. A Wiki is a set web pages like a normal website except that every page can be edited simply and immediately, often with no software but the website itself. Unlike almost all other Wikis, TiddlyWiki does not require a web or database server. TiddlyWiki is just a single html file. It can be stored on your hard drive or carried around on a USB drive. All you need is a web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer to run TiddlyWiki.

What can TiddlyWiki be used for?
Personal Wikipedia
Notepad
Reference Guide
Notes Organizer
Getting Things Done system -- there is even a customized version of TiddlyWiki for GTD
Task and Project Manager -- Two TiddlyWikis customized for this are TeamTasks and TiddlyDu2.
Nearly anything that a traditional pen and paper notepad can do with the benefits of searching and tagging

Why would I use TiddlyWiki rather than another Wiki?
Free
Simple to edit
No server required
Small
Portable-- Can carry on a USB stick
Fast
Cross Platform
Accepts standard html

Getting Started
After downloading the TiddlyWiki html file, getting used to the lingo is perhaps the hardest part. Tiddler is the first word you need to know.
A Tiddler is a chunk of information. Imagine each tiddler as a 3 x 5 index card with notes scribbled all over them. For example, if you are creating a wiki about the planets of the Solar System, each planet would be a Tiddler with an article or notes underneath it. Tiddlers are hyperlinks, and can be searched.

Opening up TiddlyWiki for the first time will bring you to the Getting Started tiddler where you will see these hyperlinks:
SiteTitle, SiteSubtitle The title and subtitle of the site
MainMenu The menu (usually on the left)
DefaultTiddlers Tiddlers that appear each time TiddlyWiki is started

Just click on the SiteTitle and SiteSubtitle and enter something in the big box in order to name your new TiddlyWiki. Wait to set the DefaultTiddlers and Main Menu until you have created a few Tiddlers of your own.

Creating Tiddlers
New Tiddlers can be created by clicking the new tiddler option in the right menu or embedded within the text of another Tiddler. An embedded Tiddler can be created automatically by just typing a word with two capital letters like SolarSystem or created manually by putting double brackets around a word or phrase like [[Solar System]]. Embedded Tiddlers are hyperlinks waiting for notes or an article. To avoid creating a Tiddler with a word that has two capital letters, just precede the word with a tilde (~).

This is cool, but I would rather have it online
Although not needing a server is one of the cool things about TiddlyWikis, they can be hosted online at Tiddlyspot.com.
Tiddlywiki can be downloaded from its homepage, TiddlyWiki.com.