Wednesday, July 16, 2008

I need a reliable online note storage system

Okay, in the unlikely event that anyone besides myself reads this little web blog of mine... I am throwing out this request.

I need a decent online note storage system that I can install on my own webserver.

I record a lot of notes. To be more accurate, I keep more than notes. I keep URLs, short documents, chunks of programming code, Linux scripts, and other little goodies. I have been using my Gmail account for this, but this doesn't seem right.

I know there are free services out there for note storage, like Helipad (which is really nice), but I want to host a note app myself. Why, you might ask? Well, what if something happened to Helipad, where would all my important notes go? If I hosted my own notes application, I could back it up myself (or at least blame only myself if that failed).

I was considering TiddlyWiki as an alternative. It is really cool, and easy to use, and even has a search function. But... there is one big catch, it is intended for local systems only, meaning you run it on your desktop, and not online. Sure there's a handful of online versions of TiddlyWiki, but most require a mySql database, and that makes easy backups and restores a pain in the ass (unless you know a super easy way to back and restore these suckers).

So what are my alternatives?

UPDATE

Ignore my comment below about Dokuwiki.
Dokuwiki worked great, but only for about a month after that it starting giving me errors. It was actually working great, then one day it just started giving me annoying errors, and even lost it's own editor icons.

I posted on the forum, but really got nothing helpful.

Looking back, I find it odd that a wiki wouldn't include an "Add New Page" button, forcing me to install a plugin instead. Come on Dokuwiki, is a simple "New" button too much for ya?

3 comments:

Tony said...

How about Evernote; they have an online and desktop version, which you can sync. I use it, and since it is both online and desktop, you don't have to worry about losing anything. I, too, am an obsessive note writer. You could also try Google notebook, which I used for a while, but they don't offer a desktop version/sync.

https://www.evernote.com/

Phil Whitehouse said...

Hi, you might want to check out TiddlySpot, they host the TiddlyWiki file for you and you can still have a local version which you sync.

http://www.tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Tiddlyspot

Schick said...

I found a method that works!!

It took a little research but I think I have the answer. It's DokuWiki !! It has practically everything I need;

- I can host it myself.
- I can back it up myself
- I can easily search it for notes too.