Pushing Daisies has a very interesting plot in that lead character Ned, played by Lee Pace, can bring the dead back to life. When he touches a corpse, the person springs to life. When he touches them again, they go back to being dead. There is a caviate however. If he leaves a formerly-dead person alive more than 60 seconds, someone in their proximity dies instead. Quite the double-edged sword, that.

Ned grew up to be a pie baker, due to series of events one learns in the first episode, but puts his extraordinary talent to work by reviving the murdered to find their killers, and collecting the reward (split with his P.I. partner played by Chi McBride).

Don’t be fooled, friends, for this isn’t just another tired TV show with a flashy plot! I don’t even know where to start with how great this show is. There is a strong undercurrent of a star-crossed lovers story in at least the first episode that had me tearing up and awwww-ing. The rest of the time I was laughing or just terribly entertained.

The characters are both endearing and wonderfully acted with Anna Friel playing Ned’s love interest Charlotte Charles, and Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene (who played Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors) playing her neurotic aunts (I shouted in delight when I saw Ellen).

This show has amazing visuial styling that looks as if tim burton himself designed the sets. There is a definate flavor of excentricity and morbid flare, and you can definately see the Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls in the overall feeling of the show.

As if all of this just was not enough, actor/singer/vocal worker Jim Dale MBE, the voice of the U.S. Harry Potter Audio books, does the narration in that wonderfully musing and sing-song tone. He adds a fairy-tail like quality to the whole show, and if you think I’m overstating how good he is, he’s won a Grammy Award, 4 Grammy nominations, and 7 freakin’ Audie Awards!

I may seem like an overanxious promoter of this new series, but I really have just fallen in love with this show and cannot wait to see the next episode. Please do give it a watch.

Pushing Daisies airs Wednesday nights at 8e/7c on ABC in the US, and on CTV Canada and ITV1 in the UK.

Review by: Thomas Gagnon

I’ve been out of my comfort zone before, but I’ve never been wrenched from my comfort zone at 3am with a bag over my head, and tossed into a blender with scraps of a story whizzing before my eyes, catching glimpses as I fight to get my footing, yet loving every second of it. This is the work of Chuck Palahniuk. This is what it feels like to read Invisible Monsters.

This novel is all about ego, and the self-absorbed lifestyle of the California bombshell. A world where love pretends to come in a thousand different forms, but never delivers. Our narrator through this crazy world is Daisy St. Patience, the enterprising young model and embodiment of beauty.

Daisy appears to have the perfect life, until everything seems to disappear in a muzzle-flash, when somebody sees fit to shoot her in the face as she drives down the Freeway. Now she’s a disfigured horror show that nobody can understand, or even wants to acknowledge.

Enter stage right: Daisy’s savior and idol Miss Brandy Alexander, queen supreme. As Daisy puts it, “Just by herself, Brandy Alexander is such a shift in the beauty standard that no one thing stands out. Not even you.” Brandy appears to be the perfect woman, so much so that she seems almost a caricature of a person. This holds for nearly every character in the novel. Each beautiful on the outside, yet rife with psychoses and self-doubt on the inside.

The setting is a mix of estrogen-fueled crime, anger, and obsession. Its part crack-house romance and part lavish Broadway show. Be forewarned though, as this novel is not for the faint of heart. Invisible Monsers was supposed to be Palahniuk’s first published novel, but it was rejected by his publisher for being too disturbing, only given a second chance after the success of Fight Club.

You don’t fully learn who Daisy is, until you’ve read every page of Invisible Monsters. Her narrative jumps around through time in disarray, leaving you questioning what you thought you had figured out. The plot of this novel is so engrossing, and at times horrifying, you’ll find yourself grudgingly putting it down to get on with seemingly irrelevant tasks like eating and sleeping.

Palahniuk’s prose is lovingly crafted and masterfully delivered. You immediately feel plunged into his world, in all its always ironic, shocking, and often hysterical mayhem. The tone is colloquial and perfectly set. You may find your internal voice speaking in that valley-girl accent without even meaning to. There’s no sense of artificiality, indeed you’d swear Palahniuk was a Janice Dickinson channeling fashionista in a former life by the imagery he seems to define the whole world with.

To top the whole masterpiece off, Chuck bestows upon his characters a philosophically deep and disturbing insight into the world we live in. An insight so lucid, it will stop you mid sentence, bringing you to question your own deeply-held ideals. Daisy, with her new perspective on life, offers up particularly bitter bits of wisdom: “All god does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever get boring.”

As I said, this novel is not a casual Sunday afternoon read. It’s a keyhole into the ugly interior of world so beautiful on its exterior. That said, it’s a real treat to read, and it’s sure to reside in your memory for a long, long time.

I just came across a great little utility today, and am amazed I’ve not heard about it before now. Its called TCP Optimizer, and it’s greatly boosted my download speeds.

Why You Should Care

If you have a “broadband” connection, but it still crawls, or if your ISP advertises 2Mbps downloads but your *local* speed tester shows more like 900kbps, or if you just wish things would download faster, then TCP Optimizer can make you a happy little surfer. Now I’m sure you’ve seen annoying pop-up ads before telling you “your connection is slow, speed it up here!” or something to that effect; I know I have, and I also know they’ve made me skeptical of any free “speed improving” product. However, you needn’t worry my friends, for this little freeware util. is virus free and spyware free. Best of all, it really does work!

The Skinny

On most all Windows OSs (even XP) the network settings are configured for low-speed connections and devices. This increases dial-up speeds, but can greatly slow our superior broadband connections. TCP Optimizer works by tuning your TCP/IP parameters in the registry, mainly the networking related buffers, increasing your connection speed by as much as 200%.

The Simple Setup

TCP Optimizer is set up so that complete novices and power users alike can enjoy a faster connection. For novice users:

1. Simply download the program, run it (theres no installation), and for safety’s sake, click “File” > “Backup current settings” and save it somewhere. This will let you go back to your default settings just in case.
2. Set the slider to the speed your ISP advertises in kbps (kilo-bits, not kilo-Bytes!).
3. Choose your Network Adapter, or check to “Modify All Network Adapters”.
4. Choose the “Optimal settings” radio-button near the bottom of the program and click “Apply changes”. Reboot when prompted by the program.

Thats all there is to it! Now don’t get snarky and set the slider to more than your reported speed, as it may actually lower your rate. For power users, there are options for setting your MTU (it will even calculate the largest unfragmented MTU size for you!), maximum connections per server, QoS, TOS, DNS error caching, and multiple-site latency. Now if thats all mumbo-jumbo to you, just use the novice steps above and you’ll be humming along in seconds.

Compatibility and Concerns

I suppose you’re now wondering what the downside to this is. Well… there are none. Seriously! Lets address some concerns you may have, and whether or not it will work on your system.

This program doesn’t slow your computer down, because it changes the settings then doesn’t run again. The settings stay through reboots, and you never have to run it after the first time. In fact, you could delete it once you’ve tweaked your connection if you wish, bud it’d keep it around, as you may want to change your settings in the future.

TCP Optimizer doesn’t install anything, and you can revert to the default windows settings with a simple click of a button. It works behind routers and firewalls, and supports Dial-up, Cable, DSL, 1 and 2-way Satellite, and T1.
Supported OSs include: Windows 95, 98/98se, ME, 2000 pro/server, XP home/pro/sp2, and 2003 server.

All in all, I cannot think of a single reason not to use this wonderful utility. It does exactly what I need it to, does it very well, and is as unobtrusive as you can get. I think everyone with a windows computer should use it to get their computer’s internet connection running at peak performance. Try it for yourself. I guarantee you wont look back. Do a couple speed tests at your favorite testing site, I strongly recommend speedtest.net, use TCP Optimizer as explained above, reboot, and try the same speed test again. I bet you’ll soon be telling all of your friends about it too!

For more information on TCP Optimizerview the documentation, and check out the FAQ.

Update: Speeding up BitTorrent Downloads

If you want to further speed up BitTorrent downloads, I strongly suggest you read these three great articles at TorrentFreak.com:
Speed Up Your Torrents
Speed Up Bitcomet and uTorrent
Speed Up Your Torrents II

(image Copyright © 2007 Apple Computer)

Yes, the iPhone is here! No, not that one, you sneaky Cisco devils. This is the true iPhone, the one that has been discussed and dreamed about for what seems like years. Catch the full scoop after the jump:

As expected, its a perfect blend of an iPod and a phone, with loads of other features tossed in for good measure.

The nitty, as well as the gritty

So whats this hot little number packing? Oh, just a 3.5-inch multi-touch wide -screen! That means you can touch two places at once, and it recognizes them. That’s something completely new in the mobile device arena. But don’t worry, the proximity sensor will shut off the key bad when you have the phone close to your ear, so your cheek doesn’t decide to get click-happy while you’re on a call. Touchiness aside, you can now also watch wide-screen videos on an actual wide-screen… Wide, thats a funny word. Say it out loud with me, “WIDE”. Funny, huh? Anyway…
It still plays music and audio books as well, but there is oh so much more.

First off, lets get some specs out of the way:

• 11.6 mm’s thin (damn!)
• 3.5-inch multi-touch wide-screen
• 480 x 320 resolution, 160 ppi
• Quad-band GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900)
• 135 grams
• 5 hrs battery life for talking/video, 16 hrs for music
• Cingular exclusive prices of $499 for 4GB (ouch! but MANY will fork out for it) for a 2 year contract, and $599 for 8GB
• Ships this June in the US, Europe this Fall

For the Talkers and Texters

Just like the name would lead all English speaking humanoids to conclude, its a phone. As such, its got a dialpad(via touch-display), call logs, and an address book (that syncs with your computer), but it also has easy to use conference calling (my Razr isn’t exactly intuitive in this department), and stores your voicemails so you can listen to them whenever and visually navigate through them like email. No more listening to your first 6 messages Bob sent you to get to the 7th one from your wife. On the negative, there is no built in VoIp support, which I suppose is to be expected since Cingular would rather you use their minutes on this phone, but it would be nice to have the VoIp option when in a wireless hotspot. Perhaps Gizmo Project will run on it, but that remains to be seen.

For SMS the iPhone has a soft-keyboard with predictive entry and auto-correct, with an iChat style interface that always makes me drool. With this style of display you can easily see which conversation you were in, just like what gmail did for multi-reply email.

Ahem… Camera?

Of course, being a modern cellular phone, it must have a camera… probably one of those dinky 640X480 ones that everyone loves to use, right? Nopers. You know Apple never does anything half-assed, and as such the iPhone has a big-ole 2 Megapixel camera. One oversight is that its a fixed-focus camera, which somewhat reduces the grandure of it all. I would think Apple would see this as a big downside. Also, the camera is on the back, which makes sense for taking photos with the viewfinder, but cuts out any hope of video chat/calling, something that could have really be a deal-maker for this device.

The photo management system that kicks the crap out your regular cell phone’s list-o-pictures. On the iPhone you get a thumbnail grid of photos. Select a photo to view it full-screen, and drag your finger horizontally to go to the next or previous photo. Grab a place on the photo with your thumbs and drag toward the edges of the screen to get a Minority-report-like zoom on that portion of the photo. You have to watch the QuickTour to see just how rad that looks (select the “Photos” tour on the right of that page).

You call that a smart phone?

Like your Daddy’s 4lb brick of a “smart phone”, the iPhone has web and email. Apple does it up proper with a rich HTML email client and a portable version of Safari, accessing the web with either Wi-Fi or EDGE (Its got Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR as well, of course, though I don’t know how integrated it is with things like iTunes and the photo app). It automatically syncs your email as well as bookmarks from your computer, and it’s fast enough to surf the net while downloading your email in the background. You can view websites either portrait or landscape, and can zoom as well. So i guess its more like an iPod blended with a phone and a Nokia 770 (though my 770 blows it away in resolution :p ) As for the email client, it is both intuitive and much easier on the eyes than a regular cell phone. It has a large enough screen to read text and view inline photos without strain.

The iPhone also comes with its own map viewing software that downloads maps, satellite photos, and points of interest from Google Maps. Its not GPS, so you have to know where you are, but it’ll definitely help you get to any destination.

Did I forget to mention it runs OS X? Oh, well it does… somehow. This gives it the ability to, among other things, run widgets. To you non Mac/Konfabulator… er Yahoo Widget Engine users, widgets are little applications that provide useful tasks like the stock widget that tracks your favorite stocks, or the weather widget that, well, tells you the weather of course! Calculators, notes, clocks, timers, RSS readers, and nearly anything else you could ask for are available in the form of widgets. No word yet on how whether all OS X widgets will run on this or not, and more importantly, we don’t yet know what 3rd party application support there is. It may not be open to anything but widgets, or it may run ported versions of OS X apps, or it may have a full SDK waiting to be unveiled. Nobody knows at this point.

And so faithful readers, thats all we know for now about the new Apple iPhone. I’m super excited about this thing, though I won’t be getting one any time soon, nor do I need one at the moment. Its got some really innovative new features, and a few downsides as well as a dash of question marks. However, as this slick gadget has been the subject of endless speculation, you can bet your copy of The Economics of Industry that many will pay any price asked by Jobs for this little gem. Oh, and be sure to go to the iPhone Website for QuickTours of all the features packed into the iPhone.

Update: Gizmodo has a ton of photos of the iPhone on display, and more at apple insider
and this is interesting…

the Nokia 770 is an “internet tablet”. I know this is a new term to most of you, but it comes to us by way of two more familiar words: Internet (as in websites, e-mail, rss, and IM), and Tablet (as in a portable computer built into a screen). Put ‘em together, and the definition is exactly what you’d think: A small, portable computer, built into a screen, that is meant to access the web!

It looks like a PDA, but it’s not. PDAs handle contacts, calendars, and to-dos. This puppy’s all about the Net with some bonuses on the side (we’ll get to those later). It’s main applications are accessing webpages, reading rss feeds, and checking email. Before we get too into things, I have to tell you the coolest part…

It runs Linux! A version of Debian to be exact. I ask you, how cool is that?

The Web, Anywhere

The 770 receives its connectivity wirelessly through 802.11g. It also can mate with your bluetooth enabled cellphone to place data/dial-up calls. While data calls are slower than a wireless LAN, it is definately a wonderful feature to have when you are not in range of an open Wi-Fi hotspot.

the many ways to connect

The browser is a version of Opera, and it renders pages like no other handheld ever has. The display is a crisp, bright 800×480 65,536 color touch-screen beauty. At 4.1 inches, its screen is about the size of a Sony PSP’s. It displays websites, photos, and videos vividly and crystal clear. On a side note, I’ve read that a few reviewers were disappointed that they had to “scroll sideways” on webpages to view all the content. A few seconds of research found be the “optimized view” option in the menu. Voila, perfectly formatted text that can even be zoomed as large as you want , all without horizontal scrolling. I might also add that this baby is a dream come true for reading web-comics since the screen is so beautiful and wide.

Lay of the Land

On the desktop there is a feed reader, internet radio, web shortcut, and clock. All of these can be customized or hidden. The internet radio is a bit superfluous, but everything else fits nicely. The system tray is along the top-right and has brightness, sound, connection, phone-link, and battery indicators. In the screenshot below you’ll see a custom indicator at the far left that I installed. It’s a cpu/memory plug-in that takes screenshots too, but we’ll address customization in just a bit. Desktop icons are along the left and include the browser, email and the program menu. Below these, running applications are displayed.

the desktop

Hand-Eye Coordination

Input is done via touchscreen and stylus. The included styli are flat, which is new to me, but they have more surface area than my clie and visor styli and seem to cause less fatigue to my hand. When you’re not using it, the stylus stowes away in a compartment in the back of the unit as usual. Text can be input through either the on-screen keyboard, or handwriting recognition.

on-screen keyboard

The keyboard is faster for me, but I’m getting faster at the handwriting as I tweak the characters I teach it. A quick button tap switches input styles.

handwriting being converted to letters

On the front of the Nokia 770 there is a d-pad with select button for navigation, and a back button for exiting out of menus and going back when in the browser. There are also home and menu buttons, guess what their functions are, heh. Along the top are widescreen, +/- rocker, and power buttons.

the top buttons (L to R: power, rocker, full-screen)

The widescreen button is very useful when in the browser, viewing pictures, and watching videos. The power button isn’t used too much as the 770 is designed to sleep when not it use. Close the cover to set it to standby, and open the cover to wake it up. The rocker button’s main function is zooming, but it has another great use I’ll discuss in the next section.

Goodies

application menu

In addition to the browser, rss feed reader, and email application, the 770 also has an audio (and internet-radio) player, a Video player (which BTW comes with the Ice Age 2 trailer that looks absolutely stunning on the screen), PDF viewer, image viewer, calculator, sketchpad, notepad, and a couple of games.

I’ve added a few videos to my MMC card and they looked really amazing. Hitting the full-screen button gives you a display that knocks out the iPod, though video playback isn’t always as smooth.

The media formats it supports are:

• Audio: MP3, MPEG4-AAC, WAV, AMR, MP2
• Image: JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, Animated GIF format,SVG-tiny, ICO
• Video: MPEG1, MPEG4, Real Video, H.263, AVI, 3GP

Did Someone Say Open Source?

The real clincher on this baby, for me anyway, is the ability to customize it. No, I don’t mean adding thousands of pink rindstones to it like a pathetic-looking sidekick, I’m talking about free software via a super-supportive and thriving development community. This thing runs Linux, remember!?

There is a python port for the Nokia 770 (tres cool) but most development is currently being done with the maemo platform. There are already over a hundred ports, applications, and games available for the 770 on the maemo wiki alone, and more are coming out every day. Instalation is a breeze with the package manager, simply click on a link to a package and hit yes when asked whether you wish to install it or not.

reading an ebook

I spend a lot of time checking out sofware to add to mine, as well as looking at different used people are putting theirs to. For example, some people have coupled theirs with a $70 gps receiver to create a GPS solution for their car, or hacked an iPod cable to be able to mount their iPod and watch all their movies on the big widescreen display.

I prefer to use my Nokia 770 as an ebook reader. After a quick download and install if FBReader, I can open an ebook, turn it sideways, and hit the full-screen button to turn it into a more than capable reader that kicks the pants off my clie. To scroll pages I just use my thumb on the rocker switch.

Under the Hood

RS-MMC card and slot with cover open

The Nokia 770 is a bit underpowered, I assume in order to keep the price tag down, and although it doesn’t impair use much, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more RAM and a faster processor. As it is we have a Texas Instruments OMAP class 250 MHz processor, and 128 MB RAM with 64 MB for the system and 64 MB for storage and applications. Memory can be expanded via the RS-MMC flash memory slot, which comes equipped with a 64MB card. There are tutorials online on how to crate a swap partition on a larger RS-MMC card to boost performance. I’ve yet to try it, but be sure that I will in the near future.

Bad Press

I apologize, but it’s time to do a little ranting. I’ve read a lot of mixed reviews on the 770, and all the bad ones pretty much complain about it not having telephone capability. Although it will have a stable VoIP program soon, they are missing the point. They think that because it is made by Nokia, the fact that it doesn’t have a phone means it is somehow crippled. The iPod doesn’t have a phone, so what? I don’t hear anyone bitching that it doesn’t have a keyboard, phone, or PIM suite. It is meant to do one thing, and do it well. So is the 770, and it does. Please stop trying to pigeonhole Nokia, thank you.

Every device that comes out does not have to be some all-in-one convergence solution that does your laundry and calls your grandma on her birthday. Part of what makes gadgets so fun is that they are all unique and do different things.
“Yay a wifi-locating key fob!”
“Does it have a bottle opener?”
“No, who the hell cares?”
How boring, not to mention pointless, would it be if one owned even 4 gadgets that all were telephones and multi-function (web, PIM, etc) devices? Some things need to be specialized. I like being on the web, and I don’t want to carry around a 4lb notebook to do it, so this baby is a dream come true.

*Sigh* if you still want to use it as an organizer, there are a couple of PIM suites available, and more are sure to come.

The Cons

Of course, the Nokia 770 does have it’s shortcomings. For one, it has an inadequate 128MB of memory, causing it to hang while loading some applications or when too many browser windows are open. A 1GB RS-MMC card can solve the lack of storage to an extent, for an extra $70.

It also boasts a less-than-staggering processor speed (250 MHz). I know clockspeed isn’t the only determinant factor in a processor, but a 500MHz would definately pep things up a bit. I believe these decisions were made to deliver a lower-priced product, and the trade-off seems worth it. Also, it should also be noted that all non-application processing should be handled by web servers (as per it’s intended usage) anyway.

Unless you get really good at the handwriting recognition, text input is slower than it would be if there was a thumb keyboard. Not including one keeps the footprint of the 700 to a pocket-sized minimum, but if you desire a faster input method, for writing blog posts for example, I suggest picking up a cheap bluetooth keyboard (thumb or fullsized, your choice).

La Conclusion

In summation, if you want near-constant access to the internet wherever you go without lugging around a bulky notebook pc, the Nokia 770 is your device. Its screen is beautiful, its very versatile, and it’s super convenient. Besides being somewhat lean in the CPU/RAM department, only shortcomings are the ones you’ll find if you want to make it be something it’s not (ie: use it as an all-in-one such as a pda phone). I love mine, use it every day, and am more than 100% hapy with it, if thats mathematically possible. It’s not a replacement for your desktop PC, but it is a pocket-sized portal to the web, and I have no real urge to own a notebook computer after having this. Nokia is big on open source software, and has, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head with this specialized device that fills a niche previously left void.

Extra Credit

For more information on the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, visit these fine folks:
Nokia’s 770 page
Nokia’s feature list/specs
Internet Tablet Talk and their forum
A couple hacks at nokia770.xantus.org
The Zack eXperiment: Usability Experiments On The Nokia 770
The maemo website, wiki, blog, and application list.
The 770 Fan blog has great articles,
as does Connecting Geeks
and mulliner.org
nokia770.com has good news stories,
so does The Syncing Apple
Somebody made a customized version of Google maps for the 770, it fits perfectly when you zoom the screen to 150%.
Guides on how to rip DVD movies into your 770 are at the maemowiki and thoughtfix.

All photos copyright 2006 Thomas S.E. Gagnon.

“What the heck is a TiddlyWiki,” you ask? Well duh! Its a reusable non-linear personal web notebook.

Please Read On…

“What does that mean?”

TiddlyWiki is a single, self-contained html file, like a web page. It is like a blog, but each entry is like a little index card, called a tiddler. Before I really lose you, this is what it looks like. Each entry in the center of the screen is a tiddler. Go play around with it, close and open some tiddlers. Your changes wont affect the website once you reload or leave it.

A TiddlyWiki is like a blog because it’s divided up into neat little chunks, but it encourages you to read it by hyperlinking rather than sequentially. So instead of reading one long page in a notebook to find something, you have a pile of index cards (tiddlers) that are searchable, tagged, and link to each other. Picture yourself selecting only the index cards you want to read, and laying them down in a column on the desk in front of you. That is what TiddlyWiki does with tiddlers on your browser. It’s like a wiki because anybody can edit it. Saving it is another topic.

“I’m still not quite following you.”

I know, its a difficult concept to grasp, but stick with me here! Once you get your brain around the concept, it’s so easy to use, and so versitile!

TiddlyWiki isn’t just a blog with short entries, because YOU customize it as you use it. As for what it actually is comprised of, its just one html file. So go to this tiddler and follow the simple one click instruction to save your own blank TiddlyWiki on your computer. Then you can save your changes. Some people use TiddlyWiki as a webpage. They can easily edit it on their computer, and upload it to the web where it can be viewed in it’s own wonderful fashion, but not edited by readers.

It’s written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript to run on any modern browser without needing any ServerSide logic. It allows anyone to create personal SelfContained hypertext documents that can be posted to any web server, sent by email or kept on a USB thumb drive to make a WikiOnAStick.

“So it’s a personal wiki then?”

Almost. Though TiddlyWiki tends to follow Wiki concepts, it diverges in one key area: Presentation. Most Wikis are page-oriented: They present content and WikiWord links, but when you click on a link, the Wiki opens a new page of content. You view content a page at a time. To go back to the calling page, you click the Back button on your browser. This is very useful for long articles. The Wikipedia is an excellent example of this concept.

TiddlyWiki, however, is more element-oriented. TiddlyWiki presents content and WikiWord links, but when you click a link, the content pops open in its own space on the same page. The huge advantage of this is that you are seeing the linked content in context along with the content of the calling link. It really makes working with the content more intuitive because you see not only the related information, but you see it with what it’s related to. This is especially useful when using TiddlyWiki for Notes and Documentation. The caveat to this is that it doesn’t work that well for long articles. TiddlyWiki is more suited to MicroContent or short, related chunks of information.

“Ah, I see! So what use is it?”

TiddlyWiki has almost limitless possibilities:

• It works great as a documentation manager for products, software, etc.
• Do you have a desktop full of tiny .txt file reminders and notes? It can store little bits of information, reminders, and notes like that with ease.
• It makes a great FAQ page.
• Turn it into a todo list, with items as tiddlers.
• Some use it as a blog.
• Some use it as a website.
• Make it your own personal dictionary/encyclopedia.

Or, if you require more than TiddlyWiki can do, try one of the multitude of adaptations:

• Jacques Turbé’s TidliPo, in French
• Joe Raii’s Siglet
• Jároli József’s MagyarTiddlyWiki in Hungarian
• Yoshimov’s EncryptedTiddlyWiki
• Tiago Dionizio’s TsWiki using Tcl and SQLite
• Tim Morgan’s ZiddlyWiki based on Zope
• Steve Rumsby’s YetAnotherTiddlyWikiAdaptation
• Phono Hawk’s PerlTiddlyWiki
• Nathan Bower’s GTDTiddlyWiki
• Simon Baird’s homepage with various enhancements including a SortableGrid
• Geet Duggal’s PileTiddly
• Dan Phiffer’s TiddlyWikiRemote at http://phiffer.org/tiddly/
• Jonny LeRoy’s TiddlyTagWiki
• Jody Foo’s TagglyWiki
• Christian Hauck’s
• Tony Lownds’s TiddlyHacks
• Tim Cuthbertson and MattGiuca’s TiddlyWikiCSS
• Patrick Curry and GabrielJeffrey’s PhpTiddlyWiki
• There’s also Kevem Buangga’s TiddlyWikiClone

“Can I see some examples?”

Sure! Many people are using TiddlyWiki for many different reasons:

• Christopher James has compiled a comprehensive guide to TabletPCs at http://www.tabletpcwiki.net/
• Miguel Centellas has created an extensive guide to Bolivian politics at http://www.centellas.org/politics/politiddly.html
• Bruno Tiago Rodrigues has created a geocaching community site in Portuguese at http://travelbugrace.geocaching-pt.net/
• Charles Stross, a celebrated British ScienceFiction writer, has used TiddlyWiki for his ‘Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds’ at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/toughguide.html
• Kristoffer Nilaus Olsen, a member of the Danish Student Group of Amnesty International, has used TiddlyWiki to collate reports of breaches of human rights. His site is at http://www.resultat.dk/sg/tw/students.html
• Elise Springer, a philospher at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA, is using TiddlyWiki for her homepage at http://espringer.web.wesleyan.edu/
• Martin Silcock, an brand researcher working with Millward Brown, is using TiddlyWiki for his homepage at http://www.explorate.co.uk/
• Many people are using the GTDTiddlyWiki variant for personal productivity, and there’s been some interesting experiments in TiddlyWikiFiction

Help, Tips, and Resources

If you still can’t get your head around TiddlyWiki, just download the html file and play with it! You’ll see its easy as pie.
I suggest you check the TiddlyWiki website first, as Jeremy has really streamlined the TiddlyWiki homepage.

There are many resources for Tiddlywiki, a lot more than when we first wrote about it anyway! A great beginner’s guide is at TiddlyWiki for the Rest of Us. For a good guide, check out the TiddlyWiki Guides wiki, or TW Help

If you have a specific question, check the TiddlyWikiFAQ by the Bairds, or drop me a comment! And if you’re looking for formatting help (embedding images, making text different colors, etc.) then check out the TiddlyWiki Cheat Sheat provided by Dmitri Popov, or the formatting guide at TwHelp.

For fun tips, check out Jim Barr’s TiddlyWikiTips.com site. And lastly for plugins, extensions, macros, and styles, see Jeremy’s list of content publishers.

I do hope you give TiddlyWiki a try. Its really fun to play around with, and has still, two years later, completely changed the way I save small bits of information on my computer.

PS: The Official Euicho.com Tiddlywiki is Here.