I’m beginning to think all this theory I’ve been spouting in the last few months might have a grain of practical application. The Library2.0 Orthodoxy that’s making more sense is “wikis are useful”.
The LINT mob use a wiki to track our procedures and history. I used a wiki to plan a long family holiday in September – it was great to click on the links for phone numbers of places we were staying. Both times I was very self-consciously “using a wiki”.
This evening, however, I wanted to keep a record of some email responses to a question I’ve asked on a google list. I want to analyse and re-packaged them into dot points. Without even thinking, and in the same way I would have once opened a WORD document….I reached for a wiki. I’ve installed TikiWiki because I know how to use it. I have gazed lovingly at drupal, but I’m just in no mood to learn again.
I didn’t use something like google documents and spreadsheets, because ultimately I want to have the summary somewhere that I can share with interested people.
Come to think of it….it would be a good 3-4 months since I’ve entered anything into a WORD document..apart from my paysheet at work. Same goes for Open Office Writer at home.
I am opening Notepad more often. I’ve finally learned that anything I want to cut and paste into WordPress should be pasted into some kind of text editor, before cutting it again and pasting into WordPress. Saves hours of searching for the one rogue tag that has turned my whole sidebar upsidedown.
It’s insidious and useful, this Web2.0.
I can’t stand Word, and, like you, tend to use a text editor instead. If you find yourself doing that all the time, you might want a more fully-featured text editor than Notepad (can notepad still only have one document open at a time?). I use TextWrangler on the Mac. Crimson Editor is something I have used on the PC, but there may be better options (especially if, unlike me, you are willing to shell out a few bucks. Do you call dollars “bucks” in Australia?).
Yes, things cost bucks in Australia. They have even been know to cost smackeroos.
I usually just open Notepad to strip the code from something I’ve cut, but would probably still use Word (at work) or Open Office Writer (at home) if I wanted to get more sophisticated..but my great joy is that I’m using both less and less these days.
Given the alternatives, to get me to part with my hard earned bucks these days, a wordprocessing program would have to do a minimum of one day’s child care AND vacuum the entire house every week.