Getting things done

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stuartcnz
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Getting things done

Post by stuartcnz »

The title of this topic is somewhat backward, in that the result of a search has ended here, not that the search started here.

Going back a few years, when I had a preoccupation for learning how to set up web sites. I was using what are called dynamic websites (this forum is such a one). What a dynamic website does, is to create web pages as they are requested by your web browser. This has the advantage for the website creator, that web sites are easy to create and change. There are however a few down sides to this approach.

In no particular order. It requires more server power to create web sites. They can be more prone to security issues. Because of said security issues, the software needs constant maintenance.

An alternative is to go back to old school static web sites. They are merely a collection of web page files, served directly from the web server to your browser. This uses less server resources, is much more secure, and once established, need no further maintenance to function correctly.

Static web sites take much longer to produce, and as I was largely using the blog format for my sites, I looked around for a static blog building tool, that could be used on my home computer to produce the static site, which I could then upload to the server. I found a good one called Pelican, which I used to convert all the sites that I had built on the previous dynamic system (wordpress) that I had been using. This has been a pretty satisfactory solution so far.

Moving on a few more years. I have been using FLOSS (free Linux open source software) for some time now, and have been looking at the way it is developed. Generally a bug tracker is used, which I figured could be a good way of developing other non IT type projects as well.

I have tried one such piece of software called fossil-scm. It is developed by and used for another of their projects, called sqlite (a file based sql database). It has an intergrated bug tracker, a wiki, and is also a version tracker as well. It can also be used to produce an interactive web site too. I have trialed it at https://livingwagons.com as I develop ideas for a living wagon. This works quite well, but is still a bit finicky to use.

More recently I was looking for some software that I could use more easily for developing ideas in the way I have been trying to do with living wagons. I have many different interests, and tend to work on one of them for a while, then drift to another interest, or several, before returning to the first one.

Anyway at some point while looking at different software, I came across Zim!, which is a personal wiki, run on your own home computer. It turns out that it is built with the ability to be used for what is known as "Getting things done" or GTD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done, which up until then I had not heard of, but seemed to be what I was trying to work out on my own.

So, I started using this software, and have been finding it very good for my uses. It uses a concept of notebooks (each acts like its on wiki site), of which you can setup as many as you like. Another benefit of Zim, which I've more recently discovered, is it can generate a static website from a note book.

I have published one at https://ethicallogistics.org to give an idea of what it looks like. I have included the content from living wagons in it to, as I have shifted to using Zim to develop the idea. As it stands, I just work on this notebook on my home computer, and from time to time will send and updated version to the webserver.

I also have other notebooks for other stuff, that is only used for myself (won't be published to the internet) One of which includes IT stuff, including a to do list for the forum. Below is the to do list as it stands right now. Note I have just managed to get email notifications working properly again (shouldn't show up in your spam folder any more).

[*] Get email working properly
[ ] Figure out an image hosting solution

On the notes section is this:
Photo Hosting
=============
Created Saturday 15 July 2017

Work out a way for non technical people to host their photos for forums etc...

Freedombox?
Yesterday I ordered the book "Getting things done" which will should arrive in a few days.
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