Site Technology
This site brings together and attempts to merge a number of different technologies. While I am not currently 100% satisfied with the approach I am taking it is superior to what I had originally planned.
My Information Storage Problem
As a philosophy and theology student I tend to read and think about material from a wide variety of sources. Adding my generally poor memory to that mix meant I have been trying to come up with a way to organize and systematize my thoughts and studies.
As a web developer I have worked with the various components this site uses individually but never really considered using the web or a collection of the below components as the solution. I originally
what technologies used, why, my goal/problem in organizing information.... using blend of exciting new web technologies to replace multiple old pc databases etc.
The Use of Open Source Technology
Open source technology has the benefits of:
- Free or cheap
- Not owned or controlled by some corporation.
- source code is open, or editable. I have already tweaked the book 'library' component into being more of my personal database of books.
One of the great things about the whole open source movement is that discoveries are not hoarded but given back to the community. In honour of that I hope that anything I learn from my attempt may prove useful to software developers and content creators in the future.
The server / software base I used is LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP.) On top of that I have used a CMS, a Wiki, a Blog (not in the traditional sense) and a heavily modified Library component to piece together the various content publishing needs I had.
Content Management System
A content management system is designed to make creating and maintaining content on the Internet easy. A CMS makes operating a website possible for a non-technical person and easy for someone who happens to be a web developer by day.
I am using Joomla, the best (I have looked!!) open source CMS available today. Besides being easy to use and modify Joomla also has excellent support for third party components, so it fit in well with my needs. I also use it every day at work, so it was a no-brainer for me.
Wiki
I have a collection of philosophical, theological and apolgetics material I have gathered from many different sources over the years. I want to make that information easily accessible (in point form, with my own thoughts added) so that I do not have to spend a great deal of time looking up that material. I also want to take my point form notes from various sources and assimilate that material with my current beliefs. From what I have seen the wiki is the best available platform right now for doing so.
A wiki is an open source public encyclopedia that is generally collaborated on by many people. Wikis have been around for a few years now but popularized by Wikipedia. For my application it will be the workhorse in terms of storing and organizing the large amount of information I plan to build up.
Flexibility is the greatest strength of a wiki. It stores information so that I can link to each piece of information in whatever way I need to.
I will use it largely as a normal wiki, but I am not completely satisfied with some of the default functionality and the speed of the system. It is not database driven, so i might have to upgrade to another open source wiki in the future or add database functionality to this one.
Blog
A blog or weblog is like an online diary where the subject matter is often current affairs or politics.
I do regularly read some blogs but I have no interest in blogging in terms of the above definition.
What I do want is the functionality of a blog. I like the fact that blogs are basically 'free' publishing platforms for people who want to bring their ideas into the public square.
My "blog" will be called My Supposals, in honour of the way C.S. Lewis described how he came up with the plot for the Narnia novels. The whole Narnia series was based around the following concept: suppose Jesus Christ came into a world in the form of a lion. What would happen then? So my blog is basically a forum for me to express and think about ideas I have before formalizing them. This way I can end up with a database or repository of ideas I have had, a supplement to the notebook I have my "brilliant or deranged" ideas about the most important subjects.
Like blogs I will make available the ability for people to leave comments about my ideas. In theology, philosophy and science all new ideas must be subject to critical thinking from others. This way bad ideas are weeded out, or ideas that have not properly been thought through can be reexamined and improved. So I want to make commenting available for rational, non-dogmatic people.
I the end I may be able to take these reviewed ideas and write papers from them for school or put them into wiki entries.
Book Library
What I wanted was a searchable, categorized list of all my books, with room for notes and listings the most important ideas in each book. As is often the case, what I wanted did not exist.
The component I settled on as the starting point was originally designed to help libraries publicize their books and lend books online. Since the component I found was open source and I am a developer I modified the software and database to work the way I needed it to.
The initial component I found has many flaws and lacked features I need. I have made some bugfixes and hacked in some of the functionality I want already though. This shows power of content management systems and open source content that I could completely change the functionality of the comopnent with little work to integrate it with my own unique needs. In the future I also plan to integrate the book database with the blog and wiki.
I added the ability to include page numbers, headings and other pieces of information from each book so I can quickly look up information in the future. I have also added a category for 'wishlists' to keep track of the books I want to read in the future but do not have time or money to get yet.
Site Design
The 'filler' template I am using know is table based (yes, they ARE deprecated) but I intend to create a W3C compliant search engine friendly template in the future. It will be lightweight and fast loading and I hope the design will serve the information goals of the site, rather than the other way around.
Merging & Building a Total Content Package
Once I have base portions together I can start working towards the merging and synchronization of the various separate components into a (hopefully) seamless and integrated whole. The base of the content management system with the addition of the blog, wiki and book database provide at least in theory the starting point for the information system that I desire. I hope to be able to link the wiki, blog and book library components together eventually.
This entire site is thus a large experiment in information collection, storage and use. In a few years time I will let you know if it worked.
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