Thursday Feb 15, 2007
Lars Trieloff:

A Wiki with Wiki Usage Tips (Wikipatterns)

Wikipatterns.com is a website that contains common usage do's and don'ts for Wikis that are in a kind of programmer's jargon called Wiki Patterns. There are patterns for roles that people can take and how you can spur or hurt wiki adoption. (via Stewart Mader)

Posted at 12:43PM Feb 15, 2007 (Permalink) by Lars Trieloff with tags tips wiki  |  Comments[1] Share This Link

Wednesday Feb 07, 2007
Lars Trieloff:

Using Mindquarry for Technical Documentation

In my personal weblog I wrote a piece about My Methodolgy of writing Documentation with Wikis. Needless to say that this is the methodology we are using internally at Mindquarry for documenting the Mindquarry Collaboration Server.

  • I plan and organize the documentation project using an issue tracking system and create tasks for every step in the documentation process
  • I 'harvest' product development Wikis for information about the software I am documenting. This is the first use of Wikis - a source of information
  • I create a content outline of the planned document in the Wiki and invite other team members to comment and correct the content outline. The Wiki here is a space for distributed brain-storming.
  • I write the document using DocBook-XML, WYSIWYG-XML-editors and share the in-progress document and illustrations using a version control system. As I am using DocBook and Mindquarry's file sharing, concurrent editing of modular documents is easy.
  • Reviewers and copy-editor use the issue tracking system to create comments and remarks to the documentation.
  • After releasing the document, the issue tracking system is used to track comments and suggestions for improvements. As the Wiki keeps evolving I have a good starting point for a second revison of the document.

Also needless to say that the Wiki, issue tracking system for task management and file sharing server are all integrated in the Mindquarry Collaboration Server.

Posted at 11:53AM Feb 07, 2007 (Permalink) by Lars Trieloff with tags filesharing mindquarry tasks techdoc tips wiki  |  Share This Link

Monday Jan 08, 2007
Stephan Voigt:

Better Collaboration with IM

In her blog"Web Worker Daily" Anne Zelenka claims "Why Instant Messaging is Better for Collaboration than Email". I agree in most points since email is just suffering from the point that it has some serious time delays between answers and that may result in some overlapping as well. But I would like to add some remarks:[Read More]

Posted at 10:32AM Jan 08, 2007 (Permalink) by Stephan Voigt with tags collaboration email im tips wiki  |  Share This Link

Friday Dec 08, 2006
Lars Trieloff:

WebDAV-enabled Wikis

Paul Hammant describes a setup consisting of a WebDAV-enabled web server (essentially a web server that allows publishing of files) and a WebDAV-capable editor (essentially a web browser that allows publishing of files) and calls it An alternative to wikis.

This approach is very interesting, because it allows you to use powerful editing tools for publishing content on the web and uses technologies and standards that are widely distributed and proven. All you need is a server and a browser capable of publishing content.

The Mindquarry Wiki embraces the idea of being able to publish content via this technique. There is a user-friendly rich-text editor available as well, but using HTTP allows you to publish content via more powerful tools and it allows you to easily create own applications that publish to the Mindquarry Wiki. One example of these tools is the Mindquarry Client which allows easy one-click publishing from your desktop, e.g. for taking notes and sharing with your team members.

Posted at 06:45PM Dec 08, 2006 (Permalink) by Lars Trieloff with tags collaboration tips webdav wiki  |  Comments[1] Share This Link