Dominic Burns

I run a self-contained Very Quick Wiki on a home machine. I'm testing it for project management, personal mind organisation and as an ad hok intranet with secure ssh access.

09/11/02 Update I found the system to be very workable but, like many software development environments [for which the wiki was intended], problems arose particularly in the semantics/naming areas. Two words: Good planning.


03/07/02 - Planning to combine aspects of wiki with some of Free Net. Also got to thinking how the administrative aspects of wiki detract from its original intent. It's a bit like why communism doesn't work - there's always someone in control, someone who holds the keys to the kingdom, as it were. As soon as a system is central and/or under the power of small groups [or individuals] it can be destroyed and/or controlled and/or abused.

Free Net, OTOH, may also be flawed - for instance, it claims to be anonymous, but runs across an underlying structure based on IP addresses. I need to study the software more fully to better understand it, as it's almost certainly me who's overlooked something.

Free Net IMHO is likely to be the only file share system that stands any real chances of surviving the copyright legal fall out. Again, its decentralised distribution and its very architecture, lend it 'legal hardening'. I predict a massive growth of these networks [or maybe just the freeNet one] over the next few years.

09/11/02 None of my plans have come to fruition since the above was written, but it's nice to come back after all this time and find my stuff still here. Like open-source, this kind of thing boosts my faith in human nature [or some aspects, at least] and demonstrates wiki's robustness, especially in light of its position in the public domain.


Currently, on a security level, I think there's a Fundamental Flaw In The Way Wiki Works. HST, I think wiki's a really nice development.

09/11/02 update Haven't really thought much about the above since my absence.


My favourite operating system right now is Mandrake Linux 8.1. I'm looking to try SUSE pretty soon, as 8.2 is apparently plagued with bugs.

09/11/02 update Conversely, my OS is now 8.2 but I'm now holding back from 9.0 for the same reasons I held back from 8.2 ;) I tried to drop a slackware on an old 486, but it had...problems.


03/08/05 update Wow, my page is still here....

But are you?


I'm pretty sure I'm not dead yet.



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