[gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Andrew Lowe]

Hi all,
	The wife has finally put her foot down and said I have to clean up the 
mess that inhabits my office which occupies our second bedroom. A big 
part of this mess is paper clipping from newspapers, magazines, trade 
shows, you name it, I've clipped it, kept it, but most importantly not 
filed it. This mess is nearly impossible to file in its current form so 
I set about thinking of a better way.

	A wiki is one of the first things to come to mind. I'm contemplating 
setting a wiki up on my trusty little firewall/email/squid/dns.... 
server, scanning the clipping, creating an entry in the wiki, placing, 
say, the first para of the clipping in the wiki page, maybe via OCR 
software, and then attaching the scanned image to the page. This way I 
can search the wiki looking for stuff, the first paragraph of the 
article will probably tell me if its the page I'm after and if so, look 
at the scanned image for the full article.

	Does this sound like a suitable use for a wiki or am I wasting my time 
and there are more "application specific" packages out there that would 
suit my needs better? Anyone done anything like this before?

	Any thoughts greatly appreciated,

		Andrew
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Jimmy Rosen]

On Saturday 12 November 2005 17.11, Chris White wrote:
> On Saturday 12 November 2005 16:33, Andrew Lowe wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 	The wife has finally put her foot down and said I have to clean
> > up the mess that inhabits my office which occupies our second
> > bedroom.
>
> I probably would tell you the same thing sadly ;P
>
> > 	A wiki is one of the first things to come to mind. I'm
> > contemplating setting a wiki up on my trusty little
> > firewall/email/squid/dns.... server, scanning the clipping,
> > creating an entry in the wiki, placing, say, the first para of
> > the clipping in the wiki page, maybe via OCR software, and then
> > attaching the scanned image to the page. This way I can search
> > the wiki looking for stuff, the first paragraph of the article
> > will probably tell me if its the page I'm after and if so, look
> > at the scanned image for the full article.
>
> Yes, I'd recommend tikiwiki for that, as I know they have a file
> gallery, which pretty much does what you've suggested.  I also
> noticed that tikiwiki is generally really easy to setup.
>
> > 	Does this sound like a suitable use for a wiki or am I wasting
> > my time and there are more "application specific" packages out
> > there that would suit my needs better? Anyone done anything like
> > this before?
> >
> > 	Any thoughts greatly appreciated,
> >
> > 		Andrew
>
> My 2 Cents
> Chris White


I'm regularly scanning most dead-tree info that comes my way, and 
filing it away. I bought a cheap HP all in one gadget (d125xi ~200€) 
that has a document feeder on top which works really well up to ~40 
pages per batch. Its operation is easily scriptable and together with 
imagemagick you can do some nice post-processing.

However, I haven't found a good OCR program yet. That is the major 
hurdle. Searchability is the really important thing. The space saving 
and portability is nice enough though, for the moment.

I heard that Adobe has a windoze only software that can do this 
reasonably well, but I haven't researched it further.

Jimmy

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Chris White]

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On Saturday 12 November 2005 16:33, Andrew Lowe wrote:
> Hi all,
> 	The wife has finally put her foot down and said I have to clean up the
> mess that inhabits my office which occupies our second bedroom.

I probably would tell you the same thing sadly ;P

> 	A wiki is one of the first things to come to mind. I'm contemplating
> setting a wiki up on my trusty little firewall/email/squid/dns....
> server, scanning the clipping, creating an entry in the wiki, placing,
> say, the first para of the clipping in the wiki page, maybe via OCR
> software, and then attaching the scanned image to the page. This way I
> can search the wiki looking for stuff, the first paragraph of the
> article will probably tell me if its the page I'm after and if so, look
> at the scanned image for the full article.

Yes, I'd recommend tikiwiki for that, as I know they have a file gallery, 
which pretty much does what you've suggested.  I also noticed that tikiwiki 
is generally really easy to setup.

> 	Does this sound like a suitable use for a wiki or am I wasting my time
> and there are more "application specific" packages out there that would
> suit my needs better? Anyone done anything like this before?
>
> 	Any thoughts greatly appreciated,
>
> 		Andrew

My 2 Cents
Chris White

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Antoine]

On 12/11/05, Chris White <chriswhite@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 12 November 2005 18:17, Jimmy Rosen wrote:
> > However, I haven't found a good OCR program yet. That is the major
> > hurdle. Searchability is the really important thing. The space saving
> > and portability is nice enough though, for the moment.
> >
> > I heard that Adobe has a windoze only software that can do this
> > reasonably well, but I haven't researched it further.
>
> Not sure about Linux OCR.  I know that you can get ScanSoft or Paper Port for
> windows.  Paper Port is what I hear most people recommend.

Alas, alac, there is no OSS OCR software even worth installing. They
are all rubbish. Abbyy has version 6 of Finereader under linux but it
is only the server version and costs an arm and a leg. I have looked
high and low, as it is what I do for work and pretty much the only
reason I can't get linux into our scanning operation (it would be nice
to have drivers for production-scale scanners but at least on the OCR
machines would be a start...).
Sorry!
Antoine
ps. I would be keen to work on a project (as long as the boss didn't
find out!) that works towards having a decent home a to z CMS
system...

--
This is where I should put some witty comment.

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Chris White]

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On Saturday 12 November 2005 18:17, Jimmy Rosen wrote:
> However, I haven't found a good OCR program yet. That is the major
> hurdle. Searchability is the really important thing. The space saving
> and portability is nice enough though, for the moment.
>
> I heard that Adobe has a windoze only software that can do this
> reasonably well, but I haven't researched it further.

Not sure about Linux OCR.  I know that you can get ScanSoft or Paper Port for 
windows.  Paper Port is what I hear most people recommend.

> Jimmy

Chris White

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Is a wiki what I'm after?

[Robert Persson]

On November 11, 2005 11:33 pm Andrew Lowe was like:
>      A wiki is one of the first things to come to mind. I'm contemplating
> setting a wiki up on my trusty little firewall/email/squid/dns....
> server, scanning the clipping, creating an entry in the wiki, placing,

By all means consider using your 'puter to help with your filing.  The wiki 
might well be a good idea.  However please don't underestimate the power of 
your memory.

One technique that I sometimes find useful is to collect things based on 
criteria that are apparently irrelevant to what I am doing, but appeal to the 
senses.  For instance I might, in your situation, sort the material based on 
arbitrary criteria, such as "Can I see an indoor plant in this photo?" or 
"Does this text mention the eating of food?"  by remembering one thing about 
the document you stand a good chance of remembering the other things, and you 
will also stand a good chance of remembering where you put it.

Decorate the files and boxes too.  The decorations don't necessarily have to 
be relevant.  Wallpaper scraps, colourful pictures of animals, unusual 
handwriting - whatever it takes to get the stuff through your visual cortex 
or your fingers and to get your memory working the way it wants to.

Of course different techniques may work better for you.  Go to the library and 
get a book or two on improving your memory, clutter reduction, whatever.  Use 
the ones that help and ditch the ones that don't.  Find what works for you.  
Then, if you still need to, set up an electronic database that thinks the way 
you like to.

Robert  
-- 
Robert Persson

"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)


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