What is the easiest way to set up a PersonalWiki? How can one set up a wiki on one's own PC, keeping compilation, coding and learning curve down to a minimum?

'''Many have done it. Here are their stories:'''

'''Local PersonalWiki for MicrosoftWindows:'''

* "You can obtain a Perl interpreter that works for Windows at http://www.activestate.com and then download the WikiBase engine and run it on local (personal) Web server."

* "I'm using QuickiWiki since I got TheWikiWay for my birthday. It was a pain to set up on Windows because the publisher mangled the CD. However, the Web site has the corrected sources and it was easy to set up once I figured out where to go."

* "I'm using WikiServer - so easy to set up and get going. Got it from http://www.tinyted.net/eddie/wiki/" - I'll second that. I just installed WikiServer on my 128 meg USB thumb drive. The server takes up all of 230K. -- JonStrayer
** You can now find the latest WikiServer version (further developed by Ryan Norton) on http://www.wikiserver.org.

* ''Don't know what a PersonalWebserver is? Scared of Apache? Not a Webmeister?'' See WikiOnPersonalWebServer, or JspWiki (runs under a JSP engine like ApacheTomcat).

* ''Evaluating WikidPad. Works reasonably well, and is under active development. Has a Yahoo Group as well.'' --BenWilson

* "Or try WiKit." -- ShahHussain

* Also see EddiesWiki, which is a single .EXE that requires no other services or tools - no Apache, no IIS, no PWS, no scripting language interpreters, no nothing. (Win32 only, though.)
** WikiServer is a developemtn of the original EddiesWiki

* I've been using OpenWiki essentially for myself for almost two years now. It's ActiveServerPages-based (InternetInformationServer or PersonalWebServer) and can use either MicrosoftAccess or SqlServer on the backend. Mainly I use it to maintain my bookmarks (the engine supports hierarchical naming), and it works great!

'''Local PersonalWiki for Other OSes:'''

* AwkiAwki is good for a PersonalWiki. It's written in awk. http://awkiawki.bogosoft.com/
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'''Caveats on setting up your own wiki'''

Mine is only accessible within my house, yet I got trolled after the second day of use. Now working on PGP signatures to provide AuthorAuthentication. I use PhpWiki. -- AndrewMcMeikan

''Are you pulling my leg? You're going to force each member of your own family to authenticate exactly which one she is before editing your wiki?''

Of course I don't trust my family members. I know them all too well!!! ;->

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'''PersonalWiki Security'''

I'm kind of torn on whether a PersonalWiki should be private and behind a firewall or not. I mean, when you get right down to it, what percentage of the things you add to your wiki really need to be private? And there's always the chance it'll be useful to someone else.

Are there any personal wikis out there that don't need to share a public TCP port? Perhaps a personal wiki with its own Web browser? -- BlakeMason

''There are app-based wikis like VoodooPad (Mac) and TomBoy (Linux). PersonalWiki page has a list''

My PersonalWiki stays on my hard disk. People can't edit it over the Net. I do publish
everything, though. I just encrypt private stuff with my key, so not everyone can read
it. =) -- SachaChua

I am trying to get my current client to use some sort of Wiki for project documentation and support, but they are extremely paranoid about trade secrets. Therefore, any Wiki we would run needs to be inaccessible outside of the company intranet. -- HowardLeeHarkness

As a skunkworks project, I installed WxWikiServer and used it to do some project documentation at work. This program is a minimal web server attached to a minimal Wiki database, written in C++. It was written by Eddie Edwards, with various improvements by Ryan Norton. It is trivially easy to install, works quite well, and there are no known exploits. My installation is entirely behind a firewall. -- HowardLeeHarkness (25 April 2005)

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Is most of the content of this page (or at least the top section) redundant to the PersonalWiki page? --RobertDaeley