Now before we get into my TikiWiki experence let me tell you about me.
First off I have NEVER been part of a web community so please excuse any signs of my foot going in my mouth!
I am a

• Music maker, I play a midi horn as my fav, but what ever else happens to be at hand (Guitar, Piano, Recorder) is ok.
• Spirit Healer, Most of my work has been spirit driven, as it is with tikiwiki. My main interests are related to how we view the world rather then how we may gain. My main direction as far as my work as webkeeper is to share these ideas.
• Adventureing Friend, As an Adventureing Friend I hope that I am there. I have taken many on trips they thought they would not take. They (hopefully) have felt safe.
• A webkeeper that hardly surfs and learns web work on a need to know basis.

So as this is a Wiki and this is my UserPage I want to let you know a bit about me. The thing that I am doing with the TikiWiki system would make more sence then I think.
Right now in the present, as a WebKeeper what I am trying to help create is a community of communitys with voices from a very diverse background. It has to be easy and understandable.
Where I was many years ago was sitting in frount of a timex-sinclar trying to make hang man work. But then I thought I should go be a farmer. And I did grow great organic foods for many years. Now I am back in frount of the screen and forget all that I saw. BUT like a bicycle rider perhaps you never forget. (OR NOT) Some how though this has to be tempered with how my clients see things.
My main background is that of an expander of ideas. I need to create a web space where others may share thier ideas readly. I think that I have found that in TikiWiki. Right now what I have been looking at is how others look at the TikiWiki method. Like I say it seems to make sence to me but will it to others?

It seems to me that I have been a part ot the TikiWiki family for a long time. (WebYears) (Not imortal years) but have offered littlle. I keep up todate on things but little more. I would like to change that in the time to come.
I need to share more with you, the community. So to start I am going to try to answer some of the easier questions in the forums and shout box. Hopfully this will help free up others that are more able to answer the tricky questions.
later, James
THANKS FOLKS,,,
Where did all the snow go? march 6 2004
hows the ice this feb 17 2004?
The snow is melting. and tikiwiki rock in 2004 1.9 final is in the wind.

And so now
I have been playing with the TikiWiki system for a while. I have played with most of the popular CMS systems and find that this seems to call to me. It may not be racional. After much though or something we have decided to try TikiWiki as the main frame of all the efforts of several areas. From my point of view it is an interesting system. I enjoy the way it works for me.

I would like to share some of my experences that I have had with the TikiWiki system.

Well I really like the tracker system and have been playing with it.
One of my great dev heros (maybe because he is my sons age, oh happy birthday!) has been making the forms system (Trackers) amazing.

We have just upgraded a site we have to the latest (Now March 5 2004) CVS 1.9 Sirius. This site is really not open to the public at this time but it has a neat tracker in it. It is an attempt at a Help desk FAQ system.
This is a really good tracker system now and the changes in the last months have been amazing!
mose, this is good! Man I wish I had this back when I was a farmer! I Would have had every one of my gardens carfully tracked. But now it goes way beyond that.
For the 1.9 Sirius version This is really looking like what the trackers could be. Please note these are "Live" sites and are being used by our clients.

• Latest update is nice but lots of errors, now remember this is CVS!.

One that is sorta the same but months older version of tikiwiki at

Help Desk Tracker 1.9 CVS jan 18 This one is not working correctly since it last upgrade. Sometimes the sort function does not work.

OK so I say I and We, Whats the difference? Well in this case I would be my point of view and We would be the groups that I work with. As you know I guess I am at this site jamesoftopiya. At the other sites you may see me as the Webkeeper and I voice not only my self but the users as well.

Well I, We do host TikiWiki sites. Unfortunatly at this time we are not looking for new clients
One issue we have with tikiwiki is the large footprint. As a TikiWiki host I would like to open disscussion about this. (the large footprint) When I can offer Xoops at 7 megs phpwebsite at 12 megs and those nuke things at ?? megs why do We want to sell TikiWiki at 25-40 megs? (NOTE; if you head over to mods.tikiwiki.org there are some ideas about reducing this footpring, worth checking out!)

Because I Believe it is THE BEST. Sorry did I expose myself?
We would not!

NO

At this time I am in the middle of moving servers and stuff and are just to busy! But if you go to topiya.com you may see some TikiWiki in action. Some of the things that I have done are kind of interesting I think.

We have some test sites that we would allow those interested in tikiwiki or devs to play with and test out. We currently have three that are available. There is a 1.7.5 a 1.81 and a 1.9 CVS HEAD. If you would like to have axcess to these feel free to message me! At this time we will allow TikiWiki.org members to use this.
Hey devs, if this is of interest let me know. Sorry I will eventually go through the correct channels to offer this. (When I figgure that out) (Or have time)

As I say at this time we are not looking for hosting clients. (I just do not have the time) However, we have had disscussion of the idea of helping out those that want to set up a localized tikiwiki.org site. I see in the TikiRing page there may be a need for such an offer.
Again I will make this offer in the correct venue when I find it! But if you see this and are interested let me know. If it were up to me to get off my butt and take action it could be a long wait. (I am shy?)

Could the TikiWiki C-Panel connection be bad for the TikiWiki community?
As a web host that offers the latest and greatest I now find myself with the Fantistico option on some sites that will install TikiWiki. This concerns me.
In one way it may be great. But with Fantistico they choose the version to use. They often are not really up to date and they offer no support!
THIS SITE WILL BE DELUDGED WITH NEWBES asking why the first page gives an error message. Hopfully it is set up to offer the basic enabled option.

One project that I am working on, as noted below is to make tikiwiki more ready to go out of the box. look below for more on this.

I have a few areas that I am working on with tikiwiki. Althought these projects are directly related to our webhosting needs I hope that these contrabutions will also help the tikiwiki community as well.

• Modding the themes to create a series of colour choices from each base theme. (Like the xxxmetal series)
• Creating a series of trackers that could be included in a base set up of tikiwiki. Examples; guest book, helpdesk, resource directory, and so on.
• Creating modified templates that will be added to modified themes so that the look will be the same but in some areas features will be added or missing. This would use the theme per section/page/cat...
• And other fun stuff

I would like to create a tikiwiki package that I can install for clients that is much more ready to go then tikiwiki is as a standard issue. No mater how you slice it tikiwiki is not all that novice friendly. Most other cms choices are installed and a few clicks later you have a working site. And these often include friendly hellos and how tos in the new site.

It is a lot nicer to be greated to a "Hello and welcome to your new install of tikiwiki. Please use the edit button above to change this page" Rather then "Error you do not have permission to view this page". Boy, talk about making it seem like you goofed up before you even start!

Now I really do not know the "Proper" way to do this but here is my idea.
I am seting up a site that would include the trackers made in the above note as well as other set up procedures.
So...

• Start with the basic enabled setup (Or something simular)
• Create generic trackers, IE; guest book, help desk ect
• Set up a "Home" blog, wiki, forum and articles area with a welcome to our site introduction. And a little info on using each area with links to the doc.tikiwiki.org site.
• Create generic main menus going to the "home" areas. IE; blogs, Articles, forum, wiki...
• Set up a few basic generic content templates. Each with a "Add your text here" or "your picture here" discription.
• Set up a "Webmaster" user that has admin privilages so the user will be less likly to use the admin profile for site work.
• Create a tiki_top_bar that has a place for the user logo with a predetermined link.
• And so on, perhaps making both a personal and a biz setup as well.

Now after this site is created I will save it and the data base. When a client wants a tikiwiki install I will just upload it and say Have fun! (Or perhaps I will include this in an auto install. (sorry to Fantistico but the less questions that I get about setting up a site the more time I have for other things)
Now this will work just fine for me but I have not a clue how I would get this as something that other tikiwiki users could use. I do not have the required skills to create the data base installer or any of the rest of that stuff. I assume that as most of these changes are database related that it would be easy to make an additional choice in the installation procedure.

I will expolre the site here to see if there is work going on in this regard!

And that all for now folks!