• Name: Jim Gettman
• Email: JimGettman@gmailPLEASENOSPAM.com
• Company Name: The Decurion Management Company, proprietor of Arclight and Pacific Theaters, and many other California landkmark destinations.
• Company URL: http://www.decurion.com
• Country: USA
• Hear From: www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?text '+"trouble ticket" +XML' > linas.org/linux/pm.html
• Comment: I'm a registered TWiki consultant and champion for the Los Angeles area.
• TWiki History: While at The Capital Group, our Production Support Services Team built a support knowledge base using TWiki after evaluating and rejecting several commercial packages.  Update1: The CG Tech Arch group declared TWiki a not supported application, banning further implementations.  Update2: Now more unauthorized, open-source wikis are showing up at CG, and they're having a hard time convincing people to use Lotus SameTime/QuickPlace/Quickr, or whatever name that application now bears.  Update3: I quit CG and looked for a company with more enlightened IT.  (IMHO, they'll be using TWiki at CG long after they abandon the Lotus tool that's NOT a wiki.)  Update4: I'm at Point.360 now, and we recently chose MediaWiki as our wiki engine.  TWiki still rocks, but its flat-file-on-Unix architecture did not match our commitment to .NET on Windows up front and Oracle on Linux in back.  MediaWiki seems to have faster installation (Use XAMPP) and search and more flexible edit, but weaker edit notification and even worse handling of attachments.  For business I still think Twiki is the best overall.

Update5 - More detail on TWiki.org vs. MediaWiki - We're 3 months into using MediaWiki at Point.360 and are firmly committed to it.  It's a good tool, but I have regrets, and would counsel anyone building a Business Intranet service to use TWiki.  Here are my takes -

*MediaWiki.org Native Advantages -

• Easier to install on Windows (but see twiki.net)
• Easier to administer (but see twiki.net)
• Runs on MySQL
• Doesn't use Perl
• Faster page loads
• Faster searches on Wiki content
• Section editing by default
• Discussion pages by default
• Good press from Wikipedia (note #1)

*TWiki.org Native Advantages -

• Way way better attachment handling
• Way more flexible and powerful
• Way better page watching and notification
• Way better page history and diffs
• Slightly easier Wiki syntax
• Doesn't need a relational database (note #2)
• Better support for organizations with multiple groups (i.e. it has structure)
• Better interface for navigating within sets of information (structure matters)
• More openness in its support and development community

Overall (From someone that's done both) - Choose TWiki unless you are building an encyclopedia for general audiences.

#1 - TWiki.net is rapidly eroding advantages for MediaWiki, and their pricing model is very reasonable.  I haven't tried TWiki.net yet, but it looks to be -

• Easier to install than MediaWiki
• Easier to administer than MediaWiki
• Able to automatically convert data from MediaWiki (W00T!)
• Retaining all the goodness of TWiki
• Adding more all the time
• supported by (and supporting) Peter Thoeny

#2 - Relational databases are almost always a bad idea.  The best RDBs are three orders of magnitude slower than the best indexed flat file systems at storing and searching, and introduce the horrors of integrity checks (which needlessly throw errors and stop processing,) and locking, which can crash operations for entire companies.

Update6 - More on Wiki in our business - We're 6 months into using MediaWiki at Point.360 and have all but abandoned our Wiki.  The problems was exposing our content to outside users.  I advocated 'login to update', but putting out IT plans and foibles for the world to see was too scary, and requiring passwords only for access outside the firewall was too much trouble.  It turns out that 'login to view' is intolerable, so people stopped using our wiki.  Any advice to make MediaWiki require login ONLY from outside the firewall would be greatly appreciated.

Update7 - Laid off again and looking for work.  Here is my LinkedIn Profile - http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgettman.  I'm focusing on jobs with responsibility for system architecture and UI design responsibilities.  I've seen everything at least once, spend a lot of time keeping up on what's new, and can really help a company with a good business model build and maintain the IT team and technology that will make them succeed.  Also, I updated Update 5 to reflect what I think about TWiki.Net.  Peter is really busy right now (like he wasn't before!), but, once I used a contact to get around his old, blocked mailbox, he still took the time to fix my access issue.  Right on, Peter, you're the best!

Update8 - Got a job with The Decurion putting together an OLAP and reporting system.  Can't give any details because I haven't started yet.

Update9 - The Decurion is great.  It is a company in transition, so there are lots of opportunities and risks.  It has a moderately successful implementation of Microsoft SharePoint, and I am learning to use it.  I killed SharePoint at Point360, and am more convinced now that it is a dangerous mistake in all circumstances.  Imagine that you are sitting down to a lovely dinner with friends.  You don't know what is being served tonight, but your friends are pretty good hosts.  You look down at the table and...

• At MediaWiki everyone is handed a broad bowl and a titanium Spork.  (Hmmm... chop salad again?)
• At the Twiki table you see everyone has the same earthenware cup, saucer, mug, bowl and plates for bread, salad and dinner; 5 peice stainless steel flatware; plus chopsticks, a sharp kife, shell crackers and a large bib.  The table is sturdy and marked from years of service.  There is no tablecloth or centerpiece, but lots of room for food platters and beverage pitchers.  (Dang, now I'm hungry!)
• In the house of Microsoft you see everyone has their own table with a selection of saws, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers and powertools.  Each place has a different set, except that there are couple special places, one set up as a surgical station, and the one next to it as a conveyor where guest can be hooked up and dragged off through a door labled "Bloatware".  (Welcome, feel free to scream.)

Personal Preferences (details in TWiki04x01.TWikiVariables)

• Horizontal size of text edit box:
  • Set EDITBOXWIDTH = 117 * Vertical size of text edit box:
  • Set EDITBOXHEIGHT = 31
• Default state of the link check box in the attach file page:
  • Set ATTACHLINKBOX =
• Optionally write protect your home page: (set it to your TWiki04x01.WikiName)
  • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE =

Related topics

• TWiki04x01.TWikiPreferences has site-level preferences of TWiki.
• WebPreferences has preferences of the TWiki.Main web.
• TWikiUsers has a list of other TWiki users.

Hobby

• Join us at my hobby, playing Champions, The Super Role-Playing Game(tm).
• I do this PbP at http://www.herocentral.net, but my campaign, the Academy 2, is currently full.  If you do stop by, send me a private message or use the IM feature from the site monitor.
• We do this F2F Saturdays at 7 PM, at Caltech in Pasadena, CA.  Stop in to play - Baxter, rm 127.  See one of these maps for directions -
  

Closest Street on Google Maps (Turn east into parking lot, drive thru and south along campus path, park perpendicular between buildings but not in the handicap zone. Baxter is the building to the west of this secret parking lot, 127 is south of the foyer on the west side.