Brief PBwiki outage

We and the rest of the world were unable to access our San Jose data center for a few minutes this evening (around 5pm PST) — apparently somebody bumped the wrong fiber optic cable. Your wiki’s data was completely safe and most users were able to access their wikis at all times.

We’ve discovered a subtle case which could cause those wikis with a tabbed sidebar to be unavailable or to load very slowly during this outage. It’s been fixed in our version control system already, and won’t happen again. We’re taking other measures now to ensure we’re able to better tolerate this kind of rare network problem.

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for using PBwiki!

Tip of the Week #16: Beginner's Q & A

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As PBwiki becomes a more unified and simple-to-use product, it naturally grows outside of the scope of tech-junkies and computer-geeks, creating a target audience that includes everyone from SUPAH L33T TECHNO-DWEEB’s like me to somebody’s grandma trying to share her latest knitted masterpiece. Therefore, today I address five of the beginner questions I’ve seen most recently in the PBwiki forums and elsewhere. Even though many of these questions are basic for some of you, remember that everybody has to start somewhere, even when making a peanut-butter sandwich.

(For friends who are further along, I ask that you wait patiently until tomorrow, when I’ll put up something more to your tastes…Thanks!)

Continue reading “Tip of the Week #16: Beginner's Q & A”

KILL! CRUSH! DESTROY! (or, Help me reach out to the media)

The Giant Clanking Robot of Perfectly Reasonable Vengeance®

I don’t need to tell you that PBwiki is a giant robot, clanking through the forelorn alleys and lonely highways of the world, shooting lasers out of its eyes and sizzling the Ignorant. That’s because you helped to build PBwiki and you know it to be a Thing of Collaborationâ„¢.

I do have to tell others, however. Most will be welcomed, weeping and relieved, into its cold, metal embrace. For others, the robotic klaxon will serve as a cautionary tale. Either way, I can’t do it without the help of the PBwiki faithful. Sure, I know reporters and editors. What are you talking about? I know like a million. But I don’t know all of them. How could I? So I need your help.

Is your brother the tech reporter for the Robotic Sun-Times? Does your sister-in-law cover education for National Public Robot? Is your college roommate the reviews editor for Robots and Gardens? If you’ve got anyone out there in the mythic world of the “mainstream media” please let me know by emailing me at curt(at)pbwiki(dot)com so I can convince them to help me warn the world at large of what you and I already know.

Woe betide the unprepared when the Giant Clanking Robot of Perfectly Reasonable Vengeance®, appears unheralded on the horizon.*

Help me help you. Help me help you. Help me help you.

–Curt

*I don’t know. I guess there are like two robots, and they’re fighting. Or maybe it’s just one robot, but with two aspects. Or maybe it’s like the robot from The Day The Earth Stood Still, not having a nature sufficient unto itself, but rather reacting to those it comes into contact with, thereby being either a kind of savior or an agent of punishment, depending on how a given person behaves.

New feature: Autosave

Attention students: You now have one less excuse to use — “the wiki ate my homework” line is now history!

When working on a document in our Point-and-Click editor, we’ll automatically save a draft every 3 minutes. If your laptop runs out of battery, your cat closes your browser, or your new copy of Windows Vista crashes on you, no worries, you can now resume (close to) where you left off. We hope you will find this new feature useful and non-intrusive.

How does it work? Just edit your wiki as usual. If your browser crashes, resume editing and you’ll be prompted to resume the autosaved version.

Also, we built Autosave so drafts won’t clutter the Recent Changes or Wiki History.

The autosave feature is free for all PBwikis using the Point-and-Click editor.

Tip of the Week #15: Links

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Hey folks! Sorry it’s been so long since the last update, I just got back from a trip to London and now it’s back to the real world for little ol’ me. I hope everybody has been well and is ready to jump in with some more PBwiki tips…

In the past week or two, I’ve seen a lot of questions from users on the forums about how to link from one page to another, link to somebody’s e-mail address, or to do special things like open in a new window or break out of frames. Those options are all available for folks in both the Classic WikiStyle Editor and the newer Point and Click Editor.

First off, we’ll briefly review links in general for our newest users…

Continue reading “Tip of the Week #15: Links”

PBwiki announces voice chat — and it is awesome

Ok, I can’t control myself any more.

Today, we’re officially announcing voice chat in PBwiki. This means that you can now talk to anyone viewing your wiki page. It takes about 15 seconds to set up on your PBwiki — and it’s free.

The details: We teamed with YackPack to embed their WalkieTalkie Widget that lets you chat on any PBwiki page. To get it, just edit any PBwiki page, click Insert Plugin >> Chat >> YackPack voice chat.

Here’s a video of how voice chat works in PBwiki


Click To Play

(To use this video on your site, just visit http://blip.tv/file/196824.)

Imagine using voice chat to let students talk about research they’re doing. Or to talk about whether a certain paragraph should be in your business proposal. Or to pick the perfect place for dinner from a list on your PBwiki. It’s available now on your wiki, free.

A PBwiki Press Conference — April 12th
We’re holding a press conference (using the voice chat, of course) tomorrow, April 12th, at http://press.pbworks.com.

  • 2pm PT: For technology journalists and other tech folks
  • 6pm PT: For educators, educational journalists, and anyone who likes to read books and learn!

From the entire team at PBwiki and YackPack, enjoy voice chat on your wiki!

PS–To post about this on your own blog, visit our Media Resources page for videos, screenshots, and more

Tip of the Week #14: Fix it! I made an oopsy…

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Ocassionally, our pages mess up because of a PBwiki bug. If that’s the case, then of course you should let somebody at support@pbworks.com know and they’ll help you get things back to normal. However, a lot of cases are our own doing, and it is sometimes frustrating to see our pages look like a wreck for a few hours while we wait for support’s answer, no matter how prompt it might be.

Below, I’m going to show you a few tips you can use to take your wiki into your own hands when a boo-boo comes along. Support is of course always available either officially through support@pbworks.com or by users like you through the forums, but a couple steps towards independence can be a welcome skill for any user.

Continue reading “Tip of the Week #14: Fix it! I made an oopsy…”

Can't access YouTube?

Are you trying to view our PBwiki videos but your work or school is blocking YouTube?

Don’t worry, we’ve uploaded all of the PBwiki videos to TeacherTube. TeacherTube is a great video site that doesn’t appear to be blocked by most employers and educational institutions. It’s completely safe for work and has other helpful videos and tutorials for both educators and students.

Take a look at the PBwiki videos on TeacherTube.

Here’s a PBwiki video uploaded on TeacherTube that has educators covering their favorite features on PBwiki.

http://www.teachertube.com/flvplayer.swf

Tip of the Week #13: Where WAS that page?

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Author’s Note: WordPress garbled my code at the bottom of this page for the auto-generated index. It’s fixed now (April 5, 2007).

Celebrating National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day really gave me a moment to pause and reflect on the core concepts of PBwiki. Like a PBJ sandwich, PBwiki is about solid, satisfying simplicity, and sometimes, I think I forget that, looking for the filet mignon of the wiki world. Sure, it’s natural: I was originally brought on to the crew as a “Javascript Hacker.” I spend my free time doing silly things like making Tetris run in my wiki (programmed from scratch, FYI). Sometimes, the basic wiki stuff just gets lost on me.

To refocus, I’ve decided that about every other TOTW entry will be aimed primarily at hitting some foundational aspect of the PBwiki concept, which will be useful for our newer users and maybe a few veterans as well. Today, I’m gonna begin with ideas for navigating and finding pages in your wiki...

Continue reading “Tip of the Week #13: Where WAS that page?”