Is WP for me, a non-blogger?

  • gayleard

    (@gayleard)


    18 years ago

    I’m trying WordPress out for what is probably an unusual purpose – to keep what is essentially a private Journal. I don’t mean that there is anything confidential in it, it’s just that it is for my own use. I don’t mind who reads it, but I cannot imagine anyone being very interested in its contents.

    Basically, I have been keeping a computer diary for several years, to record information I want to remember, mostly about my computers (eg when I changed the hard disk or how I got WiFi to work on my laptop) but also about mathematics (I am a mathematician) – problems I have encountered or pointers to results that interest me.

    The reason I have gone over – at least temporarily – to WP is that I find myself using various computers in various places, and it is tedious to keep the diary in sync. (Basically, I use rsync under Fedora Linux for this on most of the machines.)

    Two hoped-for advantages of WP which have not yet materialised are:
    1. The ability to include email easily (currently I do with with cut-and-paste); and
    2. The possibility of including mathematics rendered from LaTeX using the LatexRender plugin (which I have not yet worked out how to use – I have downloaded and activated the plugin, but LaTeX still appears as LaTeX).

    I must admit I find the WP documentation difficult to navigate. I’m not sure a Wiki is really the best system for documentation; there is a lot to be said for the old-fashioned manual, with chapters 1-15. And I find this forum quite difficult to follow, though that may just be a newbie reaction. But the Search facility is somewhat strange, eg reporting that nothing is found when I look for “editor”, bu several hits for “WordPress editor”.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Doodlebee

    (@doodlebee)

    I know nothing of “latex”, and I’m not sure what you mean by the “email” thing. However, you could just try it out to see if it’ll do what you want it to do – you could do your own set up and “play” with it to see if you can get it to do what you want, or alternatively, you can sign up for a WP blog over at wordpress.com and play to see if you can get some of the functionality you want, without having to install everything and all that.

    PozHonks

    (@pozhonks)

    Google Notebook? https://www.google.com/notebook/ and its firefox plugin.
    Maybe WordPress is good for you, but you should keep in mind one important thing: assuring the long term readability of your work, namely, to easily import – export your work to any softwares and platforms in several years from now. For this, I believe WordPress is a good candidate because of its popularity, and because of its respect to open standards.

    Doodlebee

    (@doodlebee)

    Thank you for that link Poz – I had someone ask me about “notebook” the other day, and I’d never heard of it before. Now I can find out what it is!

    (of course, they said it was “wordpress notebook”….but maybe it’s this thing!)

    LostInNetwork

    (@lostinnetwork)

    “Google Notebook? https://www.google.com/notebook/ and its firefox plugin.”

    You might also want to study the Google privacy policy in detail before using their products, and listen to those that are paranoid about Google. It may be healthy. It may not. (yes, I use Gmail)

    And oh, remember that any “when law requires”, really reads “when a law in any country requires”. Sleep well, Google is good.

    Hehe, I sound like a paranoid ??

    With WordPress you are in control of your privacy.

    oce

    (@josepo)

    also you might want to checkout tiddlywiki ??
    https://www.tiddlywiki.com/

    Thread Starter gayleard

    (@gayleard)

    I looked at Google Notebook (as suggested) but it doesn’t quite meet my needs, I think. As far as I can see, the Notebook is saved on Google’s server. I really want something that is saved on my own machine. (I’m running WordPress on my desktop, which is running httpd/Apache under Fedora-6.)

    I’m still not sure if WordPress really meets my needs; I find it rather quirky, and the editor is not as user-friendly as it might be. However, this may just be a matter of getting used to it, and I shall persevere, at least for some time.

    It would make a big difference to me if LatexRender worked for me. (LaTeX, for the person who asked, is the standard system for printing mathematics. I have seen LatexRender output in WordPress, and it looks very nice, but I have not worked out how one is meant to use the plugin (which I have installed and activated). For some reason the developer of the LatexRender plugin does not seem to have told anyone how to use it.

    Root

    (@root)

    I wouldn’t imagine any one who uses Latex and Linux is going to have much trouble getting started in WP. Good luck. ??

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    www.remarpro.com Admin

    The latest version of the LatexRender plugin I found was for WordPress 1.2. That’s *way* old, and probably will require significant modification to bring it up to date to work with 2.0 or 2.1.

    Edit: Well, I take that back. The modifications are relatively minor. Some path related stuff, mostly. Once those are fixed, it appears that all you do is add [tex]…your latex here…[/tex] bits to your post, and there you go.

    drmike

    (@drmike)

    Which plugin are you using? I use this one. It’s for wpmu but it shouldn’t be any issue for regular wordpress.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • The topic ‘Is WP for me, a non-blogger?’ is closed to new replies.