Spare Cortex is a wiki with a bunch of extra useful things thrown in that make it useful for use as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_information_manager|personal information manager]], or for coordinating projects, or just about anything a wiki is useful for. == Pages * Unlike a standard wiki, Spare Cortex provides some basic page layout capabilities. //Pages// consist of //sections// which can be arranged into one, two or three columns. The page you're looking at is a two column page with seven different sections. * Each //section// can be viewed as part of the page that contains it, or you can bookmark just that section for quick access. For example, you might have a TODO list that's a part of a project page, and you can bookmark the list on your phone so that you can quickly load it up and add a TODO item when one pops into your head. [[http://www.sparecortex.com/c/demo/4001|This link]] displays just the //Checklist// section from the right of this page. * Each section is edited individually by clicking the wrench icon in its upper left. The wrench icon in the upperleftmost part of the page configures the whole page. Edit this page to see how the drag-and-drop reordering of sections on a page works. Click the close button in the upper right when you're done editing. * Sections come in a few different types. An example of each kind of section is shown on the right of this page. A page itself is also a section, so you can nest pages within pages if you want to do some really complex layout. == Features * It provides a wiki which is arranged hierarchically, i.e. into parent and child pages. * Media (images, etc.) can be uploaded and referenced on any wiki section. * You can create lists and checklists, to which new items can be easily added, and in the case of checklists, checked off when complete. * A //journal// section can be used to keep track of what you did each day. It's like a list, except that it keeps a separate list for every day, and you can navigate to a particular day's journal with the little calendar icon. * You can share an entire //cortex// (all the pages and sections and lists and whatnot) or just an individual page or section. Currently you can allow anyone to read (or write if you're open like that), and soon you'll be able to give read and/or write access to individual people. By default, everything is private and only you can see it. We don't want anyone snooping in your cortices. * Spare Cortex uses a fancy AJAX user interface that makes it easy to edit and update, but it's still fully accessible to search engines (only if you make it readable by anyone). == More examples * A [[Me Bits|personal info main page]] * A [[http://www.sparecortex.com/c/samskivert/1002/Spare%20Cortex|project page]] This is a wiki section. It supports **styled** //text// and a most of the standard wiki features you might expect. >>> {{smallcortex.jpg}} You can upload images or other media and use them in your wiki pages. You won't find your spare cortex anywhere on the picture to the right, because it lives in the cloud. The wiki syntax is [[http://www.wikicreole.org/|Creole]] with a few extensions. Click the edit icon in the upper left of this section and click the //Wiki help// link to see more examples. <div style="margin-top: 5px"> <div style="float: right; margin-left: 5px"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://img.weather.weatherbug.com/Style/stickers/v2/Stickers_180x150.css" /> <div class="wXbody"> <iframe id="WeatherBugSticker_180x150_v2" src="http://weather.weatherbug.com/desktop-weather/web-widgets/getSticker.html?ZipCode=98122&ZCode=z5545&Size=180x150&StationID=SEASF&units=0&Version=2&lang_id=en-us" width="174" height="96" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="yes"></iframe> <div class="wXlinks"> <span class="link"><a href="http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-forecast.html" target="_blank" onclick="Javascript:this.href='http://weather.weatherbug.com/WA/Seattle-weather/local-forecast/7-day-forecast.html?zcode=z5545&units=0'">Forecast</a></span> <span class="link"><a href="http://weather.weatherbug.com/doppler-radar.html" target="_blank" onclick="Javascript:this.href='http://weather.weatherbug.com/WA/Seattle-weather/local-radar/doppler-radar.html?zcode=z5545&units=0'">Radar</a></span> <span class="link"><a href="http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-cams.html" target="_blank" onclick="Javascript:this.href='http://weather.weatherbug.com/WA/Seattle-weather/weather-cams/local-cams.html?zcode=z5545&units=0'">Cameras</a></span> <span class="link"><a href="http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-photos/photo-gallery.html" target="_blank" onclick="Javascript:this.href='http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-photos/photo-gallery.html?zcode=z5545&units=0&zip=98122'">Photos</a></span> <div class="footer"> <a href="http://weather.weatherbug.com/default.html" target="_blank" onclick="Javascript:this.href='http://weather.weatherbug.com/WA/Seattle-weather.html?zcode=z5545&units=0'"><img src="http://img.weather.weatherbug.com/images/stickers/v2/180x150/wxbug-logo.jpg" border="0" alt="WeatherBug" /></a></div> </div> </div> </div> An HTML section is mostly useful for embedding things from other websites. But you can also use it when you need absolute control over how something looks. For example, the widget on the right shows the current weather in Seattle. <p>One especially useful thing to do when you're using Spare Cortex as a personal information manager is to <a href="http://www.sparecortex.com/c/help/1/Embed%20a%20Google%20Calendar">embed your Google Calendar</a> on your main page, along with your TODO list, journal and all your notes.</p> </div> A list is just a list of anything you like You can accomplish the same thing with a //wiki section// But a //list section// allows you to easily add an item to the list by clicking the plus icon You can also easily edit or delete a single list item by double clicking on it You can reorder the items in a list by clicking the wrench icon You can use **wiki** //formatting// in your list items, even adding [[List Child Example|sub pages]] A checklist is a list of things to do You add a new item by clicking the plus icon And you can check things off by clicking the checkbox next to the item Checked off items move to the bottom of the list After a couple of days, checked off items are archived You can't currently view archived items, but that feature is on the Spare Cortex TODO list! Add more fine-grained sharing controls Add the ability to search all of the data in a cortex so that you can easily find things wherever they are Add an interface for viewing archived items