If It Won't Fit On A Post-It, It Won't Fit In Your Day

If It Won't Fit On A Post-It, It Won't Fit In Your Day: "

Does your daily to-do list look like Mount Everest? Check out this super-simple approach to streamlining your everyday tasks for more sanity and productivity.

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Winnipeg dad dies after birthday party assault

Winnipeg dad dies after birthday party assault: "A Winnipeg father of five has died in hospital after being assaulted by an uninvited guest who crashed his daughter's 18th birthday party."

A Winnipeg father of five has died in hospital after being assaulted by an uninvited guest who crashed his daughter's 18th birthday party early Saturday.

Family members identified the man who died as Garth Isfeld, 44, who they say got into a fight with a man who'd been asked to leave.

They said Isfeld was struck over the head with a beer bottle as he stepped in to protect another daughter from the man.

Isfeld had a barbecue to celebrate the birthday of his daughter, Stephanie Krasnesky, after recently moving into the small home in the north Winnipeg neighbourhood.

Police were called to the house around 12:30 a.m. Family members said Isfeld was rushed to hospital, where he developed blood clots and died.

Elia Bevacqua, Isfled's sister-in-law, saw the assault happen. “Beer-bottled him in the head and he just dropped,” she said.

His daughter Stephanie curled up in a chair and sobbed, her family leaning over to touch and hug her as she spoke about the traumatic experience.

“I just seen him on the ground and he was rolling his eyes back in,” she cried. “There was so much blood everywhere. I just grabbed a pillow and put it around his head.”

Neighbours said the party got rowdy and people could be heard screaming, telling a man to leave.

Several people who were at the home when the fight happened are being interviewed.

Police are investigating. No charges have been laid.

Randall Krasnesky, 22, holding his sister's hand, said he'll do everything he can to support the remaining children who've been left without a father.

“They got me and I'll look after them,” he said.

Read more:

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So do we bring back the death penalty now that we have ways of identifying someone (DNA and bacteria). Legally in Canada DNA identification is governed by the DNA act.

Personally I feel that as identification gets better and better it becomes harder and harder for accused people to be wrongly convicted of crimes they didn't commit. I think eventually Capitol punishment will come back as we get more and more certain someone has committed a heinous crime (usually no statute of limitations like murder, rape etc).

I wouldn't be sad if it did. If someone cannot function as part of society that is fine, if they become a danger to it (by committing a heinous crime), for the safety of others they should be put down.

A way of looking at it would be similar to If a dog mauled a kid, it gets put down... we don't question that.. we should do the same for people.... no shame, no guilt, just take care of it.

Six Hidden iPhone Shortcuts

(03-02) 15:54 PST -- Last week, a new iPhone app called Tiger Text hit the App Store. The app lets users send text messages to a server that could be read by the recipient via an app reader. The text message would then be wiped from the face of the earth (i.e. both the texter and recipient's iPhones, and the server) after a pre-determined amount of time.

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The purpose of this app, of course, is to hide your tiger tracks. Makers of the app swear they came up with the app's name, Tiger Text, well before steamy Tiger Woods texts and voicemail messages that he'd sent to mistresses made headline news.

[ Apple's bikini ban was too reactionary, reports CIO.com. | What's the App Store's dirty little secret? ]

Tiger Text is supposed to give texters power over historical records of their private texts that they might hammer out one night and regret the next day--but it's a false sense of control. Clearly, the makers of Tiger Text are betting that most iPhone owners who receive Tiger Texts messages don't know how to take a screenshot of the message. And maybe they don't.

All of this got us thinking that a review of some of the hidden iPhone features is in order. The simplicity of the iPhone and lack of buttons belies a wealth of shortcuts. We've picked six of the most important ones.

Two-Button Screenshot

What to do: In order to take a picture of whatever is on the iPhone screen at the moment, simply press the home button and the on/off button together. The screenshot is added to your camera roll. Also, in Safari, you can copy an image on a website by pressing on the image and holding until the "save image" pops up. The image will be saved on the camera roll. (Note: This doesn't work in some native iPhone apps like AP Mobile.)

Why it's important: Text messages, emails, websites, images often get inadvertently deleted. The screenshot shortcut is a fast way to save data.

Double-Click Camera

What to do: You can set your iPhone so that double tapping the home button brings up an application, such as the iPod or camera. Go to settings, general and home. Then select from home, search, phone favorites, camera and iPod. We recommend you set it on camera.

On a related note, if the iPod is playing, double-clicking the home button from another app or while at home screen will call up limited iPod controls, not the camera. When the iPhone is locked, double clicking the home button will also bring up the iPod controls.

Why it's important: Photo opportunities arise when you least expect them. That's why the ability to quickly bring your camera online is critical. The double-tap of the home button is much faster than scrolling through your screens and looking for the camera app. (Remember to unlock the iPhone first before double-tapping the home button or else the iPod controls will pop up.)

Three-finger Zoom

What to do: With three fingers, tap the screen twice and you'll zoom in. It doesn't matter if you're on the home screen or in an app. Perform the action again to return to normal view.

Why it's important: This feature can make it easier on the eyes. On the home screen, app icons and the words beneath them appear bigger. But the real advantage comes in the camera. If you called up your camera app using the double-click feature described above (as opposed to scrolling and calling up a feature-rich camera app like Snapture), then chances are the photo opportunity is fleeting. A three-finger double tap can zoom in on the subject.

Hold for Voice Activation

What to do: Hold the home button down until voice control activates. Then you can issue voice commands such as calling someone or playing a certain song.

Why it's important: Searching for contacts and numbers while driving is a recipe for disaster, not to mention maybe illegal. Voice commands keep you safer on the road.

Double-Tap Safari

What to do: When surfing the Web on Safari, it's hard to read text and view images on the tiny screen. If you're using two fingers to expand the content, our hunch is that you've probably just bought your iPhone. Instead, double tap the text or pictures to fit the screen. Double tap again to return to normal.

Why it's important: Web surfing and content consumption is a lot easier and less frustrating than constantly having to pinch and reverse pinch. Your fingers will thank you, too.

Voice and Data

What to do: You've seen it in the Apple and AT&T ads. When on a voice call, you can put the call in speaker mode and then hit the home button to access other apps. It's one of the key selling points--voice and data at the same time--of the iPhone.

Why it's important: At first, it might seem odd to multi-task during a call. After a while, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Tom Kaneshige is a senior writer for CIO.com in Silicon Valley. Send him an email at tkaneshige@cio.com. Or follow him on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

Copyright (c) 2010, IDG News Service. All rights reserved. IDG News Service is a trademark of International Data Group, Inc.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/02/urnidgns852573C400693880002576DA008301A2.DTL#ixzz0iKIwoI0j

Verbatim robot smash

Use Better Tools to be a Better Student in 2010 [Students]

Use Better Tools to be a Better Student in 2010 [Students]: "

Despite the proliferation of laptops and netbooks, the vast majority of students still use their computers like $500 typewriters. Stop working so hard and start being a better student by leveraging computer-based tools to your advantage.

Photo by Brad K..

For the last several semesters I have been informally tracking how my college freshman use their computers. I always assumed that my students were using their computers to their full potential to help them with school, research, and such, but almost all of them were simply using their laptops as extremely expensive typewriters and instant-messaging terminals.

What good is all the computing power of the pre-1960s world sitting on your lap if you're not using it to make life easier? The following is a guide for students every where that want spend less time on the tedious and more time on the things like study and research that actually produce results.

Never Do Anything Your Computer Can Do For You:

Never, ever, do something the hard way without checking to see if any easy way exists. Applications come in every shape and form to automate tasks on the computer. Never undertake a tedious task on your computer without first visiting a search engine and searching for a method of automating it. Whether you're resizing photos for a class project, renaming files, or crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, check for the simple—and automatic!—way first. Photo by striatic.

File Renamers: Renaming tons of files has to be one of the most boring and grinding tasks you can undertake. Never waste time renaming files. If you're on a PC, check out the powerful Bulk Rename Utility for a dashboard of options and the less-overwhelming but still effective Ken Rename. If you're on a Mac you can download specialty apps like File List, but it pays to become acquainted with Automator which can do so much more than simple file renaming.

Text Replacement: Unless you're writing the next great American novel, chances are you type a fair number of things with a high degree of frequency. Your email address, common phrases you use, formatting you find yourself typing over and over again when working on papers or taking notes, and so on, it might not seem like much but you can easily save hours over the course of a semester by using text replacement. How does text replacement work? Each text replacement tool handles things a little bit differently but the nearly all of them have two basic methods: instant replacement and hot keys.

With replacement you tell your computer to replace every instance of a string with another string—like notes1 becomes your favorite bullet-list format for taking notes or mymail becomes your full email address. Hot keys allow you to assign a phrase to a bit of shorthand plus a hotkey, for example I have a phrase that is XXX+TAB which is four key strokes but it types out a phrase that would require 53 keystrokes if I typed it manually.

If you're on a PC you can try out our home-grown text replacement tool Texter, or other capable tools like Phrase Express. Mac users should check out TextExpander or become more familiar with the built in text-replacement tools in Snow Leopard., and Linux users can give AutoKey a whirl.

Regardless of what you're trying to do you'll almost always be able to find a tool online to automate or at least make that task easier. Get in the habit of always asking yourself, no matter what the task, 'Could the computer do this faster and with less input from me?'. Over time you'll build up a set of tools for quickly completing common tasks.

Keyboard Shortcuts: Learn the keyboard shortcuts for everything: your wordprocessor, your note-taking tools, your email client. Slinging the mouse around for tasks that can be accomplished with a keystroke or two is a really inefficient way to work. Worse than inefficient, it's slow. If you're furiously taking down notes in class do you really want to break your stride to dig around in the toolbar or menus for something? You can find shortcut lists for every operating system and application under the sun, hit up Google with a search query like 'myapplication shortcut list' to find more shortcuts than you new existed. Photo by John A. Ward.

Take Better Notes:

Note taking is an art form and it is most definitely not simply writing down everything your professor says or that is in bold print in your textbook. How you take notes is a highly personal thing and heavily influenced by your learning style, but everyone can stand to improve their note taking with a tip or two. Photo by D'Arcy Norman.

Study Note-Taking Techniques: We've shared tips with you on how to take more effective notes and how to utilize different note-taking styles and you'll find no shortage of resources elsewhere on the web for being a more effective note-taker. You can further hone your note-taking skills by researching subject-specific note taking techniques—how you take notes in Medieval Literature won't be the same way you take notes in Organic Chemistry.

Ditch the Pen:

People who love to take handwritten notes love to take handwritten notes and we don't epect to dissuade the everything-looks-better-on-Moleskin crowd from abandoning their pens. For the rest of you, taking paper notes is, quite literally, so last century. It's 2010 and there is no reason for you not to have dynamic, media-rich, cross-indexed, and always available notes. At the end of the semester do you really want to pick through a hundred pages of hand written notes looking for information? No, you don't. You want to be able to search through your notes quickly and efficiently the same way you use major search engines like Google.

Two extremely popular note-taking tools are Microsoft OneNote and Evernote—so popular in fact we faced them off in a reader poll last year. The awesome features of the two applications are beyond the scope of a paragraph but suffice to say they both have excellent systems for searching (with handwriting recognition!), organizing, and accessing your notes—I use OneNote for everything from graduate school to teaching to writing for Lifehacker. You can check out our overview of OneNote here and Evernote here.

Use the Computer to Network:

We're not talking about Facebooking everyone in your class—although that could be useful—we're talking about actively using online study and collaboration tools to interact with your classmates. Sharing notes, discussing assignments and class topics, and collaborating on group projects are but a few of the ways you can take advantage of the hyper-connectivity the information age has brought about. Photo by krossbow.

Share Your Notes:The first objection I usually hear to the idea of sharing notes is that people don't want to share their hard work and they don't think that other people should benefit from it. Fair enough, how you deal with who participates in your class-centered groups and note sharing sessions is your business but as an instructor I can tell you this: the kind of person who doesn't bother to take their own notes isn't exactly the kind of person you're going to have to fight for the top grade in the class.

You can share notes and collaborate in quite a few ways but it would help your cause to stick with methods that have a low barrier to entry—most people don't want to sign up for a bunch of services just for a class. Google Notebook and Documents are great tools since having a Gmail account is nearly universal. You could also set up your own wiki with free tools like Luminotes or customize MediaWiki into your own personal collaboration server.

Build a Contact Web: Whether it's a group on Facebook, an email list, or a list of phone numbers for text messaging, it's wise to create a way you can quickly communicate with other students. Many times you have a question about an assignment, something that happened in class, or what you missed when you were absent and sending out an email to your fellow students will result in a faster response than waiting to hear back from the professor. It also helps you build of a contact list of your peers—not as important in freshman Psychology 110 course, but by the time you're in at the end of your schooling you'll be taking more focused classes and meeting people in your career path you'll want to stay in contact with.

Backup, Backup, Backup:

You have no excuse for not backing up your data—none. The number and methods for backing up data, especially the small volume that constitutes text-based research and class notes, are so numerous that there simply is no excuse for doing something foolish like keeping all your hard work on a single hard disk or flash drive. Photo by Jeff Wilcox.

Dropbox: It's free, the basic account can more than hold a semester's worth of work—short of a film school project—and it syncs to all your computers and to the web. "I accidentally deleted my homework" wasn't a very good excuse ten years ago and it's an unforgivable one now. You can sync your passwords, your OneNote notebooks, and access your favorite portable apps from anywhere.

Online Backup: While Dropbox is great for syncing files, if you want to go all out you'll definitely want to check out some full-fledged computer backup tools like Mozy and Carbonite. Check out our Hive Five on best Windows backup tools to get more information.

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Have a tool you use to enhance your note-taking, studying, or school experience? Can't believe we overlooked your favorite technique? Let's hear about it in the comments below.

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Learn Proper Sushi Etiquette to Make a Good Impression [Etiquette]

Learn Proper Sushi Etiquette to Make a Good Impression [Etiquette]: "

Like many aspects of Japanese culture, there's a certain etiquette to eating sushi. Take the time to peruse these helpful tips so you can make the best impression on your sushi chef or dining companions the next time you're downing some maki.

Collaborative blog Clusterflock says good sushi etiquette dictates you should dip only the fish portion into soy sauce, never the rice, and take care to use the blunt end of the chopsticks to take food from a shared plate. The post also asserts that sushi is meant to be eaten in a single bite, not in a succession of smaller ones.

When you're dining on the fishy treats, make sure you always mind your chopsticks:

Don't rub your chopsticks together to remove splinters. (It's rude; a good sushi bar would never offer chopsticks of such low quality.

Clusterflock claims that stirring wasabi into your soy sauce for more flavorful dunking is likewise a faux pas. Some sushi aficionados say it's perfectly acceptable, however, so if you're concerned, the safest approach is to let your tablemates be your guide. If they're busy making wasabi soup in their individual bowls of soy sauce, feel free to whip up your own batch, too.

Check out the post for more sushi etiquette dos and don'ts. What's missing from the list? Are you an outlaw that breaks these rules, or do you follow every one of them? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Sushi Etiquette [Clusterflock]

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Google Image Swirl

Google Image Swirl: "Google released a new Google Labs experiment related to image search: Google Image Swirl. The service 'organizes image search results based on their visual and semantic similarities and presents them in an intuitive exploratory interface.'

Google Image Swirl clusters the top image search results for more than 200,000 queries and it lets you explore the clusters and the relation between images.

'Once you find the group of images you're interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will 'swirl' into view. You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. Image Swirl expands on technologies developed for Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to discern how images should be grouped together and build hierarchies out of these groups. Each thumbnail on the initial results page represents an algorithmically-determined representative group of images with similar appearance and meaning. These aren't just the most relevant images — they are the most relevant groups of images,' explains Google.

Try queries like: jaguar, flowers, van Gogh and keep in mind that this is an early demo, so not all the queries will return results.


Google has two other visualization tools: 'wonder wheel' for exploring related searches and YouTube Warp, an interactive way to visualize related YouTube videos.

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Graph Paper Generator - PDF

Not really a blog but, still very useful site for generating customized graph paper in pdf fromat.

Replenish Fluids After Exercising with a Simple Equation [Exercise]

Replenish Fluids After Exercising with a Simple Equation [Exercise]: "

It's important to keep hydrated before, during, and after a workout, but if you're not satisfied with conventional 'until you're not thirsty' wisdom, Men's Health explains how to calculate how much you need to drink to replenish your fluids.

Photo by shrff14.

According to the post, you should ideally start drinking water or comparable liquids at least 15 minutes prior to exercising and around eight ounces of water for every 20 minutes spent working out. It's also important to weigh yourself before and after a workout, especially where refueling after the fact is concerned. Once you've clocked your post-exercise weight, drink 16 ounces of water for every pound you've lost (you've clearly done some serious working out if you've dropped literal pounds). For example, Men's Health says that 'if you're 2 pounds lighter after an hour-long run, drink 32 ounces more before or during your next run.'

And if you're not sure whether coffee, juices, and other liquids will help you refuel as well as water, get to know these four debunked hydration myths.

Drink Up: How to Replace the Liquids You're Sweating Out [Men's Health]

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Eddie Rickenbacker

Eddie Rickenbacker: "'Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.'"

Customize MediaWiki into Your Ultimate Collaborative Web Site [Mediawiki]

Customize MediaWiki into Your Ultimate Collaborative Web Site [Mediawiki]: "

The free MediaWiki software is best known for powering Wikipedia, but you don't have to be writing an encyclopedia to put it to good use. Extend, skin, and customize MediaWiki to create any kind of easy-to-update, collaborative web site.

When and Why MediaWiki?

MediaWiki is arguably the most advanced, install-it-yourself, free wiki package available. A wiki is an editable web site; you can change each page's content without having to log into a content management system like WordPress or access the server via FTP or other means—you just hit the edit button. While MediaWiki is built for public web sites that anyone can update, like Wikipedia, you can customize it to limit access to certain users. Like WordPress and Firefox, MediaWiki is extendable via plug-ins that add functionality. MediaWiki is also skinnable, which means your wiki can sport a custom theme so it doesn't look just like Wikipedia.

MediaWiki's greatest strengths are that it makes web site pages extremely easy to update, and it makes managing page changes by multiple users very easy as well. So, while you could use MediaWiki to publish your own personal web site where you're the only author, MediaWiki really shines when you're co-authoring with another person or group, or if you have an editor reviewing text on a site who needs to make quick corrections and changes. MediaWiki is also very good at structuring large amounts of text with simple markup. For example, MediaWiki automatically creates on-page, hierarchical outlines based on page sections (shown here) with links that point directly to those sections (even if they're midway down the page). Whether you're co-writing your NaNoWriMo novel, setting up a company intranet, or just want an easy-to-update web site, MediaWiki fits the bill.

Recently, Adam and I used MediaWiki to write, publish, and expand a book-in-progress using MediaWiki. Check it out to get a feel for what a non-Wikipedia web site using MediaWiki can look like.

MediaWiki Installation and Basic Usage

To use MediaWiki, you'll need a web server with PHP and MySQL available and some experience installing web applications. If you've installed WordPress before, you'll have no problem installing MediaWiki. To do some of the customizations below, you'll have to be comfortable adding files to your installation, doing some light PHP file editing, and in the case of skins, know how to tweak HTML and CSS to get your skin to look how you want.

Back in 2006, we covered how to install MediaWiki and that article still stands up. (However, you can't go wrong getting instructions from the horse's mouth—here are MediaWiki's latest installation instructions.) If you don't want to deal with the hassle of setting up a web server with PHP and MySQL and MediaWiki, check out the quick-setup BitNami installer for MediaWiki.

Once MediaWiki's installed, you can start adding and editing pages to your wiki. Wiki pages aren't made of HTML like regular pages, they're made of special wiki markup. Here's a rundown of the most common bits of wiki markup you'll need to know. To see wiki markup in action, hit the play button to watch a five-minute screencast demonstrating how to edit and create pages ('chapters') of a novel in MediaWiki.

MediaWiki Skins

Out of the box, MediaWiki comes with the look and feel you're so used to from Wikipedia; this MediaWiki skin is called MonoBook, and it's popular and immediately recognizable. However, if you log into your MediaWiki installation and click on preferences, and then the Skins tab, you can dress up your wiki in various other looks. With a little elbow grease, you can also create your own custom skin and assign it as the default to the wiki.

All your wiki's skin files are located in the /path-to-your-wiki/skins/ directory, where 'path-to-your-wiki' is the directory where MediaWiki is installed. A skin is made up of a single PHP file, and a directory with its CSS files and images. For example, a skin called 'My Great Skin' will consist of /path-to-your-wiki/skins/MyGreatSkin.php and /path-to-your-wiki/skins/mygreatskin. Unlike WordPress, you have to update your skin files by hand on your MediaWiki server. Be sure to back up your entire working installation before you start, just in case something goes wrong.

Newbie MediaWiki skin developers would do well to start with a copy of the MonoBook skin files and modify them. WikiHow (another MediaWiki-based site!) offers a simple tutorial on how to do that: How to Create a MediaWiki Skin Based on the MonoBook Skin. You can always preview a skin in your user Preferences->Skins area as you develop to make sure things look how you want. The (X)HTML markup for your skin will be located in its .php file and the CSS files will be located in the skin's folder. Be sure to save any skin-specific images in the skin's folder as well.

Once your skin development is complete, you want to set it as the default for everyone who looks at your wiki, whether or not they're logged in. To do so, in /path-to-your-wiki/LocalSettings.php, set the $wgDefaultSkin variable to to the name of your custom skin and refresh your wiki.

MediaWiki Extensions

Like WordPress, MediaWiki is an extensible web application, and several MediaWiki plug-ins that add functionality to MediaWiki are available for free. Unlike WordPress, MediaWiki extensions require manually copying files into your MediaWiki installation directory and hand-editing the LocalSettings.php file.

Three MediaWiki extensions you may find useful include:

• The EmbedVideo extension helps you include a YouTube, Google Video, Dailymotion, or Revver video clip into your wiki pages.
• The Cite extension makes creating page footnotes (ala Wikipedia) easy.
• The WhosOnline extension shows what users are currently logged into your wiki.

These three extensions are just the beginning. See MediaWiki's list of extensions by category for more.

To install an extension, download its zip file and extract it to the /path-to-your-wiki/extensions/ directory. Then, in your LocalSettings.php file, add a line that includes the extension file. For example, to activate the Cite extension, you'd use the line require_once('$IP/extensions/Cite/Cite.php');. (Each extension's homepage will provide the line of code you'll need to install it, and how to use the extension once it is installed.)

MediaWiki User Permissions

The primary purpose of a wiki is to give anyone the ability to edit its pages, but MediaWiki is customizable enough that you can limit that access if you're concerned about vandalism, or if you want only certain users to be able to change content.

For example, MediaWiki comes with a mechanism to register users, so people can create an account at your wiki and log in. This comes in handy if you want to restrict edit access to only people who are logged into your wiki. Likewise, you can 'protect' pages on your wiki and grant only certain users 'editprotected' page access.

To set your MediaWiki user permissions, you have to edit the LocalSettings.php file. For example, to disable the ability for anyone who visits your wiki to edit its pages, create pages, or add to talk pages, use this code:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createtalk'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createpage'] = false;

Above, the * represents all users.

A default group called 'user' refers to visitors who have created an account and logged into your wiki. To give them edit privileges, add the following to your LocalSettings.php file:

$wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit'] = true;

You can even restrict edit access only to users who have created an account AND verified their email address with this code in LocalSettings.php:

# Disable for everyone.
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
# Disable for users, too: by default 'user' is allowed to edit, even if '*' is not.
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit'] = false;
# Make it so users with confirmed e-mail addresses are in the group.
$wgAutopromote['emailconfirmed'] = APCOND_EMAILCONFIRMED;
# Hide group from user list.
$wgImplicitGroups[] = 'emailconfirmed';
# Finally, set it to true for the desired group.
$wgGroupPermissions['emailconfirmed']['edit'] = true;


MediaWiki's user rights scheme is complex but deeply customizable. See the Manual's User Rights page for a full list of rights, default groups, and how to create your own groups with custom access privileges.

More MediaWiki Customization Fun

This overview of skins, extensions, and user permissions is just a broad look at what's possible in the world of MediaWiki customization. Here are links to a few more common tweaks you might make to your wiki:

• Set your logo image: If you're using MonoBook or another skin that uses a wiki logo, set it to your custom image.
• Prettify your wiki URLs: By default, MediaWiki's page URLs look like /index.php?title=Your_Page, but an .htaccess file tweak can make them look like Wikipedia's clean /wiki/Your_Page links.
• Set a custom Main Page: If 'Main Page' isn't the first two words you want your wiki's visitors to see, you can move the Main Page to a custom page you create and name.
• Use MediaWiki templates for reusable modules: If you use repetitive page elements, like an image with a caption formatted a certain way, set up a MediaWiki template for easy reuse.
• Make your wiki read-only with $wgReadOnly: To disable editing on all pages across the board on your wiki, set the $wgReadOnly variable to an explanatory string in your LocalSettings.php file. For example, the line $wgReadOnly = 'Wiki locked for maintenance'; will disable editing of all pages, and display that message to anyone who tries to edit a page.

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What are your favorite MediaWiki customizations, extensions, or skins? Share 'em in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker's founding editor, is very excited to finally co-author a book for real using MediaWiki. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

http://completewaveguide.com/guide/Get_Started_with_Wave#

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