Why Wikis Work for Me

I love my personal wiki. I use a WikiMedia wiki set to private and document all my procedures and equipment there. So far it’s really saved me a lot of personal headache. One such incident happened just now and inspired me to write about it.

Today I had to replace the filament in a 3D printer. If I had not checked the wiki for the how-to I would have forgotten a critical step (tightening the idler screws). It would have wasted material and cost me 30 minutes. So the 5 minutes I spent writing down the steps have already paid for themselves 6 times over.

I also started to link pages back and forth today for the first time. “3d printers” links to “how to change the filament” and now back. So much easier to navigate! I look forward to the first time an employee uses the documents instead of asking me for help. Heck, I look forward to creating jobs and having employees.

Also, because you love pictures as much as I do, here’s what I think will be the last version of the Rotary Stewart Platform. The code is already on Github. I spent the morning assembling it and making videos for the product launch. I still need to dot a few ‘I’s and cross a few ‘T’s before I’m ready to rock. Measure twice, cut once!

Also, here’s a gallery of sights from the Science World 3D Printer Village that happened this weekend hosted on Imgur.