Zero to Wiki in Under 5 Minutes

If you want to see the future of software deployment and distribution step right up. The fellas over at MindTouch are on the leading edge. They have mastered not only the world of wiki but also the virtualization-verse (my lame attempt at combining virtualization and universe) with their VMWare certified download. As long as you have a fast internet connection (and really who doesn’t have a 10Mb fiber metronet connection?) you can have the coolest wiki in the world collecting the wisdom of crowds before your Domino’s Pizza is delivered for free.

Unfortunately, Domino’s no longer guarantees free delivery for orders that are over 30 minutes late, but with only the slightest of VMWare skills you can be guaranteed to have the VM (virtual machine) up and running just as fast. Of course since Deki Wiki is open source it is free either way but it doesn’t hurt to have the warm fuzzy of knowing your project will be done before you run out of Mountain Dew and probably before your pizza even starts to get cold.

Now that you know Deki Wiki is fast and painless why else should you try it out? Well, it is the easiest wiki I have ever used and comes with a lot of really superb features. One feature in particular is just begging for a “sleep with the fishes” letter from Bill Gates; the file attachments feature. With Deki Wiki you can attach Microsoft Office and PDF documents PLUS you can search them AND you can view them from within the wiki WITHOUT Office or Acrobat installed. Goodbye sharepoint! Well, probably not, but this sure does open a lot of doors for Deki deployments. Of course all other standard wiki features are present plus you get some slick widgets and web services plugins that extend the capabilities to flickr, interactive google maps and about 3 bazilliion other cool integrations that you could probably live without but now have no excuse not to use. Don’t go another day without this highly addictive application. If you do, you will miss out on the new beta Desktop Connector and their latest alpha Outlook integration. If you really can’t find 30 minutes to install it, you still have no excuse not to use it because MindTouch is now offering hosted services - for those that prefer to let the experts handle things.

Ok, obviously I am a Deki Wiki fan. I am also really excited about deploying software within a VM image. Prerequisites? What prerequisites? All you need is a copy of VMWare and you are set. Don’t know which flavor of Linux to load the software on to? Who cares, the software company preinstalls the software onto a VMWare certified flavor and zips the whole thing up into a single file download. Brilliant!

It used to take hours to build a server, install an OS, update/patch the OS and then get the software working. Pretty soon all servers will come preloaded with a flash ROM that contains an embedded copy of VMWare ESX Server 3i. In essence you pull the bubble wrap off your shiny new hardware and rather than sit around and pop the bubbles while your load up an OS from the OEM install CD at 48x, you immediately boot the machine and transfer a fully configured VM image onto the host and you are in production in minutes. Thinking about it kind of makes me feel bad for all the college kids that used to get paid $8/hr to do this type of menial labor so senior IT staffers could busy themselves with the latest software install guide, forum post or digg article. As John Reep used to say on the Dodge Hemi commercials “Sweet!”