Cake Decorating Wiki

Baking cakes has always been an important part of our family life. Usually we made a cake every weekend. Back in those days, people would just drop by the house to visit. Usually it involved a slice of cake and a cup of coffee too. From the time that I could reach the counter (even with the help of a stepstool), I was helping to bake cakes. As a little girl, my Grandpa would give us eggs from the farm to bake him a 1234 pound cake. He usually gave me a dollar for baking that cake for him. A dollar was a lot to a little 9-year old girl in those days. Many of my friends did not grow up in the kitchen like me and most did not know how to bake. If you came to my house for the weekend, you'd be in the kitchen and helping (or learning). Many people I know do not know how to bake. The Cake Decorating Wiki was created to be a source for those who want to learn how to bake and for those who want to share hints and tips with others on baking and decorating cakes. It's in it infancy and needs members and writers. CakeShapes Designs has partnered with the wiki to provide links to easy-to-use downloadable cake patterns for cute, fun cut-up cakes. The Noah's Ark Cake pictured here is just one example of a cake pattern available on CakeShapes Designs. If you're interested in cake decorating, join the wiki and offer your advice.

Happy Birthday Wiki!

Today I'm celebrating the birthday of the world's first wiki. On this date in 1995, Ward Cunningham made WikiWikiWeb public. He developed the software and website in 1994 to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier. He came up with the name after thinking about the Wiki Wiki Shuttle at the Honolulu International Airport. Wiki is a Hawaiian word for fast. His idea was to make the pages quickly editable by users. After the initial idea of "QuickWeb" -- he settled on WikiWikiWeb. Over time, the actual site has become to be known as WardsWiki.

Don't be fooled though. Wikis are not just for geeks. They can be used by practically anyone who can send e-mail. Learn everything about using wikis at Everything Wiki - it's a wiki about wikis.

If you have a favorite wiki, post a comment on this blog. I've been very busy lately and have not been blogging. However, this event has inspired me to start posting some of my favorite wikis here. I'd like to look at your favorites and share them too.

Image credit: www.thecontentwrangler.com

The race is on

In celebration of the Daytona 500, the season opening Nascar race, today I'm featuring the All About Racin' wiki on Wetpaint. It's one online community for Nascar fans. It has 558 members today. When I looked at this site last year, it only had 371 members. The wiki has pages on the history of Nascar, including the champions. It has links to blogs about Nascar racing. It has pages for the current schedule, the teams, and tracks. You'll even find pages on the news about Nascar wives and girlfriends. If you're a fan of Nascar or just curious, drop by this wiki.

The Christmas Wiki

You've likely seen the lovely videos on YouTube that show lighting synchronized to music. Or, maybe you have noticed as you drive around your community some homes where the lights appear to dance to the music. Well, I've found a wiki that may help you also create a dazzling lighting display during the Christmas holidays. Visit the Christmas Wiki for information on where to start, selecting controllers, sequencing lights and music, and much more!

Merry Christmas to you all!


Image credit: www.komar.org

The 2008 Beijing Olympics and wikis

In celebration of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, I started my search for wikis devoted to the topic. It's a natural tool for those participating and attending the Olympics. It would be great to share information about navigating through the Olympics venues. It would be interesting to see information posted about the competition results, with feedback from attendees or armchair reporters. I found the Olympic wiki on Wikia. It only has 12 articles though. I also found a MediaWiki version of the Olympics wiki . It is much larger, with over 1880 articles. However, it appears that only one update has been made in the last 30 days. That's obviously a sign of a problem -- with currency of information, especially since the 2008 summer Olympics are underway. I also found a Chinese version but really can't tell much about its currency. I found Olympics 2008 Dashboard, a Zoho Wiki that is tracking the medal standings across countries. As you're glued to the TV watching the Olympics this week, why not visit one of these wiki sites and lend a hand? If you know of another wiki site on the 2008 Olympics, post a comment for us.

I love Lucy at the Lucille Ball Wiki

In celebration of Lucille Ball's birthday, today I'm featuring here on the Wiki'd Places blog, The Lucille Ball Wiki on Wikia. It's a small site and just getting started. They are working on 36 articles now on people and shows. If you're a fan of the I Love Lucy show or Lucille Ball, visit the wiki and join its community.

Wikinews, the free online news source

Today while celebrating the anniversary of the launch of MSNBC in 1996, I began to think about wiki sources of online news. The original slogan of MSNBC was "It's time to get connected" and a key feature of wikis is the ability to connect and to collaborate with others. I immediately thought of the Wikinews wiki, whose mission is to present reliable, unbiased, relevant and entertaining news. Wikinews is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates several other multilingual and free-content projects, such as Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, and Wikibooks. If you're interesting in contributing to this online news site, check out its Newsroom page, where it lists articles in development, articles marked ready for publishing, articles in dispute, collaboration requests, recently published articles, and lead articles. Like the traditional network news services and their Internet sites, Wikinews is not above controversy. Recently, some Web articles noted that Wikinews might not be as unbiased as they claim, particularly about news items related to the Wikimedia Foundation. The controversy is discussed on The Register and Slashdot. Regardless, it's interesting to watch the site and how communities are collaborating to report the news around the world.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Happy Birthday USA!

We're starting our celebration early this year. Taking a little break to enjoy the family. Maybe we'll go fishing and spend some time at the beach too. The grill is already ready! Have a great holiday. We'll be back soon, reporting wiki'd ways to build content and collaborate with your community.




Image credit: RazzleDazzleRecipes

Celebrating one million wikis!

Wetpaint is nearing an amazing milestone -- one million wikis! To celebrate this occasion, Wetpaint will reward the one-millionth site creator with the chance
to give back to their community and the planet! For one year, Wetpaint will offset the carbon emissions of both the home and car of the creator of the millionth wiki. Wetpaint will also sponsor the carbon offset of a local school or non-profit organization selected by the millionth site creator. Wetpaint is even taking it one step further by offering the package to the referrer of the millionth site.

Wetpaint has created a wiki to share the news and details about this amazing celebration. You can learn more about Wetpaint's celebration at One Million Sites, my wiki-of-the-day. This new wiki gives details about the package and the official rules. It provides badges that you can add to your blog, website, or social networking profile to promote the event. Maybe your site will be the referrer of the millionth wiki if you add a badge.

If you want to know more about wikis, visit the Everything Wiki site. Then, just click on the "start a wiki" link that is displayed at the bottom right corner of any page. If you're ready now, you can create your free website from this blogpost. I'd love to be the referrer of the millionth Wetpaint wiki!

To the top of the world with the NASA Everest Trek Wiki

Today in celebration of Sally Ride becoming the first American woman in space, I began a search for a wiki related to NASA or the space program. I did not exactly find what I originally set out to find. However, I found a neat little wiki about a NASA team on a quest to climb Mt Everest. The NASA Everest Trek wiki on PBWiki tells the story of a group of NASA employees on a great adventure -- not out of this world, but rather to the top of this world. It is a very very small wiki dedicated to a very specific event. It includes the Rocket Scientist Training page which describes how they prepared for this demanding adventure. It includes bios for the team and their itinerary. While on the adventure, the team updated a blog, whose link is included on the wiki.

What a great idea -- to share such a neat adventure through a wiki. However, the team stopped a bit short of the overall goal. I wish that the team members had updated the wiki with their pictures and stories about the adventure. One instead created her own website. They haven't been back very long --- hopefully, they will update the wiki with lots more interesting, neat information about their adventure.

Nevertheless, the NASA Everest Trek wiki meets my basic criteria for an interesting, informative, and entertaining wiki. It just left me hungry for more information. : )



Photo credits:
Mt Everest from space by NASA from the NASA Everest Trek blog
Team pic from luciebeth's site

Indiana Jones Wiki

The Indiana Jones Wiki, for fans of Dr Jones and his adventures

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to the movies with my two nephews. We enjoyed watching the new Indiana Jones movie together. I've seen all the movies, but they had not yet seen them all. I'm not sure they understood his fear of snakes or his history with Marion. I now have a great Christmas present idea for the boys. The set is also on my wish list too.

Today I was glad to find The Indiana Jones Wiki . It strives to be a comprehensive reference for the Indiana Jones fiction, including the feature films, the television series, novels, comics, and video games. The wiki launched in September 2005 on Wikia. It now has over 1100 articles.

If you're also a fan of Dr Jones, visit the wiki and lend a hand. If you're looking for that small bit of information that slipped your mind over the years, check out the detail on the wiki. It's definitely interesting, informative, and entertaining.

Yo-Yo Wiki, the online yo-yo resource that anyone can edit

Today in celebration of Yo-Yo Day, I was pleased to find a nice wiki on the yo-yo.

The Y0-Yo Wiki is hosted on Wikia and has over 1,100 articles. It offers"how to" guides, yo-yo reviews, and information on famous yo-yoers. It has information on the types of yo-yos and their maintenance. It includes articles on the history of yo-yo. There are articles on yo-yo tricks and styles of play. There is also information on the yo-yo contests and the people of yo-yo. It also lists the many places in the media (including TV, movies, magazines, and video games) where yo-yos may be seen.

I was a little disappointed though -- I was hoping to see videos of the various yo-yo masters in action and how to perform yo-yo tricks (similar to those seen at How to YoYo). Nevertheless, the Yo-Yo Wiki is definitely interesting and informative -- it could just be a little bit more entertaining for a non-yo-yo master like me. : )

Twitter Fan Wiki, a wiki for the community of tweeters

The Twitter Fan Wiki is a sweet wiki'd place for tweeters.

In experimenting with Twitter this week, I was glad to find the Twitter Fan Wiki on PBWiki. It is a neat wiki'd place for both new and experienced Twitter users. On the wiki you can view and post events, groups, and feature requests. You can learn about neat Apps and Bots available for Twitter users. There is also some geeky stuff, like Scripts and Mashups. The Newbies Corner has links to a helpful etiquette guide and a glossary for the jargon of this experience. Although small (with less than 100 pages) it seems to be a tweet place for tweeters, a twittastic wiki'd place with a twittionary with twexplanations so twewbies like me and other twitteritas won't be tweetards and will avoid twoops and mistweeks. If you are new to Twitter or want to share your expertise, visit the Twitter Fan Wiki.

Road Trips USA, one guide to the open highway

This weekend is the start of the summer vacation season. Monday is the Memorial Day holiday. There will be hamburgers and hotdogs on many grills. It's already hot in Texas and a pool sounds like a really great idea. Usually many of my friends plan extended road trips during the summer. However, with the price of gas so high, and still climbing, many are looking for the shorter road trips. I found a cute little wiki Road Trips USA on Wetpaint that offers many suggestions.

Road Trips USA is a small wiki (with less than 60 pages) but has a growing community. In addition to suggested road trips, it has other interesting information, such as fun pit stops, car games, and road trip movies. You may want to also load your MP3 player with the many road trip tunes listed on the wiki. Although you may not be planning the great American cross-country road trip (like Oprah and her friend Gayle took), there are suggested multi-day trips and short Sunday drives on the wiki that might interest you. They list their fourteen most scenic drives on the wiki. You might be interested in such a road trip this Sunday and still will be home to celebrate the holiday on Monday. However, I, myself, will be totally focused on the Indy 500 this Sunday. ; )

The following song comes to my mind when thinking about a road trip: On the Road Again by Willie Nelson (and you can see the video in this blogpost).
As posted on YouTube by dynocounter

Hopefully, if you're thinking about taking an adventure on the open highway (go ahead, the price of gas is probably going to continue to rise even higher later), you might find some interesting and informative details on this little wiki. Also, if you can suggest a neat short, road trip in your area, why not visit Road Trips USA and update the wiki?

If driving, remember to buckle up. If passing through the Lone Star state on your road trip, "don't mess with Texas" (don't litter). And, never drink and drive. Have a nice, safe Memorial Day holiday.

ArmchairGM, the ultimate community of sports fans

In honor of the debut of ABC's World Wide of Sports in 1961 on this date, today I've selected the ArmchairGM wiki as my wiki-of-the-day.

ArmchairGM, based on MediaWiki, aims to be the ultimate community of sports fans. It includes articles on sports in many categories, including baseball, basketball, football, soccer, ice hockey, auto racing, golf, cycling, olympic events, combat sports, extreme sports,water sports, horse races, and many more! Writers of articles within this sports encyclopedia can embed flash videos (such as YouTube video clips). Unlike some encyclopedias, fans on ArmchairGM may write Opinions describing what they think about different sports-related topics.

Any and all sports fans are welcome to join the ArmchairGM community and contribute. Community members can post to the community blog -- articles are filtered by the community. Articles with enough votes appear front-and-center on ArmchairGM and hit the RSS feed. ArmchairGM lets fans rate "virtually anything in the sports world" and also make it easy for its fans to grab the ratings and stick them elsewhere. Fans on ArmchairGM can get recognition through points for virtually every activity on the site. Top fans are honored on an ongoing, monthly, and weekly basis. Fans can advance up levels, starting as Little Leaguers and up to the Legends level.

ArmchairGM has been described as an example of Wiki 2.0, combining the features of open source wiki software with social networking features. Each fan can build a profile and include their own photo galleries. Fans may join networks of other fans of their favorite teams. They can meet new people and add friends. Likewise, it also has a counterpart where you can add a fan to your network of foes. It also has a virtual gift component where little icons can be sent to another fan with a personal message (e.g., tissues for team losses, asterisk for accolades). Fans can also create gifts themselves by uploading images.

ArmchairGM has been quite successful. It was acquired by Wikia for $2 million. In March 2008, the Sports Illustrated site SI.com added to its new SI Vault section the "SI Wiki" which is powered by ArmchairGM. This wiki has obviously been found "worthy enough and rich with information" of being the sports wiki for SI.com.

For those who celebrate the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, visit the ArmchairGM wiki, join the community, and jump right in!

Wiki resources for mathematics education

Today, in celebration of Math Education Month, I set out on a quest to find wikis devoted to mathematics and math education. I was pleasantly surprised to find numerous wikis that have been created on these topics. I found wikis with resources for teachers of mathematics. I also found wikis developed by classes and schools to share information about their mathematics curriculum or courses. I've posted in this blog post a few examples of the wikis I found.


Resources for Mathematics Teachers:
k12wiki - Effective Math Videos, a site which includes links to videos that can be used in teaching mathematics
PlanetMath.Org's mathematics encyclopedia , "Math for the people, by the people"
Wikibooks: Mathematics bookshelf, For those looking for some more traditional resources for teaching math, check out the math textbooks collection on Wikibooks
Wikiversity: Mathematics Portal, for learning resources on various topics in mathematics developed in various Wikiversity content development projects

Examples of how schools are using wikis for math education:
All About Math at Marstons Mills East Horace Mann Charter Public School, an example wiki developed about the mathematics curriculum at one K-4 school
Primary math, a wiki set up for primary classes (K-2) to share their math learning with other classes around the world
York University's Department of Mathematics and Statistics wiki site

I also found a wiki for those in the academic mathematics job market:
Notable Mathematics Wiki

Today, I hope that you see the variety of wiki sites that can be created on a topic and the variety of wiki user groups

Image credit: Robert Fant's math wiki

Wikicartoon, the free cartoon encyclopedia

In celebration of Daffy Duck's first appearance on this date in 1937, I started my search for a wiki related to cartoons. I first found Wikicartoon. It is hosted on Wikia. It was started on February 3, 2006. The home page notes that they are currently working on 107 articles. It appears to have been idle for awhile recently, but there's been some activity lately. Five new pages have been created in 2008, but there have only been 8 changes during the last 30 days and none of those within the last two weeks. The wiki could definitely use some help. It currently has at least 1,000 items on its wanted pages list. There's no page devoted to Daffy Duck yet on the wiki, but Daffy is mentioned on the Warner Brothers Cartoons and Looney Tunes wiki pages.

If you've spent a lot time on the cartoon networks, have fond memories of the cartoons of your childhood, or enjoy watching them even today, stop by Wikicartoon, join its community and lend a hand. Hey, why not surprise your kids and spend some quality time with them watching cartoons this week, for research to help on Wikicartoon?

Image credit: Wikia

No loss for words with Wiktionary

In celebration of the publishing of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language on this date in 1755, I've selected Wiktionary as my wiki-of-the-day.

Wiktionary is just one of the many projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, which also runs Wikipedia, probably the most famous wiki of all. Wiktionary has 782,480 entries with English definitions. Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary. It now includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrasebooks, and language statistics. In addition to definitions, it includes entymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms, and translations.

If you're at a loss for the right words, then try out Wiktionary. Also, if you have a huge vocabulary with no problems completing crossword challenges, you might be challenged by the Wiktionary requested entries page. Today, think about lending a hand and contribute to this wiki project.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

In celebration of April Fools Day, the wiki-of-the-day is Uncyclopedia.

Uncyclopedia has over 23,000 articles, but don't let a link to this encyclopedia ever fool you. There is one statement in the wiki that they claim to be true: "Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and lies." Uncyclopedia is a satire of an encyclopedia, a parady of Wikipedia. The folks at Uncyclopedia say they are dedicated to humour, satire, and generally funny things -- but they aren't fond of stupid. It includes HTBFANJS advice to writers on how to be funny and not just stupid. Uncyclopedia stresses a "satirical point of view" (compared to Wikipedia's NPOV or neutral point of view). It stresses both good writing and good behavior. It also has a Pee Review (that's no typo either) process for requesting writing help and criticsm where other members review an article and then provide constructive feedback and tips to make it better. It also includes several UnProjects, including UnBooks, UnNews, Undictionary, Unquotable, and UnTunes. Its UnNews section is a source for up-to-the-minute misinformation. A top news article today is about Adam Carolla announcing the production of "Drinking with the Stars!" which is scheduled to begin this weekend at Jimmy Kimmel's house.

Well, Uncyclopedia qualifies as a wiki-of-the-day on my adventure to find wiki'd places on the Web on some of the target qualities: it's interesting, amusing, and entertaining -- but (you've been warned!) don't count on it being informative.

Gone fishin'

It's spring break! I've gone fishin'

Since there's no DSL, cable, satellite, or dial-up connection there, I'm going cold turkey from computing for a week!

I'll be back before you know it --- and looking for more wiki'd places on the Web for us to enjoy.

Don't forget me! : ) Subscribe now (free) and you'll know when I return.