personal wikis allow people to richly link information on their desktop or mobile computing devices the same way a community wiki links information across the internet. thus people who like the wiki philosophy of organizing information may find personal wikis useful.

single-user application of multi-user wikis

many wikis are designed for concurrent use by multiple users. however, given sufficient skill and motivation, an individual user can install and run any of them for personal use. this may require installing additional software, for example a web server, a dbms, or a wamp or lamp software bundle. the user can prevent access to the wiki from outside the local computer.

some individuals use password protected wikis running either on their own webservers or hosted by third parties. this has the advantage that the personal space can be accessed from any web browser, at home, at work, on a pda, at an internet cafe etc. edits made on one machine are immediately accessible on the others.

desktop

in graphical computing, a desktop environment (de, sometimes desktop manager) offers a graphical user interface (gui) to the computer. the name is derived from the desktop metaphor used by most of these interfaces, as opposed to the earlier, textual command line interfaces (cli). a de typically provides icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, and abilities like drag and drop. as a whole, the particularities of design and function of a desktop environment endow it with a distinctive look and feel.

the desktop environments for the popular proprietary operating systems microsoft windows and mac os x are, in their intended use, relatively unalterable. this imposes a consistent user experience. however, there are alternative themes and third-party software that can completely change both the appearance of common interface elements (such as windows, buttons and icons) and the interface model itself. in windows, this is accomplished by replacing the default explorer shell.

on systems running the x window system (typically unix-like systems), the desktop environment is much more flexible. in this context, a de typically consists of a window manager (such as metacity or kwin), a file manager (such as konqueror or nautilus), a set of themes, and programs and libraries for managing the desktop. all of these individual modules can be exchanged and individually configured to achieve a unique combination, but most desktop environments provide a default configuration that requires minimal user input.

not all of the program code that is part of a de has effects which are directly visible to the user. some of it may be low-level code. kde, for example, provides so-called kioslaves which give the user access to a wide range of virtual devices. these i/o slaves are not available outside the kde environment.

internet

the internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard internet protocol (ip). it is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the world wide web.

network

a computer network is two or more computers connected together using a telecommunication system for the purpose of communicating and sharing resources.[1]

experts in the field of networking debate whether two computers that are connected together using some form of communications medium constitute a network. therefore, some works state that a network requires three connected computers. for example, "telecommunications: glossary of telecommunication terms" [2] states that a computer network is "a network of data processing nodes that are interconnected for the purpose of data communication", the term "network" being defined in the same document as "an interconnection of three or more communicating entities". a computer connected to a non-computing device (e.g., networked to a printer via an ethernet link) may also represent a computer network, although this article does not address this configuration.

password

a password is a form of secret authentication data that is used to control access to a resource. the password is kept secret from those not allowed access, and those wishing to gain access are tested on whether or not they know the password and are granted or denied access accordingly.

the use of passwords goes back to ancient times. sentries guarding a location would challenge for a password. they would only allow a person in if they knew the password. in modern times, passwords are used to control access to protected computer operating systems, mobile phones, cable tv decoders, automated teller machines (atms), etc. a typical computer user may require passwords for many purposes: logging in to computer accounts, retrieving email from servers, accessing files, databases, networks, web sites, and even reading the morning newspaper online.

despite the name, there is no need for passwords to be actual words; indeed passwords which are not actual words are harder to guess (a desirable property), but are generally harder for users to remember (an undesirable property). note that password is often used to describe what would be more accurately called a pass phrase. passcode is sometimes taken to imply that the information used is purely numeric, such as the personal identification number (pin) commonly used for atm access. passwords are generally short enough to be memorized.