Progress and snags

I've been instructed to hold off on the wiki until I can get the timeline up and running. That's what I've spent the last week doing. First I took 14 separate timelines that the company had created, mostly in MS Word, and concatenated them into one master timeline in an Excel file. After cleaning it up and creating some master categories for each entry in the timeline, I used an open-source program from Simile (Simile Timeline) to create a basic structure for the timeline.

This timeline is a dynamic, web-based tool, that allows users to scroll through dates, and click on different points to reveal information. An example of one such timeline is here.

The timeline was to have five major bands, one for each of the categories I created. Each of those was to scroll in tandem with the other four. Each point on the timeline reveals more information with a mouse click; most have links to other documents.

Building the XML files to fill in the information was easy. The more difficult work involved ensuring the data was only available on the firm's local network, so that people outside the company couldn't access it. Also problematic has been fixing little details (ether colors, label sizes, etc.) for the client. It's an ongoing process. At present it looks to be 90% finished, but as is said, once you're 90% finished, you're halfway done.

The snag referenced in the title refers to the wiki itself. Now that it has become clear to both client and myself alike, it is apparent that using PBWorks to host the wiki is unacceptable. The client needs the entire wiki to be hosted from the local network, so I'm beginning a new search to find a better alternative.

Continuing w/ important people

It's slow-going, but I'm inputting bios for various people. I'm going to have to start creating links to significant documents, organizations, events, etc. that are mentioned w/in these bios, and I expect that will go slowly as well, but at least a structure is beginning to materialize.

Once again, this will get easier once there are several people editing these documents.

slogging

I've started a "project" via PBWorks. I'm focusing right now on key players in the case. It is slow going, trying to get a handle on what information should be included for every person.

I expect that, as this project continues, it will grow exponentially. Especially as others are able to add information to pages, as well as adding pages. Either way, I hope to have a template in place by the end of November for people, to make it as simple to edit as possible.

Data

I have received the raw data to be used in the creation of the wiki. It is a dataset of 122,351 files in 1,056 folders, containing 12.7 GB of information. On first view, it appears that much of the data is in pdf format; these documents contain much of the actual information that will be used in the wiki itself.

Presently, I am organizing the data into events, people, and things, and am making a spreadsheet highlighting and linking up important bits. I am also making a timeline of all important events, per new instructions by the project manager.

pbworks

I'm going with PBWorks as the tool to create this wiki. They have the security necessary to be able to create this wiki on our servers, so that it isn't available to the world, and a user interface that is easy to navigate, so that if this project gets passed on to other people, it will be relatively easy to keep up.