Wikipedia
Created | Updated Nov 27, 2008
Wikipedia is a Web-based free content encyclopedia that is openly edited by its users.
The system works by people creating documents as links from other documents. When you create a link that doesn't exist, clicking on that link creates a new page, which can then receive new information and new links.
However, the truly dynamic aspect of this software is the ability to edit pretty much anything, even other users' pages. With this, you can improve articles to the nth degree.
Wikipedia is available in 187 different languages - the February 2005 English edition contains over 470,000 articles.
The term Wiki wiki means quick in Hawaiin.
The advantage of the wiki system is the ease of its mark up language, allowing people to easily create links from one article to another.
In many ways, the end result is not altogether dissimilar to the original concept of the "Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy" as described by Douglas Adams in his series of fictional books of the same name.
This similarity is further enhanced by the fact that a snapshot of the Wikipedia Encyclopaedia can be downloaded for use on a portable handheld device such as a PDA (personal digital assistant) or Pocket PC, providing the user with a true "Hitch Hikers Guide" - for while it contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly innacurate, it is incredibly cheap (read free!)
A version for Handheld devices, which is accessed using Tomeraider (tomeraider), can be obtained by visiting Erik Zachte's Wikipedia TR3 page
The online version can be found at Wikipedia's Home Page - for much more information, visit the horses mouth at Wikipedia's own entry about itself
