Cool Stuff to Run In Your Webspace?

May 7, 2007 10:41 AM

What free, open-source projects can I run in a privately accessible portion of my webspace that would be useful to me in terms of making things more practical in my own life (think Lifehacker-43 Folders kind of stuff)? I'd prefer Mefites' personal experiences with their own installs over linkage that you've seen but never tried — although I'll take either one.

I'm on a Mac at home, so it preferably does not require a Windows end-user. Also, I would be the only person using this, although that of course doesn't have to rule out multiuser apps.

I do not have shell access, but do have access to a rather robust set of tools called "cPanel" (includes cron, permissions, etc.), and I believe the host's admins would be willing to run a few commands for me if called upon to do so.

I had set up a MediaWiki wiki (since I was used to monobook and Mediawiki's particular wikiformatting style), which proved to be a positive experience, and I'd like to check out other things — but would like some guidance as to what people found useful in their own lives.

posted by WCityMike to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I see you have already setup a Wiki, which I found was a great investment in time for me. I decided to go with DocuWiki simply because it was file based, didn't need a database, and worked quickly. I organize all my information such as housing, bills, contact info, etc into it.
posted by SirStan at 10:57 AM on May 7, 2007

I was going to recommend a wiki of some kind - I like Twiki myself, but whatever works for you. This kind of stuff is the reason I originally built my own server and put it in a colo. Now I have a few friends hosting with me, which helps defray the cost. Other useful apps I've installed:

Ampache - web interface to stream your MP3s on demand from your web server. Work would be much more boring without it.
Dotproject - web-based project planning app. Perfectly suitable to life planning. My life is one big project! I used this to plan a cross-country move, because I had a lot of tasks that were dependent on each other.
Squirrelmail - web mail app. I imagine if your host offers cPanel, they offer webmail. If not, try this - I find it insanely useful.
PHP MyAdmin - web interface to admin MySQL. This was useful to me back when I didn't know SQL at all. Only meta-related to your question, but I figured I would throw it in.

Sorry for the absence of links - you'll have to Google your own internet : )
posted by autojack at 11:00 AM on May 7, 2007

If you're into Getting Things Done at all (and I imagine you are, if you like 43 folders), you'll love Tracks, which is a To-Do list manager that adheres closely to the GTD philosophy. It runs on Ruby/Rails, and there are instructions for setting up on on the site. I've set it up successfully both on Windows and Linux, and the Mac shouldn't be a stretch.
posted by mikeyk at 11:24 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Solowiki is a rather slick/pretty tiddlywiki-type wiki that saves things server-side but is still client-side fast-as-hell.

Relay is an ajax-based file manager. The interface is a little wonky, but niceish.
posted by dmd at 1:16 PM on May 7, 2007