Now that you have a home page, you can start exploring the markup. This can vary between Wikis and depends on the implementation, so it's worth exploring the handout or an equivalent page with the Wiki for the local conventions. On PilotWiki, it's pretty simple:

• Links to pages are in square brackets
• URLs in square brackets appear as enumerated references. Therefore, [http://www.dominopower.com] would appear as [1], the next URL as [2], etc.
• Bold text should be written in the form [B<space>text], as in [B bold text].
• Italic text should be written in the form [I<space>text] as in [I italic text].
• Horizontal lines should be written [-].

Additional automatic behavior includes:

• The first line of a page is used as the description in the index.
• Links to URLs are automatically recognized for sequences beginning "http://";, "ftp://"; and "mailto:".

Armed with this information, I've marked up the PalmPower Demo page. Figure B shows the edit link to bring up the PalmScape input form.

FIGURE B

After marking up a Wiki page, you can see the edit link to bring up the PalmScape input form.

After you've submitted the input form, you can see how it looks in PalmScape, as shown in Figure C. With a page set-up like this, linking it to other pages is as simple as mentioning your name in the text. This is a great way to 'sign' your contribution.

FIGURE C

With a completed page set-up in PalmScape like this, linking your page to others is as simple as mentioning the name of your page in the text.

Your new page will appear in the index and is fully text-searchable using the Find option. You can use the Links option to find out which pages reference your page. Both of these utilities can be a great help as the Wiki grows!

Conclusion
The whole Wiki system is as simple as it sounds -- that's its great strength. Perhaps now you're starting to see the possibilities. Take a look at other public Wikis and you'll get all sorts of new ideas. You may even be tempted to set up your very own Wiki.

Mark Lawson is the Managing Director of EM Connect Ltd., a company that specializes in collaboration and distance learning solutions. He can be reached at markl@emconnect.com.