Content for one: developing a personal content management system

You may have browsed or searched one of the large Content Management Systems that store and display useful information; many universities, departments, and library research desks have turned to these to manage both their long-term reference materials and daily-changing data. What if we'd like to manage our own content, but our staff consists of one overworked, time-challenged, long-term-memory-impaired worker: ourself?My own information storage system was "heap-based:" several overflowing desktops of stacks of papers, journals, post-its, and scribbled memos. I needed something better, but didn't have anyone to give this project to and only a modest amount of time to devote to a new project myself.I decided to look at a range of open-source Content Management Systems (CMS) and compare freely-available packaged systems with a completely handmade system based on PHP and MySQL -- all topics with which I had little or no experience.Advantages to setting up a CMS like this (beyond organizing your own data) include gaining familiarity with concepts and systems that are likely to be increasingly important in the future. You may, if you wish, become a mentor to others with the same needs. The goal is to allow the wide-spread sharing of ideas and content without having to spend a lot of time fooling around with the technical details of presentation - a useful tool many people might be interested in.I hope my experience and conclusions will help you decide if a CMS is the answer to your data problems, and which path might be the best route for you to take.