We’ve got a pretty busy family with lots of moving parts: three kids, cars, houses, doctors, parents, cats, etc.
We use a private Wiki to keep the collective family notes, and it’s working really well. It’s accessible from anywhere (access controlled), and we put just about everything in it, including: kid’s teacher’s name and email, account info & contacts, neighbor info and contacts, my son’s girlfriend’s cell phone #, frequent flyer numbers, notes we need to keep track of for next year’s tax return, the secret number at the power company you can call when the power gets flaky in our town, recipes, genealogy links, contact info for neighbors in NH, etc.
We avoid identifying account info (numbers, social security, birthdays, etc.) in the event it is compromised. It’s searchable, and it works really well. If you have a busy family, I strongly recommend it (even my non-tech wife uses it).
(I self-host, but for most folks, I would recommend PBwiki).
Andy got me focused on wiki’s a couple of years ago, and we’re now using one for our family during a big trip we’re taking. It’s easy to put up, edit, and maintain. It’s not quite as glossy as a full-blown website, but very, very useful. We’re also posting regular blogs, and use our website as an access point for each family members blogs. For this year, though, we don’t have a house, teachers, neighbors, or a power company, so some of the other useful things that you can do with a wiki will have to wait a year for us :-).
Ted
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