If you haven't heard about or investigated this editable (editable?!?!?) online encyclopedia, you're in for a treat. Short blurbs cover a dazzling array of topics you might never find in any printed compendium. It's like having a closet full of subject matter experts in your back room or a helpdesk guru at your fingertips.

On the main page, you can catch some of the day's news headlines, "selected anniversaries" (a list of curious events from the date in history), and interesting "do you know" tidbits, as well as a daily featured article that shares an item from the Wikipedia collection.

So what's "wiki"? Here's where you see the impact of the open source software community: wiki means that a Web site's content is editable and open to contributions from anyone, including you. As the Wikipedia site states, the word comes from the Hawaiian "wikiwiki," which means "quick" or "super-fast."

And you can share your knowledge and expertise, too. Do you know a bit of information and have a special slant on it, like the (relatively) short history of text messaging or what happens to the consistency of butter when you add cocoa? Write it up and submit it for inclusion. At this point, Wikipedia contains as many as 50,000 entries, with more added every day.

In the left nav bar, clickable links take you to the Community Portal, which tells you how to get involved, what you can do on the site, and how to use the tools. You'll also find a list of Recent Changes that keep you current with the on-going contributions.

Scroll to the bottom of the main page to find out more about Wikipedia itself and the sister projects, including a dictionary, a directory of species, free (open source) books and manuals, a collection of quotations, and a shared media repository, among others. Check it out and dig in.