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Last post Author Topic: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?  (Read 59839 times)

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #25 on: November 08, 2007, 09:53 AM »
Thanks. Interesting.
Spotmeta seems nice. Does it integrate well with QuickSilver?
(From what I've read, spot meta is not without its share of problems too. But it might not be as bad as some say. :) )
« Last Edit: November 08, 2007, 12:37 PM by Armando »

nontroppo

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #26 on: November 08, 2007, 10:41 AM »
Not fully, the Spotmeta dev has stopped work on it (explaining said problems), and Quicksilver is transitioning to open-source so I doubt any Quicksilver devs will adopt it soon... I use Quicksilver to quickly find Spotmeta tagged items (using the spotlight plugin), but cannot not add tags to an item. So I still mostly use Quicksilver comment tagging for the grunt work and spotmeta via its own window or the Finder for more detailed tag additions.
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Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #27 on: November 08, 2007, 12:38 PM »
I see...

joepez

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #28 on: November 29, 2007, 01:55 PM »
Wondering if anyone else has more thoughts on this topic?

I've been searching for a good solution for desktop tagging for awhile, but have yet to find a good one.

I've tried very app out there: Tag2Find, Tagg, UltraFolder, but have found them all lacking.

Tag2Find - Great interface, relatively easy to use. But, is tied locally (Current ver you can't have the DB on a network share, or even share the DB across systems); plus they've been saying they'll have v2 out now since Aug (Oct was target date) and there's very little activity on their forums anymore or updates.
Tagg - Ok interface, complex to use; Can have multiple tagging DBs, and can be stored remotely (nice). But, complex as heck to figure out, an requires a lot of clicks to do anything.
UltraFolder - Simple interface, snap to use. But, no network capabilities, and unlike the others likes to store the files in its own directory structure, instead of on your HD wherever you want.

So they all can do part of the job, but lack in critical areas (particularly portability) or have complex and inefficient UIs. They also all use proprietary DBs, so you can't search them with any DT search apps. I like cloud tags, but I also like simply typing in my DT search app and finding what I want there quickly and easily.

In the meantime I've tried using a system similar to Armando's system (specific names, tags in the file name itself) but this becomes cumbersome, and while using tags in Vista is nice (home PC) it is useless for my work laptio (XP) or any portability. All of the problems as well with Comments or Keywords on a file make thus highly problematic.

So in the meantime I'm considering one of two systems:
1) keep doing the file naming (possibly toss in the comments/tags aspect (short tag names)
2) Dumping all of my files (just PDFs, docs, xls, txt, ppts) into Outlook PSTs and using the same category approach I use to tag my emails (Outlook 07 categories are very nice). I'm limited to 2GB safe PSTs, though 07 now claims PSTs are safe to 20GBs. And separating my PSTs into Work (<2GB), Research (>4GB, but can be broken into logical chunks), Home (<2GBs).

The advantage to 2 is that I only have to create the tagging structure once, and get familiar w/ 1 methodology. Also its searchable and indexable via any DT search that can read PSTs. Its portable in that I can always transfer the PSTs to a key or external HD (or w/ my home server setup store them all on the server like I do, and access remotely). And relatively easy to extract from in the future. And it is very simple and easy to use (click away).

The 1st option roughly gives me the same capabilities as the 2nd..

And as for tagging in Outlook, I've tried all the Apps there as well, both specific (CategorieZ (current solution, though it does crash alot), & Taglocity) to IMS systems like ClearContext (like it, but its limited to 1 category only, and that's pointless with tags). The nice thing about tagging in Outlook is it can be both text driven (Idea) and visual (purple means Idea), which I haven't seen any other tagging product explore. No clouds though, but apps like CategorieZ and Taglocity can filter on tags in a folder, and using Outlooks's Advanced Find and set to Everything, you can search for Categories on anything. The downside is you can only search 1 PST at a time directly in Outlook. But w/ DT searching you can search anything.

I'm looking forward to v2 of Taglocity, which is supposed to be a lot nicer and easier to use. The fact that it doesn't integrate w/ Outlook's Categories is a deal breaker for me, that just limits the usefulness once again.

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #29 on: December 02, 2007, 02:26 PM »
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
 
Like you said, taging is currently problematic, and without any complete and satisfying solution (for Windows).
 
On another note, I'd be surprised if tag2find just disappears... IMO, the "New Generation" is eventually going to be released but they might got into more complexity than what they foresaw...
 
Your Outlook strategy seems interesting but a bit constrictive to me... Why not use a "proper" database like asksam, General knowledge base, etc. The color thing is interesting but I don't think I'd choose outlook PST files just for that feature.  Especially that tags in names can be associated with colors with certain file managers (as noted by nosh here  https://www.donation...69.msg82651#msg82651 ) like Xplorer2, and probably others like XYplorer.
 
Personally, I'm not crazy about usual databases to store documents. I prefer to just use the NTFS as a big database, using proper names, etc.

As I wrote somewhere else:

[...]
I could certainly store files in the database, but am relunctant to do it. If someone gives a good reason to do it perhaps...

I share the same point of view : I don't like to store files (different file types) in one database. I've always disliked it, for many reasons.
- One of them is backing up -- while some will advocate that it facilitates backup**, I find that it makes it cumbersome and harder to manage : backing up a 2gb database is not as convenient as backing up a 34kb file.
- Another reason is that most stored files lose some of the features tightly linked to their specific format in the first place (why edit a word document in rtf????).
- Another one is that, usually, not all file types can be stored and managed in a database (so what's the point?? If I'm going to put files in a database I want to be able to put any file I want. Not only *.doc, *.txt, *.rtf, *.pdf., *.jpg and *.bmp).
- Another one is the fear of data corruption. Often, when a database is corrupted, and it happens, chances are you'll loose quite a bit of data.



**"you just have one file to backup", etc. . But I don't care, personally: I have a good backup program.
[...]

And as justice wrote before:
 
we need a document management solution for the desktop.
make my documents a database,
with tags, versoin control and notes about where files are copied to out of the system.
I admire your persistance but in the end its just abusing a crap system (the concept of filenames and organisnig by folders).

Still, as it is now, I find that tags in names are easier to use and manage (delete, change, etc.) than other tagging system… Maybe it's just a matter of habit. But it’s so practical to be able to use my tags anywhere, and with any searching app.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2007, 02:30 PM by Armando »

joepez

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #30 on: December 03, 2007, 11:18 AM »
I did look at a few DB solutions (forgot to mention that) like AskSam and General, but again I found them either lacking in good portability features, and most importantly they were proprietary which I'm not a fan of for my knowledge. I prefer to keep my "system" as flexible as possible, and require the least work. The best solution I've seen to date is QuickSilver on OSX, a friend showed me his drag & drop tagging and filing capabilities, and my jaw hit the floor. Made me wish my work would let me use a Mac.

So PSTs are fairly open, and easy to organize. Its not ideal, I'd rather have a safe way to tag a file, and just leaving it lying in NFS, but aside from tagging in a name, there isn't a solution. Also the PST system is pretty damn fast to use. I use a GTD style of management for my life, and I can quickly tag a file Work (Blue)->Project (Olive)->Community (Yellow), and then associate with the GTD project I've got setup.

When I need to find the file, I've got a number of options: Look for anything Blue/Olive/Yellow, Filter on any of the 3 tags(categories), search via any DT app for the categories. I'm a visual driven guy, so for me color helps me quickly filter out noise. For example: In my File PST, there might be 100 Blue/Olive tagged files, but only the Yellow ones are related to community, and all of the Green, Red, etc are something else.

Color tagging along with text, for me, is far more powerful than straight text. Especially when I combine it with a GTD system and have all of my Next Actions/Contexts marked as bright Red, as soon as I see something tagged that way I know it is important and associated with something.

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #31 on: December 03, 2007, 12:40 PM »
I think you found a nice way of resolving your tagging problem. If only it was more portable/compatible, etc... and even less proprietary (the PST format is certainly very proprietary). But I also wonder... if PST files can effectively be used to store anything, it brings up this interesting question : why didn't MS put the "my documents" folder inside a PST file ? (One of my guess is that it's not very convenient if you have something like 300gb of documents, movies, etc.)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 07:28 PM by Armando »

DonL

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #32 on: December 04, 2007, 05:52 AM »
Especially that tags in names can be associated with colors with certain file managers (as noted by nosh here  https://www.donation...69.msg82651#msg82651 ) like Xplorer2, and probably others like XYplorer.
 
Personally, I'm not crazy about usual databases to store documents. I prefer to just use the NTFS as a big database, using proper names, etc.
Sure, XYplorer can color code file names by name patterns and attributes. And XYplorer does support name-based tagging even a little more: you can define any number of user-defined rename commands, so you can tag your files at a single key stroke/mouse click.

http://www.xyplorer.com/

Don

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #33 on: December 04, 2007, 07:28 PM »
Thanks for the tip, Don!

e712

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2007, 07:40 PM »
I suppose I am a dinosaur.  I organize my files with subdirectories.  I even save Outlook eMail as .msg files, which perserves attachments.  The top level directories are Work and Reference.  Under Work is a directory for each client.  Under each client is a directory for each project. One directory under client is call Permanent and contains stuff that applies to more than one project. Under Reference each topic has a folder.

Life is a series of projects; everything goes in the project directory: Documents, Spreadsheets, completed Outlook tasks, eMail sent and eMail received.  I have a macro that saves the eMail with a filename equal to Subject + Sender + Receiver + SendDate/Time. I stopped trusting PST files when a new Outlook version would not read the old version's PST. When a subdirectory gets too big it might be split into two parts or perhaps an older, less-frequently-referenced part zipped. 

Completed projects are archived to CDs. I keep the CDs in a three ring binder and have been able to retrieve data more than a year old.

I have about 1.5 gigs of ongoing work, backups on the file server.

Retrieval--the only reason to file stuff--has only become a problem for one project that has been going on for years rather than the typical three to six months.  I used a utility call LS - File List Generator,  http://home.a03.itsc...tsuzu/programing/en/, to create html indices of the twelve subdirectories this project has generated--yes, there are duplicates and yes, there are filename conflicts.

I'm starting to have problems with version control. I am considering using ComponetSoftware, Inc. Document Management Suite, http://www.component...ucts/docmansuite.htm, it adds menues to Word and Excel--but I think this is being discussed on another thread, msg79452.

How do the utilities being discussed, here, address indexing and version control.  Are the data files kept by them editable?   

J-Mac

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #35 on: December 15, 2007, 11:00 PM »
I would love a nice, fairly simple but reliable tagging system for files and folders. I have been using Directory Opus for about two months but haven't really scratched the surface yet - though it doesn't appear that will help solve any significant document management deficiencies from Explorer. I have been using COllections, which are useful to an extent but not for tagging that I can see. Haven't really examined using colors yet. I see it is possible according to their help file, but I need to look harder at it.

But while tagging is a definite "want" for me, my needs are still more in the pure document management aspect. I too use only folders and subfolders currently. I haven't found anything that I felt confident enough in to abandon my folder system yet, rudimentary though it may be.

Heck, I still don't have a good way to just track documents properly, let alone overall management of them!  Still using spreadsheets - I haven't found a database program I can live with since good old dBase3+ !!

Jim

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #36 on: January 17, 2008, 05:55 PM »
I am currently in the process of comparing TaggTool and tag2find (will take me the at least the weekend) and just ran across a blog entry at the tag2find web site: The companies funding has ceased!

This is the main reason, why development did not advance the last weeks (or month). They currently are evaluating to go open source, which might get very interesting. (And might also get them ahead of TaggToll, which based on the feature list is currently my first choice).

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #37 on: January 19, 2008, 12:38 PM »
The companies funding has ceased!

Ooooops! I guess it's sad news.
On the other had, it could also mean more possibilities, less restrictions --> open source MIGHT be a very good alternative, especially for something like tagging. No proprietary format for your tags!

(Link to the tag2find post : http://blog.tag2find...the-future/#comments)

JasonColey

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #38 on: February 19, 2008, 01:27 AM »
Aladdins CategorieZ has had its share of bugs and problems, but is much, much better these days. In November the product was only a few months old, now however it is a finished product, with full documentation.

Also shares categories across networks using either Public folders (Exchange) or Shared network folders

tinjaw

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #39 on: February 19, 2008, 03:23 PM »
Aladdins CategorieZ has had its share of bugs and problems, but is much, much better these days. In November the product was only a few months old, now however it is a finished product, with full documentation.

Also shares categories across networks using either Public folders (Exchange) or Shared network folders

But this only works with Outlook. This thread is about tagging files, not putting email in categories. What am I missing?

JasonColey

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #40 on: February 19, 2008, 06:40 PM »
Sorry, I just wanted to let people know that the comment about CategorieZ and the problems is no longer an issue.

I wonder if I could create an addin that works in Explorer, that uses the same categories as Outlook, I know you can assign categories to MS Office documents in the doc properties, hmmm food for thought.

P.S. I am the one that writes CategorieZ

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #41 on: February 20, 2008, 12:59 AM »
Thanks for letting us know Jason! An extension that works in explorer could certainly be a good idea. Have you checked other tagging solutions like tag2find?

JasonColey

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #42 on: February 20, 2008, 12:09 PM »
Yeah I tried Tag2Find, but it wouldn't work for me  :(
I'm running Vista Business 64bit and the service wouldn't start at all, pity it looked kinda cool.

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #43 on: February 20, 2008, 01:14 PM »
Well, let's see if they're going to finally be able to go opensource --That's where they were heading towards...

smeraldo

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #44 on: August 11, 2009, 09:47 AM »
hello everybody

sorry for digging out
maybe exhumation or excavation would be more appropriate

this post is probably a bit long, sorry for that

I'd like to know if you have any new system or software about tagging files
'cause it's becoming a real (and "real" is a tiny euphemism) mess in my hard drives/computers and so on

thank you very much armando for all your ideas

so far I'm still in the folder style organisation, but it is not possible anymore

I've started to tag web pages I save localy with the firefox extension zotero
I know it is not intended for that but it allows tags, highlights, notes, keep the url, would probably be transferable easily on mac or linux (I'm on xp)
but it is a bit slow, it is a database (how robust ?) and I don't know if it is searchable from outside 'cause I'm not yet using any local search engine

and I'm starting to tag bookmarks with firefox 3.5, but I'm still a noob
are they searchable from any search engine ? don't know

plus evernote : tagging possibilities, but same question about search

I tried a while ago tag2find, tagg or ultrafolder but abandonned them : too slow, too complicated, too many clicks, too database, too proprietary, too simple, too...

so the ****ing mess style is now my way to organise things (very useful, efficient, not time consuming at all...  :tease:)


I read this topic and probably need to reread it I think (almost everything in it is new to me)

but so far, armando, you convinced me that tags within the file name is the only robust solution (actually I thought that before but was too lazy or ignorant to do sth)

I think I understand (but not completely sure  :mrgreen:) what you mean by
the abcz system and your tag/metatag system
the expandable text capability of autohotkey

I have to try to really use farr (it is installed but not used)
about local search engine, are you still using archivarius or x1 ?

I think the renaming capabilities of xyplorer are good enough for me
and I like the ability to color files (kind of temporary tags for me)

I thought that creating a .txt file for each file could have been a solution to avoid the length limitation on the name, to create note, to paste a url, to be searchable
but it is probably a bad solution 'cause nobody is doing so, I guess it is too long but maybe could be automated, and also 'cause I've never been able to use the hardlink possibility with ntfs, besides this hardlinking possibility is probably not portable
and lastly what about bookmarks, zoteros, and evernotes ?


well, many questions but I'm lost and your help will be highly appreciated

this topic is, on the web, what I've found the deepest about tagging files
I'm really surprised that there is not a damn software that would do the trick
I don't know, something like a multiplatorm soft embedding files or adding a couple of bytes to each file to allow hard tagging
I have to say that I know nothing in programming or computer stuff, I'm just a user, so if you feel I'm saying stupid things, you can tell me, I won't be offended

that's all for now
huhh, that's long... thank you if read till the end, and double thanx if you do answer

Armando

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #45 on: August 11, 2009, 04:16 PM »
Hi smeraldo,

I'd like to know if you have any new system or software about tagging files
'cause it's becoming a real (and "real" is a tiny euphemism) mess in my hard drives/computers and so on

I've stopped looking for something many months ago. My system works fine for my needs and works for everything, anywhere (file names, file content, etc.). You need to be slightly disciplined though, and be willing to learn (easy) AHK a bit.

I've started to tag web pages I save localy with the firefox extension zotero
I know it is not intended for that but it allows tags, highlights, notes, keep the url, would probably be transferable easily on mac or linux (I'm on xp)
but it is a bit slow, it is a database (how robust ?) and I don't know if it is searchable from outside 'cause I'm not yet using any local search engine

I just use the system described in my first post -- apply it in URLs. I don't use bookmarks as I find them harder to manage than URLs. So I use "favorites" in firefox using the "PlainOldFavorites" plug-in. Works well and insures compatibility with IE and other browsers not relying on the "bookmarks" system. Plus, they're more easily searcheable with programs like FARR and Everything.


plus evernote : tagging possibilities, but same question about search

Evernote is completely proprietary. If you tag stuf in there, you have to search stuff from inside EverNote.



but so far, armando, you convinced me that tags within the file name is the only robust solution (actually I thought that before but was too lazy or ignorant to do sth)

I'm still using the same system today. My tag database (in my AHK script) is now fairly large but very manageable. AHKs scripts are easy to navigate and edit, compared to other "text expanding" programs UIs.


I have to try to really use farr (it is installed but not used)
about local search engine, are you still using archivarius or x1 ?

I don't use X1 anymore. I'd love to, but I had some performance issues with it, plus it didn't index huge documents quite well (like... more than 450 pages... can't remember exactly, but it's probably more related to the number of words rather than the number of pages) and didn't index MS Word comments very well either. Still, X1 is the best in terms of features and useability, IMO.

I use Archivarius, but I find it clunkyer and does have a few issues -- the scheduling function is buggy (scheduler will just stop working sometimes and database needs to be updated manually)


I thought that creating a .txt file for each file could have been a solution to avoid the length limitation on the name, to create note, to paste a url, to be searchable
but it is probably a bad solution 'cause nobody is doing so, I guess it is too long but maybe could be automated, and also 'cause I've never been able to use the hardlink possibility with ntfs, besides this hardlinking possibility is probably not portable

I never liked the idea of poluting my filesystem with tons of secondary files... Plus it'd be extremely hard to manage -- but I won't enter the details now.


and lastly what about bookmarks, zoteros, and evernotes ?

I do use my tagging system in a database application calles InfoQube. So my system is basically the same, but I enter my tags in a special "field" for each item... Of course, InfoQube's database is only searchable from inside IQ though -- well Archivarius is actually able to search display the DB content, but it's not very... aesthetical (just plain txt).


this topic is, on the web, what I've found the deepest about tagging files
I'm really surprised that there is not a damn software that would do the trick
I don't know, something like a multiplatorm soft embedding files or adding a couple of bytes to each file to allow hard tagging
I have to say that I know nothing in programming or computer stuff, I'm just a user, so if you feel I'm saying stupid things, you can tell me, I won't be offended

tag2find was using the NTFS alternate data streams, which is similar to what you describe (You can find some info about ADS here)
+ a database to store all the tag info in case something went wrong. It has a few tricks up its sleeves... Unfortunately it's pretty much dead (seemed like it was going to resurrect as a FOSS for a short while, but...)

ADS are not cross platform or even always cross software (even within the same OS) and all your work might be (permanently ?) lost if you decide to change software. There are also some privacy issues -- your tags traveling with your files with no obvious ways to see them when you share these.  And if you burn your files to a CD or DVD they won't follow. etc. etc.

« Last Edit: August 11, 2009, 04:20 PM by Armando »


smeraldo

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #47 on: August 12, 2009, 03:58 AM »
Hi armando

thanks a lot for your detailed answer, very interesting

it raises a couple of questions

ok for the ADS
and tag2find, if it does not seem to have much activity, is not dead apparently, martin from tag2find's latest post was in july
we'll see (but I'm not sure to be that interested)

thank you for what you say about favourites and bookmarks
I actually never noticed that they were different (yeah, yeah, yeah...), I thought only the name was different
I gonna investigate a bit

I do use my tagging system in a database application calles InfoQube. So my system is basically the same, but I enter my tags in a special "field" for each item... Of course, InfoQube's database is only searchable from inside IQ though -- well Archivarius is actually able to search display the DB content, but it's not very... aesthetical (just plain txt).
this software seems to be very interesting, free at the moment, and a portable version exists
I'll give it a look and try


how do you save web pages ? I'm not talking about favourites or bookmarks
as mentioned previously I'm using zotero in firefox but I'd like to find another way
that would mean .htm or .mht or .maff I think, and I like none of them (htm because of file+folder(=pollution), the 2 others for integrity and compatibility consideration)

I never liked the idea of poluting my filesystem with tons of secondary files... Plus it'd be extremely hard to manage -- but I won't enter the details now.
you're right, I do agree on these 2 points, but thought that maybe someone more expert than I could have done sthg


when I discovered evernote, I also discovered the possibility to ocr text images and keep at the same time the original image, I found that great, I actually was looking for such a thing for a long time
and the I discovered that acrobat could do that too (and probably for a long time...), and more than decently in the last 9th version (I read that the ocr engine has been completely rewritten)
so the question is simple (and the answer probably obvious) : can archivarius index this kind of pdf made of a combination of, let's say, jpgs but ocr'ed ?


do you have a way to search on all your search engines with just one action ? I mean for a basic search, 'cause I suppose that archivarius, evernote, and infoqube authorise complex search actions that are not exactly the same and then hard or impossible from outside.

You need to be slightly disciplined though, and be willing to learn (easy) AHK a bit.
You're right, except that I think "strictly" will be necessary

I did not know AHK before, I find it very powerful, and yes, pretty easy to learn (for my basic needs at least)
question off topic : I very recently bought a tabletpc and was hoping to be able to use the expendable text capability of AHK with the text recognition, but, noops, it does not work, the "space" or "enter" or punctuation character is not recognized. I must confess I haven't done any further investigations, maybe I should take a look towards stenography softwares, if existing, it could help. Well, just in case, I wanted to know if you know sthg about AHK and tabletpc, or expandable text capability and tabletpc.
off topic end

thank you for your help
« Last Edit: August 12, 2009, 05:00 AM by smeraldo »

sword

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #48 on: August 14, 2009, 02:08 PM »
Re: smeraldo's questions August 11, 2009 08:47:24
HOW "any new system or software...save web pages...folder style organization...tag (or even organize) your files..."
AND  "...XP...hard drives/computers...firefox..."
NOT "...too slow, too complicated, too many clicks, too database, too proprietary, too simple..."

My:
XP, Win2000, Win98SE
All pages/data gathered with FireFox, organized in RTF, JPG or BMP and sent to temporary formatting folders .
Folders and sub-folders have distinct, three-letter names in five sections. Names can have number equivalents.
Example:      equivalent to:
pln         1
   org         11
   tod         12
prs         2
   tod         21
   gen         22
gth         3
   txt         31
   src         32
   gly         33
fnf         4
   org         41
   ppl         46
tip         5
   eml         51
   fmt         52

Numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 in folder names are reserved for current priority numbers. O (zero) is used for indexes.
All new data is saved under a file name using date (YMDD) where 13 Aug 2009 is 9813 and a letter (a, b, c).
Optional:
Capital letters A through J are reserved for codes A/safest, B/best, etc. and Capital Letters after J are reserved
for use in filenames for M/summary, O/outline, R/reply, S/search etc. as needed. Folder numbers can be used
in filenames for convenience, example: 9813aS33 [ first search in 33 = gth/gather gly/genealogy ].

Gathering is with FireFox and: ScrapBook; QuickNote (77KB); Shelve (38KB), [needs AutoIT]; Textise (8KB);
Snapper (about 110KB) and Zotero (1198KB) [seldom used]. In stead of Zotero, I use Quote URL text (12KB) in
FireFox2 [it only runs in FireFox up to v 3].

Clips are saved using, in order of preference: Advanced Clipboard Manager [needs Java 6]; ClipMate; KeyNote
v1.6.5; ScrapBook; MS OneNote; MS ClipBook.

Formatting is applied with simple editors: Wordpad, Keynote, QJot and saved temporarily to drives D: or E:
before being indexed and saved to disk, in flat files (no folders) or transferred to other boxes to be used with
other applications: WordPerfect; MS Publisher; DreamWeaver (in tables); DataBase Pro; ACT; OneNote.

Tags are made from the parent folder name plus folder name, example: gthgly [see above] and I use only about
a dozen tags and only for about two percent of the most important files. Searching with WordPerfect or Windows
Find is usually very fast and the files are available to all of my applications. Useful files are saved as, or renamed,
something like 51S8712aB6tipeml = tip, email, Search, 2008, Jul, 12th, item 'a', Best, priority 6, tag: tipeml. A
lot of files remain as 8712b

Why use numbers? Where folders are added or deleted frequently, the order remains constant.

« Last Edit: August 15, 2009, 01:38 PM by sword »

J-Mac

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Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
« Reply #49 on: August 14, 2009, 10:27 PM »
Not sure I'm following that, Sword. Is that just how you are tagging? Or is it a response to something someone else posted?

Jim