Better filing on Windows XP
I'm writing this in response to an article I read on Lifehacker. There was no good option (that I felt fit the bill) for Windows XP users.
I'm on Win XP Pro and started realizing that my huge collection of digital photos was getting out of hand in a hurry several years ago.
Picasa makes managing them easier - I can apply tags to everything and when the app is open I can search by tag (actually they call them labels) or file name, date, folder, etc.
What I've found though is that I do well to keep all my image files from a specific date range together in a single folder, then name the folder by YYYY.MM.DD followed by a list of "tags" as the actual folder name. This way, even if the contents of the folder vary wildly, I can search for folders using Windows' built in search and the naming convention makes finding things really easy. I always use the date that I pul the photos off the camera as the starting name for the folder (makes sorting really easy later). An example name would be "2006.04.28 family vacation summer friends swimming"
So all my photos are in one big folder (My Pictures) with just one level of subfolders named by date and a list of tags.
I think this principle would hold up well for documents in general. You could have all your files in your "My Documents" folder, create a single layer of folders that catches as many high-level breakdowns as necessary, then name the individual files by "tag" rather than just "06Qtr1Report.xls" - so you might end up with a filename more like "2006.04.28 [business name] report finance quarterly.xls" - this way you can easily search your My Documents folder using Windows' built in search and just list specific "tags" you are looking for.
If Ahmed's suggestion for Search Spy works for you (from the comments on Lifehacker), then this is moot. But if more software running in the background is not your thing then using a system like this and the plain ole' Windows search may be a good alternative.
Either way I'm finding more and more that tagging beats the heck out of all the other organization systems I've tried. Good article from Lifehacker.
I'm on Win XP Pro and started realizing that my huge collection of digital photos was getting out of hand in a hurry several years ago.
Picasa makes managing them easier - I can apply tags to everything and when the app is open I can search by tag (actually they call them labels) or file name, date, folder, etc.
What I've found though is that I do well to keep all my image files from a specific date range together in a single folder, then name the folder by YYYY.MM.DD followed by a list of "tags" as the actual folder name. This way, even if the contents of the folder vary wildly, I can search for folders using Windows' built in search and the naming convention makes finding things really easy. I always use the date that I pul the photos off the camera as the starting name for the folder (makes sorting really easy later). An example name would be "2006.04.28 family vacation summer friends swimming"
So all my photos are in one big folder (My Pictures) with just one level of subfolders named by date and a list of tags.
I think this principle would hold up well for documents in general. You could have all your files in your "My Documents" folder, create a single layer of folders that catches as many high-level breakdowns as necessary, then name the individual files by "tag" rather than just "06Qtr1Report.xls" - so you might end up with a filename more like "2006.04.28 [business name] report finance quarterly.xls" - this way you can easily search your My Documents folder using Windows' built in search and just list specific "tags" you are looking for.
If Ahmed's suggestion for Search Spy works for you (from the comments on Lifehacker), then this is moot. But if more software running in the background is not your thing then using a system like this and the plain ole' Windows search may be a good alternative.
Either way I'm finding more and more that tagging beats the heck out of all the other organization systems I've tried. Good article from Lifehacker.
posted by John Daharsh at 11:37 PM
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