Data Disorganization
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
If it wasn't for disorganization I wouldn't have any organization at all.
Got my site back up after my time in the woods! JaxCoder.com
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
As far as sharing files between your desktop and your laptop, here is my strategy: My setup involves a file server but it's not required. My desktop uses mapped drives to the server where all development projects, docs, etc. lives. My laptop uses the same mapped drives, but with one difference...they are configured to be available offline. I also use an external drive for customer databases and documents. That drive is either plugged into the desktop or travels with the laptop for the one day a week that I use it. Before taking the laptop home, I make sure that it synchs with the server. This means that I'm always working with the same files on either machine. A nice side-effect is that you basically have an automatic backup on the laptop. :) I've used this method for a long time and it works well enough for my needs. It actually saved my bacon a few years ago when my server's data drive went kaput.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
Admit you've got a problem? Come to the conclusion that there is no root cause of it. Like you said, you started somewhere other than where you thought you'd end up ... here with so many files. What do you need a diagnosis for anyway? Why did you get a computer in the first place? Were you comparing the calculating abilities of your Ti-89 to the abilities of the calculator that came with Windows Accessories? Then found you had a lot of space left on your 1 GB PATA and decided to store converted .avi from your camcorder because the box also had a slot on the motherboard to add a Firewire card which made it easy to do so? There were tons of free applications available for download on the internet to do things with a computer, do them better than anything also found in Accessories, so you began to think you could write software just as good as either? My head first exploded when I began to have to pay for software to write software. Then the outlay of funds became the delimiter of my disorganization itself. So ... there. The disorganization you're probably talking about is much greater than your own and SHOULDN'T be a cause for concern. Get a hobby?
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
It looks like life happened to you? And endless struggle and pull-o-war between chaos and organisation! :o
A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!
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If it wasn't for disorganization I wouldn't have any organization at all.
Got my site back up after my time in the woods! JaxCoder.com
As I've said in the past, a cheap rationalization is better than none at all. :-D
Software Zen:
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
What you're running into is one of the fundamental failures of computer systems. Computer's have no clue what they are storing! In fact, my industry (the storage industry) seems to think that all we need to provide you is a directory and a filename and you should worship us. In reality, people don't want to work with files, they want to work with something called Information Assets. These are collections of files, metadata, people, processes, emails, etc., that as a set, are meaningful to your or your business. These things change, are related to one another, are part of larger sets, etc. This is how people think, talk, communicate with others, and yet computer's don't even come close to supporting this type of behavior. If you would like to see more about the idea of Information Assets with an example, here is a link to a short paper on the subject. "www.expeditefile.com/assets/assetmanagementpart1v2.pdf" - Introduction To Information Asset Management. It is a no-register PDF. There are a huge number of other failures that are caused by this wrong information model. However, what's worse is the industry forces every computer owner to go figure out their own way to maintain the integrity of their "digital assets". That's why you have seen multiple suggestions on how to do backup, etc. What you have touched on is a huge issue that I'm afraid, very few people understand much less have any way to solve. Hopefully, we will be able to fix this someday... :( Bruce
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actually I'll give you the media library is still a case for spinners (given volume required for the price as you point out). Not much else though. NAS too is OK for spinners, as you say with backups automated seeing as they are on 24/7. My take was OP was speaking to active files required and updated daily (so unlikely to be GB's), ... some on pc, some on laptop, some on thumbs and even on the phone - my points really came down to: 1. choose a master (likely the PC), 2. make it a habit to maintain that master up-to-date, (tip: use email to spur that action) 3. to make 2 less of a chore use the fastest solution(s) you can get (because if it is a huge chore, well we humans are naturally lazy creatures so...) BTW: Personally I've given up on the media library - kept too many things that I would never look at again (too much to feasibly watch), and seeing as really cheap access to older content comes bundled with the various movie/tv subscriptions even more didn't see the point - but that's my way, absolutely not saying everyone should do this - luckily we [nearly] all live in a world we we can choose to our own preferences.
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Lopatir wrote:
and seeing as really cheap access to older content comes bundled with the various movie/tv subscriptions
You mean like Ultraviolet, which have recently emailed me to tell me they were shutting down their service and I was going to lose access to my purchased DVD/Blu-ray streaming option unless I somehow find the means to transfer what they think I own to another provider?
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
One word cloud. I have a One Drive biz account. Everything important is stored there in a logical tree structure. I make sure I have two computers that can sync the entire one drive. And every month or so I copy to an external drive then turn the drive off.
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
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I would like to get some ideas from the people here on the topic of organizing data. In my immediate case, I have too many disparate files in too many disparate locations to be truly and effectively useful to me. There are a zillion files, sprinkled among.... * My Desktop Computer's hard drive * My Phone * A Bunch Of Thumb Drives * My Notebook computer * Two Separate External Hard Drives The disorganization presents complexities that astound me. i.e., How did I ever let this mess develop to this point ? Something tells me that I am not the only one dealing with this sort of problem. I'm looking for thoughts from folks here on the root cause of Data Disorganization, like thoughts and habits that we fall into way back at the start of it all, along with some ideas about minor habits that go along with reversing the process so it doesn't start again. Your thoughts ?
Anything that gives me pause, gets copied to a cloud drive and / or a dedicated external drive. Copy over the outlook pst files once in a while. Share a cloud folder or two. That's it. Just attach a "generation #" to the file if there is going to be a collision. Once you have x generations, start deleting the older ones.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
