Multidimensional Folders and Google Docs

File Management

One thing that is often compared is Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs. However, what is most often compared is the functionality, which is of course where Office clearly is superior. However, less often mentioned is how superior Google Docs is for maintaining and sharing files, which is where Google Docs has the advantage. After long term testing, we have found that the documents we keep on a server, be it Google Docs or Box.net, are more durable than those that we have locally. That is servers – or other people – seem to do a better job of making sure disks keep operating, and in not losing files than we do. Secondly, Google Docs allows for one file to belong to multiple folders, where as Office, and documents in general on Mac OS X and Windows are stuck in a hierarchical model of file management. In truth hierarchical models don’t really reflect reality. For instance a Mockingbird is both part of the birds family, and also the subject of several books. Therefore it could belong to both a file or category on birds and a file or category on books (among many other files and categories). Books are not a subfile of birds and birds are not a subfile of books. Using a hierarchical file management system (much like the tree structure for categorizing life) one has to twist oneself into a pretzel because the organizational design is not reflective of reality.

Example

In this example one can see that we have created three folders, and that one of our documents is part of both folders. If a folder is deleted in Google Docs it does not destroy the underling documents, it just becomes folder-less. For these reasons and more Google Docs offers a superior way of organizing files.

File Management on Google Docs and Box.net

In an early post we described how Box.net provides better file management and organization as well as finding than any Mac or PC file manager we have ever used. Then we find that Google Docs does it better with regards to file management than MS Office. The question we are beginning to ask ourselves is why it is so much easier managing data on server file managers than local computers running Windows or Mac? Why is this?

How to Create a Modified Laptop with Mac Mini

We have lusted after the MacBook Pro for some time. We were on the verge of buying one, after we realized a few things:

1. We don’t like typing on laptop keyboards
2. We don’t like using laptop trackpads
3. We don’t like the positioning of laptop screens
4. We prefer portrait to landscape displays (we have found portrait displays better for work, and we do a lot of writing and web browsing, while landscape is better for media applications)

Obviously given all this, we are not very good candidates for a laptop. However, if one wants portability, what can one do? Well we came up with a portable solution with Mac that uses a Mac Mini. Here is the configuration:

• Mac Mini
• Shuttle portable monitor (which can be turned either landscape or portrait)
• Both an external laptop battery like the one seen here:

http://www.amazon.com/Tekkeon-myPower-Extended-Battery-MP3450-10/dp/B0017DS0SS/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1DQ7SXYR1987V&colid=19J51FLM164W3

While a bit more cumbersome than a laptop, for us its perfect. We would recommend the iLugger 17 inch carry bag, which is designed to carry the iMac, as our 17 inch Shuttle display would be too big for our Codi Laptop Bag. Here are the costs:

http://www.ilugger.com/black-imac-carrying-case.cfm

Mac Mini = $750 (4Gb of ram model)
Keyboard = $50
Mouse = $20
iLugger = $120
Shuttle Display = $300
Tekkon External Power = $90

$1350

However, since we already own the keyboard, mouse, and Shuttle display our cost would be $750 + 90 + 120 or roughly $1000 with shipping costs.

A little more setup buys us a more comfortable and portrait display computer in addition to more tablespace (we have to connect an external keyboard to any laptop, so for us laptops take up a lot of table space at the local Starbucks)

Google Blog Search

We do a lot of research online. Of course we use Google. However, one of the problems is there is a lot of business produced information which is mostly promotional and not truth based. However, blogs tend to be better. Unfortunately, companies are beginning to create blogs, which is a problem, becuase companies are not just blogging for the fun of it, but in order to get their message across. However, still, blogs seem to have better infromation than company websites. For this we have begun using Google Blog Search.

Data Management Easier on The Web

The Switch

Sometimes a switch happens with technology which is the result of several technologies underlying it. It can often mean a change in how we have done things for some time. When this happens, it can become easy to forget or gloss over how significant the change actually is. When we first performed searches on a new search engine over a decade ago called “Google,” we felt this it then. We have experienced a second change, and this time it relates to file management online and to a company called Box.net

The Old Process

For years we have been managing files on external disks. First with Windows Explorer, then with a variety of PC file managers such as ACDSee and many others. Then, when we transferred to Mac, we began managing data with Finder and Spotlight. Along the way, we think we have tried most of the file management solutions out there, and we created a DVD on the topic a number of years ago. Years of experience managing files and disks has brought us to a conclusion regarding the limitations of traditional personal data management.

1. Managing disks is a pain. Disks die more frequently than any of us are lead to believe. (the failure rates listed by manufacturersare false )– This can and often does result in lost data.
2. The search management of files on personal computers is still unsophisticated and limited in functionality. For all the talk around Spotlight, it is actually disappointing in terms of its results. Google Desktop is impressive in many ways, but has a very narrow set of functionality, and consumes significant computational resources to maintain its index. Furthermore, it is wasteful as the effort that the computer must spend in creating indexes, the number of times these indexes must be recreated and the overall maintenance of the system detracts from computing effort that could go to the user. It makes much more sense for a server to do this work instead.

Files Managed on the Web

We began using Box.net around 6 months ago. This was primarily for transferring files between multiple computers. We never really considered Box.net for our main file management solution until we started performing simple searches. The results below are one such search.

This search found all the files regardless of their directory location, and it did it fast. The speed and the thoroughness of this search was really impressive to us. So we started performing other searches, with similar results. From this we have concluded that Box.net has surpassed the searching capabilities any PC or Mac based system we have used. A second area that Box.net is the best out there is in interface design. The Box.net interface is fast, logical, deep in functionality and an actual pleasure to use. Try using the term “pleasure” and “file manager” in the same sentence.  People are out there raving about Spotlight, however are people raving about Box.net? Not really.

The Shift to the Web

We are entering a period where the functionality available online is beginning to surpass the functionality available on the local computer. The web has always been naturally more collaborative than personal computer based sofware, but it is beginning to beat it out in functionality as well.  As is evident from our previous sentences, one actually now loses functionality by not keeping one’s files hosted at Box.net.

The Built In Advantage of Web Delivered Software

The second advantage of using a hosted file management solution is that you get out of the disk management business. Professionals managing a large number of disks, can do a more efficient job of managing them (checking on them, removing those that are about to go bad, putting them in a controlled and cooled environment) than individuals can. We can speak to this, as we currently have 5 external disks on our desk. Three have recently gone bad (if not permanently, then they required a complete reformatt) after around 3 to 4 years of intermittent use, and one of the 5 only appears up on one of our Macs when it feels like it.

Why is Box.net A Better Solution?

Does hosting files on a server allow you to perform indexing faster and better and deliver more horsepower against file searching than a PC allows? Possibly. By being web based, Box.net does not have to worry about writing an application to work with Windows or OS 10.x, it can simply focus on its website and file management, and of course the tools it uses.m How it configures its servers is more controllable by the company than if they had to write a software package to do the same thing to run on a local computer that is not optimized for file searching.

The following rules apply for servers and why they are advantagous ver personal computers.

• Servers can be optimized for specific tasks, while a PC or Mac is generalized for many tasks.
• Servers have a lot more horsepower for doing thinks like indexing that does a personal computer

Collaboration

Furthermore, Box.net is collaborative, so files can be shared much better than keeping files on a local computer and then emailing files. With Box.net, the management of files as well as the distribution of files are integrated with one another. If you want to share a file you simply select the file, select share, and you receive a URL you can use to send to people you want to see the file.

Then you are taken to the download location. This is like having your own FTP server.

Disadvantages to Box.net

There are several disadvantages to Box.net, including the trust issue. There is also the time spent to upload the files, which is of course slower than using local disks Finally there is the expense – which while reasonable, is more expensive than managing disks. However, this cost analysis changes when you begin to count the direct costs and forget about the indirect costs, such as your personal time and effort. For us, with all things considered, Box.net is a slam dunk and an example of what is happening in terms of the competition between online and offline applications.

Operating Systems

There is a lesson here for operating systems. That is they can begin to lighten up in terms of depth and functionality. More and more of the functionality is going to migrate to specialized web providers. This means that Apple can shrink any further development into file management. Apple may have already figured this out, the release of Snow Leopard is 1/2 as big as Leopard (although much of this is due to dropping support for PowerPC). However, it is likely that Apple appreciates that a smaller operating system can be run on more devices, such as various mobile devices that use less of the device’s resources, and more of the web’s resources.

Microsoft Lost in the Woods

Microsoft still thinks it rules the galaxy, so every release of Windows is bigger than the last (Windows 2003 Server takes up 5 Gig of space, but Vista takes up 35 Gig of space, while offering negligible improvements in functionality.) Windows does not fundamentally “get” the web, and of course the web works against its packaged software model, so Microsoft will continue to lose prominance and market share for this reason (in addition to many other reasons).

Conclusion

Increasingly the OS will simply be seen as a way to assist the user in managing the disk and hardware of the locatal computer (notice Apples Snow Leopard’s new Grand Central Dispatch, which is focused on improving the management of multi-core processors), while providing a portal to the functionality that is out in the web. We have written about how corporate software needs to become more web enabled to take advantage of the benefits of a web centric approach.

http://supplychaininnovation.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/web-enable-supply-chain/

However, this trend is just as prominent in consumer and operating system applications. Company after company in the software feild is missing out on this trend, and stuck in a rut with staid and non-innovative software development which is based upon a defeated model. The future belongs to software companies that totally web enable their applications, move to a subscription software model and dump the packaged software model.

Does this eventually end in pure web desktops? That will be the topic of our next post as we test out some of the options in this area.

Job Feeds and RSS

We think that job searching is a perfect application of feed technology. This is because job searching requires going the same thing over and over again (finding the site, entering the search terms, reviewing the output). We thought we would do a little research to see how common job search RSS feeds are in common usage. The reason we are interested in this is because this could be used to create a job dashboard for people looking for jobs.

We decided to goto Google Adwords and use their keyword tool. This is a good way to find how often search terms are entered. We decided to contrast it to the number of searches for “search engines.” See the results below.

Now notice how much more popular the terms related to search engines are.

What we take from this is that people are not searching for and using job RSS feeds with anywhere close to the level that they search for job search engines. We also see that few sites are advertising their job feeds. Look, we only find 4 ads under job feed search.

We will discuss this topic in more detail in future posts.

Mac Finder Should Emulate Opera Browser

Opera Tab Filter

In our last post we heralded the fantastic tab filter technology in the Opera browser. This functionality is not new, but we someone missed it for some time (actually we do not know when it was introduced).

http://infoknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/opera-tab-window-filter/

Working With It

What this functionality does is allow a large number of tabs or windows within the browser to be open, but for only those that you are currently interested in to be viewed. Its hard to overestimate how much this improves the browser experience.

For Finder

This basic approach should be adopted by the Mac Finder. Currently, Finder opens multiple windows, and does not allow tabbing. So allowing tabbing is the first step.

The next step is to make the tabs filterable as shown below on Opera.

Browsers and File Managers

Browsers and file managers do roughly the same thing. The difference is finders look internally. Both of them require a way to show multiple views, however, only browsers seem to really manage the multi-view concept correctly (although their are tabbed file managers, but they lag). Opera has taken tab or view management to a new level with its filter combined with its left pane representation of tabs (most browsers paradoxically show their tabs horizontally, which is not efficient). There is absolutely no reason that Finder could not emulate this interface design. Half the issue of view management as been solved by Opera, now its time for Finder to solve the other half.

Opera Tab Window Filter

Epiphany

I have been using Opera for it must be 5 years now. I thought that I knew most of the tricks. Then today, I found a new massively helpful feature.

Windows – Tabs

For those Opera users out there, you already know, but for those that do not use Opera — Opera’s main selling point is its ability to manage large numbers of tabs. You can see from the screenshot below, we keep a lot of tabs open.

Of the browsers we have used, only one other browser (OmniWeb) comes close to managing tabs or windows in the same way, but it can not match the performance of Opera. So, Opera has been one of our most consistently used browsers. (we also use Firefox, Safari, and OmniWeb)

However, we do end up spending a lot of time searching for specific tabs. Often we have multiple tabs of a single website open, and that is what we are looking for.

Now we learned we can filter for just that website by typing in the whole name, or partials of the name into the search box above the tabs. Look how we filtered our tabs below.

This is going to save us a nice amount of time, as well as being easier on our eyes and brain. Try it out for yourself.

Interesting Future of Communication Video

This is an interesting video that describes how media may change in the future.

How the NetBook Fits In

Now the Netbook is taking the laptop market by storm. Originally designed for the bottom end of computing, the Netbook (a small lower powered laptop designed for the web and email) is now one of the hotest categories of laptops.

One of the Dell Netbooks with a 10 inch screen

Really, we wonder what took so long. Three years ago we looked for a minature laptop that we could keep in our car and hit WiFi spots. We cold not find anything and thus we bought the 12 inch iBook. This was actually fortuitous as is lead to our total conversion of Mac (pretty soon all of our computers were Mac).

Now with all these Netbooks, the emphasis increasingly leans towards net hosted applications. So many application spaces should be there already, but our hardware and operating system centric view of computing is a hard habit to break. One classification of software we very much expect to move to the net is ERP programs. A new grouping of software called open source ERP is beginning to gain a foothold. Watch out SAP and Oracle, giant implementations with massive complexity may eventually be a thing of the past. Imagine if a litttle thing like the Netbook lead the way to a new computing model. However, no matter how cool these little Netbooks are, we are not going back to Windows.

Firefox Growing Into Multifaceted Application

The more we work with Firefox, the more we begin to wonder when it stops being just a browser and becomes some sort of Swiss Army knife of applications. We spend a inordinate amount of time on in Firefox. Now we are browse-philes, we love many browsers and have written about some of them on this blog, however, we spend most of our time in Firefox. For instance, we are writing this post in Scribefire – a Firefox plug-in. Our bookmarks were in Firefox before (GMarks) before we migrated them to a WordPress blog (which we recommend by the way and will describe further in a future post). Every year, new plug-ins come out for Firefox, that make it more functional and increasingly make Firefox our goto application for much more than web browsing. We certainly never thought Firefox would become this when we began using it as an alternative to Internet Explorer (who remembers that application anymore, of course companies are the last to figure out that IE has been dead to computer people for some time.) 

So, forecasting that Firefox will continue to grow in functionality, we thought we would do a little searching to see what is written on this topic. We found an interesting article..

http://news.cnet.com/firefox-4-will-push-out-the-edges-of-the-browser/

It turns out that Mozilla has very big plans for Firefox in the direction of making it a platform for apps. (for those that may not realize it, this does even more to reduce the Windows monopoly, as apps with both increasingly be run from the server side, or from within the browser. Bad news Microsoft, browsers are platform independent)

Prism: Focused on turning Firefox into a hosting application for other apps (think plug-ins on steroids)
Weave: Persisting more of your data to a secure location, allowing you to have more of a portable computer system

Firefox 4 seems to be the when a number of these things will come together. Could be some time as the present version is 3.06.