Like task managers, databases get really kludged up by things we really don’t need. My thermostat is online but I don’t really care, I just want it to keep things around 74º F as efficiently as possible. Banks can retrieve statements, and manuals are available online (at least most of the time). In the words of Marie Kondo, throw most all papers away. I really don’t need last year’s utility bill. This immediately leads us beyond nested folders.Īnother issue is the endless problem with technology: just because we can keep a file doesn’t mean we should. You can throw everything on Dropbox, for example, but you will probably want something more robust, that can handle weblinks, searching in files, and so on. Nested folders are always an option, but they don’t allow for easy searching, indexing, or security. It’s easy enough to create a folder structure or even encrypted disk image, but how do you make that usable with multiple devices? The challenge for databases is to make them fast, easily accessible, and secure. The search field is one of the best bits of modern computers. Google and gmail work so well because they are how people work – we remember some scraps of detail, a name or a word, where we were, when we search for something, and that’s all google needs. I still remember how jaw-dropping gmail was when it premiered – seemingly unlimited storage for your email, the power to archive everything, and a lightning fast and accurate search. What really moved the ball forward in terms of a home database usage is the power of computer indexing and a google style search. Only as the database grows with time do you really see how to organize things, and then you are left with cleaning up the database and the system (which no one really wants to do). You have to decide whether to use a file folder or a tagging system (gatherers versus hunters, in the nerdy lingo), but you don’t really know what sort of folders or tags you need. They are easy and great at first when there’s not much information in them, but they rapidly balloon into something unworkable. We need a way to store and then later find things in “ an organized collection.”ĭatabases are tricky. Whether it’s email, a folder system, your home folder, Evernote, or the desktop, we all use some sort of system for our files. Our complex lives mean that we all live in some form of a database on our computers.
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