Like many people, I like to read a lot, and every once so often I come across a very interesting bit of information that I certainly want to save for my own reference. And the easiest way, of course, is to add another file to the complex web of folders in My docs. Yet the problem is, that these files and folders and subfolders and subfolders .... keep accumulating and by the age of almost-30 and with My docs around for about 10 years, it is most likely that I will never manage to dig out or use effectively I guess about 80-90% of that accumulated information.
So the options today are:
1) never-ever read that stuff again;
2) do exploratory tours in My docs folder every once in a while (which will always remain about one but last item on my personal time schedule);
3) write some scribbles with references into my blog - NB! having browsed and collected information for about 10 years you also discover, that some interesting web-references tend to go off-line, so keeping a reference link doesn't really help either!
4) create a personal website or wiki to manage the info
5) ....?
So far, it seems to me that today the best option is number 4) if you are prepared to spend sufficient time on setting it all up and playing around with it so it becomes at least remotely interesting, user-friendly for my own use and sharing etc.
I bet that there are many of you around that have struggled with the same problem - so if you have found a good solution, please let me know! Also, if you have found any particularly easy-to-use, -manage, and -read wikis - I would also appreciate any suggestions for those!
Best suggestions will earn my eternal gratitude!
1 comment:
Ah, so that was why you were considering a wiki?! :-) Anyway, I think it is a really interesting topic, and I usually take a stance that with all this great technology, you should not have to give up any of those goals, it is possible to do, somehow. Storage is not a huge problem, it's just about how you organize it.
To begin with, since I started using del.icio.us, there is no going back. If there is something I don't have time to read right then and/or want to save, just tag it and throw it into del.icio.us, which actually also gives the key to how to solve archiving a lot of information - I for example have 182 items tagged with "funny", which is too many to overview, but there are only 12 tagged with "funny and nerdy", which is again managable.
I understand that bookmarks isn't all for you, a wiki is great for keeping random information, but I don't know of a sensible way to keep files (tagged filesystem, anyone?), maybe I can get back to you on that. :-)
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