Searching for my stuff on my terms
I had a discussion with a coworker about file system (folder+files) compared to how we organize our stuff at home: things are scattered throughout the house based on usage: kitchen contains food stuff, living room has media stuff. And I organize by usage: food, the perishable on easy to reach areas, stockpiled food, oldest expiration date is at the forefront. With media, I have sections of videos I've seen before, videos I want to see, and videos I want to see with my sons.
I just saw a NHK special on google, with a lot of focus on search result ranking and how various consulting companies try to game the system. But the fact is, we don't want to organize and search stuff by page rank. I want to find things based on what I find convenient, not what google deems worthy. They've been lucky so far to intersect the user needs (to find things in the wild world of internet) with their search algorithm. Will this continue? They'll keep trying to improve but I don't know if they are going the right direction since I have my needs that they cannot read nor predict. As the web grows and expertise are focused, finding just the right info will become more and more elusive. I find this to be true if I only have simple, common words to find a specific quote or ideas. As long as I stick with special or expert words, it's easy to find things but there are times when common words are only terms I can use and it is just too general. Because google relies on specific spelling, a typo or misspelling is noted (most of the time), but not searched for. Let alone synonyms, homonyms and idioms. These days, singular/plural diffs are being better handled but far from perfect.
How I find stuff on the internet and my hard drive or my family's hard drive or my work area harddrive would be very helpful (across OS partitions, too, for that matter). I want to see and manage the world (local, work & www) in my own terms not what other companies deem best. Give me my freedom! Don't trend on me.
Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.
I just saw a NHK special on google, with a lot of focus on search result ranking and how various consulting companies try to game the system. But the fact is, we don't want to organize and search stuff by page rank. I want to find things based on what I find convenient, not what google deems worthy. They've been lucky so far to intersect the user needs (to find things in the wild world of internet) with their search algorithm. Will this continue? They'll keep trying to improve but I don't know if they are going the right direction since I have my needs that they cannot read nor predict. As the web grows and expertise are focused, finding just the right info will become more and more elusive. I find this to be true if I only have simple, common words to find a specific quote or ideas. As long as I stick with special or expert words, it's easy to find things but there are times when common words are only terms I can use and it is just too general. Because google relies on specific spelling, a typo or misspelling is noted (most of the time), but not searched for. Let alone synonyms, homonyms and idioms. These days, singular/plural diffs are being better handled but far from perfect.
How I find stuff on the internet and my hard drive or my family's hard drive or my work area harddrive would be very helpful (across OS partitions, too, for that matter). I want to see and manage the world (local, work & www) in my own terms not what other companies deem best. Give me my freedom! Don't trend on me.
Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.
Labels: desktop, file systems, freedom, google, search engine
posted by DannyHSDad at
7:20 PM
