[IAEP] Article on "Why files need to die"

[Dave Bauer]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 5:03 AM, Christoph Derndorfer
<christoph.derndorfer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I just saw this article over on O'Reilly Radar and a lot of what the author
> says also applies to the Journal: "Why files need to die: Files are an
> anachronism in the digital age. It's time for something better."
> (http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/why-files-need-to-die.html).
> So while it's still early days I definitely feel that the Journal is
> generally moving into the right direction, especially with all the new
> features and whatnot discussed during the eduJAM! summit:-)
> Cheers,
> Christoph
> --

I am surprised noone mentioned OS X Lion yet.

With Resume, opening the application in the last state, automatic
document versions, and Autosave, (all ideas that were is Sugar first,
of course) a mainstream operating system is going to bring these
concepts to many more people.


On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 6:31 AM, Alexandro Colorado <jza at openoffice.org> wrote:
>

> The issue with the stream is that it doesnt really works either. If you see
> twitter, is impossilbe to look without search at your tweets from last month
> or last years.

I think search is the answer. There's no reason why a hierarchal
categorization can't be one of the wants to access information, but it
certainly isn't the only way. I used recent documents feature very
often, I usually search for downloads in my browser instead of opening
the folder where they are automatically stored. I send myself email to
my gmail account for anything I want to remember (except passwords)
and rely on the search feature to find it again.

Another area I think is interesting are launcher/search type tools
such as Quicksilver (google hired the author, but I haven't seen
anything interesting from them based on that yet), Gnome Do, and
Alfred for OS X. The main issue with tings like this is learning how
to ask for the right thing so it gives you what you want. I am not
sure the interfaces make sense if you just walk up to the computer.
Then again, many people's browser opens to a search engine with the
search box highlighted and they'll type the URL they want to go to in
there. So again, guessing what the user meant and giving it to them
might be the future. When OS X starts up with a search box open
instead of a blank desktop we'll know we are there :)

For me, I think these ideas, plus new ones we haven't thought of,
combined with refined user interfaces developd based on user behaviors
are the future. The more the computer can predict what you want, the
more it can help you get your work done. You just have to give it a
hint.

Dave