Finding an alternative method of getting into your data is becoming big business. Google is a perfect example, not only does their search engine provide the information in different ways, but the various extensions they have made to that information (Froogle, Google Local) have turned publicly available, but largely unformatted information into something that has structure and utility.

WinFS, which now now been Dropped from Longhorn, was going to offer a different way of accessing and referring to the information you store in files on your computer, and on others. Again, there have been different, and previous, attempts at this. Apple's Spotlight provides methods of searching the document, the comments and tags you add to documents and by other metadata attached to files.

Well, Apple have started the trend, and I suspect many others will follow. Just as CRT TVs are disappearing, Apple have dropped the CRT from their eMac and introduced an LCD version.

I still like CRTs, and there are still colour issues with many LCDs that need to be addressed (most cannot match even a cheap CRT for colour range), but LCDs have many other advantages, like lower power costs, lower desk space costs, and are generally easier on the eyes.

Well, Apple have started the trend, and I suspect many others will follow. Just as CRT TVs are disappearing, Apple have dropped the CRT from their eMac and introduced an LCD version.

I still like CRTs, and there are still colour issues with many LCDs that need to be addressed (most cannot match even a cheap CRT for colour range), but LCDs have many other advantages, like lower power costs, lower desk space costs, and are generally easier on the eyes.

Well, Apple have started the trend, and I suspect many others will follow. Just as CRT TVs are disappearing, Apple have dropped the CRT from their eMac and introduced an LCD version.

I still like CRTs, and there are still colour issues with many LCDs that need to be addressed (most cannot match even a cheap CRT for colour range), but LCDs have many other advantages, like lower power costs, lower desk space costs, and are generally easier on the eyes.

Sun and Imation have announced an upgrade to their tape technology that allows a native (i.e. uncompressed) capacity of 75GB per tape. Sadly, as always, it is still lagging behind disk storage, especially if notebooks are able to store the terabyte that Seagate have just announced.

With disk storage that large, it will soon may more more sense to buy a couple of 1TB laptops that you can carry around in place of multitudes of tapes.

Sun and Imation have announced an upgrade to their tape technology that allows a native (i.e. uncompressed) capacity of 75GB per tape. Sadly, as always, it is still lagging behind disk storage, especially if notebooks are able to store the terabyte that Seagate have just announced.

With disk storage that large, it will soon make more more sense to buy a couple of 1TB laptops that you can carry around in place of multitudes of tapes.

Sun and Imation have announced an upgrade to their tape technology that allows a native (i.e. uncompressed) capacity of 75GB per tape. Sadly, as always, it is still lagging behind disk storage, especially if notebooks are able to store the terabyte that Seagate have just announced.

With disk storage that large, it will soon make more more sense to buy a couple of 1TB laptops that you can carry around in place of multitudes of tapes.

I get a lot of email, and about once a quarter I sit down and go through my email, archiving the stuff I no longer need (I haven't thrown away an email in 20 years) and deleting everything else. I also take the opportunity to sort out my auto-filing rules. Every email from a known source goes into an appropriate folder, anything else gets lumped into a folder so that I can check its content and move it to the Spam reporting folder, delete it, or manually move it into the right place. If I've got a new client, or subscribed to some new mailing lists then I'll add them to the rules.

I get a lot of email, and about once a quarter I sit down and go through my email, archiving the stuff I no longer need (I haven't thrown away an email in 20 years) and deleting everything else. I also take the opportunity to sort out my auto-filing rules. Every email from a known source goes into an appropriate folder, anything else gets lumped into a folder so that I can check its content and move it to the Spam reporting folder, delete it, or manually move it into the right place. If I've got a new client, or subscribed to some new mailing lists then I'll add them to the rules.

I get a lot of email, and about once a quarter I sit down and go through my email, archiving the stuff I no longer need (I haven't thrown away an email in 20 years) and deleting everything else. I also take the opportunity to sort out my auto-filing rules. Every email from a known source goes into an appropriate folder, anything else gets lumped into a folder so that I can check its content and move it to the Spam reporting folder, delete it, or manually move it into the right place. If I've got a new client, or subscribed to some new mailing lists then I'll add them to the rules.