"PC users have volumes of information saved on their computers, most of it disconnected and disparate save for a basic directory system. The answer to connecting all the information into a local semantic Web of information is closer than you might think. Thanks to the open source NEPOMUK (Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge) effort, the Semantic Desktop isn't a dream; it's an emerging reality and will be here with the upcoming release of KDE 4 for the Linux desktop."
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
> It's going to be near impossible to breakdown
these sorts of changes will inevitably be multi-generational. but they need to start at some point, right? =) we shouldn't be discouraged if we don't get to the final destination with the first iteration. we should only be discouraged if we aren't moving towards that destination as quickly as possible.
there are several things in kde4 that are like this, btw.
Member since:2005-07-08
Application developers can give the notion of semantic organization a kick-start by guiding users toward contributing metadata. For example, a media player could offer to add a common tag to files in a playlist. The "Save As" dialog for any application would be an obvious place to "remind" the user to add tags (maybe this done already).
Also, I think it might be useful to introduce generic key/value pairs to the possible metadata types. MIME types could be associated with default keys, and multiple applications could use well-known keys to communicate through metadata without requiring action from the user.
There may be some potential worries about malicious applications doing bad things with metadata, but I'm not sure there's any way to prevent that even in the current design. Maybe applications should be allowed to create private keys that no other application can modify. This would be a convenient way for applications to save per-file state.
Just some ideas. Keep up the good work!
Member since:2006-02-05
The thing is people already use folders and file names for this purpose. You have pictures/family/vacation/2001/franksallybeach22.jpg. Instead, it could be /personal/nice day.jpg tagged with family, vacation, vacation 2001, frank, sally, beach. Using folders for this purpose, you end up with extraordinarily long mazes with your information at the end, with very little flexibility in navigation. Using a meta approach is such a jump forward in every way, i really think people would jump on it, even though it is quite different.
I mean, look at flickr, facebook, gmail, digg, etc. People get tagging, they love tagging, and they use tagging. The technology is here for operating systems, and it boggles my mind that neither Apple or MS is moving forward with this.
Member since:2006-02-15
Hmm. I personally don't add tags to anything at all. It's just so much easier and faster to give files a proper filename and save them in a logical place. I'd be annoyed a bit if I had to f.ex. specify tags for a file when saving it. Oh well, I guess this is just not my thing.
Member since:
2005-11-10
I'm pretty much in agreement with that. During Vista development, I was really put off by Microsoft dropping meta data for everything but Office files. Losing WinFS and then any semblance of meta cut the heart out of the new Explorer. Now Apple may have delivered detailed meta searching (and decent saved searches), but there is still no up front way of tagging and editing meta on the filesystem, and this is where NEPOMUK is stepping up the game.
My only real concern is that It's going to be near impossible to breakdown the desktop/folder metaphor that everybody is so used to, and go fully meta.