Tackling the meta-crap challenge

The condensed version

jmazner's WebLog — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:05:00 GMT

Longhorn and Metadata: The answer is in the shell and how people will work (aka metacrap, meta-creap - two nice searchable metadata values)

Michael Herman (Parallelspace) — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:03:00 GMT

Longhorn and Metadata: The answer is in the shell and how people will work (aka metacrap, meta-creap - two nice searchable metadata values)

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Michael Herman — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:08:00 GMT

The foundation may be WinFS but the answer is in the LH shell and how people will work. Checkout http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/mwherman2000/archive/2004/02/17/7372.aspx.

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Stephane Rodriguez — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:24:00 GMT

"I’ll be satisfied if WinFS helps me find, relate and act on my information, in a way that makes sense to me."

Usual trap you are falling into. It's not about information, it's about MESSAGE. Information is clueless, all what you get is kilometers of it. Who freaking cares? What you want is messages, value. The right software/plumbing is about making sure that no information overloads occurs. 100% of the internet-centric software fall on that trap.

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Stephane Rodriguez — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:26:00 GMT

By any chance are you an evangelist?

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Mario Goebbels — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:40:00 GMT

Only partly related, but I'd like to see the ability to export WinFS items into a sort of container file for storage outside of a WinFS store. Like this I could exchange items with my friends, that are completely tagged with metadata.

While I don't expect THEM to fill out the metadata on their items accurately, you can bet that I will. I've already enough chaos on my disks, if I can dynamically arrange the stuff, I take the burden to fill the metadata by hand if necessary.

WinFS Senario #1: adding music to movies

Riding Herd — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 04:48:00 GMT

WinFS as a Digital Media Store

Audio/Mobile Blogging News — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:46:00 GMT

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

theCoach — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:49:00 GMT

WinFS creates an incentive for ISV's to include the data they collect in the general or extended schema. Previously there was no coordination between the differnt vendors. The hope would be that some vertical schema standards emerge that are supported by all vendors in that vertical.

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Stephane Rodriguez — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:59:00 GMT

"Previously there was no coordination between the differnt vendors"

What a lure! How do you coordinate when protocols and file formats are undocumented?

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Ray Schraff — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 18:32:00 GMT

Re: Simon Fell's 'Wedding' directory idea.

Why put metadata on an image instead of merely storing them in a folder??

How about the case of 10,000,000 check images all with a common docType keyword value of CHECK and each with unique Account Number/Check Number keyword values?

1-10,000,000 unique sub-folders ???
I don't think so.....

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

kip — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 03:37:00 GMT

One of the many things to be careful about is background meta-data that people don't realize is stored at all. MS just released a tool to STRIP data from documents, at the same time it is developing new tools to add perhaps un-intuitive and un-explicit data. Is this what we want?

Hierarchies are not the way to store data (anymore)

Asbjørn Ulsberg — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:52:00 GMT

If I have understood how WinFS is supposed to work, I'll have to say: Trees are not the way to store data. And afaik, WinFS solves this "problem".

Along the years, we have stored data differently, and hierarchical trees is the most common one. This is the one we find in most file systems (folders and files), the way most websites are organized (also folders with subfolders and articles), and the way most people think.

But this is not the best way to store data. Anymore, at least. To organize information efficiently, we need a flatter structure. What we see today, is that most people just place most of their files on their desktops anyway (probably beacause this is the default visible folder in most download dialogs, and because they know where to find it. It's the desktop, after all).

Instead of having people placing everything on the desktop, making a flat and unstructured organization of things, it would be a lot neater to have them place everything inside a metadata storage, with the same flatness, only now with structure. I believe WinFS may provide this structure.

Opera's e-mail client, M2, has this kind of organization now. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than the hierarchical structure in all other e-mail clients. My e-mail is basically in a pool altogether, and is placed with pointers (shortcuts) in different views (compare them to database views, as there is no physical moving of files going on) that I can create. Some views are even created for me, based on the From: header and more.

With enough metadata (which today is already there, in many formats), WinFS may provide a structure to people's loads of files which they may benefit grately from. How this is going to work and look in the GUI, I don't know, but at least WinFS makes it possible. Yes, plumbing is essential, but WinFS can do a lot without any utility programs, just through Windows Explorer.

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Albert Ho [MSFT] — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:08:00 GMT

I think Outlook is a perfect example of where searching meta-data becomes a real-world scenario. I like many people live out of Outlook. I store my contacts, birthdays, restaurants - I even use journal. I attach a lot of files and do a lot of work around people and dates. Having something like WinFS to be able to store just the relationships between when and whom I do something for would simply questions like when did I send x to person y? Or how many people work around project x.

If we could even store the information directly in WinFS then there would be huge potential for other applications outside of Outlook to search and even display other information. I totally like the idea of not having data siloed on a per app basis. It would be great if I could have email or contact information linked in with other office files or even source code ;)

WinFS Scenario #2: event planning

Riding Herd — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:18:00 GMT

WinFS Scenario #3: focusing your dev time on what really matters

Riding Herd — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 09:54:00 GMT

re: Did I misunderstand Udell's argument against WinFS?

Riding Herd — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 18:29:00 GMT

re: Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Orhan Yorukoglu — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:33:40 GMT

The direction for WinFS should be similar to the iFilter mechanism used by MS Index Server. This way, searching for and using meta data stored behind documents would be file type independent. Wouldn't that be nice?

Boxing » Blog Archive » Riding Herd : Did I misunderstand Udell’s argument against WinFS?

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:40:50 GMT

PingBack from http://boxing.247blogging.info/?p=401

Riding Herd : Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Dating — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:44:26 GMT

What better motivation to get back into blogging than a challenge from fellow Microsoftie Dare: &#8220; The WinFS folks and Longhorn evangelists will probably keep focusing on what I have termed &#8220;bad scenarios&#8221; because they demo

Riding Herd : Tackling the meta-crap challenge

Relationship Compatibility — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:10:27 GMT