things that can get done when not solving unnecessary computer disasters

By basd on Mar 26, 2009 | In cloud computing

I am apparently the only person on the planet that likes to have my documents retrievable via a queriable database.

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I've been tracking my documents in this manner since back in the days when the program paused to tell me which floppy disk to put in the drive in order to retrieve the document and launch Wordstar.

I now have a php/mysql system that decrypts/launches/encrypts my documents and makes a mirror copy of the encrypted documents on my website. So, for whatever reason I decided to spend some time this a.m. improving the automation.

The whole system works a bit like my linkmine bookmark system, which makes it really easy to find documents, because by using queries at the top of the columns I can find just about anything I'm looking for in seconds. Then, a link to the document launches it.

But, because I tend to leave projects in various states of incompleteness, creating new documents was not entirely satisfactory. I had to launch the "new document" script and input various things, which left a lot of room for typo errors.

Today I fixed it up so when I make a new database entry, the script will inform me that the document doesn't exist and offer to create it (along with the necessary folder/subfolder hierarchy). Since the system is adapted to store multiple types of documents, it's now very easy to bring a new document into the system. I just save it as "new.$$$" where $$$ is the appropriate extension, make a new entry and in it comes to the system. Not only is this a big time-savings, since it's now much easier to import new documents, I probably will be putting more of my extraneous documents, pdfs and the like into the system instead of just leaving them lying about on the computer somewhere. Would even work for my music files for an online-backup, though it would be very tedious having to retrieve all of the songs in my music collection one at a time.

When I get some time, I'll post the new, revised, better-than-ever script in my wiki.