Information overload

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Information overload

Here are two practical tips for delving into the world of Web 2.0 without making a holy mess of things. The main problem is how to stay organized and not be flooded out of your normal life at the same time. There are so many programs out there that it is hard to keep up with them. There is just too much stuff all of a sudden.

I read on a blog somewhere that if you keep your head in the sand like an ostrich with these new programs and resources, you will be passed by. Technology is advancing so rapidly that you cannot ignore progress without losing touch. Yet if you try to stay on top of everything, you will not have time for anything else—and, anyway, you will not succeed in learning all there is to know.

So the suggestion was to adopt a squirrel attitude. This means hoarding your nuts for the time you want them or need them. I like that suggestion very much.

If you use the squirrel approach, anytime you see an interesting program or resource, you can spend a little time with it to check it out. If you like it or think it is important, you can go ahead set it up. But in order to acquire skill using it, you need to learn and repeat the basic operations, with emphasis on repetition. Learning a Web 2.0 program can be easy enough, but it is even easier to forget what you did after a few days away from it.

Added to this, what do you do when you have to do all that about 50 times or so and new things just don't stop coming? Here is what I have decided to do for my own survival.

Tip No. 1 - Email

Most all of the programs you sign up for will require email confirmation. This can cause a major headache because there are so many programs out there. If you are used to using your email for normal things like communicating with people you like, etc., you might find that your email life has suddenly gotten entangled with a flood of new information and advertisements. This can cause you to neglect someone or something you need to attend to and prompt a feeling of hopelessness from being overwhelmed.

The best thing you can do about this is sign up for a Gmail account (or some other free email account) and use it for the specific purpose of signing up for new programs and resources. Make a dedicated email account just for this. If you ever start using a new Web 2.0 program in earnest and want to change the email to one you use for more important matters, you can almost always do so in the account settings. This way you are able to sign up for the latest trends and resources, but you can keep the garbage separate from your normal life.

Tip No. 2 - Password

This is something I recently organized properly. It was a huge headache, but well worth it. If I had started out doing what I am going to suggest, I would have saved myself hours upon hours over months of frustration and distraction.

I have been keeping all my passwords in a handwritten notebook. I was afraid to keep them on my hard drive, say in a Word or Excel file. When you surf and try out new things a lot, you are at periodic risk of invasion. It won't do to have all your passwords handy in one place that is easy to read.

I was categorizing my passwords in my notebook according to subject. But part of the problem was writing out all those URLs and other information. My handwriting is not the easiest to understand, even for me! Finally the number of programs and sites grew so big that I needed some kind of sorting control, but they were on written pages and could not be moved around.

I looked around at several options on the Internet and decided to get a password management program. I settled on a freeware program called Keepass (KeePass Password Safe). It is fairly easy to learn, but it was a pain entering all that information from my notebook. However, with every entry I made, I felt an increasing sense of relief. Whew! Order has come to my house.

Keepass allows me to sort programs/passwords like files in a normal tree structure. I can also launch programs, so Keepass serves as a bookmarking resource, but with the added advantage of having password, username, etc. handy. I already use the Firefox feature of "remembering" URL, username and password, but on Firefox, this is a hidden automatic operation. I prefer to have the information at hand so I can see it. Otherwise, I forget too much.

I can use Keepass for the passwords and activation codes of normal programs on my computer's hard disk, not just sites on the Internet. It even generates random passwords so I don't have to make them up when I need to register at a new site. Also, there is a helpful feature that allows me to keep extra notes on each entry. This is a blessing in some cases where there are special routines or other things I need to remember.

Keepass is well-encrypted so I can see my passwords when I want to, but nobody else can unless they are looking right at my screen. Even then, I have to click on an option to show a password instead of the line of dots normally displayed, and I have to do this each time I want to show the password. I am not allowed to become careless.

Keepass allows you to print out the entire batch, notes and all. This is an extremely important backup measure since a hard drive is always subject to failure.

Also, I keep a backup of the Keepass file on a thumb drive. Only Keepass can open it, and then, the person has to have the proper password. So you could even Zip it to change the name and send it to yourself as an attachment if you have an online email like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and keep a copy "out there." The Keepass password is the only real password you will ever have to memorize. If you forget that one, though, you are cooked without a printout.

There are other password management programs out there. Some are free and many cost money. For my own needs, I don't need many bells and whistles—just basic organization, good encryption and easy editing—so Keepass suits me fine. You might have other needs or preferences. For instance, you might want a program that automatically fills out user information like address, telephone, favorite books and music and foods and so forth. I personally don't like this information automated, but that is my taste. A simple Google search for "password manager" will uncover oodles of options.

The important thing is to organize the mountain of passwords you need to keep up with Web 2.0. A password manager allows you to squirrel away programs and sites and haul them out when you have time to look at them in more depth. And it gives you an additional easy manner of opening the programs you normally use.

For those of you who have not thought much about these problems but sense information overload encroaching on your life, I hope these two tips were worth something. I had to learn them the hard way. Now, you don't have to.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

A caution on saving passwords:

Make certain that you have a paper copy, or a copy on a server somewhere. No matter how careful you may be, if your information is stored on your hard drive, then a hard drive crash results in loss of all the passwords. I store mine in a special file on my computer (protected) plus also in paper form in two different buildings.

If you have to endure a hard drive crash (hopefully you back up regularly) at least you can avoid dealing with having to recover all of those passwords.

Bill

Edited March 1, 2008 by Alfonso

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

That was very good advice. I forgot to mention that Keepass allows you to print out the entire batch, notes and all. I imagine all the other password managers do too.

Also, I keep a backup of the Keepass file on a thumb drive. Only Keepass can open it, and then, the person has to have the proper password. So you could even Zip it to change the name and send it to yourself as an attachment if you have an online email like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and keep a copy "out there." The Keepass password is the only real password you have to memorize. If you forget that one, you are cooked without a printout.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Bill,

That was very good advice. I forgot to mention that Keepass allows you to print out the entire batch, notes and all. I imagine all the other password managers do too.

Also, I keep a backup of the Keepass file on a thumb drive. Only Keepass can open it, and then, the person has to have the proper password. So you could even Zip it to change the name and send it to yourself as an attachment if you have an online email like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and keep a copy "out there." The Keepass password is the only real password you have to memorize. If you forget that one, you are cooked without a printout.

Michael

Thats the ticket. I forgot to mention that I backup the file to a thumb drive also. Call me paranoid, but I travel A LOT and if I have a computer crash while on the road there will be things I need to access before I get back home - and the thumb drive is always with me.

Backup, backup, backup... Automate it if you can --- otherwise, you may forget. And - word from experience - don't assume that the backup program backs up EVERYTHING - it may just get your "My Documents folder" and that can miss some vital information - any files you keep on your desktop, plus others.

Bill

[Alfonso Jones]

Bill,

That was very good advice. I forgot to mention that Keepass allows you to print out the entire batch, notes and all. I imagine all the other password managers do too.

Also, I keep a backup of the Keepass file on a thumb drive. Only Keepass can open it, and then, the person has to have the proper password. So you could even Zip it to change the name and send it to yourself as an attachment if you have an online email like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and keep a copy "out there." The Keepass password is the only real password you have to memorize. If you forget that one, you are cooked without a printout.

Michael

Michael -

Is the software really called "Keepass?" I just looked at the name again, and broke out laughing.

Bill

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

I changed the original post to reflect your observations. I also cleaned up some spelling that escaped me. I am publishing this elsewhere and I want it to be the same version everywhere.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

I've been complaining lately that although there's no doubt that computers are the greatest time-saving devices ever invented -- nevertheless ever since I got a computer, I've been busier than I've ever been.

I've developed a few time-saving methods, however.

I don't save programs, except, of course, for those I use fairly regularly, because I don't need a lot of programs, but I save a hideous number of articles, and a great deal of email. (I now have, on my two email addresses, about a thousand letters, about half of which require some kind of answer.) What I do is set up separate folders for the categories of material I save, and then create separate files within those folders. For instance, I have a large People folder for email I want to keep, inside of which I have files entitled People pre-06, People 06, People 07 and People 08. Inside each of these I have files named for specific people. and inside each of those I have a Theme file -- meaning that if a certain subject is discussed back and forth for a while, it will be given a file, a name for the subject, and will be put in the Theme category in the relevant person's file. I also have a Miscellaneous Mail folder, in which I put email to be answered sometime in the next millenium, and I have a Mail Awaiting Reply folder.

For articles I want to keep, I have folders such as Current Events, which contains a Pre-o6 file, and o6, 07 and 08 files; inside each of these are categories such as: Political, further broken down into McCain, Obama, etc. And in Current Events is a file named To Read and File.

I keep Blogs and Forums, etc, that I go to fairly often, in Favorites, but categorized into separate filess: Forums,(which contains a file for Poetry Forums,) Blogs, which contains Special Blogs), Magazines, Shops, Newspapers, Google (for Regular Google and Google Blogs), Institutes,etc, etc, ad infinitum..

I keep a Forum folder on my desktop, into which are files for the various forums I visit; in each of these files, I save articles and posts I want to keep.

I keep a folder entitled Work in Progress for books, articles, projects, etc,. that I'm working on,

I keep Passwords on printed sheets, in a manila folder next to my desk, so I can reach it easily. Beside the name of each web site I write the password I use, which email address I've given, and any other information I might need. I also keep manila folders entitlled

Do Today, Urgent A, Urgent B, Urgent C[/, for errands I need to do, shopping, phone calls I must make, etc., etc., etc. (If I get much beyond Urgent C, I swear I'll go back to working with a quill pen.)

I backup constanty. I have a particular backup called Super Duper, which I highly recommend.and which I use to back up everything on my computer once each month. (It does its work while I'm sleeping.) If everything were to crash and vanish forever, this gadget will, at the touch of a button, put onto my computer not just my folders and files, etc., but also my complete desk top exacty as it was before the crash -- so it will be as if I hadn't lost anything

.

You might think from all this that I can find what I want quite easily. You'd be very, very mistaken.

Barbara

[Philip Coates]

>"You might think from all this that I can find what I want quite easily. You'd be very, very mistaken."

Barbara, I got a huge laugh out of that! :-) :-)

Here's what I do, which enables me to find things much more quickly in my gigabytes of files than I used to with my previous 'categorization':

1) On my old PC, I had too many categories and sub-folders. So now on my Macintosh I have all my documents [this is documents, not email - I don't do a lot of email] organized under the *very few* top-level categories I use most often:

*Education

*Epistemology

*Intellectual [what didn't fall into the other intellectual categories]

*My Writings, Essays, Lectures

*Practical

*Projects

*Skills

*Writing and Editing Practices--Teaching, Essays, Notes

There's also three more (the first is a godsend, but it's amazing how many documents fit into the other categories): *Miscellaneous; *Openings-New Spheres, *Texts, Etexts, and Long Source Documents. I subdivide the folders sometimes into only one more level (three would be confusing). For example, Practical has 'Gadgets and Products' as a subfolder, and Education has folders for each subject area I teach or have taught (Science, History, Literature, Language...) and, in fact, any intellectual interests I have often fall into one of these, rather than the Intellectual folder.

The smallest of the above "super-folders" full of documents is 136 K right now and the largest (Education) is 26 megabytes. This is all text – pictures and audio are grouped elsewhere.

2) OPEN-ENDED FILES:

a/ Most of my files keep getting added to whenever a new thought or 'clip' comes along.

b/ File names are long and fully descriptive, usually with genus followed by differentia: "Education, Teaching--tips and clips"; "educational products---examples, cases, approaches"; "educational careers--clips, examples" --- are examples of files which are largely for clips. "thinking errors--evasion"; "thinking errors--groupthink"; "thinking--types, categories" --- are examples of files containing my own ideas and observations.

3) SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING: I will first do a search restricted to document names or a word in a file name not a search on -any- words in a document: enormously useful!! I do that several times a day. [by the way, I have three screen pages full of files which have the topic 'thinking' in the title.]

. . . Barbara, I'm thinking of starting up a club called Pack Rats Anonymous. Want to join? :-)

--Phil

[Brant Gaede]

I backup constanty. I have a particular backup called Super Duper, which I highly recommend.and which I use to back up everything on my computer once each month. (It does its work while I'm sleeping.) If everything were to crash and vanish forever, this gadget will, at the touch of a button, put onto my computer not just my folders and files, etc., but also my complete desk top exacty as it was before the crash -- so it will be as if I hadn't lost anything

.

You might think from all this that I can find what I want quite easily. You'd be very, very mistaken.

I assume, Barbara, that Super Duper, will survive if your hard drive is destroyed.

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

. . . Barbara, I'm thinking of starting up a club called Pack Rats Anonymous. Want to join? :-)

--Phil

I don't think so, Phil. If I joined, I'd have to set up files to keep it in. Besides, I already belong to a club called "Pieces of String Too Small to be Saved."

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Brant wrote: "I assume, Barbara, that Super Duper, will survive if your hard drive is destroyed."

Yes, indeed it will. It backs up the hard drive.

Barbara