Browsing the file system and viewing the history
By providing some extensions to nautilus Data Storage and Organisation can be exposed in a user friendly way without too much upset to the user.
Things I’m doing, Things I’ve done, and Things I’ve got to do
Task organisation on the desktop has always been a bit of a chore, task lists represent applications, or sometimes documents, docks show applications running but not documents, it’s all a bit of a mess.
To bring about a change in how we think about tasks on a desktop we’re going to consider activities in terms of;
- TID – A Thing I’m doing
- TUD – A Thing I’ve done
- TAD – A thing I’ve got to do
Our RDF metadata can handle binding them together, items which would include, documents, applications, various bits of state information, size/window position etc… Each class of item essentially acts as a log of things undertaken as well as a way of organising the things you’re doing and things which are done and things you’ve got to do. For instance, a TID can be created when you start browsing a web site, when the tab closes and it’s no longer in scope that site becomes a thing I’ve done. Documents which are open are also things I’m doing, and they can be linked together via TIDs.
This kind of metadata can provide a wealth of information for things like, GNOME Zeitgeist. The metadata for each member of a TID can be saved in Data Storage and Organisation and can record how it changes over time, and how a TAD can became a TID and finally became a TUD.
Gathering Metadata during communication
The general usage of email communication is the passing of documents back and forth. These documents represent work to be approved, sanctioned, edited, reviewed etc… The email itself will contain all of the required information for how the user should undertake this task. This same principle can be seen in instant messaging
an email can be something as simple as
From: Sally
To: Mandy
Subject: Presentation for Friday, please review
Hi Mandy,
Attached is a copy of the most up to date version of our presentation. Can you please take a look at it and ensure it meets with your approval.
--
Sally
This very simple instructional email has some very important words in it, first and foremost it has the words for Friday in the subject line, which can easily be interpreted as a due date. It also has the word Presentation in the subject which may well be an existing metadata tag in the RDF store, the final piece of metadata in the subject comes from the words please review which is obviously a request to take action
In the body of the email, not much more information can be gathered, attached signifies that there are some files attached which should be merged into the Data Storage and Organisation store, approval reinforces the please review but other than that the text of the email is merely pleasantries.
All of this metadata can be used to build up a TID, the TID can be used to identify documents, editors, due dates, correspondence etc… Obviously, this metadata can also be shared around Data Storage and Organisation stores.
Emails aren’t always like this however, there are more personal cases. For instance
From: Paul
To: Micheal
Subject: Photo's from last weekend
Hi Mike,
Attached are a bunch of photo's from last weekend. There's some really good ones of you me and Dan, and an awesome one of Dan getting carried away by the doorman.
--
Paul
From this kind of email information can be gathered about the individuals shown in photographs and such. Facial detection, recognition and a little bit of organisational thinking on part of the computer and the individuals can be recognised and categorised and imported into your picture collection, tagged appropriately with names.
These are just a couple of simple examples of how some artificial intelligence and some metadata can be employed to smooth the road of email communication
Linking documents together
How do we link documents, emails, web bookmarks, notes and more together to extend our TIDs
Authentication and Access control in the mist
Blurb regarding how wizbit as a personal area network/misty sort of thing requires careful access control and authentication systems and how these may eventually work.
A new take on workspaces
Workspaces have always been a difficult to utilise feature. With the metadata associated with bits, and tids workspaces can be centred around a thing that I’m doing. Much like the apple lisa and xerox star. The bits (essentially files) associated with a tid are presented on a shelf. The documents would appear as thumbnails on the shelf, other items as icons, for instance an email message, note or appointment, these thumbnails and icons could be inspected and viewed without opening an editor.
A tid is constructed by means of document linking, metadata gathering from communications, content of the object etc… Tids can be named and packed with other user metadata as they are simply subjects in RDF.
New items can be added to a tid by creating a new bit from template within the tid workspace. Exposing and presenting the workspaces can easily utilise the currently in development GNOME shell.
Tids can have things customised in them, for instance the background wallpaper and the style, colour and position of the bit shelf and much more.
Bits in the clipboard
Storing the clipboard clips as bits and keeping a track of which applications are compatible with which kinds of clips. The mime type of the clip can be stored along side it.