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Mar
22
Example 1: You launch a web browser, navigate to Google, type in a word about something you’re interested and viola! Tons of information comes up for you to sift through. How does this work? Somebody, sometime, had to give the pages you’re finding some kind of key word or tag so it could be located.
Example 2: You create a document, save it, and then can’t find it. You surf the web, researching a trip you’re going to take. You visit dozens of sites – you even bookmark them. When you go back to revisit them you can’t remember the site and the bookmark name has no relation to what you’re looking for. Wouldn’t it be great if we could tag these types of things on our computers so we could simply find what we’re looking for?
Have no fear – thoughtful and creative minds have come up with a bevy of utilities to help make this happen.
Of the many choices out there I want to focus on two really great utilities I use that help me organize and keep track of files on my computer. One is called Yojimbo from Bare Bones Software and the other is Tags from Gravity Apps. Both have strengths and weaknesses in their approach.
Yojimbo
Yojimbo is a full-on information manager. It can store passwords, notes, website links, serial numbers, images etc… and encrypt the information if desired. It’s strength is not only that it can tag items on your computer to keep track of where they are and what they relate to but also it’s ability to synchronize it’s database with Apple’s MobileMe for access to the information you’ve collected on all of your computers – a very powerful feature. It provides a drop dock and quick input panel (activated by a Hot-Keyboard combination) for dragging directly into it’s Collections. Collections are Yojimbo’s way of organizing your data. These are basically folders which you can create to organize what you’re storing. There are Smart Collections that can follow rules for filtering information as well built-in tracking collections that automatically detect what kind of data is by type (PDF’s, URL’s, images). Once you start using this type of utility you may wonder how you ever did without it.
Tags
Tags’ approach to organsing is much simpler than Yojimbo’s, but every bit as powerful. It does one thing and it does it very well. Tags can basically touch everything on your computer no matter where it is or what application you’re in:
Tag files and folders anywhere in any application:
• Tag emails in Mail
• Tag photos in iPhoto
• Tag bookmarks in Safari
• Tag contacts in Address Book
• Tag songs in iTunes
and many more. Like Yojimbo, Tags is invoked by a hot-key combination. Once up you can switch between Tag mode and Search Mode. You can select multiple items and add favourite or frequently used tags to items easily.
Searching
Searching for what you tagged is easy. You can use the Tags app itself, Spotlight – even use Apple Mail’s search field with the tags you created in the application. At the moment Tags doesn’t support syncing between machines like Yojimbo – this would be a killer feature. However, for day to day use I find Tags much easier to use than Yojimbo. I really like it’s interface and ability to integrate with all the applications I use. It’s also great for users, especially new users, who find it challenging to keep track of where things are on their computer. So often people save files without noting where they saved it. If you tag items as you go along then it won’t matter as much. I highly recommend checking out the Tags Screencast to get an idea of this powerful utility.
Tags requires Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) is costs $29US. Yojimbo can run under Mac OS 10.4.3 or later and costs $39US with a family pack version for $69US. Both offer 30 day trials. I suggest following the links provided to get more in-depth information about both of these great applications.