Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with indexing

Powerful, Web-friendly media indexing?

mykescipark — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:36:51 -0800

I work on the production team for a long-running public radio program. We have a massive archive of shows in digital format (MP3 and AIFF) which we need to collate into a powerful and highly flexible database - something like iTunes, but much more advanced. Does a program exist to do this? The program should meet the following criteria:

- Simple interface (usable by audio pros and administrative staff alike)
- Resides on a server (audio files can be shared and accessed on-demand by multiple users)
- Web-interfaceable (outside users can log on and access database via the Web)
- Streaming and preview capability (users can listen to files before pulling from server)
- Flexible indexing and search (can be searched or sorted by media type, artist, show name, etc.)
- Permissions capabilities (files are "read-only" to most, but read/write to certain key staff)
- Supports (and, preferably, generates) ID3 and other media tags

At the moment, it is strictly for internal use only, but there is some possiblity that we will convert it into a storefront in the future so folks can buy archived shows directly from the database ... but I'm not worried about that right now.

Is there a really high-powered media indexing program that can do all of these things? Or at least a significant subset of them?

I'm trying to find an index of BBC Music Magazine, in particular the cover cds.

feelinglistless — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:38:47 -0800

I'm trying to find an index of BBC Music Magazine, in particular the cover cds. I'm collecting them. There is a back issues page at their website [link] but info about the cds only begins in 2005. Any ideas?

Offline Drive Indexing For Macs

ransom — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:41:03 -0800

Offline Drive Indexing for Macs? I have a mac and I generate a lot of media that i need to keep track of when a drive is disconnected. Basically, I need to be able to do a keyword search and be pointed to the drive/path where files that match the criteria could be found.

Sounds like a job for Monica Gellar...

messylissa — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:55:55 -0800

How can I create an indexing system for the collection of scholarly journal articles that I'm quickly amassing? I'm currently in an MS program and headed for a PhD in Psychology, thus my collection of articles, and my subsequent ability to access those articles is of growing importance. I had been keeping hard copies in file folders by topic, but the more classes I take and the more I explore my interests, the more the topics converge.

I was thinking that there has to be a way to assign each article a number to go in a database along with some tags for quick searching, as well as something to indicate in which formats I own the article, and other articles that I own that cite the article. My research adviser and I were discussing our mutual disorganization and she alluded to some software a friend purchased that did this or something similar, but my hunch is that I could do this with MS Access (which I own, but am completely unfamiliar with) or something else that I already have, or could have for free.

Your thoughts?

Finding a physical folksonomy for flimsy files

ajp — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:38:02 -0800

Is there a way of tagging paper? Is there a way of applying "folksonomy" (yuck, awful word) to physical paper? In other words, is there some robust method of labeling papers within a sheaf of printed material (such as a book or set of college notes) in a way analogous to "tagging"?

Specifically, I have a large set of printed and hand-written notes from college classes. They are all categorised appropriately, e.g. "human anatomy", "human physiology", "human pathology" and so on. However this has the same drawback as "folders" with email systems: one file can only exist in one folder, unless the whole file is duplicated. I'd like to be able to tag files and individual pages. Specific tags might include "hip" and "muscle", thus allowing me to rapidly locate anything to do with the muscles of the hip.

I'd like to find a tried-and-trusted method, although if anyone's got an idea about how to implement a system, feel free to post here (maybe we'll take it to chat if it gets convoluted). But I would prefer pointers to well-defined systems.

One question: am I actually looking for an indexing system? I would prefer a quick, robust, visually-oriented system that requires little maintenance.

I'm using docs.google.com to create and edit documents, and to tag them. So far so good. But I'd like something that I can apply to a physical bundle of papers.

I've searched MF and the web, but it's a tricky one to track down. "Physical tagging" and "physical folksonomy" yields lots of RFID and geotagging stuff, not what I'm after. Standard apology applies to anyone shrewd enough to find previous threads.

Stop Mac's Spotlight from indexing!

phyrewerx — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 23:37:07 -0800

Please! Stop the Mac OSX Spotlight from indexing. My friend's Spotlight has been unavailable for the last day. Everytime we click on it, a message pops up stating that the -computer- is being indexed. The estimates on when it's done varies from 4 minutes to 50 hours until indexing is complete (but it lies!).

The machine is a Macbook Duo. We applied a security patch yesterday from Apple. It has OSX 10.4.8. We tried mdutil to erase the index, restart the index via terminal, tried to put the root drive under 'privacy', tried rebooting and fix the permissions. Nothing works.

We attached a firewire drive to the machine and a Spotlight search on that is fine (we disabled root drive indexing by setting the drive to 'privacy' mode). Otherwise, index ad infinitum.

Indexing an intranet for personal search?

cameradv — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 07:04:46 -0800

At my company, I've despaired in convincing IT to add a search option to a long list of policy documents on the corporate intranet. Is there software that can index these policies on my own computer, to build a personal search engine? Something like Google Desktop but for an intranet?

Help editing/indexing a series of French names...

scody — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:23:09 -0800

Paging MeFi editors/indexers and/or French speakers! Naturellement, there is I'm editing the index for a catalogue (using letter-by-letter method, rather than word-by-word) that lists about a dozen galleries in France and Belgium. They all begin with the word "Galerie" (and are thus all falling in the "G" section of the index), so I have to move on to subsequent words to determine their particular order. But should I disregard articles and prepositions, or not? For example, should Galerie des Beaux-Arts be listed by D (for des) or by B (for Beaux-Arts)? Should Galerie L'Epoque be listed by L (for L') or by E (for Epoque)?

The letter-by-letter method would imply that Galerie des Beaux-Arts should be listed by D (and therefore follow Galerie Charles Ratton) and Galerie L'Epoque by L (and therefore follow Galerie Goemans)... but that simply looks wrong to me; I feel (but can't point to a rule to justify) that Galerie des Beaux-Arts should count as a "B" (and therefore precede Galerie Charles Ratton) and Galerie L'Epoque as an "E" (and therefore precede Galerie Goemans).

I can't find anything in Chicago that illuminates this -- its entries on alphabetization (whether letter-by-letter or word-by-word) say to disregard articles at the beginning of an entry, but not whether to use them or disregard them when they are the second word of a series of entries where the first word is identical. Any editors/indexers/French-speaking types have an answer? Merci!

Indexing pagemaker files

aisleofview — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 02:03:25 -0800

We are currently using Pagemaker and moving to indesign, I have over 100 gigs of pagemaker files that I would like to index so I can find files by names in the files (we are business card manufacturers and have kept the files by date) and I would now like to find files by the mainlines of the cards. Does anyone know of a program that can create a searchable index. I was thinking of turning them all into searchable pdf but I am not sure how to do this or if it even exists.

Question number 11261

smcniven — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 07:24:47 -0800

I need to find a method/product that allows me to analyze the contents of a website. [More Inside]

Question number 7150

Stoatfarm — Tue, 11 May 2004 08:52:31 -0800

I have lots and lots of CD-ROMs of old files, scans of old papers I wanted to throw away to save space, etc. I'd like to have an index of them on my hard-drive, and found Offline CD Browser, some freeware that seems to do this. Has anyone used software to index their CDs that they'd like to recommend?

Question number 4835

SpecialK — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:23:07 -0800

How do they create book indexes? I have a friend who's a grad student, and she needs to create an index for her hundred page scientific thesis. Is there any easy way to do it in MS Word, or another software product -- something that a non-geek could churn and burn with in a couple of hours?