Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with organize

You can't just throw a Google search together!

barnacles — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:40:09 -0800

Does anyone know the Far Side volume that includes the "posse organization" one? I'm looking for a particular Far Side comic. This is as best I remember it:

There is a big ball of horses and cowboys, arms and heads and legs sticking out at weird angles, and there are two cowboys standing next to it, one of whom says (something like) "Dangit, Clem, you can't just throw a posse together. You've gotta organize it!"

For the life of my, my Google searches have resulted in pretty much nothing. I would love to know which Far Side book contains it, but getting ahold of a high-res electronic version would be even better.

Help!

Stabbing myself in the eye with a letter opener doesn't seem to be an appropriate reaction to this problem.

sugarfish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:28:54 -0800

I just spent another hour going through giant stacks of mail and shredding crap and I swear I can't take it anymore. All of our bills are paid online so half the time stuff never even gets opened. This leads to problems like letters from our HOA getting missed when like a month later I break down and go through stuff. And then what do we do after the bills are paid? What should we keep (paystubs, etc)? What's fine to get rid of? How long should we keep receipts for things like home or car repairs? Why do these mysterious statements keep coming from the retirement account?

We have no system whatsoever. I feel like I missed that day in learning-to-be-an-adult class. (Well, I missed a lot of days, but this is the most pressing one.) What does your filing cabinet look like? I need a filing cabinet, right?

I know some of the basic things we can do -- opt out of paper mail, etc, but is that okay for everything? Isn't it better that I have a hard copy of my credit card statement to compare just in case it changes down the line, or am I being a conspiracy theorist?

What about regular, day-to-day receipts? Do you just take time once a week to shred them, or what?

We are intelligent people but unfortunately neither of us is detail-oriented. We work long schedules and when we get home at midnight the last thing we want to do is go through another pile of mail that turns out to be usurious credit card "checks." (Seriously, I just shredded like a dozen envelopes' worth.)

Please hope me.

Looking for a way to take notes without writing.

ComeUndone — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:58:17 -0800

A friend of mine is starting college next month, and she has been diagnosed with dysgraphia (from what I understand, it hinders her ability to write and organize ideas quickly). She'll have a laptop with her in all of her classes, and I'm looking for some kind of solution that will allow her to take some form of notes without it being a huge problem. Ideally, I'd like to find a program that could record lectures and then transcribe them from speech to text. But, I'm assuming that the quality wouldn't be very consistent. If that's not a possibility, is there a program or solution that you've seen that will let you take voice recordings, and then have them be organized by date, subject, class, etc? In my mind, I was hoping for something that organizes all the clips and then lets her search later by tags. Does something like this even exist? Free is good, but if there's a much better solution for a cost, then that's fine too. Any help or anecdotes about your personal experience with that kind of software would be appreciated.

Tips for organizing a large iPhoto library?

scrm — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:23:29 -0800

I'm about to start the colossal task of organising several years' worth of photos on my Mac in iPhoto. Workflow tips, experiences, scripts or software suggestions to make this task easier are much appreciated! The photos are currently stored in three separate iPhoto 09 libraries across my internal HD and external drive, mostly in RAW format. My goal is to end up with three piles of photos:

1. 'To work on': the 'decent' photos, living on my internal HD, to be worked on later (~10% of the photos at a guess)
2. 'To keep': The rest, living on my external drive (~80% of the photos)
3. 'Trash': Poor quality photos and all duplicates, in one place, that I can easily review and delete (~10% of the photos)

I prefer to use iPhoto to organise the photos as I'm familiar with it, but I'm open to other options. The new structure needs to play nice with other software like Aperture / Photoshop as I will use these to work on the first group. For photos I've already edited, I'd also like to preserve the originals (currently stored in iPhoto) for safety.

So far the only sorting of the photos that I have is with iPhoto's events - I don't really use ratings, faces, or geotagging. I have iPhoto Library Manager, which enables copying between iPhoto libraries but is quite slow, as well as Duplicate Annihilator (which didn't catch all my duplicates after several passes and tweaking the options).

What can you guys suggest?

Determined to be as Paper-Free as possible.

margaretlam — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:57:22 -0800

How does a graduate student manage in a paper-free environment? I'm a part-time graduate student at a Faculty which happily has many readings available digitally. While I am a big fan of taking notes in a book and reading on my commute, the idea of not having to print out all the articles I'm reading or having to painstakingly keep up with my hand written notes in order for the readings to be useful is rather appealing. (Currently, I tag the PDFs directly with comments which are searchable.)

The problem? Having multiple folders for courses, and multiple files for notes, when everything is inter-related to my thesis and academic pursuits in general makes file management a bit of a nightmare. The plethora of online citation tools and portals/publishers for accessing the materials makes me question whether I'm missing out on useful tools out there. It was easier when I was just carrying around a big notebook with my favourite inky pen, but alas, classes are so much easier to follow when I can pull up any of the readings digitally. I also see the advantage of having basically a mobile office on my laptop.

So in your experience, what has been good strategies for you to balance the digital and physical "work space" when they are clear advantages to both? Or put it another way, how can I maximize the benefits of both without it being overwhelming?

Suggestions for alternative device-use welcomed.

How do you organize your life?

tomargue — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:43:41 -0800

How do you organize your life? I am a creative but highly disorganized man. At any given time, there's loads of things I need to do, and I usually only end up doing about 1/5th of them. And it's not because I'm slack: I simply can't keep track of everything. I've tried various things from having a paper diary, to writing everything down in Google Docs, using Google Calendars etc. They all work well for a while, then I become slack, and end up going back to my old habit of simply keeping everything in my head.

How do successful people organize their life? Is it through a mishmash of technology, eg BlackBerry's, cell phones, project managers? Or are they just naturally good at it?

What system do you use to manage your daily life? How long have you been using your system for? Is it robust...has it stood the test of time? And is it recommendable...are you achieving all you want to be achieving in life?

How to organize the buttons on the XP taskbar?

jakubsnm — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:09:02 -0800

Does anyone know of a modification for windows XP that allows you shuffle/organize the buttons on the taskbar, like the tabs on Internet Explorer or Firefox? I sometimes work with 20 windows open or more at once with many different programs and sometimes i get confused with which one is for what because many of them are similar, I know in XP you can group similar taskbar buttons but this wouldn't work for me.

Kitchen Inventory

sycophant — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:14:33 -0800

Can anyone recommend (or even find one) a kitchen inventory application? My wife wants to keep a basic inventory of the stuff that's in the pantry and fridge. It would need to be fairly user-friendly. Ideally web-based and quite flexible. Something like Remember the Milk in terms of usability and simplicity would be brilliant.

So far my searches have been largely fruitless.

Organize random online articles

daf81289 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:53:24 -0800

What is the best way to collect and organize random articles found across the Internet to read and reference later? I've started blogging a lot, and like to find articles at one time and read and post about them later.

Web app my life

jmoneystl — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:31:17 -0800

What are some web apps I can use to track and record various aspects of my life? I'm looking for nifty/simple/fun tools to help organize and track my life. I'm talking things like Fuelly, WattzOn, Mint, etc. I'm definitely drawn to the eco/financial kind of tools, but I'm open to others.

What are the best tools for documenting hobby collections?

jnoble — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:00:25 -0800

What are some good software tools and good practices for documenting and organizing personal hobby collections? I've offered to help my mother start documenting her many hobby collections. She's got dolls, thimbles, tin cans, and I-don't-know-what-all. Some of it is valuable, and all of it is important to her.

She knows where it's all at, where she bought it, why it's important, what value it may have, and often even has receipts for items going back 40 years.

Just to be clear: this is not junk. She has many intentional and nice collections, and is interested in starting to get down in some form what she knows about it all, as she nears retirement. She's even buying a digital camera.

I'm not sure what software packages and general approaches are out there, and I'd like to learn about what some of the best ways of approaching this might be. Every time I think about it I either picture a crazy Excel spreadsheet (ug!), or a beautiful HyperCard stack purpose-built for exploring her collection (yay! -- but does HyperCard even exist anymore? I'm showing my age here.)

I'd love to help her get started on something very approachable that has a high-quality final output for searching, browsing, etc.

This isn't for a store, so a "merchant" slant to the tools would be ignored if present.

I keep thinking that the "collectors world" has got to have its own top solutions for this. Can you help me find it?

Oh, and: We both have Windows PCs, but if the most-brilliantest solution is Mac-only, that's fine too.

Thanks! Happy New Year!

How can I organize and annotate my PDFs on linux?

comwiz — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:59:13 -0800

Help me get my PDF's organised! I need to be reading large quantities of academic papers for research I am working on and currently don't have a way to keep my readings organised. Is there some snazzy yet simple software (preferably for linux) to help me keep a library of PDF files, and hopefully jot some comments down after I'm done reading? Additionally, any good linux software for simple highlighting/annotating of these files?

Magazine Tears

ChloeMills — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:12:32 -0800

How do I file my oversize magazine tears? I am an artist/designer, I am always saving my favorite magazine tears to look back on for inspiration. For the 8.5" x 11" magazines I store them in sheet protectors in binders. It works perfectly.

Unfortunately most of the magazine layouts I like come from international magazines or oversize magazines. I've tried buying international binders - but they are also too small for most magazines. I even found a place that sold 11"x17" binders and protectors but they are way too big and the pages actually end up getting folded over.

Any suggestions of what to do with these? Other designers (esp in fashion industry) must have this problem!!

What I don't want to do:
A) Scan them all and reprint them in 8.5 x 11 (Too time consuming)
B) Cut and paste (I like seeing both sides and having the whole page)
C) Laminate them (I'd like to be able to remove/rearrange them)
D) Photograph Portfolios (these come in good sizes but they are way too expensive and don't have many pages)

HELP ME! I AM DROWNING IN MAGAZINES!

I'd rather be obsessive/compulsive than confused.

Phalene — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:31:21 -0800

Organization, self and environmental control and time management: How do I holistically reduce chaos from my life so that I can function well? I don't just need a plan, I need follow through. I was never an organized person and my family is (if you've read my past posts) rather poor examples in general life management. Unfortunately I'm not a thrives-in-creative-chaos style of person, and not being able to track and control day to day matters leads me to gibbering.

Some people are very good at consistent work and time management. I am not. I understand the theory, but the execution is my problem. For example day planners are good, but I find any that are big enough to encompass the detail I need to keep track of is too large to cart about comfortably.

One of the big difficulties I have is managing the material side of productivity. The idea of say, a GTD 43 folder system makes me run away screaming in fear, because the more individual parts something productivity related has to keep track of, the quicker I find it falls apart and the harder it is to use. So far I’ve had trouble embarking on more than tentatively writing my class schedule down. Remember the milk and its ilk quickly became overwhelming because I had to remember to log in an check it, and the IM notifications were too easy to tune out as spam. For a while I had luck with a pen and paper ‘To Do’ list in a doodle-sketch book, but that got abandoned when my task list got overwhelming as far as quantity and steps to completion.

Another problem is that everything I touch gets destroyed or lost. Books get rumpled, screens get scratched, clothing gets stained, my body is covered with dozens of injuries, all self inflicted from day to day chores like cooking, cleaning and even shopping trips (I looked like I'd been beaten, after a trip to Ikea), thanks to how clumsy I am. I'm tired of not being able to own nice things or go a day without injuries. This is part of the same chaotic bent that otherwise rules my life. Not having nice things also makes me anxious as I have an over developed aesthetic sense that makes handling these damaged materials almost painful. This isn’t me being picky about my stuff either. From an early age I was constantly losing everything and anything put in my custody got smashed. This has gotten better as I age, but it’s tiring to face something I’ve fought since grade one.

I also have trouble using time efficiently. Fugue states, where my brain feels like it can’t function, get underfoot when I have a term paper to write, class notes to record or a consistent line of thought I want to follow. Part of this can be too much anxiety, or being bombarded with too much external energy, or wonky blood sugar levels, but whatever the cause, I frequently feel tense, lethargic and almost dizzy, a fate that causes me to escape into something simpler, like a book or drawing.

My mildly autistic brain thrives on routines and algorithms. For example, I took to hormonal birth control like a duck to water, since the 'same-time-every-day' side of things was actually very soothing. I am happiest following patterns, but establishing these patterns is exhausting and that’s where I’m hoping the hivemind can help. I can usually work around these ‘bleh’ moments enough to meet deadlines, but it leads to way too much rushing and cramming.
Note: While possible I have ADHD, I think I’m suffering from the side effects of Aspergers. For one thing my focus is fine-bordering-on-obsessive, once I eliminate competing stimulus. And I've been officially diagnosed with Aspergers by a psychiatrist.

I need:
A way of tracking class notes, deadlines, events I’d potentially like to attend (ie, gallery openings or speeches), writing commitments, things I need to do in the future (ie talk to my academic advisor about my major), people’s birthdays and general data. Bonus if I can use Microsoft “One Note” and other simple, no learning curve computer based answers. It’s easier to back up a laptop then try to add a moleskin or something to my stuff to remember and haul heap.

A way to combat the way that my brain goes into ‘test pattern’ too easily. If I could solve this, I would probably gain an extra ten hours a week. Is this a medical problem or does every human do this? Do I need more iron in my diet or something?

Some way to stop everything I own being destroyed by normal use. What steps am I missing? Do I need cute little covers for everything? Should I buy lots of tidy containers, organizers and dividers or is that a waste of money?

A way to efficiently use time to complete studying, self care (ie fitness, house chores) and writing commitments in manageable chunks instead of last minute cramming or skipping the task entirely. One that allows for some flexibility (since I want a good schedule in part so I can choose to deviate and still have a clear cut plan to get caught up on the days something sudden pops up), and allows for zoning out.

Resources for the terminally chaos inflicted, which do more than give me a day planner and tell me to try harder to focus. One of the most frustrating things about this is that I’m running the red queen’s racetrack just to get through a normal school week.

Anything else you think is awesome. Even if I've tried it already, another reader with my problem might not have.

Cut My Documents into pieces, this is my last resort.

TomMelee — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:08:54 -0800

Organizing files. I swear this isn't the same question that's been asked 100 times. Help me sort this out, please? As much as I might like to be organized, I'm not. I've got a kind-of photographic memory, so rather than remembering where something is, I'll often remember where it is in relative space. For example, I have no idea where my remote control airplane is or what it's called, but I know it's YELLOW and it's on the BLUE table by the TAN basket with my relative who died in the Civil War's DEATH CERTIFICATE. And then I can find it. Ok, so derail off, my point is that I can't do this with digital files. I try, but "upper left of that window" doesn't work when I keep adding files.

So I'm asking MeFites to share with me your system for sorting files, AND (bonus question) your conventions for NAMING files.

So I sort of oversee about 7 computers, but basically I'm only concerned with my laptop, and with the data-dump disk on one of the desktops that serves as shared space.

I read Gina's article at lifehacker about her 6 folders, and that's nice, but I want to organize beneath that "documents" folder. I've got personnel files, grants, donor thank-you letters, pictures, media, reports, budget stuff, all sorts of craziness. I need to be able to sort things without 500 folders nested inside each other, so share with me your Highly Effective Digital Organization System. (HEDOS, heh.)

Also, share with me your file naming convention. I try to use descriptive names like "Grant Name Month WiP" and "Grant Name Month Final", but sometimes this fails me.

I'm using Vista Business Basic and MS Office 2k3, and storage space is not an issue. Ideally I'd like to dump everything off this laptop's HDD and use hamachi to access any file I don't need daily (when not in the office.) All sensitive data lives in 3 distinct TrueCrypted files by type (Financial/Personnel/Other).

My current My Documents folder is full of about 35 folders and probably 75 unsorted files. The "public" folder also has another 15 folders and those have subfolders. On the backup drive on the other computer, there's just one folder with my name and a couple sub folders.

Help me sort out my craziness! I really don't like the GTD status sorting either, as that's really just not how my job works.

Thanks MeFi!

(and yes I've read all the related articles, and none quite fit.)

Wii are the champions / Wii will, Wii will rock you!

kidsleepy — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:17:34 -0800

I need help planning a Wii Sports and Guitar Hero competition. I volunteered to organize the whole thing, and now am a little overwhelmed. This will be an on-site work competition for charity. The idea is that there are two competitions: one for Guitar Hero (Rock Stars) and one for Wii Sports (Jock Stars). Ideally we'd have two brackets each, one for amateurs and one for pros. There are approx. 700 employees, and getting 50 of them to sign-up would be a success.

Has anyone organized one of these before? Any tips/tricks/things to avoid? How do I entice people who've never played before? How many TVs/Wiis shoud I have? How should I set up the brackets? What should the prizes be? Help!

Plucking the Progressive Prairies

abkadefgee — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:11:07 -0800

What are some books or other resources that can help me become a better political organizer in rural areas? I'm working in three very rural counties right now and am facing new challenges as a result. I'd like to get some info on how I can be a better organizer in these areas and how I can get folks involved who live 2 hours from my office.

I do a lot of traveling to meet up with people, but i want to make the most of my trips and find the best places for recruiting volunteers.

And although I'm asking for books and resources, I'm also glad to hear any tips you guys might have as well if you have experience in the field.

80s power ballads, begone.

twistofrhyme — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:04:32 -0800

dumb question: when i delete a song from itunes, where does it go? i don't understand the delete mechanism in itunes. when i delete a photo in iphoto, for instance, it ends up in the iphoto trash, which i can then empty (as a seperate action from deleting my laptop's trash).

when i highlight a song in itunes and press delete, it vanishes from my itunes playlist. but it doesn't end up in my laptop's trash bin, and i don't see an itunes-specific trash. so where are those songs going, and how do i get rid of them for real, to free up some hard drive space?

oh, and i'm running osx 10.4.11.
thanks.

film directory organizing software

beerbajay — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:58:43 -0800

Movie organizing software for directories of film files/subs/etc? I want to add extended metadata (year, director, country, original title, watched?) to each film I have stored. Currently I have everything in nicely named directories, like:
/movies/Title (Original title) (Director, year)/

But this isn't that useful since sometimes I would like to sort/view by director or year or country. Each film has minimally a video file, sometimes subtitle file(s), sometimes cover scans.

I have a copy of J River Media Center, but it doesn't appear to be able to catalog directories as a single unit, but instead only catalogs the individual files, which (a) breaks up the "package" for each film (b) sometimes produces multiple records for the same film if the film has been split into two sections.

I don't need or want any fancy interface; I don't need IMDB data; I don't need cast, crew, etc; I don't need a ratings system; I don't need covers or screenshots; I would be totally satisfied with some extended metadata for each directory that I could show in Explorer.

So, what software can do this for me? I'm on Windows XP, but would be interested in hearing about things that'll work on linux as well.

I'm looking for a good way to take notes at work.

BigBrownBear — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:59:52 -0800

I'm looking for a good way to take notes at work. I've been reading lots of good notetaking posts here, but they are mainly aimed at students. My situation is a little different because I'm not keeping track of lectures and readings, but meetings and projects.

Maybe someone has suggestions for me....

Here are some criteria:

1) Paper only cause I travel a lot.

2) I sit in a lot of meetings.

3) I would like to be able to flip back through the book and find things (eg, names, projects, etc.)

I try to use the Cornell method but it doesnt seem to work for me. Maybe I'm too sloppy.

PC>Mac email transition and reorganizing years of emails.

bagelche — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:58:41 -0800

Compounded question with PC->Mac transition involving multiple Eudora copies and which mail program under Leopard should I be using anyway? The basic questions: 1) which mail program should I be using under Leopard? Mail, Thunderbird, other? 2) Can I (easily) port my PC Eudora mail over to that program? 3) I need to clean/sort out my past 8 years of emails. Where in the process do I do that? and how? AKA, I can't figure out how it sort it out. I've used Eudora for 7+ years and porting mail across several computers, from win98 to XP. I just bought a macbook pro and want to shift my life over to the macinverse. For the most part I can handle it. I am stumped on how to deal with email.

The basic questions:
1) which mail program should I be using under Leopard? Mail, Thunderbird, other?
2) Can I (easily) port my PC Eudora mail over to that program?
3) I need to clean/sort out my past 8 years of emails. Where in the process do I do that? and how?

Some background:
I sort my mail (of which I get several hundred emails a day) into many folder, based on topic, listserv, people, etc. and save it for historical reference (which I do frequently). Several years ago I got a laptop which ended up with several months of unique Eudora messages, but which otherwise is redundant in terms of emails, though to complicate things the filtering rules are not the same on desktop and laptop. The laptop downloads mail via IMAP, while the desktop is the POP3 email holder of record, save for those couple of months where I foolishly POP3ed on the laptop.

I just purchased a mac and will be using Leopard. I like the idea of using the Mail app for overall OS integration, but don't know if it can handle the load of email, 10 or so personalities with varying POP3 and IMAPs, and decent message sorting.

Which program should I use on the Mac and what is the process for porting email to the program of choice?

Now, for the biggie. This seems like a good time as any to recombine and resort my email archive. depending on the porting process, I need to decide if I should port one ginormous inbox containing 10s if not 100s of thousands of emails and do the new folders/filter rules on the mac or if I should do the sorting/refiltering on the PC and port over the folders and maybe the filter rules.

Historically Eudora hasn't had a way to sort through duplicates, so If I combine folders, I'll have tons of duplicates with no good way to get rid of them. This has stymied me in doing it in Eudora. I tried transferring my inbox to Thunderbird on the PC a year ago and that took many hours and I gave up and haven't tried since.

Where do I go from here?

Bonus question: I like having my email backed up somewhere besides the server (both for server space issues and for the use of the webmail interface, which is a pain with too many emails.). Should I POP3 to the macbook pro and trust in a nightly Time Machine backup or still archive my pop3 email archive either on the server or a PC desktop in Eudora?

Any help in sorting this out is greatly appreciated.

Info organizers that support popups / tooltips?

blahtsk — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:08:12 -0800

Any information organization tools out there (OneNote, TiddlyWiki, etc.) that support mouse-over, PHPXref-style popups / tooltip windows? I like to store code snips and other technical bits of info, so I'm really digging the PHPXref style of popping up detailed info on mouseOver.

However I can't find a OneNote or TiddlyWiki plugin that will do this. The best I have found so far is using TiddlyWiki and adding a tooltip library, but that seems a little tedious.

Here is an example of PHPXref in action.

Thanks in advance!

What's the ultimate digital rolodex-life-contact-birthdate-organizer application?

jkl345 — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:10:35 -0800

This year I’ve been trying to organize and digitize my life, and most importantly -- get rid of old stuff. Next on my list is creating an ultimate name-phone-number-birth-date-email-organizer-web rolodex. I have a shoebox full of notes, business cards, phone books and napkins with about 400-500 social/business/family/friend/school contacts (as well as a bunch of social networking sites with tons of contact info I should incorporate into the rolodex).

Please help me find the ultimate web service to organize, digitize, archive and utilize my ‘virtual rolodex.’

Ideally, if it could be:
- Free
- Exportable, so I can save and take it to different applications if for instance a company goes belly up or starts charging for access (I don’t even know if this standard exists like OPML files for RSS… I guess a CSV would do?)
- A very easily searchable interface
- Web-based
- Come sort of utility built in to notify me of upcoming birthdays/anniversaries and such would be awesome!

Most important:
- I only want to type all these out once, so it must be stable.

I’m leaning towards just typing them all into a Google Docs spreadsheet, but want to explore other options before I type all this out. And if I haven't said it three times already, I really only want to do this once in my life!

Thanks for all your help!

Calendar software that includes to-do lists?

nebulawindphone — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:55:54 -0800

I don't want a to-do list next to my calendar. I want to-do lists in my calendar. Help me find the scheduling software (OS X or web-based) of my dreams. I want a calendar that lets me do the following things:

Set up repeating events (e.g. a course that meets a few times a week)

Associate a separate to-do list with each instance of a repeating event (e.g. a separate list of assignments due each day in class)

Highlight the events whose to-do lists are unfinished (e.g. the classes for which I still have homework to do)

This seems pretty straightforward, but Google Calendar and iCal can't do it. Do you know of a program that can?

Bonus points if it still plays nice with iCal feeds.

Help me orgainize five years of media spread across several media!

Izzmeister — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:34:58 -0800

How do I put all pictures (videos, all extensions) on my computer into one folder, and then delete the duplicates-and pics with the same name should be renamed if different? I would like to go to each of my hard drives and CDs, and have the computer weed out the tremendous number of duplicate pictures- after making sure that no pictures are unnacounted for if they are saved to someplace other then my pictures.

what is the best way to do this?

do get rid of duplicates, I can use a program like NoClone- Is this the best way?

The problem with using picasa is that they seem to change the quality of my pictures- and i want to merge all pictures into the same folder for organizing.

I should also add that i need to make sure that i dont have videos that get lost since that format is not included in a search- like if i search gor all .mov, mpg...

and if the solution provided would work for audio, and other files like docs and pdf,s i'd be even greatful-ler!!