Make It Easy to Track Down the Files in Your Computer

I sometimes have trouble finding my keys and wallet, but when it comes to finding data on my PC, I can locate almost anything within seconds.

I’ve organized my hard drive into separate folders for all of my major projects. And I’ve come up with some file-naming conventions that make it relatively easy to find what I’m looking for. Finally, some features built into Windows 95/98 and the Mac, along with a couple of commercial programs make file finding even easier.

Let’s start with the basics. Both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems allow you to create as many folders and subfolders as you need. I have one called Data and, inside that folder, are subfolders for all my major projects.

Some Windows programs automatically save their files in a folder called My Documents, but if you have lots of files for a variety of different types of projects, it probably makes sense to create separate folders or sub-folders for each project. Both Mac and Windows let you place folders inside of folders, but don’t get carried away. Too many levels of folders can actually make it even harder to navigate your hard drive.

Some people like to keep all of their business files in one folder and personal ones in another. Or, you might have one folder for your job, another for personal finances and one for any hobbies or side businesses. If your PC is used by more than one person, it’s a good idea to have separate folders for each user. That way it’s easier for each user to find his or her own work and it’s less probable that someone will accidentally erase or write over a another user’s file.

How you name files can make a difference. Both the Windows 95/98 and Mac operating systems allow you to view your files alphabetically as well as by date or size. Both operating systems also allow you to use long file names so the name of the file can be meaningful. But even with a long file name, you can have difficulty finding the one you want, especially if you have thousands of them.

To make my life easier, I’ve come up with some naming conventions based on the content of the file. For correspondence files, I use “LTR” (short for “letter”) as the first three characters so my New Year letter to my niece Jane might be called “LTR Jane Jan99.” In addition to this column, I write freelance articles for some magazines, so I’ve given each publication its own three-digit code so I can quickly find the files associated with that publication.

Even my personal financial records have a consistent style. My 1999 Quicken file, for example, is “Magid99” so I can easily distinguish it from other files.

Still, even if you’re well-organized, it’s sometimes hard to find exactly what you’re looking for. If the file contains text, such as a word-processing file, you can locate it if you know any word or string inside the file. Windows 98 has a “find” feature that lets you search by text as well as by file name. Macintosh OS 8 has a similar feature, and Mac OS 8.5 has Sherlock, which makes it even easier to search for data on your hard drive and on the Internet.

Finding photographs can be a bit more challenging. You can’t just type in “find me that picture of Aunt Linda wearing that stupid yellow hat.” But if you right-click on any folder in Windows 98, you can check the box that says, “enable thumbnail view.” If you then select “thumbnail view” from the “view” menu, you’ll see a small image of each file in the folder.

While the tools built into Windows 98 and 95 are useful, there are some even more powerful programs that can make it easier to find the information on your hard disk.

Enfish Tracker ($79.95 Windows 95/98/NT) from Enfish Technologies (https://www.enfish.com) is an indexing program that allows you to find any file, e-mail message or book-marked Web site in a matter of seconds. The program works by creating an index--a snapshot of sorts--of everything on your hard disk. Then, when the program needs to find something, it quickly searches through its index so it doesn’t have to examine every file on the drive. The index file itself takes up about 2% to 3% of the size of the files it is indexing. So, the index file for a gigabyte of data would take up about 20 to 30 megabytes.

For me, the most useful feature of the product is its ability to track e-mail messages. You can immediately see all the messages to or from each person you track along with any other files where they are mentioned.

Enfish Tracker also lets you view graphics files and lets you attach an annotation to each file so that the program can track them. If you want to take the time to do it, you can type a comment about Aunt Linda and her stupid yellow hat and Tracker will find it if you later search for “Linda, stupid, yellow or hat.”

You can download a free 45-day trial copy from the Enfish Web site. Make sure it’s version 1.1 or higher because the previous version was a bit buggy.

Another useful Windows program is DiskJockey 98 Professional Edition ($55) from Clear and Simple (https://www.clear-simple.com). The program picks up where Windows 98 Explorer leaves off. It comes with built-in viewers that let you quickly view the contents of just about any type of file, including word processing, graphics and spreadsheets files. In addition to viewing files, you can quickly compress and un-compress them using the popular PKZip format that’s widely used for files that are downloaded over the Internet. One great thing about this program is that it lets you copy data from any file you’re viewing, including one that is compressed. That way you can save disk space by compressing files you don’t use often and still get access to the information if you need it.

The aptly named program is clear and simple. It took me almost no time to figure out. The standard version, which costs $29.95, supports a more limited number of file types. You can download a free trial version from the company’s Web site.

These programs are good, but they lack one important feature. Neither could help me find my keys and wallet.

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Lawrence J. Magid can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com or keyword “LarryMagid” on AOL.