Have you ever lost a file?

[Stanley Waldrup]

Well it happened again. I was looking for a file for an Earring Display. Its on here somewhere but All the searches have come up empty. It must have a strange name. How about some ideas on storing files. Also Ideas on how to orginize customer Files after a project is finished.
Right Now I have a main directory called Laser and in the laser directory it is broken down into different subjects such as cars, trucks, Dogs Etc. And for Finished projects I have a Finished Projects Directory broken down to the Customers names. I would be interested in how others have orginized there computer drives. And in case anyone has a fold out type of earring display I sure would love to have it.
Stanley

[Doug Griffith]

My primary, albeit clustered, method of working is to save everything to the desktop. My desktop background image is broken down into many distinct gridded zones that I shuffle icons around in. Each zone has a header area with an empty (and invisible) folder icon that I can change the text very quickly. I constantly move icons/folders around. Then, when completed, I move them into longer term storage in nested directories. When making that move, I physically archive to an external back up drive.

I also use descriptive file names that I make a point of spelling correctly. No shorthand. This helps when I have to find a file years later.

[Rodne Gold]

I also use very descriptive filenames and use a freeware program called romcat to search - google romcat.exe
Acad used to have a 3rd party viewer that could search for text within a drawing - was really useful - wish corel had something like that.
Xnview , also freeware is great for viewing corel files.

[Belinda Barfield]

We currently have three people who work on the "design" computer. That makes finding a file particularly interesting! All of my designs, or a design done by someone else that I may need in the future, are stored in a folder bearing my name. Each design file bears the customer's name. If it is something I'm just doing for fun I give the design a very descriptive name. I'm old school, so each customer also has a hard copy file containing the job notes sheet, proofs, invoice, etc., so if all else fails I can go to the hard copy and find the design name.

[Dan Hintz]

Descriptive filename, placed into a folder named for the purchasing company (or into an "extras" folder if I believe it to be a one-time client). Subfolders for invoices, quotes, etc.

[Darius Ferlas]

Organizing files on a computer is no different than organizing them in filing cabinets, except that those on the computer are much easier to be duplicated and stored in various places simultaneously. It's all up how you organize them in your head and then simply transpose that logic into the folder and file structure. There is no one right way, but there may be some unfortunate ways.

If you have customers there are software packages out there (many free) which allow very nice organization of customer info, including the capability to attach files. One critical part of any software that helps organize data is that the software is as good as the user's discipline. Files not entered in the system by the user will not be there.

No matter what you do - backup, backup and once more - back up. Oh, in case I missed it, make sure you have backups of your critical data files.

As for looking for what should be there but cannot be found, the use of the so called "wild card" is very handy. In Windows it is the * (asterisk) character. Let's say I want to find a picture of a coffee table I made in 2008 for John Doe. I'm sure the words "coffee" and "table" are parts of the file name. The customer's name could also be included in the name, as well as the date of project's completion, but I'm not sure about that latter.

Therefore, I will start a search procedure by first ensuring the OS will search will be performed where I am positive the file must have been save. If unsure, I will search all drives (c,e and possibly network drives).

Notice the use of the asterisk. In search dialogs it means something ot the effect of "any zero or more characters regardless of what characters they are".

My search term will be *coffee table*.jpg . In everyday speech it meas: show me all files that contain the literal string of characters "coffee table" (including the space), such that there are 0 (zero) or more characters in front of the string, 0 or more character after the string and the extension is .jpg.

The result should show me all files such as:

2008 coffee table for John Doe.jpg
coffee table for John Doe - 2008.jpg
John Doe - coffee table 2008.jpg
coffee table 2008.jpg
etc.

I execute the search and .... nothing.

Perhaps the coffee table was really a coffeetable. The space between the two words will eliminate from the search results all files where there is no space between them. Hence I have some types options but being lazy I'll narrow it to one type only - I'll look for file names containing only one word that I am positive is a part of the file name. Hence I'll redo the search by looking for:

*coffee*.jpg

i.e. give me all files that contain the word "coffee" and have a jpg extension. Click search and ... dang! Nothing!

Could this be the extension? Perhaps I saved is a .bmp or one of the vector formats. Not sure what extension it could have been. Might have been a pdf too. OK, regroup, disregard the extension and search again for:

*.coffee*.*

i.e. give me all files that contain the word coffee and have any kind of extension. If a file exists on one of the disks searched it will be listed in the search result window.

[Mark Ross]

I grew up in the preDOS and the DOS era, so I keep all files and folders limited to 8 characters and their 3 digit extension.

Wut?

I remember those days...no thanks!

We use very descriptive file and folder names. For example we do ROHS testing to make sure we are in compliance with ROHS/WEEE and now California Prop.65 for first piece approval processes. So our test results are on our G: network drive. A typical filename is shown below with certain information removed to protect confidentiality requirements.

Example:

G:\our company divison name here\CONTROLLED DOCUMENTS\TEST RESULTS\FPA\customer name\customer part #\customer part # ROHS.XLS

A pain? Nope, because just the folder directory format :

G:\our company divison name here\CONTROLLED DOCUMENTS\TEST RESULTS\FPA\customer name\customer part #

Tells me that at that level, whatever files I am poking around in are:

1. Which company division I am poking around in (we have 3 divisions in the same building)
2. Controlled to our ISO quality system. (You can open and look but cannot change anything...that takes a change notice...ain't ISO grand?)
3. The files are the results of testing that was done.
4. The testing was done for first piece approval (FPA).
5. The files I am poking around in are for customer 'X'.
6. The files I am poking around in are for customer 'X's' part # whatever.

[Dan Hintz]

Darius,

Don't forget about the '?' character... you could do a search for *coffee?table*.* if you're not sure if you put a space between the two words, a dash, etc. (at least I think the ? makes spaces optional).

[Doug Griffith]

Darius,

Don't forget about the '?' character... you could do a search for *coffee?table*.* if you're not sure if you put a space between the two words, a dash, etc. (at least I think the ? makes spaces optional).

That would be a regular expression (regex) for optional. If supported, it takes effect on the prior character. This would make the last "e" in coffee optional an have no space. It should be "coffee\s?table". \s represents a space. This is even better: "coffee(\s+)?table". It searches for one or more optional spaces.

It may not work for everyone. Windows has it's own way of doing things and makes up it's own standards.

[Derek Gilmer]

Google desktop is amazing. I keep a fairly structured file system. Even with that it is quicker to hit ctl twice, type in some keywords and have google return my file

[Dave Johnson29]

Also Ideas on how to orginize customer Files after a project is finished.

Hi Stanley,

I have been programming since 1976 and have had to develop a system. As well as a well organized folder structure, I have set names for the first part of all file names.

Base Folder
--Jewelry
----Ring
------Metal
--------Albert
------Acrylic
--------Jennifer
--------Lindsay
----Necklace
------Acrylic
------Coconut
------Wood
--Industrial
----LaserCottage

Then when I save a file I have stock names for the first part...

Ring Acrylic Jennifer 001.cdr

Ring Metal Albert 001.cdr
Ring Metal Albert 002.cdr
Ring Metal Albert 003.cdr

LaserCottage sun glasses 001.cdr

The first part of the file name is always the same as the folder name. The trailing number is preceeded by zeroes so that windoze will sort them correctly.

Without the leading zeroes it sorts numbers like this...

1
10
100
2
200
3
4
5
51
52
57
590

Using this file naming convention I can search all files for specific people or company names, items, materials etc. I also found a program that searches for the occurrence of any word anywhere in the entire file name. The file listing in the "Open file" dialog (and Explorer) will display the date and the ascending number on the end will indicate the latest item.

[Dav1d Beck]

Google desktop is amazing. I keep a fairly structured file system. Even with that it is quicker to hit ctl twice, type in some keywords and have google return my file

Google Documents is a Systems Administrators nightmare came to life...

Windows 7 and Vista both have built in that can be managed

I just have a network drive mounted as L:\ and everything below it is in a sub-folder that has the persons name then another folder for year and then what ever the project name is... I also use the image view so i can see what the projects look like...

Tags also work well in windows 7

laser; jon doe; signs;

[Roy Nicholson]

It was a carousel I think.

I hope it's in a suitable format... I tried to save it as a V10 file


I have a great filing system but my mind doesn't help me remember wht I called it or where I put it.


Regards


Roy N.