Saturday, March 15, 2008

Tagging software anyone?

I'm looking for a simple and useful software. I need to archive lots of documents (PDFs mostly) under multiple categories or 'Tags'. For instance, a document on Indian history should be placed both in "History" and "India". Users of Gmail would understand what I mean. Normal folders won't work because one needs to store multiple copies of the same file under each folder. I could think of one simple way out: Store the actual files in a master folder, and place the appropriate soft links in each category folder. This way, one would get a nice file view (as though the files are actually placed in that folder), while each file is stored only once. But how will I search for files common to both tags? I can always write a script to do all this, but why bother if someone has done it before? I actually found couple of applications that do exactly what I want, but they are all paid software or beta versions (with a disclaimer on stability!!).

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Vote from home

'Work from home' seems to be the latest buzz word in corporate circles. People who spend most of their working hours in front of a computer are given the option to work from home. I was thinking if 'Vote from home' is possible. The elections are nearing and we read reports of voter list being inconsistent or incomplete. Why do I need to register in a voter list to vote? If I can prove that I'm a citizen of this country and I've not already voted in the same election, I should be allowed to cast my vote. And why should I travel only to the polling booth which carries my name in its voter list? For instance, If I've relocated to Surat from Kolkata just before the elections, do they expect me to chase the babus and get my name included in the Surat voter list? Or travel to back to Kolkata to cast my vote? And blame the educated middle class for not voting in large numbers. Are technologies like smart voter card or online voting far fetched for a country which already uses Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)? This will ensure people can vote from their place of comfort.