Hans Fremuth

For the better part of my life, I have always been drawn to computers and fascinated by its unlimited possibilities. As a user, I have been creating content files since the days of the IBM XT (my first machine). Needless to say, the number of files can add up over the years…

Managing content is nothing new; its the primary reason why we have databases and structured content repositories (ECM or DAM systems). Managing unstructured information, not neatly organized in rows and columns, is a different story. Content that lives in ordinary files on your hard disk is scary stuff – and not easy to tame.

This is were my passion for metadata had its roots: how can I manage all these files? If you came to this blog you will most likely agree with me that creative names for files and folders won’t really help you here.

Using metadata is the way to go, it gives you more ways to identify the information that sits within the many content files you create every day.

Problem is, working with metadata is not exactly child’s play for the ordinary mortal PC user. Even the most recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux offer very little help when it comes to working with file metadata. To make matters worse, working with different operating systems and applications results frequently in metadata overwriting. Not really fun.

My motivation to blog about this is to share what I discover and to help you avoid the deep and ugly metadata snake pits out there. I will add my very own ideas and thoughts about ways how you can benefit greatly when working with file metadata. As the developer of Metability, I will shamelessly plug my tools occasionally. However, the focus of this blog is really all about metadata; the different standards,  schemes, uses, bugs, catastrophes, new ideas and whatever else is worth rambling reading about.

I hope you enjoy it,

Hans Fremuth