by Al Massey
I probably have as much or more stuff than just about anybody. I got stuff cluttering up two four-gig hard drives in my main machine, BossHog. Then I got stuff on any number of removable 1-gig Jazz drive/cartridges and Zip disks. I got all kinds of stuff .
E-mail faxes, scanned documents, web pages, GIFS, JPEGS, word processing documents, databases, spreadsheets, all kind and manner of stuff. Trouble is, I generally can’t find the stuff I want, when I want it. This is a never-ending source of embarrassment . Just this morning I had an editor call and want some supporting documentation for an article I wrote a while back and it took me the better part of the morning to find it.
No sooner had I found the stuff in question than Shirley, the FedEx princess, knocked on my door with a goodie package containing something called askSam from askSam Systems in Perry, Fla. As I normally do in these cases I started reading the enclosed Pr ess Flak and found that askSam was described as “the ultimate PIM for the Internet.” So what, I got PIMs. Reading further it said, “askSam is a free-form database.” So what again, I got databases.
The it started getting interesting because it said askSam would organize and archive e-mail and newsgroup messages and HTML files and Word documents and…stuff. Well, now it started getting my attention, so I installed the rascal and found that in short o rder it did all that and more. But that’s not the important thing. No, the important thing is it employs something called full-text indexing allowing me to not only search for my stuff but also, actually find it. SHAZZAMMM! It works.
Recognizing that we use programs and file formats from a wide variety of vendors, askSam generously included “filters” that allow the user to import letters, graphics, documents, databases, faxes, email messages and spreadsheets from almost any program i nto askSam. For my use I quickly found a filter for Eudora (my email program) and imported several thousand messages into a new database. The program guided me through the steps, asking me how I wanted the messages indexed, what fields (TO:,FROM:, cc:, D ATE:, SUBJECT:, etc.) and how I wanted them arranged and at the mere press of a button it was all set up.
Telling askSam to INDEX created a list of all the words in the database and recorded the document where the words were found. I was then able to quickly search the index and jump to the appropriate document in the file. This feature allowed me to full se arch several hundred megs of information in seconds. You can further refine your searches through the use of the Boolean Search command. You simply use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. In this manner you could conduct a Boolean Search in a file co ntaining business letters to find all those sent to Illinois but NOT to Chicago.
Another feature allows “Fuzzy” searches. For example, a Fuzzy Search for “Kathy” would find “Kathy”, “Kathi”, “Cathy”, and “Katey”. (NOTE: search techniques will be the subject of a future article.)
Before moving on I will touch on one other feature I am finding indispensable, the “SHOW” command that allows you to output Sentences, Lines, or Paragraphs which contain specific words or phrases. For example, you could search through the complete testi mony of the Iran-Contra hearings for every line containing the phrase “Oliver North”.
Whether you deal with structured information (such as names and addresses) or freeform text (such as e-mail and correspondence), askSam can help you put your information where it belongs - at your fingertips. Needs at least a 386 processor with 4 megs of ram and requires 4 to 7 MB of free disk space and Windows 3.1, Windows 95/NT or OS/2.
For more info go to http://www.asksam.com. askSam for Windows Professional Version, 3.0, $395.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member who can be contacted at almas@hal-pc.org.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.