EagleFiler, Information Anxiety, and your Mac

Yes, we live in the information age. The internet is the information superhighway. The problem? The highway is crowded. Information is the high fructose corn syrup of the 21st century. There’s more information than we can safely digest. Who knows what damage it’s causing us?

Praise the technology overlords for their insistence that we pay to manage that which complicates our lives. Enter EagleFiler, one of a few dozen ways your Mac can reduce stress, manage information, and probably help with your complexion.

The Problem

Too much information. It’s everywhere. It’s coming faster and faster, and much of it ends up contradicting what came before.

Information overload? We got it, baby. Information anxiety is the cause of our mental stress.

For those of us blessed with Macs and iPhones we may fare better than the great unwashed masses, but the symptoms are still there. Email messages. Bookmarks. RSS feeds. Books, magazines, newspapers. Documents. Spreadsheets. PDFs.

Wait. There’s more. Passwords, login IDs, serial numbers, pictures, movie clips, notes, text messages, instant messaging, chat, iTunes Store updates, App Store updates, and more ways to get, store, manage information than bailouts for Wall Street.

It’s a jungle out there. We have more information to manage than ever before and there’s only one solution. Better management.

The Solution

First, we need a way to grab information that crosses our eyes. Second, we need a way to hold the information for later retrieval. Third, we want to be able to sort information in all its ugly forms.

Your Mac has many ways to handle information, from simple directories which store whatever you deem keepable. Mail for email. Safari for bookmarks. iCal for appointments. Address Book for contacts. iWork is good for documents, spreadsheets, presentations.

But what about everything else? Why is it that I have twenty utilities and applications for 20 kinds of information? How about a file system that files things my way, but makes it easy to get what I file?

EagleFiler is one of a dozen solutions for Mac users.

Inside Scoop

Almost more than anything else to help us from our information anxiety attacks, we have an overriding need for a helping hand, a guiding force, an elegant tutor to show us the way.

EagleFiler simply files the information you want to keep. It looks like Mail. It searches like Spotlight. It captures just about anything. It organizes files and folders and kinds the way you want.

Even better, EagleFiler doesn’t dump stuff into a database that can get corrupted if not managed properly. Files get stored in a library; a special Finder folder, which you’ll never need to see.

However, EagleFiler does use OS X’s Core Data SQL database to keep track of your files; what’s what, what’s where, when it went there, what it is.

What Goes In, Comes Out

EagleFiler looks like other Mac applications; highly reminiscent of iPhone or Mail or iTunes, so it’s easy to use. Save email messages, bookmarks, links to interesting sites, project notes, PDFs, even complete web pages.

The basic three-pane interface makes it easy to find what you save, search what you save, display what you save. You can drag and drop information, use hot keys to capture information, and annotate files with notes.

Organizing is easy. Create your own organization structure in the left column, click on the contents and few what’s inside in the top right column, and view the specific details in the bottom right column. It’s that easy.

Searching is nearly instant using keywords, tags which you can create, and even phrase-based searches. It’s almost fun. I’ve been using EagleFiler again since my recent divorce from Windows Vista.

Don’t be intimidated by information anxiety. Control it. Own it. Master it. EagleFiler isn’t cheap, so try it before you decide on it.