A Database Striptease or How to Manage Your Personal Databases

This chapter discusses how to manage one’s personal databases or database striptease. The database management problem has been entering everyone’s life. To realize its presence it suffices to sit down and tally the electronic data sources crucial for survival in the modern society. As long as data sources are independent, devices are never replaced, nor do new devices enter the realm of existence, it will survive easily in the digital jungle. However, life runs a different course. Each time one meets a new person, one may have to synchronize several databases with his address information. The limitations of the human brain to cope with the information overload calls upon better support to “remember” where, what and when has been accumulated in the fabric of data sources making up the environment. Buying a new PDA surely means a re-organization and possibly retyping the content of the database.

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