Unified approach to management of distributed personal information

Personal information is highly distributed between different data formats, applications, Internet services, computers and devices. It is difficult to get an overview of what one already knows. Popular personal information management (PIM) approaches usually provide yet another isolated place where the data is kept. On the other hand, experimental approaches that allow for accessing distributed information often do not provide sufficient means for integrating it. The aim of this project is to develop a better understanding of how personal information management can be improved by integrating information, organizing it through linking, tagging and assigning meaning, and by supporting an individual way of working with it. Analysis of problems and scenarios has led to the design of a model for managing diverse types of information from various sources in a unified way. A prototype has been implemented based on this model. The proposed model has been evaluated on the basis of the capability to realize certain scenarios, the functionality it provides and the potential to integrate with new technologies. It was found that the model eliminates many PIM problems and provides the user with a central place to store, organize and find their information.

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