So I got a PocketPC (an iPaq, through work -- don't know that I'd ever buy one for myself). Nice little machine. But the most interesting thing about it to me is a minor, minor feature.

It has a "My Documents" folder in RAM, as well as a 128-MB flash "storage card." (And, of course, you can store your documents anywhere in its memory -- the "My Documents" is just to make Windows users confortable.)

Here's the interesting thing: When you open an app -- say, Pocket Word -- it opens in the equivalent of the "File/Open" dialog, as opposed to defaulting to a new blank doc. But that's not the interesting part. What's interesting is that it presents you with a list of every .DOC file, no matter where it is on the machine. (You can also specify a specific folder to view.)

Why is this interesting to me? Because it makes me think of how operating systems are designed around the folder or directory -- you're always navigating through a hierarchy. But the PocketPC bumps into an *application-centric* view; WHERE the docs are stored doesn't matter.

Put another way, today's OSs make you think about where things are physically on the hard drive -- in which nested directory. (Yeah, yeah -- I know it's not actually "physically," but "virtually physically" sounds awful.) They mimic the office, in which, in theory, people have put things in filing cabinets that are organized into folders.

That's like not constructing a steel building more than two stories tall because that's as high as wood allows you to go. You're not working with wood; you're working with steel and concrete, so why confine yourself to the old limitations? Ditto for computers: Why confine users to the file-cabinet-centric view of their world?

Of course, I haven't thought it through beyond this initial tickling. Here's one thought, though: Imagine having a single folder for all your docs, but each doc is tagged (meta-tagged?) with a list of "sections" it belongs to, like "travel" or "Smith Project" or both. When you click "Open," you can see everything, or you can filter by one or more subsets.

Hmm. Gotta think on this.

A Little More:

Instead of navigating through folders to find open a file, you would select categories to view. The computer would essentially build a folder on the fly. For example, instead of having a "Smith Project" folder, when you selected "Smith Project" from the category list, the computer would show you a folder that only contains items categorized for the Smith Project.

For those who like to navigate to a file instead of opening it from an application, you could click an area on the desktop called "Show Me," then select the categories you want to see. Again, the folders would be created on the fly.

This has another advantage: Instead of a file belonging to only one folder, it could show up in several. For instance, if you traveled to meet Mr. Smith, you might have a note file tagged as "Travel" and "Smith Project." Even though there's only one file, it would appear in both the Smith Project and Travel folders. Much better!