iMeMex: Escapes from the Personal Information Jungle

Modern computer work stations provide thousands of applications that store data in >100.000 files on the file system of the underlying OS. To handle these files data processing logic is reinvented inside each application. This results in a jungle of data processing solutions and a jungle of data and file formats. For a user, it is extremely hard to manage information in this jungle. Most of all it is impossible to use data distributed among different files and formats for combined queries, e.g., join and union operations. To solve the problems arising from file based data management, we present a software system called iMeMex as a unified solution to personal information management and integration. iMeMex is designed to integrate seamlessly into existing operating systems like Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Our system enables existing applications to gradually dispose file based storage. By using iMeMex modern operating systems are enabled to make use of sophisticated DBMS, IR and data integration technologies. The seamless integration of iMeMex into existing operating systems enables new applications that provide concepts of data storage and analysis unseen before.