On Jan 8, 2006, at 6:36 PM, B. Kuestner wrote:
> Be careful about adding the use of Spotlight Comments. They are
> basically the old Finder comments and are pretty fragile:
>
> Many command-line tools lose this information, even the common cp
> and mv.
> Also GUI-apps that use these command line tools underneath are
> affected.
> Some filesystems don't store them.
> Some compression methods don't store them.
>
> Here's a quote from MacWorld:
>
> http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/11/15/spotlightanlaysis/index.php
>
>> If you transfer the file to a coworker via iChat, the comments
>> will be lost. If you e-mail the file to someone, the comments will
>> be lost. If you upload the file to a Unix or Windows file server,
>> the comments will be lost.
>
> Your comments are your data, and I would not entrust them to
> something that vulnerable. That's like putting them on a drive that
> makes strange noises. Not good.
>
> Apple failed badly in this respect. Very amateurish, very
> Microsoftish: Great marketing, but lots of short-comings in the
> details.
No they didn't - you just don't understand what they are for. They
are _not_ meant to be comments for everyone; they are written to
_your_ Spotlight index, and, for that reason, don't get transferred
to others. It makes total sense.
Rob Griffiths, who wrote the above MW piece, is a good friend, and we
have battled about this issue several times. He is correct to point
out the above, but you need to realize that your Spotlight info is
yours alone.
Kirk
Co-author of: Podcasting Pocket Guide
http://www.mcelhearn.com/ppg.html
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