Preface to the First Edition
I’ve been intrigued with searching and indexing from the early days of the Internet. I have fond memories (circa 1991) of managing an email list using majordomo, MUSH (Mail User’s Shell), and a handful of Perl, awk, and shell scripts. I implemented a CGI web interface to allow users to search the list archives and other users’ profiles using grep tricks under the covers. Then along came Yahoo!, AltaVista, and Excite, all which I visited regularly.
After my first child, Jakob, was born, my digital photo archive began growing rapidly. I was intrigued with the idea of developing a system to manage the pictures so that I could attach metadata to each picture, such as keywords and date taken, and, of course, locate the pictures easily in any dimension I chose. In the late 1990s, I prototyped a filesystem-based approach using Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Index Server, Active Server Pages, and a third COM component for image manipulation. At the time, my professional life was consumed with these same technologies. I was able to cobble together a compelling application in a couple of days of spare-time hacking.