Patent ID: 7197493

Claim:
A method for deterministically classifying digital media files indexed in a database by an end user, the method comprising: providing a database; establishing, by an end user, a plurality of sets, each set comprising a plurality of categories, each category of the plurality of categories being arbitrarily definable by the end user to contain a finite number of descriptors selected arbitrarily by the end user to constitute values within the category. wherein at least two of the sets, categories in a set, or descriptions in a category are non-hierarchical; selecting, by the end user, digital media flies having attributes perceived by the end user to correspond to a set of the plurality of sets, each digital media file being uniquely identifiable by the end user and identified by a unique identifier retrievable by a computer; selecting, by the end user, a set from the plurality of sets perceived by the end user to correspond to the perceived attributes; creating a collection having a collection name and characterized by a type corresponding to the selected set; entering the digital media flies into the collection by linking selected ones of the digital media files with the collection name by filtering the digital media files according to correspondence of the attributes to the descriptors; and storing information selected to support indexing of and searching for the unique identifier of each of the digital media files in the database based on at least one of the descriptors, categories, and set selected by the end user.