Method and apparatus providing omnibus view of online and offline content of various file types and sources

Data management equipment for use in an online service facility selectively accessed by multiple member computers, the online service facility including a plurality of online data centers operated by an online service provider (OSP) to store members' data objects relating to a variety of online services that the OSP renders to its members, the equipment comprising:

• an aggregated catalog that contains information including:
• (1) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in the data centers, and (2) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in local storage of respective member computers;
• an aggregator programmed to perform operations comprising:
• monitoring contents of the data centers to detect new storage of prescribed types of data objects owned by the members;
• communicating with the member computers to identify prescribed types of data objects newly stored in the member computers' local storage;
• updating the aggregated catalog to list to include metadata identifying the newly stored data objects contained in the online data centers and local storage;
• a finder programmed to perform operations comprising, responsive to request by a member, searching the aggregated catalog and utilizing results of the search to provide an output for display at the requesting member's computer, the output comprising a consolidated listing of online data objects and locally stored data objects owned by the requesting member.

Data management equipment for use in an online service facility selectively accessed by multiple member computers, the online service facility including a plurality of online data centers operated by an online service provider (OSP) to store members' data objects relating to a variety of online services that the OSP renders to its members, the equipment comprising:

• aggregated catalog means for storing information including:
• (1) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in the data centers, and (2) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in local storage of respective member computers;
• aggregator means for:
• monitoring contents of the data centers to detect new storage of prescribed types of data objects owned by the members;
• communicating with the member computers to identify prescribed types of data objects newly stored in the member computers' local storage;
• updating the aggregated catalog means to include metadata identifying the data objects newly stored data objects contained in the data centers and local storage;
• finder means for, responsive to each request by a member, searching the aggregated catalog means and utilizing results of the search to provide an output for display at the requesting member's computer, the output comprising a consolidated listing of online data objects and locally stored data objects owned by the member.