Saturday, August 26, 2006

File and Folder Management?

At work this was a week from h-e-"double hockey-sticks". Battered and bruised.

Got to finally make a stop in Pearland--first visit there. Almost stopped in at the Busy Bee Cafe but I had worked way through my lunch and didn't have time to spare. Hollered a good karma "Hi There!" thought to blog-master Jim Thompson anyway even if he couldn't hear me.

I've set to brainstorming a way to re-organize my application file storage organization on my drives. I've got a wonderful scattering of program files and folders scattered across them. I have an "archive" partition that I'm keeping old copies on. I have a "downloads" folder where I try to keep recently downloaded files/applications while I am testing their usefulness. Eventually, I move them over into a "Utilities" folder with sub-categorized folders--or delete them if they don't really deliver the goods.

I think this will still work, but I just need to clean house and reorganize the folders.

Another problem is that many of the programs I use can be "installed," then the installation folder copied to another location, then the first copy "uninstalled." Finally, I run the application from the copied location without it being fully hooked onto my system. I then end up creating lots of links all over the place to launch these things.

As it stands now I have a series of desktop located folders filled with shortcuts to the tools and programs I'm using frequently (or don't want to forget that I even have--which I tend to do!).

So I am going to have to commit to using either PStart (portable version) or Launchy (or something similar) to manage the application launching in these specialized folders; this would be used to list ALL of them. I also need to find a good software category listing somewhere to help me come up with practical names for the sub-folders to sort the different applications into logically.

Then I can use RK Launcher as my "most-used" app launcher for the handful of utilities and applications I run regularly.

Why not just leave the apps installed and use the Start menu? Heck if I know, but that's how I like to run my systems....and this is the price!

I'm open to suggestions and techniques any kind Grand Stream Dreams blog readers might use as well on how they organize their file/folder structures. I'm not talking about "eye-candy" like color-coding folders, etc. But the actual folder and program file organization itself. How do you effectively manage what you download and use?

Proud moment of the week: PortableFreeware accepted my submission of RK Launcher for inclusion into their "portable-applications" listing. Got a number of positive feedbacks on it. Nice. That's the 2nd one I've submitted that they have liked enough to add. I have a few more I'm planning on offering, but I don't want to wear out my welcome!

See you in rainy skies today,
--Claus

2 comments:

Jim said...

Gee, Claus, I'm sorry Pearland is a place you associate with Hell. But next time you're going to be in town, email me first, and if I'm available, I'll meet you someplace for lunch or a beer.

Claus said...

Oh No! Mea culpa!

Pearland was one of the relaxing high-points of the week. I had to service a pc there--it went nicely. Got stuck at the intersection by the Cafe by a passing train so I had a chance to ponder it for a while.

It was "other" events that I had to take care of that made it a very long week. Overall everyone from my director down to my customers seemed quite pleased with my performance...it was just personal frustration with technical issues beyond my control that made it feel that way.

Thanks for the offer! I might just take you up on that sometime!