Whenever someone asks me for computer help, they're surprised when I usually show up with nothing more than a little hard drive (an 80GB 1.8" disk with its own USB cable - seen here).

This drive contains pretty much everything I need and then some. I do store some documents and the like on the drive, and various assorted temporary files, but the primary use of the drive is to store applications.

I have two main folders, one for installable software and one for portable software that I can run directly off the drive (very useful). The problem I'm now running into is that I have so many applications in these folders that I'm having a hard time organizing and finding what I need when I need it. The best I've come up with is to have a system where each of those two folders contains five additional folders organizing the applications into Editing, Games, Other, Playback, and System.

Sadly, this isn't enough. For example, just within "Installable\System" I have 43 folders for applications (heh, 43folders, that's a coincidence). I just counted, and all totaled I have 160 170 applications stored between the 10 folders. (in case you're curious, I'd estimate that about 155 165 of those are free programs) *edit* Make that 170 total, I just added 10 */edit*

Mostly this becomes an issue when I encounter a situation that I know I have a program for, but I don't remember the name of it because it's one that's rarely used. Some applications I know because I use them nearly every day, but others not so much.

For example, the other day I had a friend who really wanted to store a video he found on YouTube. I knew for certain that I had a program on my drive that did it really well, but I didn't remember the name or even what category I would have filed such a program under. Eventually I went through each folder and really focused on each app, trying to remember what each one did, until I came across "xVideoService Theif" (which does a great job, by the way).

What I'm looking for is some ideas on how I might wrap my head around this collection of apps. At first I started naming the folders I have containing each program like this: "Application Name (Short Description)." But this really clutters the folders and limits how much I can describe each app.

Any ideas folks?