Digital Organization

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?

I use Google for all my organizational needs. They may be evil, but they sure know how to find things.

This is something I just came up with. Sounds like you need something along the lines of "tags".

How about directories which are your "tags" and then in each one have shortcuts to the real application directory.

That way multiple tags can be applied to the same program.

Edit: and is much like how Google organises emails...

type a text file in each folder with a short description. When you need to find a tool, do a file search for (keyword) in (*.txt).

An advantage of this is that many programs already come with such a file, and you might not need to change it. Or at least add a couple keywords of your own.

Excellent idea. I think I'll try that system. That'll let me keep a basic folder structure (that's how I like it), while letting me do a fairly advanced search.


Exactly. Just describing each app in its containing folder name wasn't sufficient and made it look cluttered. I think Tony's idea will work well, because the text files will essentially work like tags. I'll probably write combinations of descriptions and keywords.


That is true, but are you talking about Google Desktop search? Unfortunately I don't think that would work in this case, because the drive is portable and not every computer would have Google Desktop on it (and I'm not a fan of it).


Thanks guys, you really came through, and so late at night! My collection of apps grows by the day (I'm now up to about 174 in total). The text file organization is going to take a while to complete, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

Why in tarnation do you need so many apps?

I like the text files idea. Ideally, you need a database. If you can write a little bit of code and make use of sqlite, you should be good to go.

I like Tony's idea as well, but if you do end up having to create most of the text files yourself, that will be a lot of files to generate and possibly keep track of.

Another solution is to have a single text file where you enter the name of each program and then a description or series of tags for it on the same line. When you're looking for something you need only first search that file to find out what the specific program name is.

On a similar note, the suggestion for an SQLITE database is also a good one, if you don't have to create the DB yourself. You might want to search for a cataloging type program which can be run off the drive. This might be in the form of a note-taking program, list manager, todo or appointment program or even a password tracker. You just need the ability to store the application name and a notes field of some kind that can (also) be searched. Ideally it would also store the location of the application which would save you a filesystem search.

You can probably start with a plain text file for now and if you find a program to handle the data later, you can likely modify the text and use it as a base for importing the data.

How about an app launcher that can use keywords? Might be a pain to set up, though.

I would use Delicious (links to my own bookmarks as an example) to organise this stuff. Sure you would need an Internet connection to look something up, but I simply would not remember any interesting things I find without it.

http://www.launchy.net/ ?

I use Launchy all the time. I'm rather dependent on it.

Problem with Launchy for this situation would be keyword launching. In OS X, I can choose an app, hit "Get Info", and type in keywords into the Spotlight comments. Then Spotlight or Quicksilver will show the app if I type in the keyword.

For example, if I wanted to launch Cyberduck by keying in FTP, I would hit Command-Space, type Cyberduck, hit Command-I and type FTP in the comments.

Also, Launchy wouldn't help much with the installable applications. And like Tom said, I need tags/keywords. It's finding the program I need that's the problem, not launching it. Besides, is Launchy portable?


Hehe, it might be that I'm addicted to cool little free apps that are designed (for the most part) to do one thing and one thing only. It's also because there's such a wide variety of software problems and software uses, and I like to be prepared for anything. So when someone says "gee, I wish I could do ____," I can say "I've got a program for that on this drive in my coat pocket!"

I guess my original idea is how often does this happen when you need the program right then and don't have an internet connection?

Well, quite often, actually, but I understand what you're saying. The primary disadvantage of my system is that I don't always have the latest version of the apps. I do tend to update the important ones regularly, though.

Besides, that argument only really works for the installable apps. The portable apps run directly off the drive, and I often do so, with all my preferences already made. And as long as I'm storing all those portable apps on there, I might as well store all the installable apps I use often as well.

Well, sure it's not Spotlight or Quicksilver. It does, however, support plugins.

Make a keyword plugin.

My point was that you could set up shortcuts or whatever for each application that would act as keywords. So for the YouTube downloader you mentioned, you could set up "youtube", "flash", and "video" as aliases. This falls down somewhat if you have multiple apps that could use the same keywords. Like you probably couldn't use "download", since that would probably make more sense to be attached to an FTP client or something. But maybe there's one that supports the concept of tags.

I have no idea if Launchy is portable or not, but I bet that there's one that is.

Launchy does have a portable mode.

I've wanted something like this forever. My idea requires support from the filesystem/os.

I would like every file to have metadata properties that would allow you to add any tags or notes you like to a file. The file explorer would have a filter/sort options. The system would also have a way to just search the metadata.

Isn't this what the "Spotlight Comments" field is in MacOs X ?

Yes.

Maybe you could just create a small HTML file which you could store onto your harddrive. In that HTML file, you could then order your programs, even make small descriptions of what each program does, so it would be easy to find the programs if you do a ctrl-F for it. Of course, you could also run the programs straight from that html file via a hyperlink.

All you need to do then is run that html file in a browser, and you'll have a list of everything that's on your harddrive. Pretty easy, and it'll run on every PC containing a browser... (which is, of course, every pc...)

I've done this before in the past, and it works pretty good. You only need to keep the html file up to date when you're adding programs, and not move directories around... (without updating the html file)

I don't own a Mac This needs to be added to Windows.

Don't worry, I'm sure one year Microsoft might get something similar in place. After all, they have been hard at work on it since 1991 with OFS.

NTFS already has the ability to save alternate data streams. That is, it can have a single file contain multiple sets of data.

Of course, Windows doesn't use it, and many applications can accidentally remove the additional forks when manipulating files.