It’s been a great while since my last post. Since I have most of my audience in Facebook, I didn’t find the material fit for public consumption to post here. At least to make it worth the domain name registration, here goes another post.
Being a Windows user most of the time for the last 15 years, there are some things that I grow to dislike regarding the application/program management.
First of all, it’s the “Program Files” folder itself. Maybe it’s just me, but coming from DOS 2.1, when Windows 95 came with LFN (long filename) support, having to workaround the space inside a command is a big WTF. I guess *NIX guys will feel the same too. Even so, the name is too long.
Then came the lack of categorization. It’s probably enough for an office PC to have just Office and an antivirus software installed inside the folder, but in a home PC, or for a person who works with a bundle of software tools, where having 20 or so other programs installed are a norm, it makes more sense to categorize (or customize) the applications either by type or functional usage.
Next are installation and packaging. Since the beginning until now there has not been a single elegant way to package an application, install it, and easily remove it without leaving any residue.
My partial solution to all this is, to use a folder “apps” with functional subfolders inside it, like “audio”, “video”, “sysutils”, etc, so that I can find the application folder much quickly, and plainly, just looks more neat. Furthermore, the “apps” folder is on a separate partition than the system partition (C:), so that I can reuse the application throughout multiple Windows formats.
I have been using this method since 2000 and probably dodged a lot of hassles and time lost when reinstalling Windows. Some of my apps even still hold its settings and data from that period.
If there are any of you starts mentioning, note that this is a grunt from a user coming from when PortableApps.com is there. I like the PortableApps idea, but I’d rather manage my apps on my own.
Next post will be on what is in my application folder.
お楽しみに （n‘∀‘)η ﾔｧｰｯﾎｫｰ
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