Portable Apps

Coming Full Circle

Way back, in the mists of time, programs had their own initialization (ini) files to control initial behavior of the programs. They were normally to be found in the same directory as the executable they were associated with and consequently were to be found all over. Microsoft felt this was too disorganized, and created the Registry to bring order to the chaos. Unfortunately this just created one big mess, and in fact made things more difficult to find. And of course Registry errors are one of the many things that can adversely affect Windows performance.

So now many programmers, myself included, are going back to the individual initialization files. A major benefit is that the programs become portable. Which means that they can be placed and run anywhere, including on removeable media. With portable apps one can, and I have, put all needed programs and data on a memory stick. One can then take the memory stick, plug it into any Windows computer, and work away. Take your work from the office to home and back. Bring everything you need with you to a customer in your pocket, or even hanging from a lanyard around your neck. Or take it with you on vacation to keep in touch.

Even if you choose not to use removeable media, portable apps are still preferred. You can install them to a drive / partition away from the operating system. Any restore or upgrade of the operating system will not affect those programs. This makes the restore / upgrade process that much easier as there is that much less to reinstall after the operating system restore / upgrade is done.

And contrary to some of the original reasons given for moving away from the individual initialization files, they are actually very easy to find. If you run the program by clicking on a desktop icon just right click on the icon instead and select Properties. In the dialog box that appears use the Target field on the Shortcut tab to tell you where the program is located. If you launch a program from the Start menu, simply right click instead of left clicking to launch, and select Properties. Again use the Target field on the Shortcut tab to tell you where the program is located.

External Devices

Wave Of The Future

With USB speeds increasing, and things like memory sticks becoming increasingly cheaper, many people are using a new kind of computer. Rather than buying a computer that is totally tricked out, and very expensive, one can buy a more basic computer, and simply plug in peripheral devices as needed. And one can share one device, such as a DVD burner, between multiple computers very easily. All the computer itself needs is the internal memory, just about everything else can be plugged in. In point of fact, historically speaking, desktop computers have always had the display, keyboard, and mouse as external devices.

Take for example the Netbooks that are being offered today. For less than $300 you can get a brand new notebook. And while some will find the display a bit small, it does make them extremely portable, and when at home one can always plug it into an external monitor and use it like a very small desktop. I personally have bought an Asus EeePC900 and will discuss it in detail.

My EeePC900 came with a 16G SSD, a SD card slot and 3 USB 2.0 ports. While many might scoff at the 16G hard drive, it is in fact more than adequate. I have both Windows XP and MEPIS Linux installed, and still have 5G left over for data, just from the 16G alone. I have a 4G SD card setup with my programs and data, which I move from computer to computer to work. And in the past, whenever I junked a computer, I took out the hard drive, placed it in an enclosure, and plugged it into a USB port on my new computer. So I have plenty of external hard drives to expand the storage as needed. I have found that I sometimes need more than the 3 USB ports, so for $20 I bought a 4 port USB hub and now have 6 USB ports instead of 3. Long ago I bought an external DVD burner to share between my computers, so whenever I need an optical drive it gets plugged into one of the USB ports. I can also scan by plugging my scanner into a USB port. And so forth. I am sure you get the idea.

And since I have all my programs and data on a 4G SD card, which I move from computer to computer, each computer only needs to have the operating system, and drivers for devices, installed. It vastly simplifies life.

Partition, Partition, Partition

Separate OS, Programs, Data

One of the most important things to do when setting up your computer is to partition the hard disk. Typically you will have one partition for the entire hard disk when you get the computer from the manufacturer. They of course have no idea how you will be using your computer, so they are unable to partition it for you before you get it. In retail, they talk about Location, Location, Location. Well, when setting up your computer think Partition, Partition, Partition.

Partitioning takes one physical hard drive, and turns it into multiple logical hard drives. This helps organize the computer, perhaps having separate partitions for the operating system, programs, and data. Then if the operating system were restored or upgraded, the programs and data would remain untouched. This would make the recovery process easy and painless. And backing up the data would be a simple matter of copying that partition to an external device, making the back up process easy and painless.

One organizes the data already with directories. For example, one would have a directory for documents. And that likely subdivided into subdirectories for different kinds of documents. Perhaps different subdirectories like: Email, Manuals, Resumes, Invoices, Spreadsheets, Timesheets, FamilyTree, and so forth. Partitioning a hard drive just puts in place the top level of organization. It also allows for one computer to run multiple operating systems. Many windows users, myself included, have a dual boot computer with both Windows and Linux installed. That way one can run Windows as usual, and check out, and perhaps migrate to Linux with no impact on productivity.