Christmas Updates

Some serious updates that I figured I'd mention just so everyone knows this whole thing is still moving.

About 12 programs updated, VLC, IE Password View, Rainlendar, Truecrypt, TaskCoach ... whew.

I also made the decision to break up my Office folder into two parts. I'm doing usability testing right now and it may go into the next version.

Virus false-positive problems

I've begun to consider going ahead and cutting out all files that show up as viruses even though they're false positives. Its not good policy to share files like that and I'm concerned one day these files could actually BE a virus but users will think its a false positive.

I mention it because one of my files "StartKitchenSink.exe" (the one that starts them all) shows up -- once in system memory -- as a virus. Comodo's antivirus is undoubtedly turned up a little high and therefore finds false positives but users shouldn't have to deal with this. The root file doesn't come up on any radars, nor does the tool that created the original EXE. Two other virus programs are much smarter about this, but I see the virus company's point: why not be extra paranoid?

I loathe Windows sometimes.

Whatever the case, I'd have to put them all in a separate archive of some kind and make that available elsewhere. This is so stupid because several of those files are extremely useful. AAST has no program like it that I can find. RockXP has some really essential system tools. This is terrible.

Any thoughts? Anyone?

Portablefreeware, Notepad ++, SysExporter

I've tried to be an active member of the portablefreeware.com community, but for some reason I can't quite sit down and do all that. Part of that is because I'm trying to manage employment stuff right now and it is *tedious*.

I do owe them big time for this whole project, which has been of HUGE benefit to me, not just in terms of this project but for my own uses. I've long felt that what I was giving out to everyone else should just be a mirror of what I use on a day-to-day basis.

I've been evaluating a few products some recent posts have said I should take another look at. One is Notepad++ and another is SysExporter.

I think my next release will be coming shortly. With the release of OpenOffice 3 (finally!), I think the archive needs a healthy update. The major project goals of getting DLL files to auto-link will have to wait a little longer. I'm just too overloaded and not very motivated.

As a side note, some other projects I have going on:

1. Get a WinXP VMware install working properly. I'm running into problems moving my data over just because VMware's networking is running slow for some reason.
2. Run Windows as clean as possible using Thinstall to avoid registry cruft
3. I have a new web site I'm hosting and I'm testing WebDAV to see what it will and won't do. Sadly, I can't get HTTPS going so I'm trying to do everything using TrueCrypt. We'll see how that goes.

List of preferences in software

1. Critical features - grammar checking and dvd burning are still things you can't quite get for free. This is why I have Microsoft Word and Nero on my computer.
   
2. Free (as in no cost) and can share openly
   
3. Portable - runs on flash drive, no installation (this is #3 because if its portable and not free, I don't care)
   
4. Quality - good usability, visually clean, internally organized, low memory footprint
   
5. Amount of features - does a lot of stuff
6. Free (as in freedom) / open source - GPL, LGPL, Creative Commons, etc. Anything in which the owner releases control of the software to the public. No weird, cryptic license agreements.
   
7. Ethical company (# 6 is part of this, but better establishes it)
8. Cross Platform but must run on Windows

I'm extremely available to working with Java programs but the current status of that on PortableFreeware is a no-no. I'm going to trust their judgment and wait.

Competition!

Freewareupdater.

The program appears to do basically what mine does (in terms of size and scale) but is self-updating. That's not just competition, that's genuinely a better solution.

I'll check it out and see if I need to point people to their program rather than mine. Guessing from how the development process on their software is kind of a black box, it seems I still have something to offer. After all *anyone* can do what I'm doing and take it in any direction. The menu system, programs, and everything else can be edited or changed at the user's whim.

Release Schedule

I'm aiming for 2 month release cycle.

• Beta 3: 12/1/08 - will mostly be a general program refresh
  
• 1.0: 2/1/09 - depends mostly on being totally self-contained (creating dynamic paths to DLLs, not requiring any kind of install). The whole thing has to run entirely on a single key drive or its just beta software.
  
• 1.1: 4/1/09 - another program refresh
• 2.0: Unknown - should make another major feature jump (like a self-update tool)
  

Genesis of the project

Those curious about the twists and turns this project has taken can see how things came together over time from a series of online posts. The starting ground for this whole thing was on PortableFreeware's forums:

1. Initial estimation of public interest in an online poll
2. Release notice of the "Kitchen Sink"

Its worth noting that I almost gave up on the project until a guy named David e-mailed me about it. So if you like the project, let me know and post a comment.

Why?

A little background for why I work on this project:

1. My own use. I use this archive absolutely every day and love having the functionality of so many programs that gives me enormous flexibility in my job and in my life. Its like having a huge tool belt that fits on a tiny 2 gig SD card.
2. Popularity. Having worked on so many projects over time, its nice to be responsible for one that has hundreds of users.
3. Unique. No one else is doing anything like this that I can find. There are many freeware archives out there but none of them are ocused on doing something of this size and depth.
4. Publicity for small projects. Creators of smaller freeware items might not get a lot of credit but when put into an archive like this, may find new users. Millions of people use Apache everyday but how many people use Color Cop?
5. Virtualization. Its clear to me that Windows is not the future of computing. By getting developers to put their work into portable archives, they are made easier to virtualize (by projects like WINE) and run in environments other than those belonging to Microsoft.
   

Cleanup process explained

A quick look at the process I use to find and remove bad or useless files.

• LNG files, *LANG* files
• ital, span, fren, russ, etc.
• Everything with "unins" or "uninstall" (EXCEPT "/NexusFont2/uninstalled"),
• All "AppInfo" folders
• Entire folder: \7-ZipPortable\App\7-Zip\lang, \ReNamer\Translits, \httrack\src, \httrack\src-win, AppInfo
• Non-english: \antmoviecatalog\Languages, \EasyCleaner\Languages, \ReNamer\Translits, \EasyCleaner\Helps, \httrack\lang

Still trying to figure out a way to consolidate and then remove redundant DLL files.

Latest updates

• Updated a long list of programs according to portablefreeware.com and portableapps.com recommendations.
• Added Autobackup -- not perfect but needed some kind of backup program.
• Removed a linux filesytem viewer that didn't seem to work.
• Removed Portable Scribus as I could not get it to work for the life of me.
• Deleted HUNDREDS of non-English language files to cut down on file size.

Trying to set up the system so users don't have to move any DLL files over to the system folder. Then will make the next release publicly available.