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.