Kurniady’s Blog

Most (if not all) people who use computers know what a File is, which is, in short, a piece of data with name, size, type, etc. A file can be a Word document, a text document, an executable binary, a compressed archive, etc.

Having a lots of files means you own a lot of information. However, it soon becomes problem when the number of files you own grows (uncontrollably). As a student, as well as a computer hobbyist, you may have already guessed that I have this kind of problem as well. What I am aware of is that I produce (and collect) lots of files which have accumulated for several years now. Currently, I have several thousands (or tens of thousands) files, totaling to about more than 200gigabytes in size. That does not include files that have been archived into CDs or DVDs. So, I guess now it’s time for me to think about how to organize those files.

Generally, I think the problems with having too many files are :

• Storage size : what if you run out of space? (is not a problem if you have unlimited storage)
  • My current solution : add more drives, archive to DVDs
• Organization : how to organize them in a logical way? (is not a problem if you have an AI agent that knows about all your files and can find and order them for you automatically)
  • My current solution : per-category separation, shallow hierarchies (2-3 levels), but still needs a lot of work to maintain (otherwise there will be many "unsorted" files).
• Storage reliability : how big is the risk of losing these files? (is not a problem if your hardware never fails and the filesystem never crashes)
  • My current solution : RAID-1 (mirrored storage) - basically store the same data in two identical drives (just in case one fails)

However, the types of files also matters. I think files can be categorized as :

• Other people’s work - easily re-obtainable (Cat 1)
  • This kind of file can be easily downloaded from the internet, or something you can retrieve from other medias
  • Generally I don’t care to much about the storage of this kind of files, since losing it is not much of a problem. Lately, I have been deleting small downloaded files, because redownloading them when needed is much simpler than organizing the files.

• Other people’s work - not easily re-obtainable (Cat 2)
  • This include big files, or files acquired through some occasional events or procedures, or files that is no more available elsewhere.
  • Still have to be stored well

• My work (Cat 3)
  • I generally save everything I made, directly and indirectly. This include codes, history, logs, reports, documents, homeworks, and of course, photos.
  • Losing any of this kind of file means losing it forever, unless manually remade.

Currently out of these 200gigabytes I mentioned, I guess around 100 to 150 gigs are of Cat 3 while the the rest of them are of Cat 2 and Cat 1. So, that means later when I run out of storage, I should delete these Cat 1 files first (or should I do it now? hmm…).

Organizing files have always been needing a lot of work and time. Several years ago, I categorized my files in a deep-hierarchy structure. But that approach require quite a lot of effort everytime I store a file, which caused a lot of new files stays in the unsorted area (because it takes time to organize them to the structure). Lately, I have changed into a more flat-hierarchy kind of structure, and it is quite successful in making me less hesitating to organize my files upon creation. However, these legacy "unsorted" files are still needing a lot of work to be organized (I am thinking of encapsulating all of them into a compressed archive and not trying to organize them anymore, to reduce the backlogging). I had spent several hours (or even days) lately to organize all of those files, but still, there are a lot of work to be done.

I guess I should consider using the "label and search" kind of strategy (with Google Desktop apps maybe?) and forgot about organizing the files altogether (if you can still find the file when needed, why bother categorizing?…)

So, what do you think? Do you have any strategy on organizing your files?

-Kurniady

Uncategorized

Finally, e.COM 2007 is now done (since last week, actually). Generally, from the e.COM System point of view, it was done quite successfully. All of the modules worked as intended, except for some simple bugs which could’ve been avoided if I tested them thoroughly. Really sorry for those who are experiencing problems with the system. While the bugs had been fixed quickly, I know it’s been serious problems for some of you. And now, the e.COM 2007 report for IT division is done, so that’s all about e.COM 2007 for me (except for the closing dinner on September 22nd). Thank you so much for all of the committees, it’s been a hard work and it’s been a wonderful time working with all of you.

Sometimes after the end of e.COM 2007, however, I have had two bad news. The first one is I have not advanced to the Round 2 of TopCoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC) Algorithm competition. The second one is that I also have not advanced to the Round 3 of TCCC Marathon match competition. Those news means that I will not be in Orlando, Florida next month for the onsite finals T_T. Probably I should try again next time, and I know I will.

Right now, my fifth semester of study in BiNus International have started. Although it’s been just a week, I noticed that there may be some hard work to be done this semester, especially for the "Software Engineering" course. The course includes a real project (software development) to be done for a real client (or at least, one of the lecturer want it that way). I’m quite doubtful that the new program will be successful though. Just wait and see…

Oh yes, there was a surprise from my friends on my birthday (6th of September). I was really happy and would like to thank you all, for being my friends. ^_^ I’m now twenty years old, single, lonely, and still don’t know what will happen in the future, so wish me luck!!

In contrast to the not-so-clear intention of the Software Engineering course, I have just looked into the TopCoder Component Development competition, which looks quite interesting. Basically it’s a competition where I have to do something like the project in the Software Engineering course, but with a very clear design document explaining what to do. This is much more worthy to be pursued, I guess. The components posted are in Java or .NET, where a complete UML design is available and all we do is just to code it as specified. Being more complicated than the Algorithm competition, this kind of competition offers about USD 500 to USD 1000 prize per project for the best submission, and half of that amount for the second-best submission. Judging that there are usually less-than-half-a-dozen competitor for a specific project, the chance to frequently win the prize is very high for me once I learned how to do it correctly. Probably I should start competing in Development, and I should start soon.

Another thing is about my files organization. Currently I am struggling (again) to organize my files (some tens of thousands of them). Having a PHP Gallery2 and a new hosting provider (which provides some 200gigs of space in their server for me) somehow simplifies the organization of photos, but not other files. I guess this time I have to focus on organizing the files (all of them), otherwise it will continuously affect my productivity.

On the top of all of these, I am now interested in learning about "Ruby on Rails". Previously I looked on either Ruby or Phyton, but it turns out that Ruby is much better documented and is simpler to be used. Therefore, I think I am going to use Ruby to create my own personal database web applications (such as for tracking my belongings, my CD collections, books, contacts, etc.). Hopefully it worked well, so that I can one day organize all of my things neatly (which, based on experience, greatly enhance my productivity).

So, thats the end of a chapter about e.COM, and a beginning of a new chapter focused on learning and software development. I really hope it’ll be useful in the future, what do you think?

-Andrian Kurniady

Uncategorized