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Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#221

Post by kakarot »

laumars wrote: post #202
kakarot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a regression. It's a more sensible default which makes the general user happy, but the power user can have more control if they wish.

You'd be amazed at just how often I've seen people question where stuff gets downloaded to - or even if it had downloaded - with the current defaults. It's not actually that clear to most "general users" what's happening nor where the files go (though Chrome UI is a little better than Firefox in that regard). I'm not saying there shouldn't be a Downloads folder nor that it shouldn't be the default location. I'm just…

It's not Mozilla's fault that there are people out there who never bother to learn their computer well enough to understand what the "Downloads" folder is. It's a ubiquitous archetype found in every OS both desktop and mobile.

What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them?

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#222

Post by laumars »

kakarot wrote: post #221
laumars wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be amazed at just how often I've seen people question where stuff gets downloaded to - or even if it had downloaded - with the current defaults. It's not actually that clear to most "general users" what's happening nor where the files go (though Chrome UI is a little better than Firefox in that regard). I'm not saying there shouldn't be a Downloads folder nor that it shouldn't be the default location. I'm just…

It's not Mozilla's fault that there are people out there who never bother to learn their computer well enough to understand what the "Downloads" folder is. It's a ubiquitous archetype found in every OS both desktop and mobile. What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them?

You do realise the people you're criticizing are actually the vast majority of people who own a computer? The arrogance demonstrated on HN sometimes just shows that some people in tech are completely detached from how normal people interact with a computer.

> What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them?

Just to be clear, you're talking about a de facto standard and nothing more. Also there's nothing stating people have to follow standards (particularly given how many standards are out there which contradict each other) let alone the de facto ones.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#223

Post by kakarot »

laumars wrote: post #222
kakarot wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Mozilla's fault that there are people out there who never bother to learn their computer well enough to understand what the "Downloads" folder is. It's a ubiquitous archetype found in every OS both desktop and mobile. What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them?

You do realise the people you're criticizing are actually the vast majority of people who own a computer? The arrogance demonstrated on HN sometimes just shows that some people in tech are completely detached from how normal people interact with a computer. > What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them? Just to be clear, you're talking about a de facto standard and nothing more. Also there's nothing s…

I didn't criticize anyone. It's a simple fact that most people don't take the time to sit down and understand the systems they use. I don't understand how recognizing that makes me arrogant. Recognizing there is a disconnect is the first step towards creating better systems and educational material for those systems.

> Just to be clear, you're talking about a de facto standard and nothing more.

It doesn't get much more standard than a "Downloads" folder in your user directory. It doesn't need to be an ISO standard to be recognized as a standard that everyone should learn.

Honestly you're the one being arrogant and assumptive right now. Accessibility is very important to me, and I'm not simply disregarding the vast majority of users. What's better, one ten-second educational widget for a user which teachers them to better understand the system they use, or a prompt each and every time you want to download something?

Prompts scare people, a lot of people never even read them. I've seen people download things, go through the download folder prompt, and then immediately ask me where the file was saved to.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#224

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

- www -> it's a PHP convention. I put all my repos here and it gets cluttered. I cache it in a subfolder if it's not in use

- downloads -> when I am not sure of where things should go. It gets messy here, I usually cache it in a subfolder by date range if not in use

- dropbox/pdfs/x -> PDFs of everything

- dropbox/photos -> organized by YYYY-MM folders. These are the original files cut-pasted from my phone with original metadata on it. I use googlephotos

- dropbox/software -> backups of different software configs

- dropbox/social -> a few set of images I reuse for portfolios / logos etc

- dropbox/sharex -> I usually have all my screenshots placed in a specific folder by default

------------------------------------------------------------------

I organize work files by department.

- Operations - Common docs needed across entire company - catalogs, fill-out-forms, leasing, guidelines, SOPs, etc

- Management - Accounting, credit references, w9 forms, HR, etc

- Images - Asset images only, of products /events/ services etc done. These are organized by major category

- Vendors - These are PDF/excel/word doc files from vendors, sorted alphanumerically by vendor name

- IT -> all IT related files here, backups of databases, data, spreadsheets, etc

- Outsource -> When I need to send a dropbox folder worth of contents to a developer, these are requirement / spec docs

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#225

Post by PurpleRamen »

w1nt3rmu4e wrote: post #88

If you happen to be fishing for app ideas, here's one I'd pay $50 for: An app that controls `~/Downloads` and automatically organizes (somehow), tracks usage and schedules files for deletion. Once a week I'd like to see a dialog listing files likely to be unwanted, info about how many times they've been accessed, where they came from, etc. With a simple, one button, 'trash them all'. The idea would be to optimize set…

This would be actually quite easy. Run a script every x minutes that scans ~/Downloads and grabs accesstime. Put it in a database or json-file, and output a statistic on demand and marks everything by some rules, like no access, last access, etc.

If you want a GUI it will become a bit more work. Modern scripter will properly just throw some electron on it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#226

Post by PurpleRamen »

Everything is under $HOME/Data divided in categories:

  - Apps -> executable binary software 
  - Backup
  - Code -> sourcecode of software 
  - Config -> dotfiles and stuff which goes to $HOME/.config or .local
  - Documents -> PDF, Epub, etc. Everything which is mostly readonly
  - Notes -> Plaintext-documents which are for read/write
  - Pictures
  - Projects -> Active Projects
  - Software -> Setup-Files for binary software, roms, etc.
  - Text -> Plaintext-data like logs, traces, etc. Usually readonly and generated from Software
  - Vault -> Binary App-Specific Data. Some readonly, some read/write
  - Video
  - VirtualEnv -> Python-Environments
  - VM -> Other Environments
Every categoryfolder has subfolders which contain projects/product/app-specific data. In case of App for example each folder is one app. In case of Code each folder is a repository. In case of Config each folder is for one specific app, with exception of misc which contains single config-files. Projects cotains folders with mixed data, each related to a specific shortliving task or project. Long living data go to other categoryfolders. Readonly means I don't change those data by myself, while read/write means I work with them regulary.

Overall everything quite simple. But reality is more complicate. $HOME/Data is the store and used as base for a script which will generate several link in my home-dir. This is done with #Tags in the foldername, or some predefinend rules, or by using a list of predefinend targets from a file (mostly used for Config-Entrys).

Main targets are:

  - $HOME/Archive -> Subfolders with #Done
  - $HOME/Playground -> Projects without a tag which are a git-repo
  - $HOME/Tasks -> All other Projects or subfolders with #Task
  - $HOME/Workspace -> Subfolders with #Workspace (usually from Data/Code or Data/Config)
I have then functions in my Editor and shell to access them comfortable and can avoid crappy projects-addons.

BUT, this is not the whole of it. $HOME/Data itself is also just a linkfarm. I don't have just one hard drive, but several drives and multiple devices from which use them. $HOME/Data is just the merge from the available drives on each device. Drives are mostly Dropbox, multiple NAS, Localdrive and external Drive. The simple reason for this setup is that I have some data I sync between devices, some other data are exclusive for specific locations (work) and I'm legally obligated to not mix them with personal data. Some other data are just to big to sync and I want them on a centralized system, and because there are so many of them I have multiple of them, and sometimes also workplaces with some NAS.

So, how I use this is, I mount drives somewhere, usually /mnt, and link them to $HOME/HUB. My script then iterates through them, and updates $HOME/Data. Hierachy is HUB/$DRIVE/$NAME/$CATEGORY. $CATEGORY are the topfolders from $HOME/Data (App, Code, Config...). $NAME is another special that I use to divide data even per drive. Normally I use it to separate personal workplace-related data which I'm allowed to mix with other data, like my own scripts or configs, or just some SFW wallpapers. but also old Projects where I could keep the sourcecode or other data. My script then collects the folders under $CATEGORY, generates $HOME/Data/$CATEGORY if it not exists, and links the folder there. If there are multiple folders with the same name it adds also $NAME to the linkname, so nothing gets forgotten.

I developed this in the last 10-15 years, and over the years it evolved in some way or another. Biggest pain is to create new, rename or move existing folders, because I in this case I can't work on the link. For this I use scripts which in 99% works painless. Additionally I have some more scripts which move files from certain locations (mainly download-folder) to specific targets. Works fine for regulary files with structures names, not so much for random stuff.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#227

Post by laumars »

kakarot wrote: post #223
laumars wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realise the people you're criticizing are actually the vast majority of people who own a computer? The arrogance demonstrated on HN sometimes just shows that some people in tech are completely detached from how normal people interact with a computer. > What's the point in setting standards if you don't use them? Just to be clear, you're talking about a de facto standard and nothing more. Also there's nothing s…

I didn't criticize anyone. It's a simple fact that most people don't take the time to sit down and understand the systems they use. I don't understand how recognizing that makes me arrogant. Recognizing there is a disconnect is the first step towards creating better systems and educational material for those systems. > Just to be clear, you're talking about a de facto standard and nothing more. It doesn't get much mo…

> I didn't criticize anyone.

> Accessibility is very important to me, and I'm not simply disregarding the vast majority of users.

Fair enough. The language you used did feel like it was intended to be a criticism (re "It's not Mozilla's fault that there are people out there who never bother to learn their computer") because the common complaint techies seem to make about people who are less computer literate is that they hadn't bothered to learn it (an argument you maintained in your last post too). When in fact it's often a case that they have tried but simply don't understand where to start, or they're not naturally used to that kind of activity (much like how I'm useless at writing songs regardless of how hard I used to try). And some people are just intimidated by computers so always second guess themselves even when they probably do know what they're doing.

> Recognizing there is a disconnect is the first step towards creating better systems and educational material for those systems.

At risk of degrading the discussion, technically I was the one who highlighted the problem in the context of creating better systems. You then went on to say it's not system’s (Mozilla’s) fault.

> What's better, one ten-second educational widget for a user which teachers them to better understand the system they use, or a prompt each and every time you want to download something?

That's an interesting question. The truthful answer is I don't know. I've worked with people who only needed to be shown something once and they picked it up straight away; but I've also worked with people who have no ability to remember how to operate a computer or were intimidated by it so would second guess themselves constantly and thus they needed the machine to walk them through each step of the process each and every time. I'm an unofficial tech support for my elderly neighbours (which is unfortunate for all parties involved because I don't use any of the platforms they run so spend most of my time making educated guesses) and they also benefit from repeated instructions.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#228

Post by m-p-3 »

I usually go with this structure

  -Documentation  
  -Installers  
  --Drivers  
  --Games  
  --Operating Systems  
  -Media  
  --TV Shows  
  ---Show Name  
  ----Season  
  --Movies  
  --Music  
  ---Artist  
  ----Album  
  --Pictures  
  ---Year  
  ----Month  
  -Downloads (keep files there for 30 days max, then categorize or delete)
The whole thing is synced and versionned with Syncthing across several nodes.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive?

#229

Post by noir_lord »

lucb1e wrote: post #129
noir_lord wrote: post #105

~/.build (random stuff I've had to build) ~/projects/personal/ (any of my stuff) ~/projects/ / / (work stuff) ~/Dropbox ~/Scratch ~/Journal ~/Applications That's about it really.

What is the vscode journal plugin? Dropbox is also not really obvious. It's obviously a reference to Dropbox Inc, and I assume you don't work there so it must be a synchronised folder, but I can't smell what's in there from this distance.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=pajoma.v...

And the related view plugin, excellent easy to use journaling with automatic naming by day and other stuff.

It works mid because you can learn all of it in ten minutes and if you are already a vscode user you’d have it open anyway.

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