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Archive your old projects

arne.me

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Re: Archive your old projects

#11

Post by bluehatbrit »

raybb wrote: post #6

If not putting them online publicly how do you store / organize them? I just recently bought a NAS for 20 euros and have been thinking about setting it up but am skeptical of relying on it for anything too important. But then again don't feel I can really trust anything too important to be in google drive either. I also even have a hetzner nextcloud instance that I use for most low/medium importance stuff but I've fo…

I don't store much stuff, so I mostly backup to AWS S3 and Backblaze (duplicated). I use Arq on windows and mac machines, and restic on linux. Job done! I'm looking at getting a NAS soon myself and then I'll backup or save to that as needed.

If you're not storing much then it's pretty cheap. For me it's mostly just photos and important documents, it comes to no more than a few 100GB total and costs me maybe 5 USD per month if that.

Re: Archive your old projects

#12

Post by hypertexthero »

Create a folder on your computer or get a sturdy box made of good cardboard with a lid. Name the folder “Process”. Write the word “Process” on the box.

While working, occasionally take photos or screenshots of what you are doing showing your workspace, the computer desktop, the desk with pencils and papers and cables everywhere, the wall or piece of string with notes. Show the messy process of creating something.

Type notes on text files and save them with a name like yyyy-mm-dd-note-title.txt. Write notes on bits of paper and notebooks and journals with pencils and pens that you keep all around the places you spend most of your time in, including within arms-reach of where you sleep.

Practice writing down notes on a piece of paper in the dark, so you can do so when waking up in the night, before daybreak, to jot down thoughts and ideas from dreams.

Record messages and melodies using your pocket computer and remember to save these in your Process folder, too. You are looking for your voice.

Put these digital and physical notes in the Process folder and in the Process box.

Thank yourself later, in years to come.

You are what you observed. Experiences, memories, stories to be told. Put your marker on the map in time, that others may find and learn from.

Re: Archive your old projects

#13

Post by LVB »

My main, albeit simple, local organizational pattern is: 1. everything under ~/dev 2. all projects are their own folder under a year folder. And if I ever restart work on something older, I move it to the current year.

I have hundreds of project folders and it’s helpful day-to-day to just be able to look in ~/dev/2023 for current stuff. But it is also relatively easy to find older things since I have a sense of roughly how far back they are. Making a new year folder right around Jan 1 and rolling forward active work is always a treat.

Re: Archive your old projects

#14

Post by skydhash »

dewey wrote: post #4
andershaig wrote: post #2

I've started tracking an index of projects and their status in Notion. Then I create an extra page based on a template to put things on hold but make them resumable in the future. In my index, I track: name, status (active, paused, inactive), description, goal and a link to the archive doc if it exist. My archive doc looks like this (I generally delete any sections that aren't relevant to keep these easy to create):…

A closed source app like that seems like the worst choice for an "archive". Better to use a format that you can easily backup and that will still be readable in many years like a simple text file.

Not really if you can code. Even apple notes is not that bad because the database is readable (and there are already script to export). What I fear is when companies lock you data on their servers and you have to keep paying or be a good citizen to access it.

Re: Archive your old projects

#15

Post by RajT88 »

raybb wrote: post #6

If not putting them online publicly how do you store / organize them? I just recently bought a NAS for 20 euros and have been thinking about setting it up but am skeptical of relying on it for anything too important. But then again don't feel I can really trust anything too important to be in google drive either. I also even have a hetzner nextcloud instance that I use for most low/medium importance stuff but I've fo…

Where did you buy a NAS for 20 Euros?

My old DNS-320 was ~100 euro new. And it kind of sucked.

Re: Archive your old projects

#17

Post by dewey »

skydhash wrote: post #14
dewey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A closed source app like that seems like the worst choice for an "archive". Better to use a format that you can easily backup and that will still be readable in many years like a simple text file.

Not really if you can code. Even apple notes is not that bad because the database is readable (and there are already script to export). What I fear is when companies lock you data on their servers and you have to keep paying or be a good citizen to access it.

The nice thing about plain text, easy to find archives is that they can even be useful (maybe not for yourself any more) if you for some reason can't use your computer any more.

Re: Archive your old projects

#18

Post by imhoguy »

Just a hint, which I think works well for some more complicated programming project setups: if the project is close to be shelved then preserve it in a virtual machine. Make some trivial auth, or auto login, put some notes on login/desktop screen, setup some IDE inside, check if it builds with no Internet.

Myself I use lightweight Xubuntu destkop for my VMs. I also dump hard disks of old Windows machines I am done with and make sure they run fine as VMs.

Re: Archive your old projects

#19

Post by bxparks »

doctorhandshake wrote: post #10

My corollary axiom: “always be documentin’”, or, “document or it didn’t happen”. I’d say easily 3/4 of the best stuff I’ve ever done was never bounced from the DAW/NLE, turned into a non-realtime/static artifact from code, or otherwise made archival, and far fewer projects / prototypes / physical experiments got the respect of any capture of any kind. On a certain level I like the wabi-sabi nature of that. On another…

I read this like 3-4 times and I cannot parse or understand this comment. What does "DAW/NLE" mean? (DDG search says Digital Audio Workstation, and a whole bunch of links to something NLE Choppa). What does "non-realtime/static artifact from code" mean? What does "got the respect of any capture" mean? What does "wabi-sabi" mean? How does all this relate to "always documenting"?
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