Windows Tip - Create Lots of Files Fast

Credit goes to TechHead74 at this location for the following tip, which allowed me to quickly create a large number of folders.

Hi everyone! So I did find an answer to my question. I used the format that Steve provided for a while until I recently found a much better and easier way to do this. Below is an example. You can change it for your own purposes later.

1.) Create a root folder in which you want your other folders to appear.

2.) Open Notepad.

3.) Save your blank Notepad document as dir.bat.  Exactly like that (minus the period at the end of bat, of course).

4.) Within the dir.bat document, write the following:

md test1

md test2

md test3

md C:\Users\janedoe\Desktop

5.) Save and then close the dir.bat file.

6.) Go to Start -> Run.

7.) From the Run screen, browse for the dir.bat file and select open. In this example I would find it at C:\Users\janedoe\Desktop.

8.) Select OK. A command window may flash on the screen momentarily. That's okay.

9.) Go to the C:\Users\janedoe\Desktop. Your newly created files will be there.

Notes:

- you can replace the test1 files with the names of the files you want to create

- to create file names with spaces put them in quotation marks. For example "md test 4"

- if your file folder has a name with spaces in it, put quotation marks around it. For example, md "C:\Users\jane doe\Desktop"

- to create a sub folder put a slash there. For example, md test3/graphics.

- double clicking the file is the same as running the file. If you want to edit the file right click the file and select edit.

Managing Data

At My First Full-Time Job

At my first full-time job after college, I was the most informed when it came to all things computer and technology related, which, among other things, made me responsible for networking the computers in the office.  My first job began in the days before Dropbox and similar programs/ services were available.  Since the office I worked in was small (only one other computer using person and I at first) it was possible for us to get by just emailing each other the documents we were working on.  This worked OK except that our non-computer using employer seemed to go out of his way to assign updates to be made to the documents we were working on to the person that didn't have the current version of the document on their computer.  I could access the files on the other employee’s computer, which she knew I could do.  I tried to teach her how to do the same to access files on my computer but I had to explain it verbally every single time, which threw off my train of thought and made email the better option.  Plus, there was no accountability if a file was deleted or went missing and no quick way of establishing which of our documents was the most current.  When we added more people the ability to quickly access the file on the other employee's computer because more time consuming because it could be in several places on either one of two computers.

Finally, I switched everything over to DropBox.  Every document we used would live inside a single folder.  A few dozen sub-folders would help to keep the tens of thousands of documents in some semblance of order.

My Hard Drive These Days

I took the lessons I learned about data management with me after I left that job.  My hard drive these days has a single folder that takes up 90.1 GB of hard disk space in which there are currently 91 sub-folders that contain 86,238 files scattered across 10, 675 sub-sub (and lower down the nesting tree) folders.  Some of these folders, i.e. "Pictures", "Movies", graphic design source files and some of the projects or things I'm not currently working on are stored separately on a 1.5 TB Western Digital external hard drive I bought for $99 in folders that use the same 91 names as the the sub-folders on my working hard drive so that, in theory, I could quickly merge them all and store everything on one hard drive.

Here are some of the 91 sub-folders that have titles which I feel comfortable sharing and in some cases a brief description of the contents of that folder.  The rest either refer to specific people, i.e. the names of my parents, the name of some of the neighborhoods where I have lived in the past, or things/ projects:

·         00_Inbox – a folder that contains all of the stuff that would otherwise take up space on my desktop or in my Downloads folder.  The items in this folder are to be sorted and kicked into one of the other folders or deleted when I have time.

·         01_Films – I added numbers to the more important/ frequently used folders

·         02_Music

·         03_Photos

·         07_Books

·         09_ReviewAndDelete – serves the same function as the 00_Inbox except that this one is called “09_ReviewAndDelete” to help ensure that nothing on this system is where it should be.  Argh.

·         Accounting – more boring

·         Apartment Hunt

·         Articles

·         BusinessCards

·         Cache – files containing some of the quasi-impressive things I’ve accomplished in my life

·         CellPics- no real reason these shouldn’t just be filed in the same Pictures folder as everything else except that I haven’t bothered to move them over yet

·         ContactLists

·         Correspondence- this contains Words documents of both the physical letters I write and copies of their associated envelopes

·         Directions – what’s the point in looking something up twice?  When I look up directions online I save a copy here just in case I need to get somewhere and I don’t have access to the internet.  This is also a bit of a holdover from my time at my first job where my employer didn’t use the computer and needed directions printed out for him.

·         Disputes – I don’t get into a lot but whenever a situation arises that might find its way into a courtroom in this insanely litigious country we can still legally call the United States of America without fear of being sued for trademark infringement or libel yet, I believe it’s important to keep everything that relates to any disagreements that arise.  If I ever get around to it I might share the story of two of these situations which both relate to scams involving trying to dupe those hunting for jobs.

·         Education

·         Entertainment – a collection of lists some of which have found their way onto the Clean Sheets and Dirty Girls site

·         Exercise

·         Famous Works of Art – should be merged with Photos

·         Fitness – why is this different from Exercise?

·         Flash Cards

·         Food – contains recipes, grocery lists, menus and photos of food

·         Fonts

·         Goals – “Own your own house” doesn’t need to be written over and over again but at least with this folder I have a place to put such statements

·         Hiking – moved along with Fitness into Exercise

·         InstructionManualsAndDirections – instead of keeping tons of little booklets of different sizes for everything I take digital photos of them once, or get the .pdf copy from the manufacture’s websites, and recycle the original physical copy.

·         JobHunt

·         Journal – The slightly more adult version of “I sat behind Samantha in class today.  Her hair smells fresh like a green meadow the morning after a gentle rain if that meadow were also the spot where a crate full of products from Bath and Body works burst open after falling from a cargo plane high above.”

·         Labels

·         Lists

·         Misc

·         MovingInformation – probably should be merged with ApartmentHunt into one HouseHunt folder

·         Notes – why is this different from the Journal folder?

·         OED – personal copies of some of the things I’ve looked up on the Oxford English Dictionary over the years

·         OLD – stuff that there is no point in deleting entirely but doesn’t come up regularly

·         PersonalInventory – What I would like to do is have a document or database that contains an entry for every single thing I own that includes the date I purchased it, what I paid for it, where it’s located (although this really is thinking ahead to a time when I have more living space it would still be nice to know, for example, that I have a big pack of AA batteries in a drawer before I go out and buy new ones).  Also, I think such a list would help to suggest what I might need a new one of in case I see a sale on something.  My hope is that such a list will help me to become a bit more of a minimalist by forcing me to track and therefore justify to myself after the time of purchase why I bought such a thing.  I haven’t really gotten around to doing this project because to do it right would involve me picking up and photographing everything I own and moving things is a pain.  Plus, I don’t have enough space right now in my tiny little room for everything to go anywhere but in piles and unpacking things and adding to that problem seems like a nightmare scenario.

·         Photography Ideas –

·         Photoshop

·         Portfolio

·         ProfilePictures

·         Projects

·         Receipts

·         ReviewAndTrash – my goodness I’m bad at keeping everything in one Inbox

·         Sites – backup copies of the websites I’ve created

·         Sounds – contains sound effects ,which in my mind are different enough from music to warrant their own folder

·         Templates

·         ToDoLists – #1 Empty To Do List folder

·         Travel – information about possible destinations

·         Wallpapers – setup to rotate every five minutes, which I find is long enough not to be distracting yet short enough that it’s usually different every time I glance at it.

·         Wanted Items – helps me to justify buying anything I find out in the real world since I previously took the time to note it here and list a reason why it would be helpful. In theory this stops me from buying things I don’t need.

·          

Windows 8

Windows 8

On the evening of February 29, 2012 I installed Windows 8 and started playing with Microsoft's latest operating system.  At 3:30 a.m. I finally shut it down and got some sleep.  In the days between then and now I've been using Windows 8 in place of sleep to the same degree.  Below are my initial reactions, which focus on these super exciting topics:

• Metro hasn't Replaced the Desktop, Just the Start Menu
• Upgrading from Windows 7 was a Breeze
• Metro Isn't Terrible
• Transferring Files Looks Fancier

Can you stand the excitement?

Metro hasn't Replaced the Desktop, Just the Start Menu


The fact that the desktop environment looks virtually the same and that Metro has only replaced the Start button menu really wasn't obvious to me when I first began seeing images of Windows 8 in action.

Upgrading from Windows 7


The process of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was as smooth as freshly waxed skin.  After briefly waiting for the redness to go away, I found that all of my settings and what little data I kept on my computer (I backed up and removed almost all of my files before the update) made it through the upgrade with no problems.  Only one of the applications I had installed on Windows 7 refused to work once I upgraded to Windows 8 and the updating software made me aware of that issue before I committed to the upgrade.  Since I had only used that application once several months ago, I didn't think twice about losing it during the upgrade process.


Windows 8 - Missing Start Button / The Metro Interface

I had serious doubts about the wisdom of Microsoft for their decision to get rid of the Start button in favor of the brightly colored Metro interface.  How will office workers adapt to having their beloved Start button disappear?  Will IT departments bother to adopt this software if it will only cause them to be flooded with questions about basic functionality?  Shouldn't Microsoft create separate operating systems for tablets and PCs rather than force a touch screen swipe style interface on PC users? 

The Metro interface can be accessed in the same place the Start button used to be.  Pressing the Windows button on your keyboard or moving the mouse to the very bottom left of the Windows Desktop and left clicking once will pull up the Metro Interface.

I Still Don't Like the Bright Colored Boxes.

Customizing the Colors and or Adding Custom 

Background Images is Outside the Scope of this Post 

but may be Covered Later.

I was highly skeptical about the Metro interface before installing Windows 8, but now that I've used it for a little bit I'm completely comfortable with Metro.  The scroll wheel on my mouse slides the interface back and forth nicely.  I also tried playing with the interface without the scroll wheel and found it was most comfortable to use with the arrow keys rather than clicking holding and scrubbing the slider which is all the way along the bottom edge of the screen.

A quick right click will bring up an option to make all of your applications visible.  I do find it strange that selecting this viewing mode brings up icons for each program instead of the style of boxes that appear in the image above.  I'm no Khoi Vinh but when I design a user interface I try to make it consistent. 

The rest of the functionality of the Start button appears when moving the mouse over to the right edge of the screen.

Windows 8 - Transferring Files

The file transfer window got a bit more fancy in Windows 8 compared to previous versions of Windows.  Here is a screen capture of the window during a file transfer:

The horizontal line bounces up and down as the speed of

the transfer shifts and the green graph shows the history of the

speed of that transfer.  Fancy.

Towards the End of the Transfer The Window Looked Like This

I wish the built-in options for transferring files between two folders that contain files with similar information were more elegant.  Certainly Windows came a long way in Vista, if I recall correctly, when the functionality of selecting to replace, don't move or copy and keep both files by adding a number to the end of the file name was helpful.  What I would really like to see is an option for copying and keeping just the newer and/ or larger file to be built-in.

Update March 7, 2012, 1:56 p.m.:

I was wrong in writing the paragraph above.  Windows 8 does include options to intelligently combine two folders with similar files.  See:

Yeah, I do have a folder with photos of awesome foods.

Design

I'm about to wrap things up with this post so don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I Would Constantly Fight the Urge to Crumple this Up and Trash It

This paper airplane doorstop is made out of plastic and at only $8 including shipping to my address here in the United States it's tempting.  Here is the link to the online store where you can buy this designer doorstop.


TL;DR: I geek out about Windows 8.  As usual, you could read the material in bold to get the gist of what I'm saying.

Creative Arsenal

My Creative Arsenal:


As of today, I use the following pieces of electronics.

The computer on the right is an Asus Eee 1000HE netbook, which I upgraded by adding a 2GB RAM card.  I'm really in love with this relatively inexpensive little computer and would highly recommend the Eee brand to anyone in the market for a new computer.

The iPod is the 80 GB model, which was the top of the line when it was released.  I probably never would have sprung for something so expensive but, incredibly enough, I found this iPod near my garage door early one morning.  The back is really scratched up but it is in perfect working condition.  I never saw any signs posted about a lost iPod and had no idea who to return it to so it became mine a few years ago.  Whoever purchased it originally would have been wise to get it engraved with their name and phone number.  I would have called and arranged for them to pick it up.

The cell phone is the original BlackBerry Storm, which I bought the month it came out.  At the time, I was working in a demanding job and was traveling fairly often for work.  The ability to get my emails and access the internet on the go made my life a lot easier.  I don't work at the same job anymore and to be honest I don't need a smartphone any longer but I still use it.

One of these things is not like the others

OR

The cell phone and the iPod didn't really fit into the

 fingerprint v. no fingerprint classification system

These are some of the pieces of technology I own that make me productive.  The gloves are there only because  it happened to be snowing heavily when I took this photo in February, 2011.

Thoughts on Updating:

I really hope that Asus continues to make the screens on their Eee line larger.  I go though laptops quicker than most since I use them all the time at home and I bring mine with me whenever I travel.  When I replace this computer I hope there is an Eee with a solid state hard drive and a screen that measures 12"+ available.

The BlackBerry Storm isn't bad but the lack of WiFi, lack of ability to tether and the far better collection of apps available for the iPhone and Android based phones have me thinking about trading it up for something more cutting edge or scaling back the monthly payment and opting for a pricing plan that doesn't include internet access.  I'll weigh the options between an Android phone, iPhone and a basic cell phone in a future post.

The functionality of my iPod is already built into my BlackBerry Storm.  In fact, the only reason I use this iPod is because the battery on my phone is starting to go and I can use it longer if I don't use it to play music.

My Old Dell Dimension

I'm happy to have purchased and installed an upgrade to the RAM for my secondary computing device- an old Dell tower from about 2002 or 2003.

That's right, it's got a CD writer, a DVD player and a 3.5"disc drive

Upgrading the RAM in my old Dell desktop computer has greatly increased the speed at which the machine responds to my input.  I started out with a measly 256 MB of RAM and bought a 512MB chip to boost the total to 768 MB.  Those extra 512 MB made a huge positive change in terms of how I can use the computer.

Before the upgrade, I would double click on something, switch over to my primary computer and glance back at my old computer in frustration several times before anything would happen.  Internet pages refused to load and when they did it took a long time and often random images on that page wouldn't load at all.  I couldn't get any YouTube video to load.  About the only thing the computer was good for was playing music making it an iPod roughly the size of a small suitcase that weighs somewhere around 40 lbs.

Please mind the extension cord, ladies.

 Before upgrading the RAM, I rarely turned on my old desktop tower computer.  When I did, I didn't expect much and was still often disappointed.

After the upgrade, the computer came out of dry dock and I could once again set sail on the internet's open waves.  When I double clicked, programs and documents opened right away.  YouTube videos now play just fine (albeit not in full-screen mode, grumble, grumble).

The Dell is still fairly old but now that I can use it at a reasonable speed I find myself doing the following:

• Browsing the internet
• Displaying Flickr slideshows to distract/ entertain me while doing something else
• Playing downloaded movies and TV shows
• Playing music and podcasts through iTunes
• Trying out things in the Chrome App Store
• Typing and saving Open Office Writer and Calc documents to a Dropbox account, which shares with my main computer

Pro-tip: Adding more RAM makes your computer function better. 

TL;DR: Eh, you didn't miss much.  Read the pro-tip and share what you use your backup/ secondary computer for, if you have one.  

Functions of My Computer

My computer has replaced:

• Newspaper purchase/ subscription
• Buying CDs and DVDs
• TV (except during major sporting events especially since the January 2011 crackdown on sites broadcasting pirated feeds of cable broadcasts, or so I've been told.  I still have cable but what I mean is that I could get by without it with all the video content available for free online.)
• Books (except brand new works which can still be had through the library and frankly I get distracted when trying to read anything that isn't intensely compelling using the computer.  When I have the internet at my fingertips I typically don't stick to reading anything too dense for long.)
• Asking for directions
• Maps (My old AAA maps have become informative wall art)
• Other Entertainment of any other kind (although it hasn't stopped me from spending a lot of money on other forms of entertainment)
• A Calendar
• An Address Book or contact list
• A Camera (Technically, I have one built-in to my netbook although I do still use a Canon 6 megapixel digital camera and my cellphone camera)
• Any other source for a weather report
• A notebook and pen (although I find them useful still when my laptop is out of power and there is no outlet, I want to sketch something quickly, I need to take down information somewhere a laptop would not be convenient to operate, etc.)
• A phone by using Skype (although those around me still insist on using cellphone and landline technology so I pay more than I think is reasonable for a sort-of-smart phone service plan)
• A magazine subscription of any kind

I thought about all of this while walking through an Office Max recently.  I came across a whole aisle of leather, vinyl and paper planers, organizers, address books and notebooks in all sorts of sizes and colors.  What stuck me was just how worthless these things are to anyone that knows how to use a computer.  Google's Calendar, Apple's iCal, the contacts feature inside of Gmail, and any of the huge number of word processing applications available have rendered all of these things obsolete.  

I figure keeping a list of the things my computer does will help me avoid redundancy in my future purchases.