After the attention that my Portable Applications collection got last weekend, I have decided to update that collection as well as my Essential Software Collection CD. The difference between the two is that the ESC CD is mostly software that you would want to install on a permanent basis. Of course, there is quite a bit of overlap, and I haven't decided how to manage it yet.
Actually, there are a lot of things I have decided on yet. I didn't really mean for this stuff to be ongoing projects. I just threw them together to meet my needs. Now I have to figure out how often I want to update them and how I select what becomes a part of the collections. The other problem is that they are huge files. It seems that using BitTorrent to distribute them works best. In addition to that, I'm going to try USENET. And if someone really wants a copy, I'll mail them the files on CD (for a small fee).
If all goes well, I should have some updated releases by the end of next week. Of course, I could already be done if I really wanted to. Instead, I have decided to take a more systematic approach. I have been building a database of what packages are in each collection. Then, to publish the set, I just click a button and it takes a snapshot of the current database and makes the collection complete. The system isn't perfect, but I'm still learning. I've been using XML and XSL to get the output like I want. So far it is working pretty good. Like I said, I hope to have a release finished by next weekend.
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