My Ephemerae

“André Cassagnes, Etch A Sketch Inventor, Is Dead at 86″, NY Times: http://nyti.ms/TwAaTe

http://j.mp/WDGDZr  (NBC)

As the article says:

Some of the information in the little-known database, created through an Equifax-owned company called The Work Number, is sold to debt collectors, financial service companies and other entities.  “It’s the biggest privacy breach in our time, and it’s legal and no one knows it’s going on,” said Robert Mather, who runs a small employment background company named Pre-Employ.com. “It’s like a secret CIA.”

graphic created by CollegeAtHome.com and used under a Creative Commons License

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/richard-nixons-reputation

When I read this article/editorial, I just felt I wanted to share it. Fortunately I have a blog that let’s me do exactly that.

The final comment kind of sums it up, and offers a lesson:

Yes, he was a great political analyst and promoted important social-welfare programs, but he also was a crook who was forced to relinquish the presidency. That is his legacy.

I’ve long wondered why Microsoft puts things where it does.

A simple and rather trivial analysis of file content quickly shows that files can generally be divided into three types:

1) Files (like programs) which you load from an extermal physical source (like a CD) and do not change and, hence, do not need to back up (which is nice because these files are frequently large).

2) Files (like program and system configuration files), which, while you load from an external source, you do (by design) modify and, hence, do need to back up.

3) Files which are clearly “data files” from the start, which you create from scratch or modify extensively, (e.g., printed documents [e.g. Word documents], visuals you create, emails, and similar) and hence, obviously need to back up.

In the standard configuration of Microsoft Windows environments #3-files are “generally” placed “underneath” (or “within”) “My Documents” making a backup of “My Documents” a simple technique.

Similarly, #1-files are generally not placed with “My Documents” hence ensuring that a backup of “My Documents” will not unnecessarily back them up.

That said there are (at least) two sources of hiccups.

First, Microsoft does not place all #3-files underneath “My Documents”. The most common files I’ve encountered are the .PST files used by Outlook to contain your email messages. By default these are not placed underneath “My Documents” so backing up “My Documents” will not (if you used the defaults) back up your emails.

[It is for this reason that all my PSTs are stored underneath "My Documents/Outlook". That way when I back up "My Documents" I back them up also.]

Second, #2-files, the “configuration files”, are tucked away in unusual places, making backup and sharing much more difficult than necessary.

My question, which I’ve been asking since the late 90′s is “why?”.

What purpose does it serve to make backup and sharing of program/system configuration files so difficult?

Consider this example: Your PC is stolen. You wish to return to where you were.

So, you buy a replacement and you set out to get back on track. You reload all the software you dutifully licensed. You reload all your files which you backed up.

Why do you now need to reconfigure all your programs again? Why can’t you just reload the back up of the directory that contains all the configuration files?

Here is one example related to Microsoft Outlook:
If you use Outlook Rules (and I do extensively) you need to export the rules every time you modify them to create a known file you can backup/share. Fortunately I do that and I store that file with my other Outlook files in the “My Documents/Outlook” directory. But why is that necessary?

Here is another example:
I use the features of Outlook which allow me to customize the View of my Inbox (e.g., adding colors based on the categories assigned by the Outlook Rules previously mentioned, and by adding columns of data not shown by the default configuration). However, per the article at http://bit.ly/YqMyBy

Microsoft Outlook doesn’t offer an easy method to backup or share custom views, and exporting the contents to a new pst does not include the views or custom forms.

[Note that the referenced article does include a working method to overcome Microsoft's onerous omission.]

Issues such as these could be easily overcome if Microsoft simply followed the three part file classification scheme I outlined above.