Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 11:35:01 -0500

From: Mark Mandel Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM

Subject: computer clutter



When I see something I like on one of the newsgroups I read at home I download it to my home

computer; same for mail

that I want to save, whether from a list or individual. The way I do it results in the files all landing

in a folder (aka

subdirectory) called Downloads, from which I move them to the appropriate places.



That's the theory, anyway. The Downloads folder recently checked out at several MB, I don't

remember just how many.

So last night I sat down to it and started quick-scanning through it, opening each file and deciding

either to trash it or to

keep it; if keeping, clean it up (strip out dozens of excess lines of header and footer), then either

put it directly in its

destination location or move it to "Downloads to Keep", which are mostly in a single category

(filk*), and which I WILL

have to remember to file appropriately. I didn't finish it -- there's still a LOT in the Downloads

folder -- but I completely

emptied out the old subfolder titled "Before April 1997". I had stuff a year and a half old there,

most of it either of no

value anymore, or corrupted (system crash in June), or good for a laugh and then OUT.



I don't know just how much went out, because I emptied the Trash several times and didn't write

down the amounts

emptied, but I must have dumped nearly two meg. Something to feel good about :-)\ . There's a

lot more to do, but that's

an accomplishment.



* Musical (though some disagree ;-)\ ), and usually related to fantasy or science fiction. See my

page

http://world.std.com/~mam/filk.html



Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com

Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200

320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/

Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/