I have been writing a bit of code on the train into work lately. Putting together simple little windows tweaks like the virtual desktop manager I posted earlier. At this point I have a pile of components that I realize can be strung together into a simple shell. How do I always end up writing shell replacements? I suppose if you really want to customize the Windows environment in any serious way, you end up here.

Anyways, I have been trying to justify making yet another shell toy. There are so many good shells kicking around that it seems to be a waste of time, unless I can come up with something unique I suppose.

I tossed up a projects menu and dumped in some template wiki page links. The idea is that I will eventually become ambitious enough to actually create some content around here.

A while back I created a quick utility called Parasite, and posted a public SVN repositiory. I needed a quick and dirty solution to append binaries. What I really wanted was to escape the need for installer type applications like NSIS. I have never been a big fan of these tools, but I dislike shipping a messy zip archive as a distribution for an application more.

Parasite allows me to pack binary resources (images, mp3s, themes, zips, any binary files) onto the end of a standing portable executable file. When the application is executed, I can extract pieces to temp folders, or do whatever I like with them, and the user only deals with double clicking a EXE file. I figure it would be handy for distribution of shell themes, or hiding a complex shell entirely in a single EXE file.

I am sure many tools exist that do this same thing, but it would have taken me longer to find one that I actually like, than it would for me to just make my own. I also like that I can modify to do whatever weird nonsense I can dream up in the future.

As for this new shell project, it seems that the windows shell buzz has all but died off. There seems to be very little interest in the community anymore. I don’t expect that I could attract developers or even interested testers who would provide valuable feedback. Sadly this is the fate of past projects that I just stopped bothering with.

Snore.

~SowWn