About Ian's Software Site

History of Ian's Software Site

Background

Having been involved with personal computers since the very earliest days (the late 1970s), I've witnessed some amazing advances in the past 50+ years. There's no doubt that today's computers and software are both incredibly powerful by comparison and that there are apps available to do just about anything.

However, I've also seen some developments that really bug me!

Bigger and Better?

First and foremost, I've seen a lot of software getting bigger without necessarily getting better. It seems that many software developers have lost sight of just how simple and elegant a computer app can be! There is so much emphasis on making apps “pretty”, which would be fine if it wasn't at the expense of reliability.

For example, when I delete a bunch of files, I really don't need to see animations of bits of paper flying through the air, getting crumpled, and disappearing in a rubbish bin. Sure, they're “cute”, but all of this extra nonsense is contributing to making Windows so big, clunky and unreliable.

Questionable Activities

Secondly, the growth and expansion of the Internet has seen the emergence of a lot of questionable software. Many apps use the Internet to gather information about users and/or track their usage. In addition, the biggest software companies are creating a real “dependence” on their particular website (eg. for “scheduled updates”) and people are already taking this dependence for granted.

Going Small

I therefore started doing my own experiments to “get back to basics”. I wanted to see just how small I could make a useful app. My collection of “micro-applications” started with some simple utilities (such as my ClipText app), then expanded to some more powerful applications.

The latest of these are my image optimization apps JPGExtra and PNGExtra, which I'm sure will become very useful apps to anyone else who, like me, realizes the benefits to be gained by optimizing the image files on their websites.

Conclusion

I know that many people won't understand this minimalist philosophy, considering that computers continue to get more powerful and that there is less “need” to optimize to this extent. Philosophy aside, I hope that you enjoy using one or more of my micro-applications.