Howdy. I'm a converting mainframe programmer with less than a year of PC programming experience (same company) with VS 2K5. I'm digging the new 'freedom' to try new tools on my PC and have become maybe what you'd call a utility packrat. I have all sorts of open source utilities, freeware utilities, VS plugins/add-ins/snippet collections and the like. What I don't have is a good system for ensuring I give each one a proper evaluation an making sure I only keep the good and throw out the bad.
To be sure there are a handful if items that have worked their way into daily/weekly use - but for the most part I'll come across an older (couple of months?) downloaded installer and just wonder "WTF did I download this for" and never get around to checking it out.
Surely I can't be the only one who grabs something from a link posted in forums(like this one) and makes a mental note to 'check it out later" but "later" never comes.
Anyone got any good suggestions for how to manage a stable of not-necessarily-related utilities and how to keep track of what works, what doesn't, and why?