the corner office

One of the apps I realised I'm missing the most is a free utility called Folder Size, which does exactly what you'd expect - display the total size of folders on your PC, both in tree and graph formats, colour coded 'n all. Just the thing when you're trying to see why your hard drive is filling up, or how to chop & shuffle directories to fit onto CDs and DVDs and the like. It's duly re-downloaded.

I first discovered the app back in 2001. At the time I was rather impressed (as is our wont) to note that it was written by a fellow South African named Jan Horn. His email address is in the bottom corner of Folder Size's window, and I always wanted to drop him a mail to thank him for his app. Never did, though. A few months ago, I was doing some OpenGL research and came across Jan's site again - it turns out he was a well-respected OpenGL coder who had a number of excellent OpenGL tutorials and demos on his site. I speak in the past tense because sadly, I also discovered that Jan had been killed in a car crash back in 2002. In tribute to the work he'd done, others have kept his web site going and continued to add content to the site.

His download page still has Folder Size, and a number of other utilities as well.

Reading through his site, and looking at the heaps of work he did - it's humbling to see how gifted, and prolific, he was. He seems to have been an incredibly inspiring person.