Create a Portable, Personal, Workspace with a USB Flash Drive

Many people are under the mistaken impression that they can only use their favorite computer tools and / or programs from their desktop machines or laptops. So, before moving on to the second Web Cartoon Maker tutorial, I will demonstrate how you can turn a "Flash" USB Drive into portable computer platform or programming suite.

All you need do is:

1. Purchase or find a USB "Flash" Drive (one of those small things that fits into a USB port on your computer, as in the image, above). A drive with 8 Gb of space will be more than sufficient.

2. Plug this drive into your computer, locate it with "My Computer" or "Computer," and then "right click" | "format." This will format your Flash Drive to your computer's default file architecture.

3. Go to PortableApps.com and download, then install, the package named "Portable Apps Suite " to your Pen Drive. Make certain that this file is installed on your Flash Drive by changing the destination of the install to " :\". As an example, my Flash Drive's address is "E:" and the Apps Suite installed as "E:\Apps Suite." This package, when fully-installed, will take up ~ 530 Mb of drive space. Assuming that your drive has 8 Gb of space available, this represents less than 10% of its capacity.

Once the installation is completed, open the Apps Suite folder. You will discover that you now have, on your Flash Drive, about a dozen new applications. Among these you will find:

* Mozilla's Firefox (web browser), Thunderbird (E-mail client), and Sunbird (personal scheduling and planning, soon to be merged with Thunderbird to form a new application code-named Lightening ) ; *

ClamWin (antivirus);

* Pidgin Portable (Instant Messenger client that works with most available chat / messenger programs, including Yahoo, Google Chat, IRC, and AOL);

* a few simple games and audio players, plus

* Open Office 3.x (complete office suite that is comparable to Microsoft Office, but doesn't cost $500).

While the applications that come prepackaged with App Suite are impressive, there are many more applications that are available to you. A few of my personal favorites include:

Web Cartoon Maker Desktop Edition

Since I am writing a series of tutorials on learning C++ with Web Cartoon Maker, I copied that program from my C drive to my Flash. I can now carry the Flash Drive with me on my key chain and plug it into any available computer at locations such as the city or university libraries, work on a tutorial, and then transfer everything back and forth between the Flash Dive and my HP desktop.

Portable GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free, open source, image editor. It may not have all the bells and whistles of Photoshop or other commercial products, but it is certainly more than adequate for the needs of the typical user. You can read more about GIMP at its home page .

Blender Portable

Blender is another free, open source, program that allows you to create and manage both 2D and 3D content (including video editing) at a level that can embarrass most of the expensive commercial products. As with GIMP, above, learn more about Blender on its home page .

Code::Blocks

If you are interested in computer programming in general, or game programming in particular, you already know that a knowledge of the C++ programming language is essential. But did you know that you can download a full-featured C++ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can be extended to any number of other programming tasks?

Code::Blocks is an open source and, again, freely available IDE that can be easily installed on a thumb drive. Once installed, you have the ability to work on your C++ programs ay any location where you have access to a computer (e.g school, library, or your favorite Internet Cafe).

To get Code::Blocks, just go to its download page and select the version that is appropriate for your computer. For Windows users, I suggest selecting the "codeblocks-10.05mingw-setup.exe" file since it includes a variety of C++ compilers and other utilities. Again, make sure that Code::Blocks installs to " /Code Blocks."

Java

I'll be the first to admit that Java has a few shortcomings . I'll also acknowledge that there are a lot of applications and web sites that make use of this technology and, since you can't use these sites from your Flash Drive without Java unless your host machine has it installed, you might as well go ahead and add it now.

To get a portable copy of Java, just go to PortableApps.com's "jPortable" page and then click the big red button that says "Download 6 Update 23." Download that file and then click on it after the download finishes. Again, be sure to tell the installer to place the Java files on your Flash Drive and not on your computer's internal drive.

Dr Java

Many web programmers like to use Java when working on projects that can range from applets , complete web applications , or apps that can run on mobile platforms such as phones or netbooks . Once you have Java installed on your Flash Drive, download Dr Java, a free full-featured Java IDE.

To get Dr Java, go to the Dr Java download page and select the version of Dr Java appropriate for your operating system (for Windows, click the "Download Windows App via HTTP" link). As usual, make sure that Dr Java installs to a directory on your Pen Drive rather than to its default location (which is usually "C:/Program Files\ ..." or "C:\." Once installed, you can access Dr Java by clicking on its icon inside your Flash Drive.

If you are concerned that your Flash Drive might not have enough memory to handle all the above programs, note that I have installed all the above packages (plus 3 different game engines / SDK s inside Code::Blocks) on an 8 Gb Flash Drive and that these programs required less than 3 Gb of memory. That left ~ 5 GB of memory free to store individual projects on the same drive and then transfer them back and forth to my HP desktop.

Until next time, I hope you find this posting helpful.