Living Out of a Digital Suitcase, Part 1

We’ll be discussing special Freeware packages that allow you to run programs off of your flash drive instead of installing them on your computer. That way, you always have your programs with you, so you don’t have to worry that the school/home/Internet café computer doesn’t have OpenOffice Writer, etc.

First off, you can do this with the drive the school gave you, unless your drive is full of pictures or music, which take up a lot of room. Text files are tiny. But you really ought to go out and buy a bigger one.

If you have an InkStop nearby they have Kingston Flash Drives for pretty cheap. A 1G (Gigabyte) drive costs about $7.00. A 2G can be had for $15.00. Any good electronics or office supply store probably has a good selection. Or shop online on www.ecost.com. (Go to Memory & Storage, then to USB Flash. ) All brands are pretty reliable.

First off, when you set up your drive, give it a name. That avoids the “I can’t tell which one is my drive!” issue that many of you have experienced. How about giving it your name? That way, if you accidentally leave it in the Teachers’ Room, it can be identified. How do you rename the drive? It’s as simple as store-bought pie. Open ‘My Computer,’ find and right-click the drive, click rename, and call it whatever you want. Watch the video and then do try this at home.

Now go to Portable Apps and download the basic program. Choose Suite Standard if you have at least 350 MB free on your drive, and you want all of Open Office on your drive. Choose Suite Light if you can only spare 100 MB and can live with AbiWord as your word processor, and without the other programs of the Open Office Suite.

Once it downloads, double-click it and let it install on your stick. Once it is set up, you can stick it in any USB drive and the program will start automatically. (Click here for a home demo.)