Ed The Dev .com

Last week, I shared how to convert a thumb drive into a portable Django development environment. Since then, I have found my thumb drive useful for a lot more than just writing Python code.

So here’s a list of my favorite apps for when I’m not writing code. As is typical for things I cover, these applications are all freeware.

Of course, you still probably want the PortableApps Core. Although I find PStart is very nice as well. Technically, you could even run both next to each-other.

Two obvious choices are Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird, but I honestly don’t use either one. I find that both launch quite slowly from my thumb drive, and I typically have both a safe browser and a way to access my mail from every computer I use.

So I recommend ignoring the two most popular Mozilla applications. Skip to the surprise gem of the bunch: Portable Sunbird. I’m too lazy to install and configure Sunbird on every computer I visit – it’s just too much work. But now that I installed and configured it once on my thumbdrive, I rely on it a lot. If you only get two applications for your thumb drive, this should be it.

I said ‘two’ didn’t I? That’s because I believe that text editing is sacred – it’s the most important thing we do with computers. So pick one of the following three: Portable Notepad++, Portable GVim, or Portable AbiWord. Abiword is the most like Microsoft Word, or WordPad, so it’s the most logical choice for most people. If your normally prefer Notepad, then give Notepad++ a try. If you already love Gvim, click the link and enjoy. If you have never heard of Gvim, then you probably don’t want it.

Now that we have covered the ‘must have’, let’s talk about other recommendations I have.

KeePass Portable is a great way to safely store your passwords. Just be sure to choose a very strong master password if you choose to use it. This is a thumb drive, and the odds are that you will lose it someday.

I’m just trying this now myself, but GnuCash Portable looks like a great idea. For me, the hardest thing about budgeting, is that I never have my transaction logs, my budget software, and my free time at the same computer. Maybe GnuCash Portable can change that. Be careful how you use this – keeping financial records on a thumb drive is basically a bad idea. Be careful what information you store in this application. No one really cares how many times you have been to Burger King this week; but a thief would love to get your name and account numbers just by stealing your thumb drive. (So don’t enter your real name or account numbers into the software.) I should also mention that this is the biggest download on the list, be prepared to let it take some time to install.

I won’t strongly recommend most of the rest of what you will find at the Portable Apps Applications List. A lot of it is very clever, but most of it isn’t vital.

Most Information technology geeks re-install Windows as soon as they get their new Dell, HP or Campaq computer home from the store. They do this because the big computer vendors pre-load each computer they sell with a lot of useless software that wastes space and slows down the computer. Most of this software (commonly known as ‘crapware’) is installed to try to sell you something.

I’m a little less purist about the whole thing – I typically just crawl through the ‘installed programs’ list and remove whatever I don’t want, one item at a time.

And then I discovered this gem: The PC Decrapifier. The PC Decrapifier knows all of the common crapware, and offers to uninstall them for you one at a time. It you choose to remove all of the crapware it finds, it will run in the background for about half an hour, prompting you to press ‘Ok’ or ‘Next’ every couple of minutes. (The ‘Ok’ and ‘Next’ buttons are actually part of the Dell / HP / Compaq software uninstallers, not the Decrapifier itself.)

If you haven’t re-installed your operating system since you bought your computer, running the PC Decrapifier once will make your computer run noticeably faster. Did I mention the price? It’s free!

Enjoy!

• Edward

Many developers relate closely to ‘the absent minded professor’ from the Disney film of the same name. When we get a great idea, we’re liable to stop and jot a note about it anywhere; and we can be very loathe to part from that great idea.

So it’s nice that we don’t have to anymore. If you relate to the absent minded professor, get yourself a 2GB thumb drive; and build yourself a portable development environment.

First, you’ll want to grab the PortableApps Core and Menu. Get the smallest version, because you want to save space for your mad science development tools. It is easy to add more PortableApps later if you decide that you need them.

You’ll need Portable Cmd Prompt to run Python commands. In PortableAppsCommandPromptPortableData, you’ll find commandprompt.bat. You can use this folder to set your DOS environment variables. Add these two lines to the end of it:

set PATH=%CD%bin;%CD%Python;%PATH%

set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=mysite.settings

I highly recommend getting either Portable GVim or Portable Notepad++.

If you install Portable GVim, then add this line to your commandprompt.bat:

set PATH=%C%PortableAppsGVimPortableAppvimvim71;%PATH%

set PATH=%CD%PortableAppsNotepad++PortableAppNotepad++;%PATH%

For Python and Django, download Portable Python. Install PortablePython to the drive root folder, or else adjust the Python path that you added to the commandprompt.bat, earlier. As Job’s Cry mentions, you may want to download the latest version of Django and copy it over the version that comes with Portable Python.

Now create a file called django-admin.bat and put it in bin on the thumb drive. Add the following line to it:

python %CD%PortablePython1.0Libsite-packagesdjangobindjango-admin.py %1 %2

If you’re doing this to learn Django; start the Command Prompt Portable from your Portable Apps menu, and start following the instructions at Writing Your First Django App. Your first three commands will be:

django-admin startproject mysite
cd mysite
python manage.py runserver

Since you’re running from a thumb drive, you’ll want to modify settings.py in the mysite folder to use sqlite3. Download a copy of Sqlite3, and place the sqlite.exe file into the ‘bin’ folder that you created earlier. Then, in settings.py set DATABASE_ENGINE and DATABASE_NAME as you see below. Be sure to leave off the drive letter name, since it’s going to change whenever you switch computers.

DATABASE_ENGINE = 'sqlite3'
DATABASE_NAME = '/mysite/mysite.db'

• Edward