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Thumbs up: Turning your thumb drive into a portable office

By Jared Adams, July 2007

If you work on more than one computer in more than one location, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of not being able to find or use the programs and files you need. While you can bridge some of the gaps by using a laptop as your main computer and taking it everywhere, laptops do have some drawbacks despite their convenience. The batteries have a finite life – as, too, do the laptops themselves. Even the lightest are fairly heavy, and the relatively small standard screens aren’t designed for long-term viewing.

Fortunately, with a little ingenuity you can fit the solution right into your pocket by creating your own portable office.

Enter the thumb drive, sometimes known as a flash drive, USB drive, or jump drive. Over the last few years, these thumb-sized portable storage devices have replaced floppy disks and CD-ROMs as the method of choice for moving files between computers. Small in size but large in storage capacity, these increasingly affordable peripherals can solve a number of storage problems. And while you’re probably already familiar with what they can do in terms of making file transfers easier, you might not know about one of their lesser-heralded abilities: they can act as a portable computer.

Our friend the thumb drive.

Here’s how you can make your own in six simple steps.

1. Get a thumb drive: Making the common thumb drive into your portable office suite is easier than it seems. Start with any drive with a reasonable storage capacity – 512 MB is probably the minimum. Both Future Shop and Best Buy (in both online and bricks-and-mortar formats), for example, carry a variety of flash drives in a wide range of sizes from $40 and up.

2. Get secure: Once you’ve got your drive and connected it to your computer’s USB port, allow your computer to read the drive and install any necessary drivers, and then you can start customizing your portable office. First, and most importantly, download a copy of TrueCrypt. This open-source application will let you encrypt and password-protect your USB drive, so that if it happens to go missing, you don’t have to worry about sensitive information being compromised (you can also set your drive to automatically ask a finder to return it to you).

3. Get inoculated: Your next essential is anti-virus software. If you’re going to be moving between systems, there’s no telling what viruses the host computer has been exposed to, unless you’re the only user of both systems. And if you’ve got critical data stored on your portable drive, you can’t afford to lose it. Pick up ClamWin portable and McAfee’s AVERT Stinger in order to check for and remove any virus that happens to hit itself to your portable drive.

4. Get connected: Now you can head to a site specializing in portable applications, like PortableApps.com or The Portable Freeware Collection, where you’ll find a number of programs custom-built for life on a portable drive.

Grab Firefox Portable for a web browser, and its companion e-mail client, Portable Thunderbird. Installation is as simple as moving the downloaded files to your portable drive and double-clicking on the install program.

(If you’re absolutely married to Internet Explorer and Outlook, you might want to take a look at CoCoSys’ Carry It Easy, which allows you to carry your data – e-mails and IE favourites – around while making use of a host system’s versions of the software. The catch? While most of the software listed in this article is freeware or shareware, Carry It Easy will set you back about $25)

5. Get tools: Now that your Internet needs have been taken care of, add some office software. OpenOffice.org Portable is the on-the-go version of Sun Microsystems’ OpenOffice suite: a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, all compatible with Microsoft Office’s range of products, and acting in much the same manner – and it’s free. Again, installation is straightforward.

Your portable office is starting to take shape. Already you should be able to plug your drive into just about any computer and work away, without having to use any of the host system’s programs, and without having to worry about your confidential files being saved on a third-party system or accidentally accessing someone else’s confidential files while looking for one you’ve saved (always check to make sure you haven’t left any temporary files on the host system). Moreover, your portable system will get more and more familiar with time, especially if you haven’t been using the products up until this point.

6. Get flashy: With the basics taken care of, you can start looking at some bells and whistles. Consider adding some other programs, like Sunbird Portable for calendar and task management (or export your current Outlook calendar to portable calendar EssentialPIM).

With the rise in popularity of both portable drives and the idea of using them as mobile workplace solutions, just about any type of program you might need now has a portable version. Need to access PDF files? There’s Cool PDF Reader or Foxit Reader. Graphics editing software? There’s GIMP Portable or i.Mage. An RSS reader? RSSOwl or GreatNews will do the job. And the list goes on.

With your thumb drive loaded, you’re ready to go on the road. You should be fully equipped to work from any relatively new computer, although you may find some problems if your host computer is still running Windows 98 or early, un-updated versions of Windows XP, with a full suite of useful applications, and your information protected. And better, your “new computer” fits into a pocket, around your neck, or into your perpetually packed attaché case with ease. Just try doing that with a laptop…