Complete Works, save it into a /Books directory on your keydrive, and you’ll have the whole enchilada. Next, why not grab some Twain, Dickens, or Tolstoy? It’s easy to create a free, giant bookshelf of classics.

If you have room, try Gutenberg’s “Best Of” canon of world literature, EText #11220. This includes over 600 works — a lifetime of reading — but you’ll need at least 750MB of space.

Every Gutenberg book is available as plain text, so you can read them in your favorite browser or text editor without special software. Many are also available formatted in HTML, Plucker, DVI, EPS, and other formats, for easier reading.

 

Hack #3: Reference Library

You can apply Hack #2 to put a wealth of reference information at your fingertips, in addition to literature. Here are 12 reference titles available from Project Gutenberg, listed along with their searchable EText numbers:

» Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, #673

» Roget’s Thesaurus, #22

» Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

(first volume), #200

» The Nuttall Encyclopedia, #12342

» CIA World Factbook, #6344

» US Census Figures Back to 1630, #115

» Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, #16732

» Toaster’s Handbook: Jokes, Stories, and Quotations, #12444

» Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, #15119

» United States Constitution (without Amendments), #5

» United States Bill of Rights, #2

» Dewey Decimal Classification, #12513

» Etiquette, by Emily Post, #14314

Hack #4: A Retro Gaming Device

Along with a bit of determination, the free game machine emulator called MAME opens up a world of portable gaming, letting you run classic arcade-style games on any computer. First, download and install the MAME software on your keydrive. Again, which software depends on your platform.

MAME enables your computer to emulate any of a large collection of gaming devices. Download and install MAME onto your keydrive. Then you need to add the games themselves, which are available online as ROM files. Some are in

Advance MAME advancemame.sourceforge.net/ download.html

 

the public domain, others are for sale, and most are protected by copyright — so be sure of your source. Here are a few places to begin your search: » MAME main site ROMs mame.net/downmisc.html » StarROMS authorized reseller starroms.com

» ROM World rom-world.com

As with the portable music player, you now have your portable application and your content files. Just plug and play!

Windows users can also download games that run standalone, without MAME, at the Portable Freeware Collection, listed below.

More to Explore:

Portable Applications

In Windows, typical computer programs must be installed with a special setup program before you can use them. A better approach, used on Unix and the Mac for decades, lets you install applications by simply copying or unpacking a single file or directory. Thanks to the keydrive’s popularity, many Windows developers are using this approach to create new portable applications. Great open source programs like Firefox, OpenOffice, and Thunderbird are now available as portable applications that can be easily keydriven from one computer to another. You can find good portable applications at these sites:

» Portable Freeware Collection: portablefreeware.com/about.php

» U3 portable application platform: u3.com

» Portable (open source) apps: usbapps.com

» Free Open Source Software Mac User Group freesmug.org/portableapps

 

Russ Ethington is a software developer by day, inventor by night, and occasional freelance writer who likes to take things apart to see what makes them tick.