Bruce Atkinson

My USB Flash drive development environment

August 8th, 2007 bruceatk

One thing that I have found to improve my productivity is to migrate as much as I can to a USB flash drive. After adopting PowerBasic as the main language I use to write utility type of software, both GUI and command line, I decided to see how well it works from a flash drive. I use three Powerbasic products and a PB aware editor:

Total size on my USB drive is 30 MB. They are licensed so that you can use them on as many computers as you want as long as you can only use them on one at a time. By having them installed to my USB drive that insures that is true.

I find them very easy to use. Quick to launch, compile, debug, and run and I have them with me all the time. PowerBASIC makes small fast EXE’s with no runtime required. When an install is required I create one with Inno Setup.

I just noticed that JP Software’s TCI has been updated

August 7th, 2007 bruceatk

I just noticed that TCI has been updated. It’s tough to keep up with new software releases. I hate it when a program that I use everyday gets updated with features I really want and I don’t catch that they’ve been updated. As much as I hate programs that phone home, I’ve gotten use to them. It looks like this was updated late last year.

TCI is sold by JP Software and it is called Tabbed Console Interface. What it does, is let you run multiple consoles in a single window with a tabbed interface. The new feature that I like is that you can preset the tabs that you want loaded when you start TCI.

I typically use 4NT for most of the command line stuff that I’m doing. I still need to test with the standard windows command shell (CMD.exe) if I’m creating something for a server or box that doesn’t have 4NT. I’ve also been trying out PowerShell to see if it is worthwhile for me to switch to it. Now I can load them all up at once. It is easy to attach to other consoles (ie. putty, cygwin, etc.) as you open them up and add them as tabs. I will usually end up with two TCI windows open with multiple tabs in each one.

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