My Awesome Flash Drive

Jason Bedell — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:28:04 +0000

I have not been able to write in some time. For those of you following the progress of the Techniques for Effective Technology Integration book, please know that I am still working on it and intend to get back to it relatively soon. It has been difficult balancing the needs of full time educational/IT consulting with a full time IT Coordinator position. While I can do this, it has severely limited time for writing in the short term.

This post is somewhat more tech focused than most of my post, but seeing as how much time I have been spending in IT lately, I wanted to share something that has proven indispensable to me; my extremely customized flash drive. If you want to setup your flash drive similarly, you will need a flash drive or memory card of at least 16 gb. I am using one from PNY, but the brand does not much matter in this scenario.

Renaming and Contact Info

I have spent a lot of time customizing the flash drive to get it exactly where I want it, so I really do not want to lose it. However, flash drive are portable and prone to getting lost over time. So, to increase the chances of someone returning it, I am making use of two tips I read on Lifehacker. I renamed the flash itself to my cell phone number, so whenever someone plugs it in, the first thing that pops up is my cell phone. Second, I added a text file called “Contact Info: Reward if Found” with my cell phone number and email address.

The Key: MultiBootISOs

If you spent any amount of time in Linux operating systems, then you will find Pen Drive Linux to be a very useful site. Specifically, one of their tools has been immensely useful to me and has allowed me to install operating systems on computers with broken CD drives, recover files from operating systems that have crashed, modify registry and boot settings to fix broken computers, and repair infected computers when viruses have completely taken them over. I am referring to MultiBootISOs.

An ISO is a disc image file; usually, you burn 1 to a CD or to a flash drive to boot from it. MultiBoot refers to being able to utilize more than 1 ISO at a time. MultibootISOs is a small program that will format your flash drive so that it can boot to more than 1 ISO. When you turn on MultiBootISOs, you select which operating systems or tools you want to install. MultiBootISOs will download them for you 1 at a time and configure the flash drive to be able to boot from it.

Most people will not need to, but I have edited the code to menu.lst file that MultiBootISOs generates so that all of my operating systems are in alphabetical order so that they are easy to find. I currently have 20 different systems installed. You can find links to all of them at Pen Drive Linux.

AVG Rescue CD: a tremendously helpful antivirus scanner. Sometimes, viruses will disable a computer’s virus software, so this is essential.
Clonezilla: A powerful tool for making exact copies of a computer.
DBAN: DBAN will permanently erase all data on a computer so that it is unrecoverable. Normally, when you wipe your computer, it can still have credit card numbers and other sensitive information that skilled users can access. DBAN prevents that from happening.
DSL: DSL, or Damn Small Linux, is an operating system of only 50 mb. It is so small that it can easily be used on even very old or limited computers.
GParted: GParted is a partition editor. It allows you to create, delete, resize, and reformat any partitions on the computer. I use this a lot.
Jolicloud: Jolicloud is my favorite netbook operating system. I combines traditional desktop applications and web apps for a really compelling experience. It is based on Ubuntu, so it is very sound.
Kaspersky Rescue CD: This is another virus scanner.
Kubuntu: This is a variant of Ubuntu (see below).
Memtest86+: This is a diagnostic tool for memory.
Offline NT Password and Registry Editor: If you need to change a registry entry but the system is inaccessible, this is a good tool.
OphCrack XP: Users forget their passwords regularly. If you are not managing users through a network (such as Active Directory), then you can reset the password manually with this tool.
Redo Backup and Restore: This is an easy tool for simpling make an exact backup of your computer and restoring it if you need to.
Sugar on a Stick: This is the operating system used in the OLPC movement.
System Rescue CD: Similar to the other rescue CD, but it is good to have options in case one does not work.
Ubuntu 10.10, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and Ubuntu Rescue Remix: Ubuntu is my favorite flavor of Linux and I run it on my home computer. Netbook Remix has a great interface for smaller screens and Rescue Remix has plenty of tools to help fix broken systems.
Ultimate Boot CD: This has a ton of diagnostic and rescue tools.
Xubuntu: A lightweight variant of Ubuntu for older computers.
Windows 7: My employer uses Windows 7, so I have a copy if I need to reinstall it.

Remember, if you want to use MultiBootISOs, you will want to install it before anything else on the flash drive because it will delete everything that is on it during the formatting process.

Portable Apps

When you are working at a school or corporation, you often will not have permission to install the programs that you need to be most productive. Portable Apps allows you to install and run many excellent programs right off a flash drive. You simply install the Portable Apps Suite and then any programs that you want to use. Here are some of my most used Portable Apps.

Google Chrome: Google Chrome is my favorite web browser and the program I spend the most time in. Thanks to Google enable syncing, whenever I change a plugin or setting at home, my portable Google Chrome instantly reflects the change so I always have the same browser.
Mozilla Firefox: For a long time, Firefox was my favorite browser. It stills renders some pages better than Chrome and is a great backup browser.
7-zip: A great archival and extraction tool.
Audacity: A powerful audio editor.
Eraser: Securely and permanently erases data.
Filezilla: The best FTP client for Windows and Linux.
FIMP: The best free image editor; it even rivals Photoshop.
Keepass: I have all my passwords securely stored wherever I go.
Notepad++: I do most of my programming in this program; it is an outstanding text and code editor.
Open Office: A full-featured office suite, similar to Microsoft Office.
Skype: I do a lot of videoconferencing and meeting in Skype. It is very easy to use and convenient.
Sumatra PDF: I can view PDFs easily even on computers that do not have Adobe Reader installed.
uTorrent: uTorrent is a good, small bittorrent client. I rarely use bittorrent, but occasionally I do need to download something legally, such as a free Linux OS, and bittorrent is the easiest route.
VLC: VLC is an excellent media player that can play nearly any audio or video file.
XAMPP: XAMPP is a virtual server that makes debugging web applications simpler. It has MySQL, Apache, and PHP.
You can find more apps at http://portableapps.com/apps.

USB Tools

My flash drive is very important to my work, so I keep some tools on hand to make sure it is running well. The two most important are MultiBootISOs, in case I need to add another operating system, and WinContig. Since the flash drive uses the FAT filesystem, it can get fragmented relatively easily. WinContig defragments it so that it stays working well.

Programs

I have several programs on the flash drive that I may need to install, including Office 2010. If I need to reinstall a lot of programs, I have a Ninite installer that lets me install nearly every program I need automatically.

How do you make your flash drive useful?

How Technology Should Support Education

Jason Bedell — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:51:14 +0000

This post is written for a guest blog post for series on Socratech Seminars.

Howard Chan asked me to write about the role of the technology department in education. I have written implicitly about this on many occasions both on this blog and on Twitter. In fact, Howard, Keith Bockwoldt, and I started the #EduIt discussion on Twitter several months ago specifically to discuss ways to bridge the gap between education and traditional IT departments. We have since been joined by many qualified technology directors and teachers.

We believe this to be a great necessity in education. As technology becomes ever more vital to all aspects of education, such as infrastructure, administration, and teaching, the technology department is becoming much more necessary and more powerful. Policies made by the technology department effect every student and teacher in the school. The role of the technology department, as well as its limitations, need to be clearly delineated.

It is my vision that the technology department needs to enable students to learn and teachers to teach better than they already do. The issue is that many technology departments overstep these bounds and do not really understand education. Many technology directions come from a traditional IT background, complete with the assumptions and presuppositions of a corporate environment. Chief among these concerns is the need to control. We need to control employees so that they stay on task. My own technology director (His email is david.holman@cmcss.net. Feel free to email him and let him know what you think of his policies.) explicitly told me that YouTube and Facebook would always be blocked because of the amount of bad content on those networks.

Technology departments cannot just block useful websites because students may find some bad content. Blocking Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, etc… does not protect students. It does not help students. It cripples them. The technology department needs to educate students on how to use these services wisely for self-directed learning and on how to react if they do come across inappropriate content. When students leave school, they will be tempted at home and at work. They will find inappropriate content. If the schools do not teach them how to handle these situations, then we have done our children a disservice.

We are further hurting our children when we allow the technology departments to limit our teachers. It is a sad state when I have to counsel my teachers on how to get around our Internet filter because they found excellent content online to use with students, and then find out that they cannot access it from school. By outlawing Twitter, my technology department is cutting off teachers from an amazing amount of professional development. If our teachers cannot improve as they should because of the technology department, then the technology is hurting our children.

Hadley Ferguson wrote an outstanding post recently entitled, “First Do No Harm.” We all, including technology departments, would be well served by adhering to this motto. Teachers and students do not need to be protected. To really thrive and prepare our students, we need freedom. The technology department should be supporting us in our goals and enabling them through infrastructure, training, teaching, professional development, and policies crafted involving all stakeholders. Our instructional and educational goals should not be determined or limited by what our technology departments deem appropriate.

Jason T Bedell » #EduIt

My Awesome Flash Drive

How Technology Should Support Education