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Sunbird: U3 Smart Drive

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tarheel2
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Sunbird: U3 Smart Drive

Does anyone have any information on when or if Sunbird Portable will have a U3 version available?

Bob...

John T. Haller
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Maybe

I ported Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice to U3 as part of a development contract with U3, paying for the development and certification time it required. Any other apps would be on my own time and, at the moment, it makes more sense for me to focus on the standard portable apps as they run from any drive (U3 or not) and are much more popular (about 20x more downloads of the standard versions than the U3 versions). That said, I'm working with U3 on making the U3 apps a bit more self-sustaining, so it is a future possibility.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

tarheel2
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Thanks for the input. Very

Thanks for the input. Very interesting. I would like Sunbird Portable to startup upon insersion.

Bob...

djenner
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Sunbird -> U3 (updated)

This works; it has worked with other PortableApps that are not U3-specific. Effectively, one installs the standard portable version (I do it in a subdirectory of the U3 System folder, e. g., N:\System\Apps\STDAPPS\appname\), then use the instructions given elsewhere in the forum to create an entry in the U3 launcher listing. I have done this with things like GanttProject and so on, and have not experienced any problems; with Sunbird, I had no problem after I (1) slept, (2) woke up and (3) corrected a spelling error. Bingo! A U3-launched version of Sunbird.

stormal
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Normal Portable Applications...

are simpler to manage for casual users.

I actually prefer them myself as it also requires additional development to make portable applications truly U3 compliant.

Sunbird (and anything else) can easily be made autostart on a U3 flashdrive if you autolaunch it via Pstart for U3, which has also been set for autostart via the U3 launchpad.

The only major feature that will be lacking is convenient one-click termination for the Pstart spawned processes.

I find it convenient to use U3 launchpad as a "front-end" for app launchers.

I am currently initiating my own development on a generic global flashdrive application termination utility that will support non-U3 Launchpad spawned applications.

djenner
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Well...

"are simpler to manage for casual users."

I'm not sure I agree. There is some merit to the glitz of the U3 launcher over Pstart (and it is not clear to me, for all the claims made, that U3 is doing anything a great deal differently).

This is not a ringing endorsement of U3; I notice some interesting flaws, especially in the way U3 handles closing things out and turning off the connection to the flash drive. If any application on the host system is active and looking at the flash drive, the U3 eject will not operate. This, pretty much, is what San Disk told me, and seems to be confirmed in subsequent experience and some reading I did at the U3 site. About half the time, regardless of system, I have to manually flush things and so on.

But I also note that Pstart's autorun .inf file often fails to do the job on XP systems, so....

Can we agree, perhaps, that the apps are in place (no small part, due to John Haller's creating momentum and a focus for interchanges such as this, from what I can see), but that the launcher/manager part is a work in progress? Can we also agree, with the advent of 4gb and 8gb drives — more than sufficient to carry most of what one needs for day to day excursions — and increasing pressure to not carry notebook computers for both security and cost reasons, there is good reason to get that interface piece worked out? U3 is, in that case, a step in the right direction — but mouch remains?

stormal
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Much does remain

U3 very much leans toward catering to security compliance for approved use in business enterprise and institutional environments.

But everyone wants to be a power user on the host PC.

Predictably the day will soon come when many companies and universities will disallow the use of unmanaged and insecure standard USB sticks and such a policy can also be enforced via software/hardware.

It's simply a matter of time.

pape_a
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Answer

So? how can i make my sunbird work with the u3p system? None of the post say how.

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