Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches Welcome back ENTR students + Gaming Industry Alive and Well + TV2.0 + U3 = f(U)
Published August 20th, 2007 in Daily PostAfter a few hours/days back from your summer break, I’m certain you need something less serious to occupy your time. Here is a free game that will do just that. 
Little Cowboy 
is a 3D 3rd-person shooter game. The Little Cowboy has a treacherous journey. He must do battle with Mad Cows, Angry Braves, and Bad Banditos. Help him along the way by using the Red Eye hidden under the rocks for energy and find the bags of gold for extra lives. Use your arrow keys and mouse to move, your left mouse button to fire, and your right mouse button to jump. Good Luck!
While you’re enjoying yourself with Little Cowboy, think about the entrepreneurial opportunities really great games offer. What markets are under served? (think “older” and ”younger”). What game themes might become “hot?” (think ”energy”?) Keep in mind multi-player online games were around a long time before social networks became the buzz! But above all, take a break, already?
Game available here: 
When you grow tired of Little Cowboy, drop down to TV2.0 (available here) and watch some news from Mexico, to see how they’re fairing from Dean. TV2.0 is neat, in that it makes no registry entries - that is, it is an executable file that runs from the desktop; put it on your thumb drive and it should run anywhere off of Purdue’s network. Watch it though, there is some risque programming.
Speaking of Purdue’s network, all students should outfit their backpacks with a U3-capable thumb 
drive, and run their apps from it, thus distancing themselves and their files from Purdue’s very protective (maybe over-protective?) safeguards. An example: Many of you prefer Firefox (thanks to Blake Ross! who started working bugs @ age 14)as a browser over IE, but many/most Purdue systems don’t have FF installed. FF is available as a portable app and you can run it off your thumb drive, along with hundreds of other apps. BestBuy (I have no vested interested in ANY company cited in this blog) has a 4 gigger on sale now for less than $40.00 - a tank of gas 
Here is a listing of portable apps - and yes, they will also run from you iPod 
, and here is more than you’ll ever need to know about U3 per se. Are any of you using U3? For anything besides plain-jane storage? Boot Linux?
Hank
I don’t have a U3 thumb drive. I just have a plain-jane 1 GB thumb drive. I use PortableApps to run all my programs in iTaP computer labs. I run 7-zip, Abiword, Audacity, Clamwin, Filezilla, Firefox, Pidgin, Gimp, Google Talk, KeePass, Komposer, Notepad , Open Office, Putty, Skype, Sudoku, SumatraPDF, Sunbird, Thunderbird, and VLC all with room to spare for my documents. Most of these are open source application provided by PortableApps. Skype and Google Talk were not quite as easy to make portable, but you can use Google to find instructions to make those programs portable.
I actually own a U3 thumbdrive that, when I was a PC tech, was used on customers’ computers to run certain programs without an install. Unfortunately, I find it them more trouble than they’re worth, consuming more RAM and etcetera than simply installing the program.
I find the entrepreneurial gaming idea rather interesting due to some information I had recently heard. There is a computer game out now (I don’t remember the name) that people can actually purchase real estate in. So in other words, people are investing money into a cyber world that defines their social status within the game. It’s a unique idea that is bound to innovate the way computer games are played.
Eric - I think you mean Second Life. Check out http://www.secondlife.com. If I have time, I’ll run it in class. Remind me por favor.
I am very into the gaming industry so I have heard about the many exploits of secondlife ( not that I have the patience to play and actually rake in some cash ). On the other hand I have been tracking some of the events that the game has held and also the surprisingly expensive real estate market on there. The funny thing is that MSNBC has actually followed some of the entrepreneurial concepts of secondlife. There is actually a virtual college as well as technical training schools held completely through secondlife @_@ its crazy.
I think that is is cool that these high quality games are now becoming free. normally you would have to pay a subscription and a perchase fee. Now, companies can make enough off advertisements to give these games out. By the way this is my first blog ever.
The little cowboy game was interesting. It definitely took my mind off of school for a little while. In a uniqe way the game is related to life as an entrepreneur. In order to survive and prosper one must think outside the box (i.e jump over cliffs by running at an angle.) Also the little cowboy scanvenges under rocks for energy in the same way that an new owner must scrounge for every cent from a bank. Also the enemies of our little friend are all out to end his life. I imagine this relates to the competiton in the business world. Besides that the game was a blast. Where else does a student get too shoot at cows for homework?
Tyler
Great insights Tyler. I told you ENTR200 would be fun! And congratulation topris see, it didn’t hurt at all!