No sooner than I posted the screenshots of MetaCarta on a stick, did I get an email from an ArcGIS user asking how they heck do they get to “install” and play with such a tool. Well as luck would have it, ESRI took care of the hardest part of running MetaCarta Labs on a stick on windows, installing Python. Plus, you don’t have to install a thing so if your IT staff has you workstation locked down tight, you can still play with the tools. The 5 step process is below:
Grab your USB memory stick (you’ll need about 10 megs free)
Then download the zip version of MetaCarta Labs on a stick and extract it on to your USB stick (or anywhere on your hard drive if you wish).
Navigate to the “labs-on-a-stick-0.5” folder and find the “http_server.py” file and double click on it
After a couple seconds you should see the http server come up inside your command window.
Next all you have to do is follow the directions and navigate to http://localhost:8080/ and view the demos and watch any of the videos.
And of course you can check out FeatureServer, running right there on your USB memory stick.
As Lefty points out, thank ESRI for installing Python for you.