I can't always get to my main laptop when I feel like putting together a blog post. If you've read some of my other lists, you probably noticed that I'm a big fan of portable applications for just this reason. As long as I've got my trusty USB flash drive, I'm always equipped with the programs I need to get things done.

Here are ten of my favorites (plus two alternatives). With these programs in my pocket, I'm always able to write when inspiration strikes - regardless of what computer I'm using.

1. Windows Live Writer is the best offline tool for composing blog posts, hands down. While Microsoft doesn't offer a portable version, it's a simple DIY project (Brad first covered it in September 2007). You can download the portable launcher from Scott Kingery's blog: it's over a year old, but it works just fine with the latest beta of Live Writer. With a rich feature set and support for Wordpress, TypePad, LiveJournal, Blogger, and more, it's a necessity.

2. Portable Firefox and SRWare Iron are both great browsers. I keep Firefox handy in case I need access to my favorite extensions, and use Iron when I just need to do some quick surfing. Why Iron instead of Chrome? For the added privacy.

3. GreatNews is a decent, portable RSS reader that's actually portable (no Java runtime needed, like RSSOwl). The download is under 1mb, and it formats feeds into a tidy newspaper-like layout. If I'm using a machine where I'd rather not log in to my Google account, I'll fire up GreatNews to read my feeds instead.

Encryption

Truecrypt - Why is TrueCrypt first on the list? Simple. A multi-gig, easy-to-lose, unencrypted drive with your data on it is a terrible security risk. Truecrypt helps me keep all my private stuff locked down. Read the "traveller mode" documentation for help setting it up.

Web and Internet

Operator - I'm not an Opera fanboy by any stretch, but if I've got to surf on a public computer, I'm using Operator. It's got Tor anonymous browsing built in to keep you safe. You can read more about it in my previous post. If I'm on a trusted computer, I'll go for Portable Firefox.

Pidgin - I don't usually need to IM from a client's site, but just in case I need to stay in touch I bring Pidgin with me. For portable multi-network chat, it's the best option out there. Add the encryption plugin to keep it secure.

Filezilla - Half the time I need Notepad++, it's because I'm editing files on my FTP server from the road. Filezilla portable keeps all my sites accesible from wherever I am.

USB Image Tool is a utility for creating an exact image of pretty much anything you plug into your USB port. This isn't the same thing as copying and pasting all the files on a flash drive to a new directory or zip file. Instead, every chunk of data on your flash drive is saved in a single file that you can then burn to a disc, upload to an offsite storage location, or just save on your hard drive.

If you keep work documents, portable applications, or other important data on a flash drive, it's a good idea to back it up occasionally. USB Image Tool makes the process about as simple as can be. You plug in a drive, hit backup, and choose a location to store the image. You can also select a compressed file format if you want to save a little bit of space, but it takes longer to create a compressed image.

[via gHacks]

Way back in the dark ages of 1993, we were introduced to this thing called email. Email in the olden days was not like email now. All the packets traveled uphill no matter where they were going, and usually there was a good three or four feet of snow on the internet backbone. We used these big hulking things called VAX/VMS nodes that were attached to some pretty sweet fourteen inch monochrome VT 100 terminals. There were also these machines that ran something called UNIX, which sounded to us like something that should have been found in the college health center, not the computer lab.

Eons passed, and things changed. Though there were many more email packets flying around, plate tectonics had changed the course of things so that now they traveled downhill, really really fast. The internet backbone became a series of tubes. All the VT 100 terminals banded together and created an archipelago in the South Pacific. And UNIX...

UNIX evolved. Mutated. It trickled down into various UNIX brands and distributions. There were things like BSD UNIX, HP-UX, and AT&T Bell Labs UNIX. There were other branches, too, rogue sprouts on the evolutionary tree: FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Slightly alien but vaguely reminiscent life forms injected their DNA into the gene pool: Linux, and this weird little UNIX-esque animal called Solaris.

Sun recently let Solaris go open source. OpenSolaris is more a traditional UNIX environment than a Linux type environment, but the appeal of taking a peek at the 2008.05 OpenSolaris release was too great for us to resist. The folks at OpenSolaris knew this, and baked some goodies into the OS that no Linux user could refuse.

We were given a no-strings attached liveCD, so our Linux install would never know we cheated. We had a bash shell, and the GNOME desktop environment, so our eye candy and commands would feel familiar and easy.

Sometimes, though, evolution goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Have a program on your USB flash drive that you want to launch every time you plug that drive in? USB AutoRunner is a little utility that will create an Autorun.inf file on your flash drive to let Windows know you want to run your portable web browser, office application, virus scanner, or any other applications installed on your flash drive.

You can also use USB AutoRunner to select documents that will be opened when you insert your flash drive. Your PC will open those documents using the default viewers. So if you've got a PDF that you want to launch, it will open up in Adobe Reader, FoxIt, or whatever PDF viewer is installed on your system.

You could create Autorun.inf files by hand, but USB AutoRunner makes the process much simpler.

[via Lifehacker]

In order to create a shortcut/hotkey combo to pull up the SRH box, right click anywhere on the desktop and go to "New" then "Shortcut". Paste the text below into the box asking you, "what item you would like to create a shortcut for?"

RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

That shortcut will open the SRH box. At this point, you can place the shortcut anywhere -- including the quick-launch bar.

Last week we took a look at Puppy Linux, a small Linux distro optimized for installation on a flash drive. There are (many) others, of course. One of the most well known, Damn Small Linux, has been around for quite some time. Over the years, the developers of Damn Small Linux (DSL), have masterfully kept that little distribution under 50 MB. This means several things: it is lightweight, and can run on many machines nothing else can run on. It also means it has bypassed some of the programs you might want on your "desktop on a stick."

Enter Damn Small Linux - Not. (Yes, Damn Small Linux Not is most definitely not Damn Small Linux.) DSL-N is a bigger, more modern variant of DSL, but with a similar philosophy: DSL-N hates bloat.

This is a double-edged sword for DSL-N. On the one hand, it's a bigger, more functional distribution. You're more likely to use it on a regular basis. On the other hand, it's still fairly limited in areas one would expect more support.

It used to be that a USB thumb drive was used mainly for transporting files to and from computers. Now, however, more people are using thumb drives to house portable applications. When you sit down at a computer that doesn't have Firefox, for example, and you're simply unwilling to double-click that Internet Explorer icon, just pop in your thumb drive, double-click your portable Firefox application, and surf away--no installation necessary.

Lists of portable applications are as old as the applications themselves, but lists of portable Mac applications are more rare. Over at Web Worker Daily, they have counted up and listed eleven portable applications for your Mac. Favorites on the list include Adium, that ubiquitous multi-protocol chat client, Bean, a lean and mean text editor, and iStumbler, a small app designed to find all wireless signals in your area, including Bluetooth, Airport, and Bonjour.

No longer will we envy those Geek Squaders with their multi-toned VW bugs and their keychain of portable thumb drives. Now we too can carry our USB drives with purpose. But unlike the Geek Squad, we will use our thumb drives for good, not for evil.

[Via Web Worker Daily]

Who says there's no truth in advertising? Case in point: a piece of software called USB Disk Ejector. What does the software do, you might ask? It ejects disks that are connected via USB.

Feature-wise, the USB Disk Ejector program is very similar to USB Safely Remove. One of the main differences is the price: the USB Disk Ejector is available as a free download (though donations are requested).

The USB Disk Ejector can be run as a non-visual command line program or a normal GUI program. The command line options are more manifold, and include the ability to:

* Eject the drive that the program is running from.
* Eject a drive by specifying a drive letter.
* Eject a drive by specifying a drive name.
* Eject a drive by specifying a partial drive name.

When run in the GUI, you can quickly eject USB devices with a mouse click or keyboard press.

So what's the advantage of this software over the normal right-click "safely remove this device?" For one, you won't get that annoying and supremely unhelpful dialog bubble, "you can now safely remove this device." Also, the command line utility gives you access to ejecting options without having to leave the keyboard.

The program has been tested and verified working on XP and Vista, but should run on older Windows versions as well. Happy downloading!

Thanks, Jeton!

There are a million Linux distributions out there that are designed to be run from a bite-sized USB thumb drive, but what about Windows? Windows may seem like a less obvious candidate for running from portable storage, but having a full-fledged, bootable copy of Windows in your pocket can be a lifesaver if you find yourself with a non-booting PC, which, if you're a system administrator, might be a weekly occurrence. TechRepublic has a tutorial--which, admittedly, is about a year old, but just as relevant now as then--on booting Windows from your USB flash drive that will make you nostalgic for the days DOS could be booted off a single floppy. To succeed you'll need a flash drive of at least 256MB, a Windows XP install disc (licensing issues are left as an exercise for the reader), and a few free tools including the excellent BartPE. Now go forth and install!

MojoPac has the ability to transform your personal storage device into a powerful private PC. Your iPod, phone, USB hard drive, and your USB flash drive can all now be the only item you need to carry around to get the job done. With MojoPac installed on your device, and applications and files loaded, you can automatically launch your environment onto any host PC running Windows XP. Music, games, files, and applications are all accessible, within a local view.

MojoPac seems like a promising application, with some great features for security and protection, as well as convenience, and personal preference settings. A number of companies now have IT policies, and restrictions for what types of applications users can install on computers, running MojoPac on your device is a way around this. When you unplug your device from the computer you were using, there are no traces of your personal info that are left behind. It is a portable solution that can be loaded onto a number of different devices to ensure your job gets done, in a secure, convenient way.

[Via CNet]

Over at sourceforge.net, my favorite FTP client, Filezilla (portable) 2.2.27 has been released for download. I love the desktop based FTP client that does a great job on a quick and dirty basis. The portable edition is even better than the desktop installed version for a mobile pro on the go. It is small enough to fit on any USB flash drive (Filezilla portable edition takes up a whopping 3MB), and is full featured enough to manage all your websites from one portable app, anywhere you feel like FTPing your server. Oh, did I mention Filezilla is free and available. So go FTP yourself the Filezilla portable FTP client which can be used on Windows or on Linux (with Wine).

In my opinion, selling software on a USB drive is a fantastic idea, and Merriam-Webster has taken it and run with it with their USB Dictionary & Thesaurus. It's a 256MB flash drive that includes MW's dictionary and thesaurus software, plus phonetic spelling correction, a grammar guide, and a "Confusables" function for correcting mistakes like their vs. there vs. they're. It also includes something described as an "eBooks and eNews Manager." The rest of the space on the USB drive (the amount of which is unspecified) can be used to store whatever you want. Unfortunately few details on the software itself are available, so I'm not sure if the dictionary and thesaurus software are the same as the ones MW sells on CD-ROM, or whether it works on a Mac. The Merriam-Webster USB Dictionary & Thesaurus costs $49.95. Now, when can I get the OED in my pocket?

[Via Engadget]

Awhile back we linked to a tutorial on making the Opera web browser portable, i.e. modifying it so it can be run from a USB drive. It wasn't a perfect tutorial (and some people don't want to go through 16 steps no matter how easy they are), though, but and today something better came along: OperaUSB is a portable version of Opera 9 for Windows that you just need to copy to a thumb drive and you're ready to go. Installed it only takes up about 8MB of your precious space. Of course, it's not an official Opera download, so installing it is at your own risk. For Firefox users, they're always Portable Firefox-so, where's Portable IE7?

Do you carry all of your essential apps with you on a keychain USB drive? Wouldn't it be nice if you could pop your drive into a USB port and launch all of those apps with the click of a button? Lucky for you, Lifehacker is running a great tutorial called Quicklaunch your USB workspace. It's a quick and easy guide that will show you how to set up Autorun and a batch file on your flash drive to make it do your bidding as soon as you plug it in. It's Windows-centric, though--any tips from the Mac or Linux nomads out there?