"Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash Drive" by rowanrookhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/trails/31696rowanrook/trails60Portable Freeware FAQhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/184767Why is it so bad for an application to write its settings to the user profile folder? Writing settings to the application folder is dangerous because you need to have admin rights on the machine and different users are stuck with each other's settings! Storing settings in the user profile folder also has the advantage that you could upgrade a program without losing its settings.

In a multi-user environment, it is indeed inappropriate to write settings in the application folder. However, portable apps are run from external USB flash drives or equivalent, so it is a personal device and writing settings to the application folder is therefore preferred. In addition, the admin rights requirement is no longer a concern since you have full access to the USB drive.

An application can cater to both multi-user environment and portability by checking with the user on startup (when it detects that the settings are not initialized yet) whether he wishes to write settings to the user profile folder or application folder. This should be relatively easy to implement, and makes no assumption on the user's preference. Underlying this mechanism is to check for a file eg. settings.ini in the application folder on startup. If the file exists, it write its settings to the application folder, otherwise to the user profile folder.

With regards to the issue of upgrading an application without losing its settings, you could just as easily upgrade a portable app without losing settings by avoiding the appropriate file(s). Some well-designed apps like Portable Firefox even has a explicit profile folder that you simply leave alone when copying over the new application files. This also has the added advantage of being able to easily maintain several versions of the same application, each with its own settings.

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSun, 30 Dec 2007 07:42:01 -0800trailfire:markId:184767The Portable Freeware Collection - All categorieshttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/184768Latest RSS Feed | All | News | Forums RSS Feed | About | FAQ | Links | Quick Search


This website contains a comprehensive catalog of portable freeware apps to perform almost any computing task.
]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSat, 09 Feb 2008 09:24:47 -0800trailfire:markId:184768Applications | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB driveshttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/74732

Applications

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]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookThu, 07 Feb 2008 15:11:29 -0800trailfire:markId:74732OperaUSB == download - extract - use ==http://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/88456

English Version

Opera@USB

Opera@U3
Update your
Opera@USB or Opera@U3
9.x to 9.25
(English Update)

Update
extract the Zip-File direct
to the Opera@USB Folder

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSun, 30 Dec 2007 07:58:11 -0800trailfire:markId:88456Flash Movie Playerhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/79581
Writes settings to: Application folder
]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSat, 31 Mar 2007 15:43:42 -0700trailfire:markId:795817-ZipPortable V4.42http://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/79604]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookFri, 30 Mar 2007 11:53:08 -0700trailfire:markId:79604Universal Extractorhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/79608Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookFri, 30 Mar 2007 11:55:01 -0700trailfire:markId:79608HTML Editors-The Portable Freeware Collectionhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/114688
 

Notepad2 V2.0.16   
Posted on 22nd May 2007 - 598KB (uncompressed) - Suggested by justin
Website - Screenshot - Download - Comments (6) - Post comment - Permalink

Category: Programming / Text Editors

Synopsis: Notepad2 is a small and fast text editor with syntax highlighting for HTML and other common languages. It supports modeless find and replace dialogs, multi-line find and replace operations (using backslash expressions), optional file change notification etc. Note that Notepad2 requires MSVCR70.DLL to run.

Writes settings to: Application folder

How to extract: Download the ZIP package and extract to any folder of your choice. Launch the application by double-clicking Notepad2.exe.

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookTue, 03 Jul 2007 15:50:00 -0700trailfire:markId:114688Card Readerhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/185260Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookWed, 02 Jan 2008 16:38:03 -0800trailfire:markId:185260RoboForm2Go: Portable Automated Password Manager, Form Filler, Password Generator for USB keyhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194268RoboForm2Go Box
EASY AS 1-2-3

1. Plug your USB key with RoboForm2Go on it into any computer, anywhere in the world.

2. RoboForm2Go(TM) memorizes your passwords and bookmarks and logs you into online accounts automatically. Fills long registration and checkout forms too.

3. Pull out your USB key and No traces of RoboForm2Go are left on the computer.
Download RoboForm2GoBuy RoboForm2Go
]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookThu, 07 Feb 2008 15:32:43 -0800trailfire:markId:194268GNOME Office / Gnumeric - Welcome to Gnumeric!http://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194594Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookFri, 08 Feb 2008 13:13:59 -0800trailfire:markId:194594Web Worker Daily » Archive More Mini Mac Apps for Your Pocket USB Thumb Drive «http://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194685More Mini Mac Apps for Your Pocket USB Thumb Drive

January 30th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 7 Comments

After a recent post I did on miniature Mac applications small enough to store on a thumb drive, I got a lot of suggestions for alternatives. I’ve tried several of them and found them useful. In this post I’ll round up more small-footprint applications that are very practical to keep with you on your pocket thumb drive (I keep my little drive on a keychain).

An FTP application is ideal to keep on a pocket drive, because then you can move files too large for e-mail—even long video files—to colleagues or a remote machine with ease. Cyberduck (see above) is a free, open-source application that can do either FTP or SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) transfers. Unlike a lot of FTP programs, it integrates with a number of Mac OS X’s built-in features. For example, there is a Spotlight importer for bookmark files, and synchronizing remote directories with local ones will feel familiar to any regular Mac user.


I also like a quick-and-easy text editor on my pocket thumb drive—nothing fancy, just enough to let me write on the go. Someone responding to my previous post suggested TextWrangler. It’s a free download, and after working with it I’m impressed with it. It’s especially good at opening remote FTP files. Note though, that this one isn’t a miniature application. It has a 22MB footprint.

Instant messaging is often an ideal on-the-go way to communicate with colleagues, and a good thumb drive application to have for chatting from any Mac system is Portable iChat. It’s basically a little script that will open a local copy of iChat, and include your usual buddies and preferences.

If you like to have all your browser preferences set up as usual on any Mac system you find yourself using, get Portable Safari on your thumb drive. It’s a script that sets up your preferences and bookmarks on a local copy of Safari when you open it.

When you’re on the go with a pocket thumb drive, the ability to quickly get something from your remote Mac system can be a lifesaver. For a free application with a tiny footprint (only 852K), get WakeOnLan. You can even schedule it to turn on your remote computer and do scheduled backups.

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookFri, 08 Feb 2008 19:56:46 -0800trailfire:markId:194685Web Worker Daily » Archive Eleven Go-Anywhere Mini Applications for the Mac «http://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194689Eleven Go-Anywhere Mini Applications for the Mac

December 27th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 11 Comments

Recently, I did a post on tiny, free applications you can keep for stashing on a USB thumb drive, which, if you carry your drive around at all times, can keep your applications with you whether you’re toting a notebook or not. Those were all Windows applications, though. In this post, I’ll round up eleven good go-anywhere applications for the Mac. These are quick-in, quick-out programs that you can keep with you on a keychain.

iStumbler is a very easy-to-use application for finding AirPort, Bluetooth, Bonjour and other wireless signals and services. It’s had a recent overhaul that gives you lots of extra information about the networks available to you.

Bean is a free rich text editor that you can pop up in a snap. In my experience, it’s very compatible with Microsoft Word. However, it uses Apple’s file conversion service to read Word files, so if you have a lot of citations and tables in a Word document it may not behave perfectly. It definitely beats stripped down text editors, though.

If you read a lot of text on the web all day, try Tofu. It arranges text on a page in columns, with columns sized properly for the window you have open. You can often see information you’re looking for quickly, without scrolling around.

Adium is a free, simple multi-protocol instant messaging application. With it you can chat with people on AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo and more.

ViewIt is a very quick-to-open image viewer and it supports nearly all common image formats. Also try ImageWell–a nice application for editing images that has a very small footprint.

If you’ve used a Mac for a while, you know all about Spotlight. Inquisitor is a free application that lets you find information on the web in the same way you find things with Spotlight. Just begin typing and it will start to return sites based on your criteria.

For a very simple, small application that can help you automate backups (including automating daily backups right to your USB thumb drive) try iBackup. You can also use it to backup your settings for the Dock, your firewall, and much more.

Paintbrush is a Cocoa-based image editor for Mac OS X. It’s very easy to get in and out of, for those times when loading Photoshop is overkill.

Maintenance is a solid, free system maintenance and repair utility, with a version specifically for Leopard. You can use it to repair permissions, delete applications, check hard drive status, and more.

DoBeDo is a useful widget for use with Mac OS X that lets you integrate to-do list items with iCal and your e-mail. To add a new task, you just click on a plus icon, type in the task name and accept your entry.

Do you know of any good, free mini applications for the Mac?

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookFri, 08 Feb 2008 19:58:07 -0800trailfire:markId:194689The Portable Freeware Collection - Productivity - Spreadsheetshttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194813Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSat, 09 Feb 2008 09:28:43 -0800trailfire:markId:194813SourceForge.net: GnuCashhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/194822About GnuCash Portable

GnuCash Portable provides a PortableApps.com style NSIS launcher enabling GnuCash to run from a portable drive without installing it on the host machine.

Latest File Releases

The latest file releases
PackageReleaseDateNotes / MonitorDownloads

GnuCash Portable Full Install2.2.3 Development Test 3January 29, 2008Release notes - Monitor this packageDownload
GnuCash Portable Updater2.2.3 Development Test 2 UpdateJanuary 17, 2008Release notes - Monitor this packageDownload
]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookSat, 09 Feb 2008 09:56:22 -0800trailfire:markId:194822USB Damn Small Linux install | USB Pen Drive Linuxhttp://trailfire.com/rowanrook/marks/204007USB Damn Small Linux (DSL)

This is a revisit of the Windows DSL USB installation tutorial: "Putting damn small linux on a USB pendrive". Damn Small Linux was created by John Andrews of damnsmalllinux.org and is basically a trimmed down version of Knoppix, making it perfect for smaller drives. Based on the 2.4 kernel, DSL is great to use for older and slower computers as well. It will fit and run on portable devices or drives as small as 64MB.

Damn Small Linux Screenshots:

Damn Small Linux Screenshots

Basic essentials:

  • A 64MB or larger USB flash drive
  • HP-USB Format tool (optional)
  • 7-Zip (or another extracting utility)
  • Syslinux
  • dsl-embedded.zip

Damn Small Linux USB install tutorial:

  1. Download the HP-USB Format tool and format your flash drive using the Fat or Fat32 option
  2. Download the dsl-embedded.zip and extract the contents using 7-Zip to your "USB flash drive"
  3. Download syslinux-3.36.zip and unzip the files to a directory called syslinux on your computer
  4. From Windows click start-> run-> cmd
  5. From the command window, type cd \syslinux\win32
  6. Type syslinux.exe -ma X: (replace X with your USB drive letter) to make the drive bootable
  7. Reboot your computer and set your system BIOS to boot from USB-ZIP or USB-HDD. You might also need to set the hard disk boot priority to boot from the USB stick if your BIOS lists the device as a hard drive.

Notes: It is possible to "boot DSL using Qemu emulation" without the need to reboot the PC. See the included readme file that was written by the authors of DSL

If you still can't get DSL to work, you can try this full installation tutorial direct from the DSL wiki

]]>Portable Apps: Computing from a Flash DriverowanrookWed, 19 Mar 2008 12:40:17 -0700trailfire:markId:204007