Cris Jolliff

Here’s my take on portable freeware; capable of running from a USB external drive, and can be run without any additional installation. They are mostly stand-alone programs, with a few exceptions where noted.

I really enjoy the portability of flash drives, and I get the most bang for the buck on these by carrying not just music, or data files,  but my computing life!

• Server Simulators: As a growing web designer, I find I need to constantly flex my brain, and that means more or less constantly working on a web site, domain, or server. Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible. My work (like many, I’d bet) has a hideous firewall, behind which I am unable to access most administrative tools that are server-side. So I found MoWeS Portable ( MoWeS Portable, from CH Software). This is a true wonder! With this loaded on my flash drive (it takes on average about 100MB if you add extras, and why wouldn’t you? I’ll warn you, the installation can be a bit hinkey, but once done, it works just like a real server, only it’s running on your flash drive!  WOS also offers to sell you flash drives, but I’ve no idea whether they are good deals or not. My recommendation is to look for the fastest, rather than the largest flash drive. This will greatly improve your portable application performance. I personally loaded my portables to a micro HDD USB device, and although it’s not as hardy as flash, it doesn’t suffer flash’s shorter lifespan problems or speed issues. Of course, being a HDD, it died pretty quickly, so I bought a regular flash drive with the highest available write speed, for good measure. Go to WOS CH Software website, and it will custom-build you an installation package that includes any or all of the following:
  • Apache Server
  • MySQL Database Support
  • PHP support
  • Nearly a dozen other server-side installations, including content management systems like Joomla/Mambo, Wiki installations, Bulletin Boards, and more!
• PortableApps.com: The coders at PortableApps.com are committing acts of genius. They take open source and free software, convert them to flash-friendly (no registry writes needed to operate) software that can be easily installed to your flash drive, making it a portable workstation! Everything from Open Office to portable antivirus and anti-malware kits can turn your little thumb drive into a professional computer debugging kit and “anywhere” workstation. Imagine not carrying your laptop with you on vacation! Just find yourself an internet cafe, plug in the flash drive, and viola, your browser, complete with your favorites, your saved passwords, your office programs configured the way you like them. And when you pull the plug, nothing personal is left behind (oh, sure, browsing history is accessible, but who cares? Use an encrypted browser like xB Browser, and it won’t matter). Most of the freeware described on this page can be had in portable format, either from PortableApps.com or from other websites (see Links for more sources).
• Toolkits: I recommend trying an Italian kit called winPenPack (English/Italian switch in upper right corner of page) that provides everything but the web server in a monstrous installation of over 150 different applications. Download it along with the English language pack, and you can run a super-kit without having to do setup yourself, if you like. This is a really big download, and unpacked can take up a GB of memory, so this is not for you “week-ender” flash owners with only 512MB! I recommend using drives with at least 2GB and preferrably 4GB, just to save room for your work, a few tv episodes, and a little music to listen to while working.This is really worth it, though! Alternately, you can “DIY” by getting yourself a little program called PStart (short for Portable Start), and put it on your flash drive. Then add all your other apps to its menu, and create an autorun.ini file to run the program at startup, and what do you get? A personalized operations menu running in the system tray of whatever computer you plug the drive into, that’s what!

The real charm of portable software is being able to use familiar programs that retain your setting preferences even in unfamiliar settings. I hope you find this at least as interesting as I do, and I look forward to reading your responses to my findings.