Portable Apps

Really safe flash drive

2006-03-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

Well, those of you afraid of using flash drives in case you lose them and lose your data to someone else, fret no more - you can now get a Kingston Self-destructing flash drive!

If the wrong person gets a hold of it they'll get only 25 attempts to get the password right and access your data. If they fail the drive and any data on it is gone forever! Just make sure this drive is not the only place where you saved the sensitive data...

Cheap, disposable flash drives

2006-03-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe not disposable but close to it: M-Systems is marketing a new line of flash drives [via Engadget] aimed at people who just need a little more space to replace the aging floppy drive. It is not clear from the press release if the drives support U3, which indicates they probably don't. Still, I can see that many people would take to this product, with a surface label that they can write on and clearly label their drives, just like they did when floppies were around.

SanDisk rolled out a similar effort last year with their Shoot & Store line of flash media, including Shoot & Store USB flash drive. Low cost, low capacity flash drives, albeit at a fairly high cost-per-megabyte.

Flash drives and security: friends or foes?

2006-02-21T10:24:00.000-08:00

I never got a chance to post a link to a great post by Méprisant last month on some of the best portable apps available right now. Most of them are free, and the list spans several categories, although most of them are not U3-enabled.

There are some great suggestions in that list, and I have picked up a few applications I haven't tried before. I do disagree on one point - when introducing a security category Méprisant noted:

Antivirus and Spyware : NOTE : I personally think don't think this category should exist. The entire point of using portable software is to perform certain tasks on machines that do not have the software to perform these tasks, like in an internet cafe. If I wanted to disinfect an infected machine, I would run either an online virus scanner or boot the machine from antivirus software cd.

Unfortunately, using a compromised computer is not a good idea! In the past I had a special USB flash drive with a Read Only switch that enabled me to plug into any computer without worrying that my drive will be compromised by spyware or viruses resident on that computer. Unfortunately, this seriously limits what you can do with your drive so having spyware and virus protection is the next best thing. You don't want to spread disease with your flash drive, always use protection! :)

Another reason for having security software on your drive is rescuing computers that are often not easily fixed. Think of your mom's computer, you happen to be there one evening and hear of all the problems she is having. It takes almost no time to plug in your drive with up-to-date virus/spyware definitions and clean it - even if the network access on the computer has been disabled by the virus. I love that about portable security!

Gmail on your USB drive?

2006-02-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Some people will tell you that networked applications will obsolete all other types of applications, including portable apps running on your USB drive. AJAX-based services have pushed web apps a giant step forward, as services like GMail and Google Maps give you very responsive interfaces as well as accessibility from anywhere on the planet. I mean, would you rather search for available domains the old way, by typing and submitting random words into a Whois tool hoping to hit one that's available, or would you prefer going to Instant Domain Search and finding an available domain in no time at all? Unfortunately, once you're offline you're toast - good luck catching up on your GMail while on an 8-hour flight to London.

To solve this problem a company called Morfik is hoping to extend the reach of AJAX applications beyond the network, all the way to your USB flash drive! They have developed technology that provides a simulated platform for AJAX applications so that you can use them offline. AJAX unplugged indeed! As a proof-of-concept they have converted GMail front end to run directly off a USB flash drive, just like any other portable app would. This in itself is an amazing feat - Morfik is a company to watch for some interesting solutions in the future!

Pushing the USB hardware forward

2006-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

There were many interesting USB flash drive designs at CES this January. One I liked was Lexar's built-in capacity meter: it's a simple LCD indicator telling you at a glance how much free space you have left (similar to battery status indicators on cell phones). I imagine it's powered by an internal battery, as it displays capacity status even when the drive is not plugged in.

Memorex and Didigo take this concept further (albeit in a slightly different direction) with the ability to display some personal information on the LCD as well.

What I would love to see is a very simple improvement that could save a lot of people from losing their data and corrupting their drives: instead of a simple flashing LED that indicates flash drive is plugged in and active, why not put a little stencil over the LED that has an icon of the drive with a cross through it, to indicate that the drive should not be unplugged? This is similar to what iPod would display before being safely ejected, but it will make it clear to many new users that the drive should not just be yanked out at any random time. Once the drive is ejected through software, the LED will go off and the user will know it's safe to remove the drive. Cheap and effective!

Notepad2: programmer's best friend

2006-01-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

One of the core apps for programmers, system administrators and IT staff in general must be Notepad2. It replaces Windows Notepad perfectly - it is not bloated and it is fast! Yet, it picks up on many shortcomings painfully apparent in Windows Notepad. Some of the features it adds are:

Customizable syntax highlighting (HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, PHP, CSS, Perl/CGI, C/C++, C#, Java, VB, Pascal, Assembler, SQL, Python, NSIS, INI, REG, INF, BAT, DIFF)
Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
Basic regular expression search and replace
Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
Brace matching (Lisp fans rejoice), auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files

This is one of those apps that should be at your fingertips wherever you go, on your desktop or on someone else's. Notepad2 unfortunately did not have a U3 version but thanks to Florian's permission I created a U3 version for you to download - and it's absolutely free. Run and download it now, it will take up less than half a megabyte on your device!

Do your taxes, anywhere

2006-01-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

In a very interesting move, H&R Block has joined with Kingston to release their tax preparation software on a USB drive:

H&R Block, the world’s largest tax services provider and Kingston, the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products, announced today that H&R Block will deliver TaxCut Deluxe™ tax software on a custom Kingston® 256-MB DataTraveler USB Flash Drive. This innovative concept of delivering tax software on a USB drive is convenient, portable, and a true value to taxpayers.

“We were looking for a new way to deliver our software” said Derek Swords, product director, software, H&R Block. “We feel that Kingston’s DataTraveler USB drive gives our customers an easy, secure and portable way to access and install TaxCut, and helps our customers prepare their taxes easily so they receive the best possible outcome from their tax experience. Combining our TaxCut Deluxe software with the ease-of-use, reliability and portability of the Kingston DataTraveler is a unique way for us to meet our customers’ needs and provide value beyond the tax season.’

You will be seeing a lot more software on USB drives this year!

Core apps

2006-01-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

The concept of core apps is to have a set of applications on your smart drive that won't take up a lot of space, yet will save your bacon in desperate situations. These core apps are different for different jobs: a programmer might have her favourite light-weight editor installed on her smart drive, while a graphic designer may need his favourite screen capture utility always on hand. Some apps may overlap several categories, and some people may be more choosy than others.

My goal is to have my Travel drive, my Work drive and my Entertainment drive setup with selected core apps on each. This way whenever I leave the house I just pick up one, two or three drives I'd need that day. Let's help each other and build a list of core apps for different types of usage: send me your core apps, or if you don't know them yet, the type of programs you miss when away from your computer. I hope to expand and maintain these lists so that newcomers are able to get started quickly with their shiny new drives.

Send your suggestions to portableapps at gmail.com (replace with proper @ sign).

More on U3 antispyware app

2006-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

I wrote earlier about the first antispyware app for the U3 platform. It's called XoftSpy Portable and it's published by ParetoLogic. Their blog has some more information on this latest release and what it brings to the table:

Size: Using only 2.5 MB of space on the target device, XoftSpy Portable Edition’s small footprint allows users to retain space for other applications.

Speed: Faster than most desktop spyware scanners, XoftSpy Portable Edition performs a typical scan of both device and host computer in under 2 minutes.

Accuracy: One of the highest rates of spyware detection in the industry with over 45,000 definitions in the XoftSpy database.

Read more at Spyware Daily. As I said, I hope to have a review before too long so stay tuned!

Browsers to go

2006-01-19T21:37:00.000-08:00

We all love our web browser, and if you're reading this chances are you're using one too. Those of us who spend a lot of time online tend to personalize our browsers more than the average person. Starting from a large collection of bookmarks to tools and plugins that keep us safe and free from popups. If you've ever used someone else's computer for web access you probably missed the comfort of your browser. Well, fret no more - you now have a few options when it comes to portable browsing.

Firefox has become the default browser on many desktops and now you can have it loaded on your smart drive as well. As long as you have a U3 drive you can have your Firefox bookmarks, plugins and skins with you wherever you go. One downside is that this version of Firefox may not be as current as the official desktop release. You can get your copy for free from U3 Software Central.

Another great portable browser for U3 platform is Maxthon - it may not have the market reach of Firefox, but it packs even more functionality. With Maxthon you can group tabs and open them with a single click. Maxthon provides great search features as well as skinning and advanced plugin support. Maxthon is based on Internet Explorer's rendering engine and can also be downloaded for free (albeit with an optional donation) via U3 Software Central.

Antivirus flash drive

2006-01-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

It was just yesterday I mentioned an antispyware application for U3 platform soon to be available. Around the same time Engadget posted about Iocell VaccineDrive, a flash drive with included antivirus software to clean infected computers with minimum of fuss. These types of solutions have obvious advantages to trying to install antivirus on an already infected computer that may not even have internet connectivity - a flash drive allows you to keep an up-to-date virus or spyware definitions database on the drive at all times.

Future for smart drives

2006-01-16T18:09:00.000-08:00

I have been asked many times what the future holds for smart drives, are they a fad or do they have staying power? To me the answer is obvious - smart drives offer all the best features of regular flash drives, yet bring so much more to the table. Even if you don't see yourself using the "smart" features you haven't really given up anything if you choose a smart drive for your next flash drive. The key here is not to just look at what smart drives are capable of today, but also take into account the emerging solutions that are just coming to market.

One of the interesting applications I have been working with is the new anti-spyware software that runs on smart drives. How many times have you visited your family members or friends to be confronted with an ailing PC, with damaged internet connectivity and a pleading face asking you to fix it. Now, I can just plug in my smart drive and have the computer cleaned in a minute or two. A definite time saver! This software will soon be available via U3 Software Central and I hope to write up a review in the near future.

What's behind U3?

2006-01-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

It's easy to discuss U3 in general terms without actually looking at how U3 team overcame the obstacles of turning ordinary flash drives into smart drives. There are several problems with regular USB flash drives that make them less than ideal for running programs. One of the biggest ones was how to automatically start the user environment for managing the flash drive when the drive is inserted. Unfortunately, while Windows can be setup to autorun removable drives, this setting is disabled by default and can be enabled by editing the registry. This is not the easiest thing to explain to an average user in Getting Started instructions.

U3 solved this problem by partitioning every U3 device into two distinct partitions: the first one is only a few megabytes large and it identifies itself to Windows as a read-only CD-ROM. The second partition is the actual writeable user partition. When a U3 key is inserted the first partition automatically launches, using the CD-ROM autorun functionality, and loads the U3 LaunchPad. The LaunchPad sits in the taskbar notification area (system tray) and provides access to installed applications on the U3 device, not unlike the Windows Start menu. LaunchPad provides easy way to install, launch and remove programs and even download programs from U3 Software Central. Furthermore, LaunchPad provides advanced functionality to U3 applications and can notify them if the user ejects the drive (even if the drive is removed unsafely).

U3 and smart drives

2006-01-13T17:30:00.000-08:00

One of the first comprehensive solutions to improving the usability of dumb flash drives is the U3 platform. They may not be the only ones trying to solve this problem but so far they are fastest to the market. For a few months now you were able to purchase devices supporting U3 platform from several manufacturers, including a few big ones like SanDisk, Kingston, Verbatim, Memorex and others.

U3 is actually built into the drive's firmware and you can think of it as an application manager for flash drives. It allows you to install compatible apps directly onto the drive, launch them quickly, and easily remove them from the drive. U3 also establishes a set of rules for certified applications to make them truly portable and not leave garbage files behind after the drive has been removed. This is no small task, considering that U3 has to keep its overhead very low and operate intuitively and quickly. I will be testing all sorts of U3 applications so we'll see how well U3 accomplishes those goals!

Flood of drives at CES

2006-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

I was at Las Vegas and CES a few days ago and I'm still recovering. The beauty of CES is its depth - it has many levels and an average visitor will only see certain shades of CES every year. My CES was very flash-coloured. I spent a lot of time around flash drive manufacturers, some big, some small. One thing was clear - USB flash drives are going to become even more present everywhere this year. Prices keep coming down, while new manufacturers are coming to the party. There are some interesting innovations being brought to the table as well, from new hardware features to improved firmware and smart flash drives. Better and smart firmware is going to be a must-have feature on many flash drives starting this year. This is going to be a major step forward for portable software as users will have the tools to run and manage programs directly on their flash drives. More on this soon!

What are we talking about here?

2006-01-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

The common PC of 1980 didn’t really have a use for hard drives, it generally had one floppy drive, or if you were lucky (or rich) two. So in the beginning all of the software was “portable” - you could run it on any PC, and it didn’t tie itself to any particular machine (unless it employed copy protection).

When hard drives became more common, they had such a huge advantage in space and speed over the floppy drive that programs slowly switched to being installed on the hard drive, and floppy disks were retained to store documents and backups.

Fast forward to the 90s and floppies became so slow and small that they were used less and less. Iomega’s ZIP disks tried to change that but they never really became universal. Well, something cool happened after year 2000 - several companies started selling flash-based drives that interfaced with the computer over the now ubiquitous USB port, and were also powered by USB so they didn’t need any extra power adapters to function. Suddenly, you could have a decent amount of space in a really small package that worked with a lot of computers out there. M-Systems was one of the first companies to focus on development and refinement of this technology and were given credit recently by PC World and named as the top 9 gadget of the last 50 years.

Soon after some of us were trying to go back to the eighties and develop software that would run on these devices. We recognized that for the first time we had a storage medium that was not just widely available, but was relatively quick, small, self-powered, spacious and reliable (when compared to those annoying floppy drives). This perfect storm of features creates a unique opportunity for some innovative software design - that’s what I hope we can promote through this site!

Welcome to Portable Apps

2006-01-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

This blog will focus on portable software, the kind that runs on regular desktop computers. Unlike a lot of mobile software that is designed for PDAs and smart-phones, this new kind of software takes advantage of the removable USB drives to add new level of functionality to your PC. I also hope that we'll be able to highlight the unique advantages of this branch of software that go beyond what PDAs and web-apps can do.