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Qt is good but two reasons have left it pretty much by the wayside. One is that Microsoft that used to use C++ a lot moved to C#, Apple uses ObjectiveC/Swift, Android uses Java and the web mostly Javascript. While there's quite a few people skilled in C++ I don't think there's many being added to the pool anymore and Qt isn't that great that you learn C++ to use it. The main reason though is that cross-platform today might mean more than Windows/Mac/Linux, also when Windows did a complete do-over with Metro it was hard to keep up.

Qt depends on that a fundamental level desktops have the same elements, push buttons, radio buttons, scroll bars, flat lists, tree lists etc. that can be mapped easily between systems. It works for something like qBittorrent but it's not seeing much adoption in the general case anymore.

Advanced Onion Router is a portable (can run off a key drive) and easy to use program that will force a program to work entirely through it. This can get programs without proxy settings to work with the TOR network, and speed up the process of setting up a proxy in other programs. There are some pretty advanced settings inside the program that the average user will probably ignore, but its nice to have them there if you need.

Hey I would have agreed with you about Netscape if Netscape hadn't released V4. Whew boy, did that suck! You wanna talk about a buggy mess, it is what got me to switch to IE, which I hated! Here is my experience with Netscape V4 "Oh look here comes my page...and it crashed :-( Lets try again! Oh look here comes my page...and now my whole machine is locked up solid!" You get the idea.

As for Kmeleon, which OS are you running? Because on Win2K I've been running it for years and can only think of two times it has crashed. It really didn't like Gmail, nor Yahoo mail. Probably something about the JavaScript. But for day to day browsing they are usually quite stable. Oh, don't try to add Firefox extensions. There are some sites that offer extensions for Kmeleon, but without XUL they are seriously hacked together and buggy.

Now thanks to the state of browsers today, if Kmeleon standard doesn't work for you you can try Pocket Kmeleon, which packs everything into a single folder and might be more stable for you, plus there is SRWare Iron and QTWeb and Opera USB and if you want the tiniest browser that still functions give OffByOne a try.

I would also recommend a nice little program called Dependency Walker which can help track down the problem with Kmeleon or any other buggy program. I have found most Windows program crashes can be tracked down to a missing dependency, which dependency walker can help you find easily. Just point D Walker at the executable and let it do its thing. It will highlight which dependencies are missing, so you can add them to your PC and fix the crash. Good Luck!

Hey I would have agreed with you about Netscape if Netscape hadn't released V4. Whew boy, did that suck! You wanna talk about a buggy mess, it is what got me to switch to IE, which I hated! Here is my experience with Netscape V4 "Oh look here comes my page...and it crashed :-( Lets try again! Oh look here comes my page...and now my whole machine is locked up solid!" You get the idea.

As for Kmeleon, which OS are you running? Because on Win2K I've been running it for years and can only think of two times it has crashed. It really didn't like Gmail, nor Yahoo mail. Probably something about the JavaScript. But for day to day browsing they are usually quite stable. Oh, don't try to add Firefox extensions. There are some sites that offer extensions for Kmeleon, but without XUL they are seriously hacked together and buggy.

Now thanks to the state of browsers today, if Kmeleon standard doesn't work for you you can try Pocket Kmeleon, which packs everything into a single folder and might be more stable for you, plus there is SRWare Iron and QTWeb and Opera USB and if you want the tiniest browser that still functions give OffByOne a try.

I would also recommend a nice little program called Dependency Walker which can help track down the problem with Kmeleon or any other buggy program. I have found most Windows program crashes can be tracked down to a missing dependency, which dependency walker can help you find easily. Just point D Walker at the executable and let it do its thing. It will highlight which dependencies are missing, so you can add them to your PC and fix the crash. Good Luck!

Hey I would have agreed with you about Netscape if Netscape hadn't released V4. Whew boy, did that suck! You wanna talk about a buggy mess, it is what got me to switch to IE, which I hated! Here is my experience with Netscape V4 "Oh look here comes my page...and it crashed :-( Lets try again! Oh look here comes my page...and now my whole machine is locked up solid!" You get the idea.

As for Kmeleon, which OS are you running? Because on Win2K I've been running it for years and can only think of two times it has crashed. It really didn't like Gmail, nor Yahoo mail. Probably something about the JavaScript. But for day to day browsing they are usually quite stable. Oh, don't try to add Firefox extensions. There are some sites that offer extensions for Kmeleon, but without XUL they are seriously hacked together and buggy.

Now thanks to the state of browsers today, if Kmeleon standard doesn't work for you you can try Pocket Kmeleon, which packs everything into a single folder and might be more stable for you, plus there is SRWare Iron and QTWeb and Opera USB and if you want the tiniest browser that still functions give OffByOne a try.

I would also recommend a nice little program called Dependency Walker which can help track down the problem with Kmeleon or any other buggy program. I have found most Windows program crashes can be tracked down to a missing dependency, which dependency walker can help you find easily. Just point D Walker at the executable and let it do its thing. It will highlight which dependencies are missing, so you can add them to your PC and fix the crash. Good Luck!

Hey I would have agreed with you about Netscape if Netscape hadn't released V4. Whew boy, did that suck! You wanna talk about a buggy mess, it is what got me to switch to IE, which I hated! Here is my experience with Netscape V4 "Oh look here comes my page...and it crashed :-( Lets try again! Oh look here comes my page...and now my whole machine is locked up solid!" You get the idea.

As for Kmeleon, which OS are you running? Because on Win2K I've been running it for years and can only think of two times it has crashed. It really didn't like Gmail, nor Yahoo mail. Probably something about the JavaScript. But for day to day browsing they are usually quite stable. Oh, don't try to add Firefox extensions. There are some sites that offer extensions for Kmeleon, but without XUL they are seriously hacked together and buggy.

Now thanks to the state of browsers today, if Kmeleon standard doesn't work for you you can try Pocket Kmeleon, which packs everything into a single folder and might be more stable for you, plus there is SRWare Iron and QTWeb and Opera USB and if you want the tiniest browser that still functions give OffByOne a try.

I would also recommend a nice little program called Dependency Walker which can help track down the problem with Kmeleon or any other buggy program. I have found most Windows program crashes can be tracked down to a missing dependency, which dependency walker can help you find easily. Just point D Walker at the executable and let it do its thing. It will highlight which dependencies are missing, so you can add them to your PC and fix the crash. Good Luck!

Hey I would have agreed with you about Netscape if Netscape hadn't released V4. Whew boy, did that suck! You wanna talk about a buggy mess, it is what got me to switch to IE, which I hated! Here is my experience with Netscape V4 "Oh look here comes my page...and it crashed :-( Lets try again! Oh look here comes my page...and now my whole machine is locked up solid!" You get the idea.

As for Kmeleon, which OS are you running? Because on Win2K I've been running it for years and can only think of two times it has crashed. It really didn't like Gmail, nor Yahoo mail. Probably something about the JavaScript. But for day to day browsing they are usually quite stable. Oh, don't try to add Firefox extensions. There are some sites that offer extensions for Kmeleon, but without XUL they are seriously hacked together and buggy.

Now thanks to the state of browsers today, if Kmeleon standard doesn't work for you you can try Pocket Kmeleon, which packs everything into a single folder and might be more stable for you, plus there is SRWare Iron and QTWeb and Opera USB and if you want the tiniest browser that still functions give OffByOne a try.

I would also recommend a nice little program called Dependency Walker which can help track down the problem with Kmeleon or any other buggy program. I have found most Windows program crashes can be tracked down to a missing dependency, which dependency walker can help you find easily. Just point D Walker at the executable and let it do its thing. It will highlight which dependencies are missing, so you can add them to your PC and fix the crash. Good Luck!

Or he could just use KeePass. It is free, uses AES crypto, easy to back up and have in multiple places/computers, works great from a thumbdrive, and if he cooks up a nice and nasty password for KeePass (since he only needs the one to get to the others) the odds of anybody figuring it out is pretty much squat.

So while carrying around scraps of paper might be one "low tech" way to do it, I'd prefer nice AES crypto. It seems like KeePass is what the guy is looking for, at least from the way I read TFS.

Hello! The guy is on a corporate intranet where the PCs are locked down. So Irfanview portable or Paint.NET portable on a flash drive FTW, thank you very much.

Actually they put a little tiny thing on about page 8 or so of the EULA with language like "In order to give you this awesome shareware title for absolutely free, you agree to install our partners software so they can give you fabulous offers. This software may transmit information in order to better serve you with offers that pertain to your surfing habits" etc. Believe me, as a PC repairman going on 15 years I have run into the "toolbar tango" more times than I can count and it always feels sleazy. Why Google and Yahoo would stoop that low is beyond me.

Now see, you are hitting the nail on the head as to what is confusing me. We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful? I honestly don't see malware sites calling Chrome Frame, unless they have an exploit, and then like I said running two browsers would be a bad thing, and not of the good.

And I have worked on more than a few corporate desktops in my day, before I got burnt on the PHB Dilbert bullshit keeping me from doing my job and providing a secure workstation, and again this just don't compute to me. Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6. So again this looks like such a minuscule amount of folks that this would supposedly help (Has IE6+can't upgrade or switch to a better browser+has permission to install plugins) that it just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.

In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6. And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome (or FF3 if they are on Win2K) than all the work to build this thing. Because as you said trying to put security on top of IE6 is like wearing a helmet while standing around in your boxers. More than a little bit pointless. And for those not allowed to install anything there is always Pocket Kmeleon, QTWeb (same engine as Safari/Chrome) or Portable Firefox. And that is just the first three I clicked on at random, there are over a dozen including a Portable Chrome. This idea just seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Actually they put a little tiny thing on about page 8 or so of the EULA with language like "In order to give you this awesome shareware title for absolutely free, you agree to install our partners software so they can give you fabulous offers. This software may transmit information in order to better serve you with offers that pertain to your surfing habits" etc. Believe me, as a PC repairman going on 15 years I have run into the "toolbar tango" more times than I can count and it always feels sleazy. Why Google and Yahoo would stoop that low is beyond me.

Now see, you are hitting the nail on the head as to what is confusing me. We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful? I honestly don't see malware sites calling Chrome Frame, unless they have an exploit, and then like I said running two browsers would be a bad thing, and not of the good.

And I have worked on more than a few corporate desktops in my day, before I got burnt on the PHB Dilbert bullshit keeping me from doing my job and providing a secure workstation, and again this just don't compute to me. Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6. So again this looks like such a minuscule amount of folks that this would supposedly help (Has IE6+can't upgrade or switch to a better browser+has permission to install plugins) that it just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.

In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6. And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome (or FF3 if they are on Win2K) than all the work to build this thing. Because as you said trying to put security on top of IE6 is like wearing a helmet while standing around in your boxers. More than a little bit pointless. And for those not allowed to install anything there is always Pocket Kmeleon, QTWeb (same engine as Safari/Chrome) or Portable Firefox. And that is just the first three I clicked on at random, there are over a dozen including a Portable Chrome. This idea just seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Actually they put a little tiny thing on about page 8 or so of the EULA with language like "In order to give you this awesome shareware title for absolutely free, you agree to install our partners software so they can give you fabulous offers. This software may transmit information in order to better serve you with offers that pertain to your surfing habits" etc. Believe me, as a PC repairman going on 15 years I have run into the "toolbar tango" more times than I can count and it always feels sleazy. Why Google and Yahoo would stoop that low is beyond me.

Now see, you are hitting the nail on the head as to what is confusing me. We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful? I honestly don't see malware sites calling Chrome Frame, unless they have an exploit, and then like I said running two browsers would be a bad thing, and not of the good.

And I have worked on more than a few corporate desktops in my day, before I got burnt on the PHB Dilbert bullshit keeping me from doing my job and providing a secure workstation, and again this just don't compute to me. Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6. So again this looks like such a minuscule amount of folks that this would supposedly help (Has IE6+can't upgrade or switch to a better browser+has permission to install plugins) that it just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.

In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6. And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome (or FF3 if they are on Win2K) than all the work to build this thing. Because as you said trying to put security on top of IE6 is like wearing a helmet while standing around in your boxers. More than a little bit pointless. And for those not allowed to install anything there is always Pocket Kmeleon, QTWeb (same engine as Safari/Chrome) or Portable Firefox. And that is just the first three I clicked on at random, there are over a dozen including a Portable Chrome. This idea just seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Actually they put a little tiny thing on about page 8 or so of the EULA with language like "In order to give you this awesome shareware title for absolutely free, you agree to install our partners software so they can give you fabulous offers. This software may transmit information in order to better serve you with offers that pertain to your surfing habits" etc. Believe me, as a PC repairman going on 15 years I have run into the "toolbar tango" more times than I can count and it always feels sleazy. Why Google and Yahoo would stoop that low is beyond me.

Now see, you are hitting the nail on the head as to what is confusing me. We all now IE6 equals total swiss cheese that can turn a box into a virus laden whore faster than you can say coolwebsearch, so how exactly is having Chrome Frame for the very limited number of websites that will call it actually helpful? I honestly don't see malware sites calling Chrome Frame, unless they have an exploit, and then like I said running two browsers would be a bad thing, and not of the good.

And I have worked on more than a few corporate desktops in my day, before I got burnt on the PHB Dilbert bullshit keeping me from doing my job and providing a secure workstation, and again this just don't compute to me. Those desktops are usually locked down tighter than a Nun's panties and you usually have to go through an act of congress to get squat installed on those suckers, which is of course why they are still running IE6 and not IE7 or 8 or hell, anything that doesn't blow chunks like IE6. So again this looks like such a minuscule amount of folks that this would supposedly help (Has IE6+can't upgrade or switch to a better browser+has permission to install plugins) that it just doesn't seem worth the development effort to me.

In my mind the only way this makes any sense at all is if Google is hoping to get the "clicks through anything to get the goodies" crowd that are too stupid/lazy to get rid of the POS that is IE6. And if that is the case they would be much better off simply cutting off support for IE6 completely from all Google services and offering a link to Chrome (or FF3 if they are on Win2K) than all the work to build this thing. Because as you said trying to put security on top of IE6 is like wearing a helmet while standing around in your boxers. More than a little bit pointless. And for those not allowed to install anything there is always Pocket Kmeleon, QTWeb (same engine as Safari/Chrome) or Portable Firefox. And that is just the first three I clicked on at random, there are over a dozen including a Portable Chrome. This idea just seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

I agree about having portable software, which is why I love checking out the portable freeware collection since they always seems to have something new. Being in PC repair I have also found having the computer repair utility toolkit on a flash to be invaluable.

Now as for how many read/writes you are going to get with your apps, why use your main drive for apps? When there is places like surplus computers where you can pick up multipacks of sticks so cheap, and the things are so small on your keyring, it just doesn't make much sense to me to waste read/write cycles on my large flash when I can just pick up a pack cheap. That way if the one I am using for an app on a stick dies, who cares? Just reach in the drawer and grab another one. Slap the apps on and I'm good to go. I just use FEBE to keep my FF bookmarks synced with my Netbox once a day and I'm good.

But with multipacks being so cheap and the things being so handy it just doesn't make sense to me to wear out my big drive using it for apps when I can have a handful of new drives in a drawer ready to go. After all, portable apps aren't bloated. Plus having spare means that I can try different things like Live USB OSes without risking screwing up the ones I use for work. Better safe than sorry.

Some useful sites I've found are:

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
• http://www.nirsoft.net/
• http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/31/portable-wscc-simplifies-access-to-sysinternals-nirsoft-utiliti/
• http://portableapps.com/
• http://portablefreeware.com/
• http://www.getusb.info/55-portable-apps-for-making-a-usb-super-stick/
• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/
• http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/02/24-killer-portable-apps-for-your-usb-flash-drive/2
• http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/35-portable-applications-every-tech-needs/
• http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/07/21/15-portable-apps-to-help-troubleshoot-pcs/

Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit, which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.

Anyone know where we can get the old versions. The pre-Microsoft versions?

One person's 'upgrade' is another's 'hobbled'. Why did the size of so many Sysinternals utilities increase in size from 1-200K to over 1MB for no change in functionality?

For more see posts at: http://www.portablefreeware.com/

Is that even possible?

Read only is easy. And quite possibly safe.

Read-write is also easy, but a little riskier (do you really want Windows to prompt you to reformat your root partition if it wasn't unmounted cleanly?)

It's funny that in 2008 there are tons of games being developed that play with.... a keyboard!

Although I agree with you in spirit (I find that I play more small flash games these days than I do "real" games), I can't stand games that use keyboard input (unless they either use only one or two buttons, or truly require dozens of keys). But if a game has four-way motion and one or two "action" keys - It damned well better let me use the joystick to play.

Fortunately, you can "fix" most such games, thanks to JoyToKey, which lets you map your joystick's inputs (any inputs - It has input types I've never even heard of) to arbitrary keyboard and mouse combinations. Not to shamelessly plug it too much (I have nothing to do with its development, BTW), but I've actually told games that do have crude joystick support to use keyboard input instead because JoyToKey let me map the inputs to much more ergonomically-friendly combinations.

Portable Freeware is my favorite site for programs that will run on a USB flash drive (or floppy if they're small enough) without the need to install on the host machine and create registry entries and the like. The focus of the site is portability, but generally speaking that also means bloat-free.

For me, the key is to load "portable" versions of apps instead of "installable" versions. The point is not only to eliminate the need to install, but more importantly, not to leave traces of your apps behind. It's security and a courtesy. Two excellent sources are:

PortableApps.com
PortableFreeware.com

-Jim Barr
http://jimstips.com/

I concur. The PortableApps concept really intrigues me. Just be forewarned that large suites like this (even including an app like Portable Firefox) can have HORRIBLE performance if you are not using USB 2.0. That said, it's very nice, convenient, and probably pretty secure to keep a library of often-used "portable" tools on a Thumb Drive.

One method of "finding" portable applications is to try installing your favorite application, copy the installation directory to a thumb drive, and then try running that on another computer. Sometimes, you get lucky, and end up with a fine, portable application! Basically, you want to find applications that only install into their own directory, and don't write anything into other directories or the registery. Just be smart about it and don't expect large, commercial applications to be able to do this...especially Microsoft applications that write large quantities of stuff to the registery.

For another excellent portable apps site, check out PortableFreeware.com

Great list! Here's another resource for portable apps:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/

They're all free, and the collection is pretty comperhensive.

-Jim
http://jimstips.com/

This one rock, if you dont have enough space, I suggest using portable Abiword. To get more portable application visit : http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html and http://www.portablefreeware.com/ I use them alot on my pc, this way I never have to reinstall/reconfigure them after a Reinstallation of windows. I also love using portable antivirus and others security program from a cd, so I can boot my mom pc in safe mode !

this website exists to catalog all of the apps that are portable enough to work via usb drives.

http://www.portablefreeware.com/

As for number 4,All he had to do was go here http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php and they got a ton of great portable freeware.Love the browser and antivirus tools.Great for a hosed windows machine infected with those damn browser hijackers.

A tidied up version

I suggest you consider encrypting part of the drive, TrueCrypt is a great little app and will run from the USB Thumb Drive as a way to store any info you wish to be secure.

You might also want to consider EssentialPIM or Getting Things Done tools like GTDTiddlyWiki or Next Action (requires firefox)

Check out portablefreeware for more apps and Slashdot

Microsoft usb flash manager is a way to backup you flash drive and keep the info safe, you might also want to consider a second flash drive

(PS: Getting Things Done is a simple and effective personal productivity method by David Allen. You can get the book from Amazon.
Also check out the GTD community at the 43Folders website, wiki, and newsgroup.)

I suggest you consider encrypting part of the drive, TrueCrypt is a great little app and will run from the USB Thumb Drive as a way to store any info you wish to be secure.

You might also want to consider EssentialPIM or Getting Things Done tools like GTDTiddlyWiki or Next Action (requires firefox)

Check out portablefreeware for more apps and Slashdot

Microsoft usb flash manager is a way to backup you flash drive and keep the info safe, you might also want to consider a second flash drive

(PS: Getting Things Done is a simple and effective personal productivity method by David Allen. You can http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0142 000280/qid=1115360158/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-8782 437-3718417?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/ -/0142000280/qid=1115360158/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/00 2-8782437-3718417?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" class="externalLink">get the book from Amazon.
Also check out the GTD community at the 43Folders http://www.43folders.com/" href="http://www.43folders.com/" >website, http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Main_Page" href="http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Main_Pag e" >wiki, and http://groups-beta.google.com/group/43Folders/" href="http://groups-beta.google.com/group/43Folder s/" >newsgroup.)

This website portablefreeware.com is dedicated to listing such portable freeware apps.