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Essential Software for Thumbdrives?
MaufTarkie asks: "My manager just handed me a 256 megabyte thumbdrive. I already know about UnixKit for Windows and the WEP Key Generator Utility for Wi-Fi Networks, but I'm interesting in hearing what other people are putting on their drives. My drive will potentially touch a range of systems (Windows, Unix, and MacOS X), so any software is fair game. What are some essential tools I can (should) put on this?"
How do you get around Cygwin requiring registry additions to function properly? I find installing Cygwin on my usb keychain is worthless for random machines that have different drive configurations, or that I don't have Admin access to. Pretty annoying.
-puTTY - terminals should be available on any Unix-ish or Mac-ish comp., but in case you're in an Apple store (where Terminal is locked off), maybe a Mac SSH client, too
-Firefox - shameless self-promotion: here's my quick, easy, robust way of getting Firefox to work on a USB drive: Firefox@York. Note that this not only allows you to have extensions (which some portability how-tos don't), but you can use the same profile for the Mac, Windows and Unix versions of Firefox (diff binaries, same profile).
-Adaware and Spybot. Maybe a ClamAV or AVG installer
-Useful links - I have Trend Micro's "House Call" online virus scan, Windows Update, www.whatsmyip.com, etc.
-Perhaps a POP3 or IMAP client like Thunderbird? Or even a full-fledged PIM, depending on size
-A list of CD keys for all your software
The next thing to go on my drive will be Open Office. Only one binary (I think), since it's Java-based, but getting it down to size and getting it to understand that it's on a portable drive will be the challenges.
I recommend using portable firefox as its designed for USB memory devices.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
I tote Antivir XP (no I don't work for them ;) around on my miniscule 64mb thumbdrive (Freebie from Micro$loth :)
http://www.free-av.com/
its free, its pretty small and its databases are updated fairly regularly.
afaik this is because windows is a little bitch about HFS and HFS+
And this surprises you why? Remember, Microsoft is all about platform lock-in, more than Apple will ever be.
Last night I needed to put a scratch drive in a G4 I have in my testing lab, so I grabbed an HDD from a Windows box I wasn't using. When I fired up the Mac (running OS X 10.3.5) I was stunned to see that it mounted (as read-only) that NTFS-formatted drive on the desktop, and I was able to browse the contents. I've been using and supporting OS X for years and had no idea that the Mac spoke NTFS.
Ok, I got a 64 meg one for my b-day. So I was wondering what apps I would need on there. I was thinking of taking a small 50meg distro and redoing it to fit my needs. and add a lil more to fill up the whole thumbdrive.
-Do not mess in the affairs of dragons. To them you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.