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What's On Your Thumbdrive?
Broue Master asks: "Nowadays, we need to support not only people at the office, but friends, family, friends of the family, family of the friends... you name it! They all run Windows to a degree and there are many tools to help you when assisting. Personally, I have a thumb-drive with removable memory cards. One of them has a small bootable Linux, the other one is filled with ready to use Windows utilities (CPU-Z, Ultra-Edit32), DOS utilities I've been collecting over the years, and Unix-style utilities (ps.exe, kill.exe, and others) ported to Windows, without the need for a layer like Cygwin. I also have a copy of the install files for AVG, Spybot, Sygate and the likes. But, even though I think I have many great tools, I'm sure I do not know about a lot of great others to help diagnose and solve problem. So I ask you, what's on your thumb-drive?"
....we need an open source equivalent to the GeekSquad MRI :)
Sig: I stole this sig.
I have about 6 of em too, got em real cheap from those iraq street shops :)
[the above is ment to be a joke. Don't take it seriously big brother]
And I think I represent most of /. here.
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/
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
My girlfriend bought me a laptop hard drive in an enclosure. Its 100 GB with a 5400 RPM disc, and supports USB 2.0. I literally store everything on it, from schoolwork to movies to backups of video games. I take it everywhere with me just incase I find some software (say on my school's network) that I'd really like to take home. Or if I need to access my schedule or project documents, or maybe my voice communication client.
So, technically its not a thumbdrive, but it fits in my pocket.
EVERYTHING.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
You missed firefox/thunderbird. It's shocking how many people don't have them, and how much grief they put themselves through because they don't.
"So I ask you, what's on your thumb-drive?"
Fingerprints.
--
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment...that says the same thing you're going to post, and you get a redundent. HA! HA!"
Could do a long post... but easier just to point to this /. post that was already up with MANY MANY good links.
I use it to transport data from high-bandwidth to low-bandwidth areas, not much more. If my family has computer problems, they typically drop off the entire thing on my doorstep. Making housecalls is annoying because there's always that one little utility or piece of hardware I forgot to bring. My nerd cave is full of wonders, and is appropriately treated with awe.
You don't want to know.
Beats me. You'll have to ask the guy who swiped it.
--MarkusQ
At Yalta?
are Putty (ssh client and proxy pipe), PSCP (secure copy of files from *nix to/from win), PSFTP (secure ftp), tail, and scite (a nice text editor).
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Process Explorer, Filemon, Autoruns. Some other windows debugging tools too, since I do development on that platform. But those three are generally useful.
See you, space cowboy...
This way, I can satisfy any passing desire to experience Yet Another Stupid Death.
The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
There are a myriad of great tools out there, but personally I have a copy of almost everything from Sysinternals on my thumbdrive. Top of the list are Process Explorer a (overclocked, suped-up, uber, and simply amazing) version of TaskManager. It shows everything you've ever wanted to know about a process but didn't know you could know. In addition, FileMon and RegMon are very helpful for troubleshooting permission problems, and the PSTools kit (psexec, pskill, etc) are also great. They also have a free read-only version of NTFSDOS (and even an NTFS filesystem driver for 95/98. The TCP/IP tools are also very good to have on hand. Best part is of course that they are free, and many have source available.
If you do any Windows troubleshooting, this website is a must-have. No joke.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Trend Microsystems "Sysclean" package. It's just an exe file with the scanning engine, and you download the latest virus def patternfile, and it scans your computer. Very nice; TM I think is the best commercial AV product available.
Sysclean executable:
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/dcs.asp (under "Not a Trend Micro Customer")
Pattern files:
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/pattern.asp
I also carry, in the "Antivirus" folder:
Various utilities I've collected for removing Symantec AV
AVG Free installer (I tried to talk people into TrendMicro, because I honestly think it's better, but if they flat out refused, I'd install AVG for them - less virusy computers on teh intarwebs is a good thing)
vcleaner - avg's somewhat less capable version of TM's sysclean package.
Also:
A series of handy apps, including:
7zip - v313 (the older one seems to have less bloat)
adobe acrobat
Divx codec
VLC Media Player
Firefox
Winamp 2.92
IttyBittyProcessManager
Angry IP scanner
Killbox
MSRDPCLI.exe (MS Remote Desktop Client - for 2000/98 machines)
vbrun60 files
and a folder called "Computer Cleanup", containing:
ad aware personal (plus the latest defs.ref file, available form lavasoftusa.com)
CWShredder (remove cool web search spyware)
Hijack this
ewido setup
LSP Fix (for sneaky spywares that replace something with dns)
WinsockXPFix
BugOff
RegVac
Spybot S&D (plus latest update packs)
Yep.
sig?
My Capital One card.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
With the 2GB drives costing so little, it's easy to bring all the tools you need anywhere you go. Some of the basics - All the tools from SysInternals - About 27MB (including RegMon, FileMon, etc...) File Recovery software like Restore File shredding utility SpyBot/Adaware TweakUI SynchBack (Synch and file backup program) AVG - AntiVirus Folder with key XP system files CCleaner Opera/Firefox/Thunderbird
Some of this is a bit redundant, but it is all only 19Mb using UPX.
1by1 (play MP3s), AriskKey (recover passwords), AutoRuns (enumerate startup tasks), BurnCDCC (burn ISO images), CD (basic CD player), CDex (rip CDs + convert MP3/WAV), Copier (quick scan + print), CWShredder (clean spyware), DComBob (tame DCOM), Discover (force windows onscreen), DupeLocater (find and clean), FileRecovery PC Inspector (undelete), Folder2ISO (make ISO images), FoxitReader (read PDFs), GUIPDFTK (split/join PDFs), HijackThis (find spyware), HJSplit (split/join files), Identify_Boards (identify hardware), IPAgent (show IP), KatMouse installer (due to MS drivers), LCISOCreator (make ISO image from CD), Leaktest (test firewall), Microsoft keygen (people lose things), MultiRes (change res + force refresh), Multi Timer (stopwatch), NoteTab Light (text editor), NTest (test monitor setup), OnTop (pin windows to foreground), Process Explorer (task manager), ProduKey (recover passwords), Registry Commander (virus cleanup), ResHacker (examine executables), Rootkit Revealer (just in case), ShootTheMessenger (turn service off), Shred by AnalogX (simple filer shredder), TedNPad (unicode text editor), TFT (dead pixel locator), UNPnP (tame SSDP), UPX (compress executables), UnitConverter (what it says), utorrent (basic torrent app), VCdControlTool (mount ISO images), Windows 98 generic USB flash driver, WinImp (archive to ZIP, de-archives more), WinIPs (set hardware IPs), Wizmo (create force kill shortcuts), WNTIPCFG (show IP config), WS_FTP95 (basic FTP client), XnView (image browser and effects), XPDite (minor XP-SP1 fix), YACalc (evaluate expressions), XVI32 (hex editor)
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
... a bunch of cheesy video commercials of some viking dudes complaining about loss of their former jobs, but now glad that they won a battle-of-the-bands.
... DOS utilities I've been collecting over the years, and Unix-style utilities (ps.exe, kill.exe, and others) ported to Windows, without the need for a layer like Cygwin
I used to do the same. Install Windows then a metric bucketload of "utilities" (text editors, Sysinternals programs, ActiveState Perl, ActivateState Python, Resource Kits, etc.) that made using Windows bearable. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy. And back when collecting warez was regarded as fashionable and not adolescent, I'd install even more Must Have programs. Now, when possible, I simply skip the nonsense and install Cygwin.
No emulation layer needed? Maybe. In a few isolated cases, perhaps. But if you're going to run a program, you'd prefer a centralised distribution. And then you'll need a real terminal, you'll need a real shell, interpreters, centralised and consistent documentation, and you'll mostly like needed something like SSH to make it all work. Hell, a full Cygwin installation is comparable a typical Linux installation, and larger than Windows, but for an average user, the base install (coreutils, etc.) with SSH and few other packages will more than suffice. A no brainer compared to collect one-off programs from any number of sources.
The consistency is especially nice in that I can go back and forth from Linux or BSD without blinking (same programs and same manpages, right?), no annoying little problems like CR/LF endings get in the way. And as a bonus, I get a perverse pleasure reading the manpages I wrote for Windows programs.
Funnily enough, while I use Firefox myself for the extensions, when switching standard users I am now giving them Opera 9. Firefox is getting targeted by malware, and I think Opera 9 is actually intrinsically more secure also.
An Electronic Survival Kit. If there's one thing Katrina taught me, it's that losing your entire life would completely suck. Why not take a few minutes now so that you can get back to normal ASAP?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Funny, I also carry a thumb-drive with a removable memory card slot. It's this generic one floating around online: http://www.supermediastore.com/supermedia-handy-4i n1--usb-20-flash-memory-card-reader-yellow.html
/ )r scan.htm )
i 32/xvi32.htm#download )
p _id=6208 )
o rer.html )h tml )
I think they're a great idea, because I can move with the SD card market as flash memory becomes denser and denser. Speed hasn't been a problem, either. The thumbdrives support USB 2.0 and my SD card seems to be capable of a very decent data transfer rate.
I have a collection of Windows tools on the drive. Not Linux tools, because I can usually accomplish whatever it is I'm doing in the Linux environments I encounter day to day.
Network Tools:
* Raw TCP/IP transfer -> netcat ( http://www.vulnwatch.org/netcat/ )
* SSH/Telnet -> putty ( http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
* Port Scanner -> SuperScan4 ( http://www.foundstone.com/resources/proddesc/supe
* Classic Port Scanner -> nmap ( http://insecure.org/nmap/download.html )
* Packet Capture and Analysis -> WireShark setup ( http://www.wireshark.org/download.html )
Editors:
* General -> vim 7.0 ( http://www.vim.org/download.php )
* Hex Editor -> xvi32 ( http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xv
Development:
* Tiny C Compiler ( http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/ )
* nasm ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?grou
Misc:
* Lightweight Windows md5sum -> md5summer ( http://www.md5summer.org/download.html )
* Process Explorer ( http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExpl
* MP3 Encoding -> RazorLame with lame ( http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php )
* Terminal Emulator -> TeraTerm Pro ( http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.
The folder is 26.7MB.
you may want to switch to portaputty, it keeps stuff out of the registry, and in a neat little folder, same directory as the exe
sent from my slashdot browser.
My thumbdrives are usually empty and ready for use. Mostly they are used for transferring drivers from internet enabled computer to a newly installed computer. Before thumbdrives I used CD-RW's for that purpose and managed to reach maximum write count on several discs. Too bad that I haven't yet managed to make a working bootable thumbdrive that would work on my computers so I still have to use CD-RW's for BIOS upgrades as I don't have any working floppydrives.
- Raynet --> .
How about this... TiddlyWiki a personal wiki for notes. views in a web browser, pure javascript love, as handy as a PDA, and only 300kb of HTML.
Place a curse on Spammers
Sadly, it still seems that a good portion of the time someone asks me to look at some computer, the computer is an old Windows 95 or 98 box that lacks working USB ports. Atleast it's finally gotten to the point where I can pretty much count on the computer having a CD drive (though I do have issues with slow, fussy, dust-clogged 8 year old CD readers having problems reading my burned CDs) I do have USB thumbdrives, but I mostly use those as a big floppy to move data around between computers, rather than semi-permanent storage of Linux distros and windows utilities.
Another advantage to the CD for things like Damn Small Linux is that you're much more likely to come accross a computer that can boot from CD (pretty common on anything 5-6 years old or newer) than a computer that can boot from USB (pretty much only standard new on PCs from the last 1-2 years or so, if that).
Boot it up, check the hardware, check the partitions, replace broken files,
and of course copy the important data off to a USB shoebox drive
(or to a CD/DVD if there's a second drive in the machine)
before doing any more serious maintenance. I've had to do that routine a few times.
The old "Linux Bootable Business Card" was a much smaller distro
that fit onto one of those 50MB truncated-small-CD formats,
and had a bunch of repair tools.
And of course thumbdrives can do the same thing,
but you need to be Really Really careful about viruses,
not only because we're reinventing the floppy disk virus vector,
but because one of the times you really need this sort of tool
is when a machine might be infected - CDROMs are really safe.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
. . . pictures in color of Linus Torvalds, Kevin Mitnick and Bill Gates.
Oooooooooooooooo, geek porn!
KFG
Dude, you're behind the times. Saying "waist of time" is obviously the new hipster lingo. Get it? Ha ha...
*ducks and runs away* (So no, I won't be here all week.)
I recently upgraded my FreeBSD server machine to a Conroe CPU running in an Asus P5B. But I actually had to upgrade the chassis and motherboard before Conroe came out. Because of that, I actually got a P5B that had an older BIOS that wasn't Core 2 ready. So to do the upgrade, I was going to have to to a flash update.
The last time I had to do that, it was to a Dell laptop that dual-booted Windows, and the update only ran under Windows. Before then, it was DOS boot floppies and 'flash.exe'. So I wasn't looking forward to it.
Oh, how things have changed! Asus has a flash update program built into the BIOS and that program supports reading FAT filesystems on thumbdrives!
I hadn't actually used a thumb drive in a few years (since getting an iPod), so I actually had to dig it up from the bottom of a drawer, but it was there (the backup plan was going to be an SD card from the camera and the SD-to-USB adapter), and it worked.
Asus may not be the only ones that support OSless flash updates via USB, but it's the 2nd most convenient BIOS update I've ever had to do (1st place goes to Apple).
Funny how I shrugged at the rash of thumbdrives out there, that is, until recently. They keep getting cheaper and cheaper and I kept buying them. I have since, stopped, however, it was only after the 12 step program.
Now, what do I keep on mine? Slax - Kill Bill, of course it really has brought me the level of standardization that I need from one computer to the next and it can do all (like many other small distros) the things that I need. I would however recommend something like Truecrypt for ensuring the security of your information. I would also recommend that you back your drive up on a regular basis, these things can be a bit unforgiving.
I could go on and on about the various apps, it really all depends on what you are doing. I do find the following though, very useful: Wireshark (Ethereal), Open Office and the usual suspects, samba, Etherwake, NVU, Thunderbird, rdesktop, various vnc flavors and other well known management utilities.
If I did not emphasize enough earlier, if you are going to rely on these little gems, I think you should always have an identical spare, and additionally, perform a backup on a regular basis. You might want to get creative and build a library of tools which could be easily accessed remotely to keep your drive lean. I would also highly recommend encrypting data you wouldn't want public.
Utils:
Hijack This. Spybot & Ad Aware. Various Virus scanners & fixes. Ghost and TrueImage. MSCONFIG for Win2k machines. Keyfinder. reg files for particular tasks. hosts file to limit access (to myspace!). Windows Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe). IE5 & IE6 install files. IEradicator. CPUZ. Winsockfix. Various standard network drivers for all Windows OSes including USB network drivers. Office updates, various versions. Zone Alarm. Winzip & WinRAR. Some DOS windows unix util ports, i.e. kill.exe to kill processes. Editpad. VNC. WS_FTP. PCAnywhere. MBM5. Prime95. Powertoys for Windows various versions. Process Guard. Microsoft Virtual PC & VMware. Windows Fax installation files for Windows various versions. Panicware Pop-up Stopper Free.
Non-Utils:
Nice PD wallpapers & screensavers. Windows XP wallpaper powertoy. Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. Google Earth. WinAmp. WinDVD trial version. Various Codecs.
I've probably forgotten an item or two, but that pretty much lists everything I might need beyond specific hardware drivers.
That assumes you give a rat's ass about people who are stupid enough to be running Windows. And who won't let you boot your knoppix disc, which would make the whole issue moot. People like that deserve random crap in their registry! :)
Ok, ok, I'm joking. I didn't know there was a portaputty, but I'm definitely going to get it now. Thanks.
A favorite in high school. Teacher would give us a computer lab for Senior Thesis, then leave to go about other business, and we'd all pull out thumbdrives and play networked Doom.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Nothing. No, really. I use it to transfer files, not as the "Ultimate thing for fixing anything"
I foresee interesting problems in your future.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
I recently went to Malaysia and bought myself an iDisk Tiny. It try is small, not much bigger than two USB connectors. I wanted to find someone who sold it in Canada, or the USA, but not much luk yet.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
128 megs of malware :)
I have a write-protected PNY USB drive I use to carry around my tools, but now that I know about malware like this, I think I'm going to go to the trouble of burning a CD every week or so. Biggest trouble is going to be keeping AV signatures up to date.
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)
First, you have to deal with the fact that your USB key may not always mount as the same drive letter. I use pstart to take care of this: http://www.pegtop.de/start/. A great little app to give you a consistent environment no matter who's machine you are using.
Next, a unix environment. First, get a bunch of tools (including zsh) from here:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/. Some of these don't work (man, df, etc), so you will want to find better versions elsewhere (they do exist! I just discovered a good version of DF from this thread, thanks! Others include dd, ls). Zsh is the killer app from this suite. A nice shell that does not depend on cygwin. You'll need to create two files to set up your environment. All of my unix tools exist in a subdirectory called 'unixtools' on the key disk.
Start with a script (call it startup) to properly initialize zsh to know where your stuff is. You then initialize zsh from pstart using 'unixtools/zsh.exe startup' Note that $UTD will now be defined as your unix tools drive for use in any other sh scripts you want to write:
And of course we need a .zshrc (you need to replace ls with a version I don't recall where is at this moment for DIRCOLORS to work). You can see I have set up some aliases, most notably for gvim (this demonstrates the use of $UTD):
One app I like to use on the USB drive is freecommander. Unfortunately, this program relies solely on its INI file, and does not take parameters for browsing. To fix this, I wrote the following script called 'browse' for launching it:
Notice above that I can actually use a 'shebang' line, thanks to the $ZSHROOT environment set up in our startup script. Very cool! This even works if you install activestate perl on your key disk. I put perl in unixtools/perl. That means that from your zsh, you can do things like './test' where 'test' has '#!/perl/bin/perl.exe -w' as its first line. I think this is very cool!
:) Some other things I have on the key disk, that didn't involve quite the devotion of time:
I should put this all on a web page one of these days
I work in the IT field traveling to customer's houses.
I see all sorts of jacked up computers.. Here's the usual rundown of things that I keep on my drive.
Google Pack Installer - (three free months norton good for getting rid of virsues.)
Norton Intelligent Updater - Used to update defintions for every version of norton. Google it and grab the x86 version(the second on the page.)
Trend Micro Pattern Files - Same thing for Trend Micro, google it.
AVG Free - Something more permanent for cheap bastards.
Spybot and includes files.
Adaware personal and include files.
Ewido - I love you ewido, too bad you run really crappy in safe mode.
Dial-A-Fix - Reregisters dll files neccessary to components like windows update and SSL security. Fixes all sorts of permissions things jacked up by spyware as well. This is an amazing tool, google it and be amazed.
MS Scripting Engine 5.6 - This solves a lot of problems you will have with programs having blank screens, or if system restore is a blank screen, or windows update is blank as well.
XP Winsock Fix - Explicit^Software wrote this great vb script to reset the TCP/IP and WINSOCK stack to default settings. Useful if the internet isn't working, commonly associated with the nasty spyware.
Firefox - Nuff Said.
Drivers - I collect the drivers I need for the things I run into. The biggest collection are HP printer drivers, and linksys drivers for PCI cards and USB drivers.
Hijack This - Merjin software's great tool to give you the rundown on what's running on your computer. You really have to know what your doing with this tool though.
My Music - All my music that I tend to listen to.
Norton Ghost - I keep the install files for my copy of Norton Ghost on my drive, makes moving or replacing drives a snap.
MemTest ISO - Memory Tester.
DFT ISO - Drive fitness test for hard drives. If you know the brand of drive you are testing, use the tester from the manufacturer as they often print out RMA codes and have better tests for their drive. I've gotten free replacement drives this way from Maxtor and Seagate. Both companies which keep my business.
Linux Password Crack - Used to reset XP administrator logins for people that lock themselves out of their machine.
OpenOffice - I don't always have it on there, but good for people who need to do office stuff, and don't feel like being a pirate and recognize good stuff.
Linksys Firmware - Many linux firmware upgrade files for Linksys Routers and devices. WRT54g Versions 5 and 4 were buggy at times until you upgraded the firmware. Especially version 5. Sometimes the router was just plain defective.
SymNRT - Removes all versions of norton, there is also rnav2003 that removes below a certin point. Useful for when norton gets borked and ruins how the machine works.
Windows Updates - All critical sercurity patches, and a script that fires them off in proper order and silently.
SP2 - Big enough to list on it's own.
Windows Installer Cleanup Utility - Used to stop programs that constantly install themselves over and over and over and over and get really annoying.
There are many others, and I'm sure I've left out a few, but I think these will help everyone out.
John Walsh once found me while looking for some other kid. He was not amused.