Utilizing the best out of your USB memory sticks

[Sahara]

Utilizing the Best Out of
Your USB Memory Sticks

USB memory sticks (flash drives/ USB drives) are now one of the most efficient popular tiny tech devices that one always must have in their pocket. Its unique feature of portability and ideal storage capacity makes it the first choice when it comes to transferring files, sharing, memory storage, etc. I remembered back in 2006 when USB memory sticks were new in market and the demand and popularity of it sparked within the next few days after its initial launch. You could see tons of catalogues on offers and discounts over various ranges of USB memory sticks. I bought my first USB memory stick back in 2006 from City Centre. It was a Genx 256 MB one for around R.O.12.000. Prices were quite hefty but I bet in the same price, you can now get one for around 8 GB.

Anyhow, we all use our USB memory sticks for various purposes and it have always been the most effective, reasonable and affordable tool when it comes to storage.

In this week’s KO homepage article, I won’t be dwelling upon USB memory sticks and their feature, prices, etc but rather we will learn on how to utilize this tiny tool in the most effective and affordable way.

So here’s the catch, I was recently gifted a 16 GB flash disk. Now a lot of space in there I know. But I was thinking on ways to utilize it for my daily use. The solution is ‘USB portable softwares’
Have you ever heard about a portable version of CCleaner? Or may be portable pidgin software? If not. Then I bet this is the best time for you to sit back and relax and discover with us the new world of portable softwares built for USB memory sticks and other portable devices.

The software I’ll be sharing with you all are FREE of cost and quite efficient when it comes to daily use. So let’s get it started:


CCleaner Portable



CCleaner is one of the most popular choice when it comes to system's safety and maintenance. It optimizes the registry, removes web history, unwanted softwares and files and speeding up + improving the overall PC performance.

What's best about this portable version of CCleaner? It's free + you have two versions for the convenience of your usb memory sticks.




For normal USB drives:

CCleaner v2.27.1070 - Portable l 1,041KB


For USB drives with U3 software:

CCleaner v2.27.1070 - Portable - U3 l 1,041KB

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Opera@USB



Opera Mini have been my favorite Mobile browser and now there's a portable version of this popular Opera for USB drives too. Yet again, it's FREE of cost
According to CNET:
"Opera@USB has the same functionality as the Desktop version, but can be run on USB Flashdrive/Stick/Pen, and also as secondary browser on hard disk There are no unwanted effects on IE or other browsers, existing Opera versions are also not affected. It makes no entries to the registry, leaves no data on the guest computer."

Download:

Opera USB 10.01 l 7.06MB


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Pidgin Portable



Staying in contact with family, friends etc via USB drives? Yes, this is now made possible with the ultimate Pidgin Portable.
According to PortableApps.com:
"Pidgin Portable is the versatile Pidgin instant messaging client packaged as a portable app, so you can take your IM settings and buddy lists with you. It has all the same great features as Pidgin, including support for AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Jabber networks, but there's nothing to install on the local PC. You can also easily add portable encryption plugins for secure, encrypted messaging."



Download:

Pidgin Portable 2.6.5 l 14 MB

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IrfanView Portable



IrfanView is a fast and simple image viewer and editor that supports all major graphic formats, including BMP, DIB, JPEG, GIF, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, multipage TIFF, TGA, and more. It's one of the best image viewer available.

Now this is real handy speaking of USB portable software. I always find myself in need of a compatible picture viewer and editor software when I'm not on my own pc. IrfanView portable does the perfect job indeed



Download:

Portable IrfanView 4.25 l 9.7 MB


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Cool PDF Reader




Now as compared to Adobe Reader, you'll find this tiny PDF reader software quite fascinating for sure

According to CNET:
"Cool PDF Reader is the world's smallest PDF viewer and PDF reader to view and print PDF files, and convert PDF's to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS. It is only 650KB to download and doesn't need lengthy installation, just download, unzip, and run. Features View and Print PDF Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS Extract PDF to TXT Support PDF's of all versions Zoom in and Zoom out Rotate page displays Slide show PDF document.

Version 3.0.0.128 adds support for mouse drag and pan view, and is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)."

Download:

Cool PDF Reader 3.0.0.128 l 896.18K


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Recuva Portable




Wanna recover files you mistakenly deleted from your drive or PC using a USB disk drive? The best solution would be Recuva Portable!

According to Pendrivesapp.com:
"Recuva is a free portable file recovery tool that can be installed to and run directly from a portable USB device. Recuva enables the user to recover deleted files, including those deleted from a hard drive, flash card, mp3 player, recycle bin and more. After reviewing and using recuva, we highly value and strongly recommended adding this great tool to your portable collection."

Intriguing and useful aint it?



Download:

Recuva - Portable l 1,744 kb

Recuva - PortableU3 l 1,810 kb

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Those were some of the many portable softwares I used and experienced during the past few days. I stand really impressed by each one of the above because they delivered the basic necessary feature in a really simple and effective way.

I installed about 20 different kinds of Portable softwares and guess how much space it acquired out of the 16 GB flash drive?
Only 2GB Now that's what I really call worthy of the name 'Portable softwares'

There are quite a few more softwares that I will be sharing with you all during our discussion on this week's article. Stay tuned and feel free to share some of your own choices of portable usb software that you use.



Written and prepared by:

Sahara Hamayon

All rights reserved
www.KnowledgeOman.com

[kulot]

great collections of portable apps, thanks for sharing

[safwan]

very informative............ and useful.

is there ny application through which u can login gmail and facebook like 'podgin' software.

[Sahara]

Originally Posted by kulot

great collections of portable apps, thanks for sharing

You're welcome

Originally Posted by safwan

very informative............ and useful.

is there ny application through which u can login gmail and facebook like 'podgin' software.

Thanks a lot. I'm glad you appreciate it.

Since gmail and facebook are web-interfaced, you can use Opera@USB for it. It's just like a normal internet browser but much faster and feasible for access via USB flashdisks.

Click here to download

[safwan]

thanx.. for that info....

[Sahara]

As promised, I'll be sharing more Portable Applications for your USB drives.

Here's another one which can be used when the pc you're about to use doesn't have a good keyboard or perhaps during the time you prefer to use a Portable keyboard

On-Screen Keyboard Portable


picture credit: getfreewares.com


According to Portable Apps:

On-Screen Keyboard Portable is a handy way to bring your settings for the Windows' built-in On-Screen Keyboard with you from PC to PC. It will remember your hover preferences and other options and provides an easy way to launch it right from the PortableApps.com Menu.

Features

On-Screen Keyboard Portable makes it easy to access Windows' built-in On-Screen Keyboard on any system you come across. It remembers your settings for sound, hover to select or click to select, always on top, keyboard layout and more as you move from PC to PC. And the icon sits right in your PortableApps.com Menu for easy access. For earlier operating systems that lack a built-in on-screen keyboard (Windows 95/98/Me) it even includes a simple virtual keyboard that, while lighter on accessibility features, is still useful.

Keylogger Note: While on-screen keyboards offer protection against hardware keyloggers, they do not offer protection against software keyloggers (which are far more common). They are primarily intended as an accessibility tool or for alternate means of text entry (pen-based computing, etc).


License: FREE/ Open source

System Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7


Click here to Download

[Sahara]

For all the music/movie/video lovers and enthusiasts, I found this new USB portable version of VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player Portable



According to Portable Apps:

VLC Media Player Portable is the popular VLC media player packaged as a portable app, so you can take your audio and video files along with everything you need to play them on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

Features

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.


License: FREE/ Open source

System Requirements: 2000/XP/Vista/7

Click here to DOWNLOAD l 20 MB

[KUBU]

Sahara,

Can you please find me a good HDD locking utility (password protection) and if possible a portable AV, which can be installed onto my portable HDD?

[Sahara]

Originally Posted by KUBU

Sahara,

Can you please find me a good HDD locking utility (password protection) and if possible a portable AV, which can be installed onto my portable HDD?

Sure thing

I'll post them up. Password manager and Portable AV coming up next!

[Sahara]

As per request, here are a couple of Portable Anti-Virus for your portable device

ClamWin Portable



According to Portable Apps:

ClamWin Portable is the popular ClamWin antivirus packaged as a portable app, so you can take your antivirus with you to scan files on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

Features

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows. It provides a graphical user interface to the Clam AntiVirus engine. It features:

• High detection rates for viruses and spyware
• Regular virus database updates. ClamAV team regularly updates virus databases to include a new virus/variant immediately after it appears
• Standalone Virus Scanner

Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner, that is, you need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware. Also, ClamWin Portable has scheduled scans and updates disabled as they are not used in a portable scenario.

License: FREE/ Open source

System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7

Click here to DOWNLOAD l 6MB

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Next we have:


Portable Antivirus Beta 1.6


screenshot credit: nirmaltv.com

License: Freeware File Size: 3.47 MB

Portable Antivirus is a small virus removal utility. It not only can detect and remove viruses but it can also find Worms, Trojans, ad-wares, Mal-wares and Spy-wares form your computer and/or from removable drives. Just by a single click you can scan your whole system. One good thing about this Antivirus is that you do not required to restart your system after scan and repairing is done. According to its name it is a portable antivirus because you can install this antivirus to any removable media like external hard disk, memory card, memory stick, flash drive etc. Its installing process is also very easy. After installing Portable Antivirus on the system you can select all or any removable drive to install Portable Antivirus and it will install your Portable Antivirus on all selected drives concurrently. Its virus definition database is too small just about 10000 virus definition but it uses heuristic technology to detect future viruses. Portable Antivirus also give you the options to scan individual drives or even individual files and folders. You can scan any file or folder just by right clicking on the file or folder and selecting “scan with Portable Antivirus” n it will quickly scan your files or folders. You are also free to use shortcut keys to control Portable Antivirus.
review credit: giveawayoftheday.com

Click here to Download l 3.47 MB