Coccinella IS Portable

Coccinella is a Jabber client with a builtin Whiteboard(used to go by that name) and has VoIP features optional. A recent update made this client portable with a simple preference option. Once checked the data is saved in a folder(Coccinella-prefs) outside of the Application folder.
/App
/Data
Get the idea now? Back to the subject.
And to make the portable feature easier to use, it comes in a nifty little zip file. Either grab the build with VoIP or the one without. I'd rather use Meebo for voice communication over the web anyway. In this case it's for those who have managed to migrate completely to Jabber and somehow convinced their contacts to follow too. I should mention the new update also comes with a sleek black skin.

Plugins for Pidgin and certifiably portable

Two plugins for pidgin that are both portable. Even though it seems obvious to me, maybe I should explain that they are as portable as the program that they were designed for.

Pidgin Off The Record(OTR).
Pidgin Encryption.

Pidgin OTR stores keys in the profile directory whereas Pidgin Encryption give you a choice to store them in the profile or elsewhere. PE also lets you choose the size(512-4096) of your keys as well. PE will of course automatically generate keys for accounts that already exist where as OTR requires manual generation. Both are good. Just a matter if you want AES or RSA as your means of encryption.


Pigin Encryption
Pidgin OTR

Miranda

On of the more extensive IM client out there is Miranda. I haven't covered this one yet but I figured should considering its portable right out of the box. One thing I like is the detailed customization of the client. Allowing you to not only change appearance, but how you you manage your contacts, status, the list goes on.

I first played around with it back in 2005 looking for an alternative to Trillian. And while it looked portable, paths in the application were stored in the database as absolute instead of relative. However there was an add-on that performed this very task. Although it was made obsolete a few updates afterwards. One of the things that makes Miranda stand out is the community of people contributing add-ons that either an in a new protocol or service or even change the way it looks or stores information.

With the new 0.7 release I can admit I am impressed and recommend this to anyone still looking for something different.

The release you want to grab in the zipped release from the Sourceforge page found in the downloads section. There will be a Zip file and that is what you want to grab. After unpacking you'll either want to remove the "mirandaboot.ini" file found in the miranda directory or just change the follwing line:

ProfileDir=%APPDATA%\Miranda

By changing the path to whatever you think is best, and the default is the Miranda directory if you leave it blank. And there you have it...Miranda portable without having to perform massive surgery.

Portable IM clients(alternatives)

I've discussed Meebo and Pidgin/GAIM for portable IM. But I thought I'd give you some variety and choice in case you wanted something different. Here are some other that are portable as well:

Miranda
EasyMessage
TrillianAnywhere

I had some things keeping me busy from posting but I'll cover these in my next posts.