Pidgin and GTK bookmarks

If you haven't noticed, Pidgin in the portable variety doesn't account for the gtk bookmarks.
After some obvious tests I thought, "Sure, why not?" and decided to see what would happen should I change the %userprofile% environment variable. I took the easy way out and ran it through Pstart, but if you wanted to use a batch file you could set it up just as well...

SET USERPROFILE=\theGTK

And you can substitute "\theGTK" for whatever you please. Even the location of your .purple directory. Just make sure to use relative paths.

TrueCrypt

In case you didn't know about it or wondered if it could be done, yes, you can have a virtual encrypted drive at your disposal. TrueCrypt can not only make a virtual encrypted disk, but can encrypt an entire partition and or disk. I haven't tested the preboot capabilities yet, note that, YET. But I am using it to store documents(essays, powerpoints, etc) and the like. I'm really impressed by it despite a rather large drawback, you need Administrator rights to install the drivers for mounting a volume. Regardless it works for home systems as well as for portable use as you can name the drivers anything so as to make for good camouflage. And even more you have the option to extract rather than install the program so you can run it from a USB device. I'm very please with how easy it is to use, with multiple options for an added level of security. And in case I forgot to mention this, it's free. So if you have anything you don't want others to have easy access to, this would be a good solution to keeping private data private.

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.

Pidgin Portable, Again

I added in a few minor changes to make the process more automatic for users upgrading their copy of Pidgin.
Not only that but I made the process faster be only overwriting old files and dropped the number of exclude files.
Don't Worry I'll have some interesting info to report on PortableTor soon.

::2 point "oh snap"
::First things first. I'm in UR Echo, dumping my excludes.
Echo \perlmod\ >Exclude1
Echo \locale\ >Exclude2
Echo Pidgin.exe >>Exclude1
Echo pidgin-uninst.exe >>Exclude1
Echo perl.dll >>Exclude1
Echo tcl.dll >>Exclude1
:: Base dirs
MKDIR Programs
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\
:: Pidgin Lines
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\pixmaps\
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\sounds\
:: Went with XCOPY instead :p
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Pidgin\Pidgin.exe" "Programs\Pidgin\Pidgin-portable.exe" /D /H /G /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Pidgin\*.*" "Programs\Pidgin\" /D /E /H /G /EXCLUDE:Exclude1+Exclude2 /Y
:: REN Programs\Pidgin\Pidgin.exe Pidgin-portable.exe (got in the way)
:: Excluding TCL and Perl dlls
:: /Pidgin lines

:: GTK lines "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0"
MKDIR Programs\GTK\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\bin\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\etc\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\lib\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\share\
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin\*.*" "Programs\GTK\bin\" /D /E /H /G /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\etc\*.*" "Programs\GTK\etc\" /D /E /H /G /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\lib\*.*" "Programs\GTK\lib\" /D /E /H /G /EXCLUDE:Exclude2 /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\share\*.*" "Programs\GTK\share\" /D /E /H /G /Y
:: /GTK lines
Del Exclude1
Del Exclude2

:: Plus Aspell

:: Aspell lines
MKDIR Programs\Aspell\bin
MKDIR Programs\Aspell\data
MKDIR Programs\Aspell\dict
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\Aspell-15.dll" "Programs\Aspell\bin\" /D /H /G /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Aspell\data\*.*" "Programs\Aspell\data\" /D /E /H /G /Y
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Aspell\dict\*.*" "Programs\Aspell\dict\" /D /E /H /G /Y
:: /Aspell lines
:: Using /D for xcopy to speed things up.


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

Alternate shell from your USB

BlackBox is an alternate shell some of you have probably seen on Linux distros. But it has a port for windows. There are a few variants for Blackbox for windows(BB4W) as well. And best of all, they are to the best of my knowledge portable. Even though they are portable you have the option of full installation. It's fast, lightweight, minimalistic, and even though it was designed to be fast and not pretty you can have that too. If you don't like the styles that came with Blackbox or the flavor you downloaded you can always hit up BoxShots to see more or even make your own.

My Flavor of choice is BBLean, because I can drag and drop wallpapers to my desktop. Now I'm sure those of you who have tried running Blackbox from your USB or tested it without installing noticed there were some minor features you couldn't use without installing(or so you first thought). Ditto. Like how some icons never show up in the tray, I have a shortcut for you.

1.Three finger Salute Ctr+Alt+Del , This brings up task manager
2. Kill the Process Tree for Explorer.exe
3. From the task manager, start a new task:

[path-to-blackbox]\Blackbox.exe

4. Presto, you're running Blackbox without installing and your BlackBox tray now loads all icons.

With this you can have BBLean running portable.


BBLean
BlackBox for Windows
BlackBox Wiki @ Sourceforge

Another Portable Wiki

StickWiki is a small lightweight portable wiki that is standalone and operates from a single xhtml file. It offers AES encryption as well. It isn't that large and has built in documentation for making and adding pages, links, etc. It certainly has a different approach compared to TiddlyWiki in terms of function and interface. I recommend this as an alternative to TiddlyWiki, if not for the encryption features.



Wiki on a Stick!
StickWiki Project page @ sourceforge

Sound Player Litlith

This is a nice little music player I use and have used for more than two years now. It has support for MP3, OggVorbis, And WMA. It has a skinnable interface, can normalize mp3's, cross fade, etc.
I've tested it on my own USB device and I can say it is portable. The settings and default playlist are saved in the application folder. The interface is skinable and even though the program is mostly in Japanese the interface is obvious enough to figure out and some features are explained in in skin in english.

Project9k

IF pen

http://www.slade.altervista.org/readarticle.php?article_id=5

The DL :: http://www.slade.altervista.org/downloads.php?cat_id=3

"Slade" wrote a useful peice software to play IF games from your USB drive. If you're like me you'll find this is a great alternative to trying to run DOS versions of certain IF readers. The interface feels like a program launcher but is more like a front end inteface, but can make running your Interactive Fiction fix a portable one. Setup is relatively simple compared to making batch scripts for running IF games under dos.

KVirc

If you want an IRC client that is as full featured as MIRC you have it with KVirc. I have to admit I'm very impressed by the feel of this client. It really outdoes MIRC in the look and feel department. Not to mention that it has built in encryption for private messages/queries. There is SSL support and support for proxies(like TOR), sound, voice-chat, and has a scriptable interface.

The current 'stable' release isn't portable though, you need one of the development releases. The most current one will be fine.

Portable Prism -Final-?

I did a quick once by of Prism. Same as Webrunner, and them same as other Mozilla apps for that matter. I can't actually recommend anyone use this, as https connections are a pain to setup with this and require loads of testing to make a proper "Webapp" file. But there it is. I'm going to uninstall Prism now.

Portable Prism Update

In my attempts to begin working on a portable I looked at my previous posts covering making Firefox and Thunderbird both portable. I figured, sure why not and behold the same method works on Webrunner. But tthere is a trick, you need a basic profile. And to create that you need the profile manager(which webrunner also has).

First start webrunner via command line:
Webrunner -p -turbo

And then make yourself a profile folder. Copy it whereever you plan to store your data on your Device and then from command line fire off:
webrunner -profile "[Profile path on USB device]" -turbo

Note I haven't tested this on Prism yet, but you can expect an update soon.

Make your own Portable Thunderbird

Wow, Two in one go...I'm a super man!

Here it is, making the Official build of Thunderbird portable. In case you didn't already notice the post about making Firefox portable with the Official build, you may want to take a peek. Not that much of a difference in this post. Same song and dance, different app.

Thunderbird -profile "[Profile path]" -turbo

[Profile path] can be anything, relative, absolute, as long as you don't end it with a trailing back slash.

"E:\Thunderbirddata\Profile" Works
"E:\Thunderbirddata\Profile\" Fails with a program crash.

With this you won't have to invoke -CreateProfile to make a new profile, Thunderbird does that for you in the specified directory, and -turbo makes Thunderbird load faster.

I used the information from my post concerning Firefox, which based of the information supplied here.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments

Making your own Portable Firefox

Firefox.exe -profile \profiles\ProfileName

This may upset some people but I wanted to do it for the sake of doing it. What I present for you is a method of running Firefox From your USB drive/device and have the security to know it was the Official Mozilla build that you are using. This can be performed from DOS, a shortcut, a program launcher, etc. And right about now you're waiting for the ultimate weapon so here it is.

Firefox -profile "[Profile path]" -turbo

Now [Profile path] can be anything, relative, absolute, as long as you don't end it with a trailing back slash.

"E:\Firefoxdata\Profile" Works
"E:\Firefoxdata\Profile\" Fails with a program crash.

To make it even better you don't need to invoke -CreateProfile to generate a profile, you just need to provide a specified directory. And Firefox will make one for you. Sweet eh? And yes, I included -turbo not for good measure, but because it makes Firefox load that much faster. Much faster than just UPX'ing it. I'll be making a similar post concerning Thunderbird.

I used the information supplied here to help make this post.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments

Portable Prism

Since Mozilla unveiled the "site specific browser" WebRunner, which loads a specific web app/site and only that w/o using much of a UI and relying on the web app to be the only user interface you need. Currently Mozilla has changed the name and has adopted the name Prism. And while I love the idea I can honestly say that I don't find it too practical making it portable. I'll be ready to back down on that should I be wrong, but for right now I find it highly unlikely.

This site here(in Spanish) made it portable but never once goes into the details of what was done.
http://abraham.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/mozilla-prism-portable/


So that means I guess I'll be going to the challenge of outdoing this person and providing details. That is of course if there is any major demand to do so, unless I feel it should be done just to do so.

Screamer

For those of you who hate bring their entire media library with them and hate constantly changing out music on their USB device. Fear not, with Screamer you can listen to music over the web. But how is this different from Media players like Winamp? Screamer has built-in presets that are updated frequently if not daily. Another feature I like is being able to record streams on the fly. Best of all, Screamer is portable.

Updates for Pidgin

When I wrote a batch for making Pidgin into a portable install for your USB drive/device, I didn't write in any lines for Aspell. Well its about time I did wouldn't you agree?

The original:
::First things first. I'm in UR Echo, dumping my excludes.
Echo \perlmod\ >Exclude1
Echo \locale\ >Exclude2
Echo pidgin-uninst.exe >Exclude3
mkdir Programs
::base dirs
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\
::Pidgin Lines
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\sounds\
MKDIR Programs\Pidgin\pixmaps\
:: Went with XCOPY instead :p
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Pidgin\*.*" "Programs\Pidgin\" /E /H /G /EXCLUDE:Exclude1+Exclude2+Exclude3
DEL Programs\Pidgin\plugins\perl.dll
DEL Programs\Pidgin\plugins\tcl.dll
REN Programs\Pidgin\Pidgin.exe Pidgin-portable.exe
:: /Pidgin lines

:: GTK lines "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0"
MKDIR Programs\GTK\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\bin\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\etc\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\lib\
MKDIR Programs\GTK\share\
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin\*.*" "Programs\GTK\bin\" /E /H /G
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\etc\*.*" "Programs\GTK\etc\" /E /H /G
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\lib\*.*" "Programs\GTK\lib\" /E /H /G /EXCLUDE:Exclude2
XCOPY "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\share\*.*" "Programs\GTK\share\" /E /H /G
::/GTK lines
Del Exclude1
Del Exclude2
Del Exclude3

Plus Aspell:

::Aspell lines
mkdir \Programs\Aspell\bin
xcopy "C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\Aspell-15.dll" "Programs\Aspell\bin\" /E /H /G
xcopy "C:\Program Files\Aspell\data\*.*" "Programs\Aspell\data\" /E /H /G
xcopy "C:\Program Files\Aspell\dict\*.*" "Programs\Aspell\dict\" /E /H /G
::/Aspell lines

And if you want to import your current existing profile(optional):

Xcopy "%appdata%\.purple\*.*" "\programs\.purple\"

Now you have a complete install that is ready for your USB drive, just that simple.

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.

(Small) Portable Wikis

I've been trying to find a Wiki that could run with as little set up needed, and was as standalone as possible. TiddlyWiki is a small, lightweight wiki that doesn't require anything beside a web browser. It can be edited just by double clicking an entry. A basic setup runs from only one file. One small, less than 500KB file that can serve as a personal Wiki/notebook/journal. I should mention it can embed media and can make an external(local) RSS feed. The RSS feed may up the file count, but only by one(for those of you that failed every math class you ever had, that makes 2). In addition to this and the startup parameters, it has a slew of other features that are even better. There is also links to other Wikis and server side options as well. Just click the link "Download Software" on the left to aquire your own.

If you're a Pen and Paper RPG fan you might be ineterested in a modification of GTD TiddlyWiki. "TenFootWiki 2.0 a personal campaign notebook for roleplaying gamemasters". It looks a little more polished and shows some more features of the original Tiddly from which it was based. A copy of this can be found in the about entry under the "Get Started" heading.


See also:
www.giffmex.org/twfortherestofus.html
/twhelp/

Playin with KiTTY

I found a nifty little replacement for PortaPuTTY(Socialist Sushi), KiTTY is a free and optionally portable SSH/Telnet client that does the job with some added visual features. You can set it to run transparently and or set a background image. The transparency can also be changed with simple key strokes. The list of features has me sold. So check KiTTY out.


http://kitty.9bis.com/