Take your scripts and commandline apps with you

Interesting thing about environment variables. They can be temporarily altered on a program by program basis. Dos prompts are a fine example of this. And with a program like Console you can wrap up a nifty tweak to the %PATH% variable.
Assuming you have your batches and console apps in one directory(\Data\bin\) you can run a script that would look like this...

:: Pulls drive letter from CD root variable
:: %CD:~0,1%
:: Does a string operation then assigns
@IF %CD:~0,1% EQU D SET USBroot=D:
@IF %CD:~0,1% EQU E SET USBroot=E:
@IF %CD:~0,1% EQU F SET USBroot=F:
@IF %CD:~0,1% EQU G SET USBroot=G:
@IF %CD:~0,1% EQU H SET USBroot=H:
@PATH=%USBroot%\Data\Bin;%Path%

This batch script if ran from console on a usb drive will pull the drive letter from the %CD% environment variable, and through a series of IF statements will set the drive letter based on %USBroot%

Modify the code to suit your USB drives folder hierarchy. And start Console with the following commandline switches:
Console.exe -c "/k \Data\Bin\Drive.bat&CD \"

Which will run the batch script and then bring you to the root directory of the USB drive. If you have Pstart to launch console for you, you'll have to do things this way as well. I tried but apparently regular expressions are not performed by Pstart for setting environment variables. And the %pdrive% variable only works in the general and advanced tabs. But mind not, this is a great fix to a problem that wasn't really that complicated anyway.
Just a not I didn't use Console2(beta), if you do it should be just as easy for you to set it as well.

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.


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

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

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 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.

USB Launchers 1

This is something I've had on my USB drives for more than a year and I swear by it. PStart launcher is a program launcher that not only allows you to launch apps from you usb in means of relative paths, but can allow you you store paths relative to the root of your US device via the implementation of a variable made by the launcher itself. You not only have the ability to store folders and apps, but notes and reminders(color coding optional) and can see how much free space is on your device as well as view hardware and system information. Settings are also stored in xml.
This is certainly something you need to put in your USB tool box.

Extraction Software

If you hate having to use more than one program for extracting files from compressed archives(zip, 7zip, rar/lhz, etc) then I'm sure the idea of finding a solution for each is less than desirable. You may want to check out Universal Extractor. This tool handles everything from Setup-Installers to Zip files. And was written mostly with Auto-it. The last release was in February of this year and is very useful for extracting anything. It comes in a handy 7zip file for fast downloading or in an installer if you like it enough to run on your home machine.

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.

Apping your USB, pt2

We've covered the topic of Web browsers, but we haven't covered Instant Messengers yet. If your going to be using a browser, Meebo.com(Secondary Post) is a good place to start. It can connect you to your AIM/Yahoo/MSN/ICQ/Google/Jabber account from the page. If you sign up for an account you can sign in using a username/Password and access all your IM accounts at the same time. And it works very well for a web app.

Another option is to try Gaim/Pidgin. While Gain is now a thing of the past, the portable version runs very nicely. It even encrypts your stored passwords should you save them to your USB device. Portable Gaim may work well enough as it is, it still lacks all the portability we need. Most file locations are not saved to relative paths which can makes us sad. Because not all machines will list your USB drive to the same letter (I know a place that will list it under D). But if you need something right away, Portable Gaim could be just what you need.

I'm testing out Pidgin at the moment. Even as this post is being drafted I'm running a portable install of Pidgin. There are a few people who have "built" their own portables for Pidgin but it seems some have keyloggers bundled with them(not good). I looked over the Official Pidgin Website and I have found some instructions for making Pidgin portable. As I wrote, I'm testing said build right now. The people behind Portable Gaim haven't made their own "Official" build either but I don't think we need to go to them for one anyway(Haller-PX).

So for now Use Meebo and Gaim(portable).