I would post a "how to" here

After testing the Enigmail extension for Thunderbird I've found that even though the documentation says it does, Enigmail doesn't support relative path when it comes to calling GPG.exe. I'll try and hammer things out with Compreg.dat to see if I can make a manual fix, but I won't make any promises.

Something for Psi Users

For those that use the old ssl certs to connect to connect to your favorite jabber server I dusted off this old batch script that creates ssl certs in the xml format required for Psi. I found it after looking around the Psi-wiki for a how to on making certificates since the main xml cert file didn't have one for the server i used at the time. I adapted it from a bash script, and this worked just fine for me. I tested it last night and it still works just like it should.

Please not that %1 is for the server name and %2 is for the port number.

ECHO ^>>%1.xml
ECHO ^>>%1.xml
ECHO ^>>%1.xml
::# Get server certificate. Convert to x509. Strip out lines
openssl s_client -connect %1:%2 | openssl x509 -outform DER | openssl enc -a -A >>%1.xml
ECHO ^<^/store^>>>%1.xml
ECHO ^<^/certificate^>>>%1.xml
ECHO ^<^/data^>>>%1.xml


This script even adds in the tags needed for the xml-ssl certificate format used by PSI.

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.

Web Desktop/OS Pt.1

I've been looking at a couple Web Desktops/OS's such as EyeOS, BrowserOS(from iCUBE), YouOS, Desktop Two, and so on. This is going to be a series of round ups so look for more on this subject in the future.

EyeOS is good if you have a copy downloaded to a home machine and are running it with Apache and PHP, with the Office dependencies it requires to handle office applications. And your connection to your home machine has restricted access to only a set number of domains and is access over an https connection. So I'd vote no unless your willing to do all the work it takes to set that up. There is a demo you can if you want to try before signing up for free.

BrowserOS looks good, but it lacks applications at the moment. What I'd like to see in it would be a console similar to BASH or dos. Call me old fashioned for wanting that, but most of my best works come from the command line. This is for the Office outside of the office.

YouOS: While YouOS has a console, the interface is somewhat awkward, as though the devs wanted to have a tie in between a Mac and Windows 95. There is a slew of Apps being developed for YouOS, but you'd have to sit and sort through hundreds of apps to find the ones you want. There isn't much in terms of Office documents aside from a rich text editor. But the login interface is in https, so there is more security in keeping your password from being snagged. This has some great potential for improvement and I can't wait to see what they can pull out this year.

DesktopTwo has a petty interface but has a builtin ad-widget you cannot hide from your desktop(but on the bright-side it does stay at the bottom now). It has an office suite, MP3 player, blog, webpage, email(w/pop), IM software(use Meebo instead), message boards, etc. It's currently in the beta phase of development so you can't expect much. for now. I'd advise against it for now until the information on the site is arranged better.

Final Answer, YouOS. The interface may not be the prettiest, but it'll get the job done.

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.

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.


Holiday Vaction

Please Bear with us, the holidays can be a taxing time. I promise to have some posts our soon.

Echo

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.

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.

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