KMplayer

If you're looking for a something to play almost any file you throw at it, KMPlayer is the choice. Period. I'm rather impressed on how well it plays various media relatively no lag. With a pleasing skinnable interface, it handles many forms of media, Divx, MKV, OGM, AVI, etc. And when I say it can handle MKV it can. Where VLC and rulesPlayer are simply able to run MKV format video... KMPlayer dominates it. I'd give a rather humoring simile on The App's performance but I'm supposed to be informative(Thanks Katja). Anyway, there is a nifty option in the configuration menu that allows you to save setting to the application folder. That or you could just make a file named 'KMPCfg.ini' with the following lines added to it:

[\Software\KMPlayer\KMP2.0\OptionArea]
ConfigUseIni=int:1

I must add that this app is smaller than rulesPlayer, for those of you that use it on your USB drives and are always looking for a more efficient use of space. You can grab a copy of KMPlayer here.

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.

Something about Meebo

One thing I didn't noticed or attempt to try until recently was connecting to Meebo via HTTPS instead of HTTP. It makes IM a tad more secure if you can't run your client or use Meebo fulltime. One more perk to using Meebo is that if you use one of the MeeboMe widgets you can see if anyone is looking at a webpage you set up.

(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/