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.

Meebo makes more updates!

Meebo now has voice and video conferencing, for any network. As well as the ability to develop plugins for their Instant Messaging web-form.

What is this extra crap in Winamp's installer?!

I decided to try Winamp5 today as a request and write up a short review(in much protest) about how it functions and the process of making it portable. It used to be as easy as using Universal Extractor and then renaming some folders and paths. Now on the other hand, you have different fingers. Winamp is easy to use and can have a very simple and minimalistic interface is very customizable. If you try to use Universal Extractor you'll be in for a world of frustration over what goes where and what to change. You'll also find about 5MB or more of useless data should you you feel brave enough to attempt this method of rolling your own portable Winamp. After searching around some forums I found that the easiest method would be to simply get the installer and do a quick install, make a copy, and then uninstall Winamp.

For those who feel brave enough to extract the files manually, you may be interested to peek at some of the useless extra files.

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.

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.