100 Portable Apps for your USB Stick (for Mac and Win)

This stuff can be installed on any portable drive, i.e. USB thumbdrive, PDA or an iPod. You can use them at work, school, or any other place where you can plugin your device. Check them out, you can either scroll-down for relevant category, i.e office software, email tools, messengers, games, etc. or get a ‘all-in-one’ package (all essential tools) . While there are more apps for windows users, I tried to include a mac version for each essential tool. All free. Enjoy!

What is a portable program ? : A portable program is a piece of software that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any other computer. It can be your email program, your browser, system recovery tools or even an operating system. The coolest part about it, is that all of your data and settings are always stored on a thumbdrive so when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

1. Portable Office Software
2. Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
3. Portable Text and Voice Messengers
4. Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
5. Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
6. Portable Browsers and Web Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent clients…)
7. Portable Security Software
8. Portable Games
9. Other Portable Utilities
10. Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
11. All-In-One Packages
12. Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
13. USB ThumDrive Tips

Portable Office Software

• Abiword [Win (6.3 mb) / Mac (9.5 mb)] - word processor (compatible with Microsoft word)
• OpenOffice [Win (65 mb) / Mac (127 mb)] - free alternative to Microsoft Office (fully compatible with Microsoft Office docs)
• PDF Viewers: Sumatra [Win (1.1 mb) ], Foxit PDF Reader [Win, (1.8 mb) ]
• Notepad ++ - feature-rich Notepad replacement.

Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs

• Mozilla ThunderBird - [Win (6 mb), Mac (20.5 mb), Cross-Platform (Win, Mac)] - very good email client (built-in address book, import/export, tons of addons)
• Calendars: Mozilla Sunbird [Win, 5.6mb], Sunbird [Mac, 9.7mb], Lightning [Win, 1.3mb) - ThunderBird addon
• Mail [Mac] - requires locally installed Mail.app
• iCal [Mac] - requires locally installed iCal.app
• Address Book [Mac] - requires locally installed Address Book
• Quick Mailer [Win, 20kb] - tiny program for sending quick e-mail messages
• gDisk [Mac, 1020kb] - handy program that turns your gmail account into a portable hard drive. (More stuff for gmail)

Portable Text and Voice Messengers

• All-in-One (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.): Gaim [Win, 6.9 mb], Miranda IM [Win, 1.2 mb], Adium [Mac, 15.5mb], Trillian [Win]
• iChat [Mac] - requires locally installed iChat
• Newspeak [Mac, 1mb] - Newspeak Cocoa IRC client
• Skype - exlpains how to make skype portable

Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)

• Audacity [Win (2.4 mb), Mac (5mb)] - simple audio editor and recorder
• VLC [Win (9.3 mb), Mac (24 mb)] - powerful media player that plays almost all popular audio and video formats
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player (resource unaccessible) - another powerful media player for playing all conceivable formats
• iShout [Mac, 7mb] - record and listen to your favorite internet radios.
• CocoaJT [Mac, 8.7mb] - stream live TV programs from major broadcast channels.

Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors

• GIMP [Win (8.6 mb), Mac (87.5 mb)] - free alternative to Photoshop
• IrfanView [Win, 1013kb] - fast graphic viewer with basic image editing features
• XNView [Win, Mac, Linux] - image viewer and converter (supports more then 400 image formats)
• Inkscape [Mac, 24.6mb] - scalable vector graphics editor

Portable Browsers and Internet Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent Clients…)

• Firefox [Win (5.8 mb), Mac (21.9mb), Cross-platform (Win, Mac) ]
• Other browsers: Camino [Mac, 16.2mb], Opera [Win], Safari [Mac] - requires installed safari
• Feedreaders (RSS, Atom …): RSSOwl [Mac, 5mb], Feed [Mac, 564kb], GreatNews [Win], Sage [Win, 0.2 mb]
• FTP Clients: Filezilla [Win, 2.3 mb], FireFTP [Win, 0.1mb], CyberDuck [Mac, 9.9mb]
• TrayURL [Win] - bookmark manager
• uTorrent [Win] - popular torrent downloader

Portable Security Software

• Antivirus: ClamWin [Win, 5.9mb], Dr.Web CureIt [Win, 5.5 mb]
• Keepass Password [Win, 1mb] - securely store and manage your passwords
• Omziff [Win, 0.5mb] - lets you encrypt/decrypt a file, using secure encryption algorithms. Also includes a password generator, file shredder, file splitter and some more tools.
• LockNote [Win] - simple text file that lets you store sensitive info with 256bit password encryption.
• RoboFor2Go [Win] - secure password manager and form filler
• Smart Sniff [Win, 57kb] - lets you inspect network traffic that passes via your network adapter.

Portable Games

• Sudoku - popular puzzle game
• Bricks2000 - popular tetris clone
• Logix - something similar to minesweeper
• Gem Drop - fast-paced puzzle game
• GeneRally - 2D racing game
• Nagaskaki - chess game
• NarkoMania - cool minesweeper clone
• NeverBall - part puzzle, part action game

Other Portable Utilities

• 7Zip [Win, 1.1 mb] - file archiver and compressor, supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR and more
• Registry Tweaker [Win, 1.52mb] - registry tweaking tool
• Restoration [Win, 229kb] - handy program for recovering deleted (or formatted) files
• YamiPod [Win] - powerful iPod manager (copy mp3/AAC files to and from your iPod, import/export playlists, search for songs, remove duplicates,..). More iPod tools
• Drive Manager [Win, 1191 kb] - quick summary for each local and removable drive.
• PStart - lets you organize and create menu-like list for quicker access to your portable programs.
• SyncPAppX - script that syncs preferences between portable and local applications.
• RQ Money - handy utlity to manage your credits and debts
• SIW - a system analysis tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about a computer, i.e. hardware, configuration settings, etc.
• WinAudit - one more analysis tool
• Convert [Win, 155 kb] - fast metric unit conversion tool (distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass…)
• UK Calender [Win, 321kb] - straightforward calendar with ToDo and reminders
• CPU-Z [Win] - provides detailed info about your processor and other components
• Country Codes [Win, 1358 kb] - a small database of country codes and additional information for all countries.
• TreePad Lite [Win, 866kb] - personal database program, lets you store all your notes, emails, bookmarks, etc. into one well-structured file
• StartupList [Win, 158 kb] - displays all items that are in any way related to your computer startup and are executed without any user interactions
• eTextReader [Win, 279kb] - read plain text files provided by Project Gutenberg in a book-like manner.
• Index Your Files [Win, 640kb] - provides an easy way to create index databases (of specified folders and drives) for quick file/term search
• RockXP [win, 768kb] - handy utility for retrieving Win XP’s product key
• WhoisThisDomain [Win, 42kb] - view owner and registration info for any domain name
• Converter - portable unit convertsion utility

Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)

• Nvu [Win (7.3 mb), Mac (12 mb)] - easy-to-use webpage editor. Simpler alternative to Dreamweaver and Microsft Frontpage
• Server2Go - apache webserver (no configurations needed)
• InstantRails[Win, 60mb] - contains Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run.
• Putty [Win, 0.9 mb] - lightweight telnet and SSH client
• Follow-Me IP - displays your external IP address
• XAMPP [Win, 25/17 mb] - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Just Unzip and Run
• HTTP File Server [Win] - simple and easy-to-use file server for personal file sharing.
• CurrPorts [Win, 46kb]- lets you view a list of ports that are currently in use, along with applications that use them
• FTP Servers: Quick’n Easy FTP Server [Win, 355kb], PureFTPdManager [Mac, 10.9mb]

All-In-One Packages

• PortableApps Suite [Win, 89.5mb] - includes 7 programs for essential needs (office, email, IM client, etc.) + cool Startup manager and backup utility
• FSuite [Mac, 668.3mb] - over 30 useful tools in one file (Office, Graphic, Audio, Video, Internet, Developer Tools and Games)

Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)

• Mac OS Classic 7
• Portable Linux: Knoppix, Ubuntu
• Win XP

USB ThumDrive Tips

• How to create a bootable USB key
• Never Forget your USB Stick
• QuickLaunch your USB workspace
• How To Make Skype a Portable App

That’s mainly it… In case you’re looking for something that wasn’t mentioned above, there are a couple of resources you may want to check out. These are Portablefreeware.com and Tinyapps.org

11 Tiny and Useful Free Menubar Applications for Mac

Original story:makeuseof

Not every application needs to always shows itself to be functional. Some just do their job quietly in the background while some hide themselves until they are needed. These are the perfect explanation on what menubar application do.

Other positive points, they are really tiny – most are less than 1 Mb in size. Some even less than 100 kb.

My recent article about a very useful menubar application called Main Menu made me aware that there are many others out there. So, after a little digging, here are few of the many.

1. aLaunch

1. aLunch is a customizable application launcher accessed from your menubar. I personally prefer Quicksilver as the launcher, but aLunch have one advantage over Quicksilver: users don’t have to remember the app name and just browser through the list instead.

2. Caffeine

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menubar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu. The menu now has a sub-menu for deactivating Caffeine automatically after a number of minutes.

This feature will be very useful if you do a lot of activities on your Mac which require staring at the display for a long time without mouse and keyboard activities, like watching movie or thinking over a design.

3. ClipMenu

ClipMenu stores clipboard histories such as plain text, rich texts format, PDF, PICT, and TIFF image. You can access in the menubar or by using hot key.

I’ve searched for a powerful but free clipboard app which can reside in the menubar. And this is it. The website itself is in Japanese, so if you don’t read Katakana-Hiragana-Kanji, you need to access the English translated page.

4. Eigenclock

Eigenclock is a menubar clock the way you want it. It features a fully customizable menu-bar display format, as well as a nice-looking calendar in a pop-up menu.

Eigenclock is now completely localizable. It determines the proper first day of the week (Monday, Sunday, Saturday) from your locale, and shows the names of the months and days in your current language. Eigenclock is currently a Leopard only application.

5. HimmelBar

HimmelBar is a little faceless application that provides an icon in the menu bar to quickly access your installed applications by scanning standard locations such as local, user, developer and network applications, and also utilities.

6. IPMenulet

IPMenulet shows the current external IP address in the menubar. If you constantly on the move and changing net connection, you will appreciate this little app.

7. iStat Menua

iStat Menus lets you monitor your system right from the menubar. Included are 8 menu extras that let you monitor every aspect of your system, such as: cpu usage, memory usage, disk usage and activity, current and total bandwidth, peak bandwidth, ip addresses, the temperature of your mac, and also fan speeds in your mac.

It is also able to show and control bluetooth status plus monitor the battery level of your Apple wireless keyboard or mouse. As a bonus, it will also display date + time in your menubar, including world clock display.

This very useful app has been discussed several times before. And as the alternative, you can also try MenuMeters.

8. MeNotes

MeNotes lets you manage personal notes and access them quickly in Menubar. Localized in English and French. There’s no web page for this app, just a direct link.

There are surprisingly many times when I need to do quick text and sometimes keep the text for a while. I find this little one quite handy in this department, and I’m sure many of the readers will feel the same.

Menubar Countdown

Menubar Countdown is a simple countdown timer that displays itself on the right side of the Mac OS X menu bar.

To set the timer, click on the display and select the Start → menu item. A dialog will appear that allows you to specify the countdown time in hours, minutes, and seconds. The dialog also allows you to specify which of the following forms of notification you want when the timer gets down to 00:00:00 such as play the system alert sound, display an alert window, make a spoken announcement. You can specify the text to be spoken.

And let us wrap the list with two iTunes menubar applications:

10. uTunes

uTunes is a simple iTunes controller. It was designed to not get in the way and thus installs itself in the menubar (next to your clock) and acts as a remote control for iTunes.

11. I Love Stars

I Love Stars allows users to easily rate the songs currently played from the menubar.

I’m fully aware that there are many-many more menubar application out there and it’s impossible to list each and every one of them out here. So, what’s your favorite menubar application? Share using the comment below.

Accesskey problems remain in XHTML 2

The accesskey attribute sounds like a great idea at first. Being able to attach a keyboard shortcut to elements in an HTML document allows users to quickly jump to different parts of the page or trigger functionality without having to use a mouse.

The problem, as has been stated by Derek Featherstone in More reasons why we don’t use accesskeys, John Foliot in Using Accesskeys - Is it worth it?, and Jukka Korpela in Using accesskey attribute in HTML forms and links, to name a few, is that most current web browsers do not prevent shortcuts assigned through an accesskey attribute from clashing with existing keyboard shortcuts specified by the browser or operating system. Even if they did do that, there would still be issues with internationalisation and key availability.

Because of this, I rarely use the accesskey attribute. In fact, I am considering not using it at all. Looking forward (way forward), the accesskey attribute is not included in current drafts of XHTML 2, since it has been replaced by the access element. Unfortunately it looks like the access element will suffer from the same problems as the accesskey attribute.

John Foliot explains why in ACCESS + KEY still = ACCESSKEY - The XHTML Role Access Module still flawed, an open letter to the draft editors of XHTML 2. Ian Lloyd at Accessify agrees and points to a system that lets users specify their own shortcut keys in The Trouble With Accesskeys.

Hide IP Address Mac OS X -- How To Change Mask Mac IP Address Software

How to Change and Hide/Mask Your IP Address on a Mac OS X Machine?

Don't want your real Mac IP address seen by others? Ever wondered how you can hide your IP address and fly totally under the radar when you visit certain sites? Got banned from a forum or online games site and want to unban yourself by changing your IP address...

Find out how you can hide and mask your Mac Ip - EASILY!

Why Hide Your MAC IP Anyway?

It's totally OK to want to hide your IP address!

Why?

Well, why should webmasters, marketers and other 3rd parties and websites you visit that can get hold of your IP - know it and be able to track your internet activity?

Your IP address is like a unique personal ID card for your Mac and it provides information about your geographic location, the internet connection you are using, your current browser etc. Every time you visit a website, information about you and your computer is freely visible.

As long as you are NOT doing something illegal online, it's perfectly fine to be able to hide and change your IP.

You might want to hide your Mac Ip address from a variety of people including from hackers, your internet service provider (ISP), WiFi networks, forums, online games and message boards.

Some websites will impose restrictions and bans on users from certain countries. They get info on what country you are from through your Mac IP address - so, you might want to get around this problem as well.

Banned From a Forum or Online Game Site?

Hide IP and Unban Yourself from Forums and Online Games

Got banned from an online game or chat forum?

If your IP gets banned, you can no longer access the website. That seems rather unfair...maybe you did something silly and stupid but hey, you realize it now... Why should you not be able to enjoy the site any longer?

For example, with hide IP address Mac software you can UNBAN yourself from forums and get back in - without the webmaster knowing it was you. Change your IP before you register again on that forum or message board. You can post again freely without them ever knowing its you.

With hide Mac IP address software, you can UNBAN yourself from online games as well and prevent them from ever banning you again.

How Does This Change My Mac IP Address?

Mask IP Mac Address Program

A good hide IP for Mac program such as WebGhost hides your IP address by redirecting your web connection through a secure private proxy server that completely masks your identity to any website you visit.

What's a Private Proxy Server?

An anonymous (or private) proxy server makes requests for Internet information on your behalf, using its own IP address instead of yours. This way, Web sites will see the proxy's IP address (provided by WebGhost) not your real Mac IP address.

Using this program, you will not only browse the web invisibly but also in complete anonymity because WebGhost will both hide IP address and clean your online activity. How?

For example, not only does WebGhost change your IP address so that you are invisible to others but it it will also erase your web browser history, clean your cache and sweep your cookies - automatically - keeping others from recording and tracking your Internet activity and seeing what websites you visit.

WebGhost Review

Key Benefits of Change IP Software

The Key Benefits of using WebGhost for Mac are the following...

You can:

• Change and mask your Mac Ip address with only one click!



• Get back into online games that banned you and stop these online games sites from ever banning you based on your Mac IP Address.



• Take the Mac IP Address of another computer. Totally bypass some country restrictions.



• Hide your real Mac IP address from hackers, WiFi networks and ISPs.



• Unban yourself from forums that banned you.

Change IP Address: Free vs Paid Proxy Servers

While not as secure as some options, free proxy servers can provide a passable level of anonymity on the Internet. Especially when you want to hide your Mac IP occasionally, they can work just fine.

Numerous free anonymous proxy servers exist on the Internet, open for anyone to use. For example: http://www.proxify.com

However, these servers may have bandwidth traffic limits, will suffer from speed problems you can only use them by physically going to the website EVERY time you want to fake your IP.

Having your own hide an IP address software, allows you to increase your privacy on the Internet - ALL the time. A program such as Webghost for Mac is also free to download, so you can try it risk free.

Good luck and safe browsing!




Related Mac Tools:

Recover Mac Trash

Hide Mac Ip Address: Table of Contents

• Why Hide Your MAC IP Anyway?
• Banned From a Forum or Online Game Site?
• How Does This Change My Mac IP Address?
• WebGhost Review
• Change IP Address: Free vs Paid Proxy Servers
• Hide and Change IP Mac address from the blogosphere

Hide and Change IP Mac address from the blogosphere

Appz dl: Net Tools 5.0.70

111) Domain to IP (DNS) 112) Get SNMP Variables 113) Internet Explorer Password Revealer 114) Advanced Multi Port Scanner 115) Port Identification List (+port scanner) 116) Get Quick Net Info 117) Get Remote MAC Address 118) Share Add ... 128) Get Whois Servers 129) File Split&Merge 130) Hide Drive 131) Extract E-mails from Documents 132) Net Tools Mini (Client/Server, Scan, ICMP, Net Statistics, Interactive, Raw Packets,DNS, Whois, ARP, Computer's IP, Wake On LAN) ...

URL Remote dan Network

111) Domain to IP (DNS) 112) Get SNMP Variables 113) Internet Explorer Password Revealer 114) Advanced Multi Port Scanner 115) Port Identification List (+port scanner) 116) Get Quick Net Info 117) Get Remote MAC Address 118) Share Add ... 130) Hide Drive 131) Extract E-mails from Documents 132) Net Tools Mini (Client/Server, Scan, ICMP, Net Statistics, Interactive, Raw Packets, DNS, Whois, ARP, Computer's IP, Wake On LAN) 133) Hook Spy 134) Software Uninstaller ...

Webhosting and web designing | HOSTRAIN | How to Hide Your IP ...

How to Hide Your IP Address with a Proxy Server. Every time you use the Internet, you're being tracked by both your server and the servers you access. Your ISP keeps logs of your MAC address (your network adapter card's number) and your ...

11 Tiny and Useful Free Menubar Applications for Mac | MakeUseOf.com

Not every application needs to always shows itself to be functional. Some just do their job quietly in the background while some hide themselves until they are. ... Included are 8 menu extras that let you monitor every aspect of your system , such as: cpu usage, memory usage, disk usage and activity, current and total bandwidth, peak bandwidth, ip addresses, the temperature of your mac, and also fan speeds in your mac. 07-istat-menubar-sml ...