Why is it so bad for an application to write its settings to the user profile folder? Writing settings to the application folder is dangerous because you need to have admin rights on the machine and different users are stuck with each other's settings! Storing settings in the user profile folder also has the advantage that you could upgrade a program without losing its settings.
In a multi-user environment, it is indeed inappropriate to write settings in the application folder. However, portable apps are run from external USB flash drives or equivalent, so it is a personal device and writing settings to the application folder is therefore preferred. In addition, the admin rights requirement is no longer a concern since you have full access to the USB drive.
An application can cater to both multi-user environment and portability by checking with the user on startup (when it detects that the settings are not initialized yet) whether he wishes to write settings to the user profile folder or application folder. This should be relatively easy to implement, and makes no assumption on the user's preference. Underlying this mechanism is to check for a file eg. settings.ini in the application folder on startup. If the file exists, it write its settings to the application folder, otherwise to the user profile folder.
With regards to the issue of upgrading an application without losing its settings, you could just as easily upgrade a portable app without losing settings by avoiding the appropriate file(s). Some well-designed apps like Portable Firefox even has a explicit profile folder that you simply leave alone when copying over the new application files. This also has the added advantage of being able to easily maintain several versions of the same application, each with its own settings.
Summary: http://www.trailfire.com/rowanrook/trailview/31696
Why is it so bad for an application to write its settings to the user profile folder? Writing settings to the application folder is dangerous because you need to have admin rights on the machine and different users are stuck with each other's settings! Storing settings in the user profile folder also has the advantage that you could upgrade a program without losing its settings.
In a multi-user environment, it is indeed inappropriate to write settings in the application folder. However, portable apps are run from external USB flash drives or equivalent, so it is a personal device and writing settings to the application folder is therefore preferred. In addition, the admin rights requirement is no longer a concern since you have full access to the USB drive.
An application can cater to both multi-user environment and portability by checking with the user on startup (when it detects that the settings are not initialized yet) whether he wishes to write settings to the user profile folder or application folder. This should be relatively easy to implement, and makes no assumption on the user's preference. Underlying this mechanism is to check for a file eg. settings.ini in the application folder on startup. If the file exists, it write its settings to the application folder, otherwise to the user profile folder.
With regards to the issue of upgrading an application without losing its settings, you could just as easily upgrade a portable app without losing settings by avoiding the appropriate file(s). Some well-designed apps like Portable Firefox even has a explicit profile folder that you simply leave alone when copying over the new application files. This also has the added advantage of being able to easily maintain several versions of the same application, each with its own settings.
Applications
Accessibility
Firefox Accessibility Extension - Make Firefox more accessible
On-Screen Keyboard Portable - Easily access an on-screen keyboard
Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable - A full-featured screen magnifier
Development
Notepad++ Portable - A full-featured text editor with syntax highlighting
Nvu Portable & KompoZer Portable - The easy-to-use Nvu web editor
XAMPP - Apache, mySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, etc in one package
Graphics & Pictures
GIMP Portable - Photo and Image Editor
Internet
FileZilla Portable - the full-featured FTP client
FireFTP Extension (for Firefox) - a lightweight extension
Miranda IM Portable - chat with AOL, MSN and Yahoo users in a customizable interface
Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition - the award-winning web browser that's safe and secure
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition - the handy email client- Nvu Portable & KompoZer Portable - the easy-to-use webpage editor
Pidgin Portable - chat with AOL, MSN and Yahoo users in an easy-to-use interface
PuTTY Portable - lightweight telnet and SSH client
Sage Extension (for Firefox) - A full-featured RSS extension
WinSCP Portable - SFTP, FTP and SCP client
Music & Video
Audacity Portable - A simple audio editor and recorder
MPlayer Portable - Full-featured movie player with support for most video formats
VirtualDub Portable - video processing and capture utility
VLC Media Player Portable - An easy to use media player that plays most audio and video formats
Office
AbiWord Portable - a lightweight word processor compatible with Microsoft Word files- Lightning Extension (for Thunderbird) - A lightweight extension for your calendar and tasks
Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition - Calendar and task management with a familiar interface- Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (Address Book) - Email client's built-in address book with import/export functions
OpenOffice.org Portable - word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with Microsoft compatibility
Sumatra PDF Portable - a lightweight PDF viewer
Operating Systems
Mac-on-Stick - Run Mac OS Classic 7 portably
Utilities
7-Zip Portable - File archiver and compressor
ClamWin Portable - Antivirus on the go
Command Prompt Portable - Simple link to a customizable command prompt
Eraser Portable - securely delete files and data
KeePass Password Safe Portable - Secure, easy-to-use password manager
PortableApps.com Backup - integrated backup utility bundled with the platform- PortableApps.com Menu - integrated start menu bundled with the platform
Toucan - backup, sync and encrypt for advanced users
winMd5Sum Portable - check md5 sums to verify files on the go
WinMerge Portable - file comparison and merging
English Version |
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Update your Opera@USB or Opera@U3 9.x to 9.25 (English Update) |
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Writes settings to: Application folder
 | Notepad2 V2.0.16 |
Category: Programming / Text Editors
Synopsis: Notepad2 is a small and fast text editor with syntax highlighting for HTML and other common languages. It supports modeless find and replace dialogs, multi-line find and replace operations (using backslash expressions), optional file change notification etc. Note that Notepad2 requires MSVCR70.DLL to run.
Writes settings to: Application folder
How to extract: Download the ZIP package and extract to any folder of your choice. Launch the application by double-clicking Notepad2.exe.
 |  EASY AS 1-2-3 1. Plug your USB key with RoboForm2Go on it into any computer, anywhere in the world. 2. RoboForm2Go(TM) memorizes your passwords and bookmarks and logs you into online accounts automatically. Fills long registration and checkout forms too. 3. Pull out your USB key and No traces of RoboForm2Go are left on the computer. |
More Mini Mac Apps for Your Pocket USB Thumb Drive
January 30th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 7 Comments
After a recent post I did on miniature Mac applications small enough to store on a thumb drive, I got a lot of suggestions for alternatives. I’ve tried several of them and found them useful. In this post I’ll round up more small-footprint applications that are very practical to keep with you on your pocket thumb drive (I keep my little drive on a keychain).
An FTP application is ideal to keep on a pocket drive, because then you can move files too large for e-mail—even long video files—to colleagues or a remote machine with ease. Cyberduck (see above) is a free, open-source application that can do either FTP or SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) transfers. Unlike a lot of FTP programs, it integrates with a number of Mac OS X’s built-in features. For example, there is a Spotlight importer for bookmark files, and synchronizing remote directories with local ones will feel familiar to any regular Mac user.
I also like a quick-and-easy text editor on my pocket thumb drive—nothing fancy, just enough to let me write on the go. Someone responding to my previous post suggested TextWrangler. It’s a free download, and after working with it I’m impressed with it. It’s especially good at opening remote FTP files. Note though, that this one isn’t a miniature application. It has a 22MB footprint.
Instant messaging is often an ideal on-the-go way to communicate with colleagues, and a good thumb drive application to have for chatting from any Mac system is Portable iChat. It’s basically a little script that will open a local copy of iChat, and include your usual buddies and preferences.
If you like to have all your browser preferences set up as usual on any Mac system you find yourself using, get Portable Safari on your thumb drive. It’s a script that sets up your preferences and bookmarks on a local copy of Safari when you open it.
When you’re on the go with a pocket thumb drive, the ability to quickly get something from your remote Mac system can be a lifesaver. For a free application with a tiny footprint (only 852K), get WakeOnLan. You can even schedule it to turn on your remote computer and do scheduled backups.
Eleven Go-Anywhere Mini Applications for the Mac
December 27th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 11 Comments
Recently, I did a post on tiny, free applications you can keep for stashing on a USB thumb drive, which, if you carry your drive around at all times, can keep your applications with you whether you’re toting a notebook or not. Those were all Windows applications, though. In this post, I’ll round up eleven good go-anywhere applications for the Mac. These are quick-in, quick-out programs that you can keep with you on a keychain.
iStumbler is a very easy-to-use application for finding AirPort, Bluetooth, Bonjour and other wireless signals and services. It’s had a recent overhaul that gives you lots of extra information about the networks available to you.
Bean is a free rich text editor that you can pop up in a snap. In my experience, it’s very compatible with Microsoft Word. However, it uses Apple’s file conversion service to read Word files, so if you have a lot of citations and tables in a Word document it may not behave perfectly. It definitely beats stripped down text editors, though.
If you read a lot of text on the web all day, try Tofu. It arranges text on a page in columns, with columns sized properly for the window you have open. You can often see information you’re looking for quickly, without scrolling around.
Adium is a free, simple multi-protocol instant messaging application. With it you can chat with people on AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo and more.
ViewIt is a very quick-to-open image viewer and it supports nearly all common image formats. Also try ImageWell–a nice application for editing images that has a very small footprint.
If you’ve used a Mac for a while, you know all about Spotlight. Inquisitor is a free application that lets you find information on the web in the same way you find things with Spotlight. Just begin typing and it will start to return sites based on your criteria.
For a very simple, small application that can help you automate backups (including automating daily backups right to your USB thumb drive) try iBackup. You can also use it to backup your settings for the Dock, your firewall, and much more.
Paintbrush is a Cocoa-based image editor for Mac OS X. It’s very easy to get in and out of, for those times when loading Photoshop is overkill.
Maintenance is a solid, free system maintenance and repair utility, with a version specifically for Leopard. You can use it to repair permissions, delete applications, check hard drive status, and more.
DoBeDo is a useful widget for use with Mac OS X that lets you integrate to-do list items with iCal and your e-mail. To add a new task, you just click on a plus icon, type in the task name and accept your entry.
Do you know of any good, free mini applications for the Mac?
About GnuCash Portable
GnuCash Portable provides a PortableApps.com style NSIS launcher enabling GnuCash to run from a portable drive without installing it on the host machine.
Latest File Releases
| Package | Release | Date | Notes / Monitor | Downloads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GnuCash Portable Full Install | 2.2.3 Development Test 3 | January 29, 2008 |  -  | Download |
| GnuCash Portable Updater | 2.2.3 Development Test 2 Update | January 17, 2008 | - | Download |
USB Damn Small Linux (DSL)
This is a revisit of the Windows DSL USB installation tutorial: "Putting damn small linux on a USB pendrive". Damn Small Linux was created by John Andrews of damnsmalllinux.org and is basically a trimmed down version of Knoppix, making it perfect for smaller drives. Based on the 2.4 kernel, DSL is great to use for older and slower computers as well. It will fit and run on portable devices or drives as small as 64MB.
Damn Small Linux Screenshots:
Basic essentials:
- A 64MB or larger USB flash drive
- HP-USB Format tool (optional)
- 7-Zip (or another extracting utility)
- Syslinux
- dsl-embedded.zip
Damn Small Linux USB install tutorial:
- Download the HP-USB Format tool and format your flash drive using the Fat or Fat32 option
- Download the dsl-embedded.zip and extract the contents using 7-Zip to your "USB flash drive"
- Download syslinux-3.36.zip and unzip the files to a directory called syslinux on your computer
- From Windows click start-> run-> cmd
- From the command window, type cd \syslinux\win32
- Type syslinux.exe -ma X: (replace X with your USB drive letter) to make the drive bootable
- Reboot your computer and set your system BIOS to boot from USB-ZIP or USB-HDD. You might also need to set the hard disk boot priority to boot from the USB stick if your BIOS lists the device as a hard drive.
Notes: It is possible to "boot DSL using Qemu emulation" without the need to reboot the PC. See the included readme file that was written by the authors of DSL
If you still can't get DSL to work, you can try this full installation tutorial direct from the DSL wiki
