PREDATOR protects your PC with a USB flash drive

PREDATOR is a way to protect your PC with a USB flash drive.

Basically, you use the flash drive like a key — no flash drive plugged in, nobody can use your computer.

WARNING: be sure to configure more than one flash drive in the same way with this, in case you lose your flash drive or it malfunctions.

Freeware for personal use.  Use at your own risk.

Configure a USB flash drive to be a Windows 7 installation platform

TechRepublic has a post on how to Configure a USB flash drive to be a Windows 7 installation platform.

USB Flash Drive Manager

Microsoft offers a free USB Flash Drive Manager.

“This utility helps you easily copy, delete, and back up files from a flash drive as well as perform a number of other useful tasks.”

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP; Windows XP Home Edition ; Windows XP Media Center Edition; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2

• .NET Framework 1.1
• Windows® XP

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

The Online Education Database presents a list of 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better.

Now you can justify carrying it with you to classes.

Computer Repair Utility Kit on a Flash Drive

ReadWriteWeb has a list for a Computer Repair Utility Kit which You Can Run From a Thumb (Flash) Drive.

“Technibble, the Australian site for aspiring computer techies, recently released the second version of its popular Computer Repair Utility Kit, a collection of 57 hand picked tools to help you diagnose and repair your Windows machine.

While all of the utilities are freely available online, this all-in-one kit saves you the trouble of searching for and downloading them individually. Most of the applications don’t require installation and the kit can be run directly from your thumb drive.”

They also do rating for Beginner, intermediate and expert use needed for each tool.

U3 version: Firefox 3 Final Portable U3

[update 2009.3.7]

(The Firefox on the regular U3 sites may still be only version 2.)

Oops!  The link for the original version of this post has been hijacked or forwarded to something unrelated to Firefox 3 for U3.

There are versions out there, but I can’t be sure if they are safe (uninfected, no trojans, etc.)

One possible source is here or more directly from here.   I can’t guarantee safety of this version.  Click on the “free user” dial and wait for the countdown, then proceed as instructed.

You’ll need tell it to update as soon as you get it installed, and then get the latest versions of your addons.

Paths to USB drives can be relative

How to create shortcuts with a relative path for use on USB drives

Freeware.genius tells “how to create program shortcuts on the root folder of a USB drive that preserve the relative path of the USB drive’s folder structure (such that these shortcuts will always work no matter what drive letter Windows assigns the drive). It will also aim to preserve the icon of the application in the new shortcut.

The problem: say you have a portable app that in a folder on a USB drive with, for example, a path such as “F:EjectUSBEjectUSB.exe”. Say, moreover, that you would like to create a shortcut to “EjectUSB.exe” and place it on the root folder of your USB (”F:”, in this case). You might be tempted to simply copy a shortcut and place it on the root folder; except for one thing: that shortcut will always refer to “F:EjectUSBEjectUSB.exe”, and should you plug your USB drive into a computer that assigns a different letter to the USB drive (i.e. a letter than is not “F”) the shortcut will break down and not work. Hence the need for a shortcut with a relative path.”

UNetbootin for bootable Linux on USB Flash drives

UNetbootin allows users to install Linux or create bootable liveUSB drives without a CD. UNetbootin has built-in support for numerous distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, Linux Mint, ArchLinux, Debian, CentOS, Frugalware, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Parted Magic, though many other distributions can also be installed via an existing ISO or floppy/hard disk image file. Version 240 adds support for additional distributions.

Freeware, with registration required.

MyUSBOnly Free locks others out of your USB ports

Want to keep others from downloading your data, or illegal files, or your keystrokes, using your own computer’s USB ports?

MyUSBOnly Free 2007 is freeware (registration only required) that lets you lock others out of your USB ports while allowing only the devices you trust.

From ZDNet’s TechRepublic.

Remastersys creates a custom Ubuntu Linux CD or Flash drive

[Revised 2008/8/8]

A post at Ubuntugeek has instructions on using Remastersys to install Ubuntu on a CD so you can boot Linux with it.

To follow up by installing on a flash drive, continue to A much easier way.

As always, try at your own risk.

Menu systems for your USB Flash drive

Daily Cup of Tech has a custom menu system to use on your USB Flash drive.

Another menu system is PStart which is a “simple tray tool to start user defined applications. Designed to run portable applications (like portable Firefox & Thunderbird), you can start anything runnable from USB key devices or removable disks.”

Flash drive freeware source

TopFreeware has a section on portable software for use with USB Flash drives.

TrueCrypt for keeping files safe

TrueCrypt is a freeware, open source encryption program for XP/2000/2003 and Linux, and USB Flash (thumb, keychain, etc.) drives.

Recommended by Windows Secrets.

U3 Flash drives are a new standard

A new standard, called U3, is for drives which allow you to run software from the USB drive just as if it were a hard drive on your PC. This also allows you to use your own programs and setups on other PCs.

• Verbatim drive users software for the new U3 standard drives.
• U3.com has U3 software.
• Don’t have a U3 drive? Then you can still run U3 applications by using Pegtop’s PStart for non-U3 drives.

USB Flash drives links

Windows Secrets has an item on how to use a Flash drive instead of a laptop to keep your favorite software and data available wherever you go. There are also links for the fastest drives and speed tests for drives, a discussion of U3-or-not-U3 drives, and other information. Another article from them is here and covers various menu and suite choices as well.

• NedWolf.com has lots of links to software.
• No-Install.com “portal for portability” with software, forums, stories
• Portable USB Apps a group of small versions of useful applications that can be copied to and used from a Flash drive.
• PortableApps.com has software.
• EverythingUSB.com has software.
• Portable Freeware has software including applications.
• Lifehacker top 10 usb thumb drive tricks link to a number of uses and software.
• Snapfiles has a page on portable software.
• Allway Sync can be used to sync folders and files anywhere, including to and from USB drives. Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter.
• IZarc2Go is archiving software to compress/uncompress files, which ALSO has excellent encryption to keep files secure. You can encrypt your existing files with a simple procedure. Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter
• Ultrashredder will destroy your files (such as the original files left after you encrypt them with IZarc2Go, above, so only the encrypted files survive). Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter.
• WinInizio Pen Suite is “a collection of free and open source software that can be copied onto a USB pen drive or used from a hard disk.” Recommended by ClifNotesNewsletter.