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What follows is a survey of what I tend to have with me at almost all times. These are tools that I either frequently use or don’t get much use, but are lifesavers when the need arises. Most of what’s on my USB drive(s) is also stored on my box.net account — that gives me a “just in case” option if I don’t have a drive with me.
If nothing else, this page is quite useful (for me) when checking for updated versions.
USB Drive
First, here’s what’s on my USB drive.
- Pegtop PStart: this gives a nice little menu to all the other apps or folders on the drive. Easy to use, easy to setup.
- WinSCP: My preferred way of moving files to my sites. (portable configuration notes)
- FileZilla Portable: FTP client
- PortaPutty: Portable version of the PuTTY ssh client.
- Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition: Web browser. Long name, but nice portable version of Firefox. Leaves no traces behind on whatever machine being used.
- TorPark: Secure Web browser via the Tor network. Sometimes, discretion is a good thing to have handy.
- Notepad2: Just in case I need an editor. This one works great from a USB drive.
- 7-Zip Portable: A great all purpose compression utility.
- Password Safe: Just as the name suggests — an excellent way to store passwords and other bits of data that need not be left laying around.
- SIW (System Information Wizard: I reach for this when I want a quick overview of a machine. There’s not much this thing won’t tell me.
- VLC Portable: This thing plays just about any sort of media file.
- WinDiff: File or directory comparisons.
All those show up in the PStart menu. Also in that menu is a folder named “Tools” which points to a directory on the drive. In that directory, we have the following:
- Process Monitor
- Process Explorer
- AutoRuns
- Rootkit Revealer
- Restoration: Nice little undelete utility. Getting a bit dated… but still works. Priceless with digital camera cards…
- McAfee Stinger: Fast AV scanner that looks for just a small subset of common threats. Been a while since this was updated
- ClamWin Portable: Move antivirus
- MessenPass: Recovers passwords from common Instant Messaging clients
- MailPassView: Recovers passwords from most (common) email clients
Many more options for recovery tools exist. The last two in that list above are the two I’ve actually used the most.
What else? I’m saving pennies for a copy of SpinRite. A friend owns it and with one use I was pretty impressed. Seems worth having around but the price is a bit “dear.”
I keep a CD with Windows Memory Diagnostics in my toolbag. It has been useful in the past. I also have a CD with Damn Small Linux handy. Sometimes I just want to know if the machine can boot — and DSL is also useful for copying from the hard drive to USB drives for quick backups/recoveries.
