Portable apps are programs that are made to run from a removable storage device. Most often this is going to be a USB flash drive. This could just as easily be an external hard drive, or even a CD. For the rest of this write up I will assume that you will be using a flash drive as mentioned before. The benefit of these “portable apps” is that you can go from computer to computer with your flash drive and have the programs that you like to use and have them configured with the options that you prefer. A perfect example is if you are on vacation and are using a relatives computer. They may not have the program on their computer that you need to work with your file. Instead of installing it on their PC, which they may or may not be willing to let you do, you can just plug in your flash drive and run your app.

There is a vast variety of different apps that you can run from a flash drive. Everything from word processors to web browsers to diagnostic utilities and virus scanners. I have composed a list of the must have portable apps and utilities that I use extensively in my job as a network administrator and in my life in general. Most of these apps I have gotten from either portableapps.com or pendriveapps.com.

#1 – 7-Zip Portable: File Archiver

A portable alternative to Winzip. It allows you to work with .zip files. You can compress files to make them smaller for emailing, or add numerous files into a single .zip file.

#2 – Audacity Portable: Audio editing

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

#3 – CDRTFE Portable: CD/DVD Burning

A small open source burning application for Windows. cdrtfe is a win32 frontend for the cdrtools (cdrecord, mkisofs, readcd, cdda2wav), Mode2CDMaker and VCDImager. It can burn data discs (CD and DVD), Audio CDs, XCDs, (S)VCDs and DVD-Video discs. For Windows 9x, ME, 2k, XP.

#4 – ClamWin Portable: Antivirus

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003.

#5 – DamnVid Portable: Video downloaded and converter

DamnVid is a cross-platform application to download and convert videos from your hard drive or from dozens of video sharing websites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Veoh, Metacafe, etc.

#6 – Database Browser Portable: Database tool

Database Browser Portable is an easy to use tool allows you to connect to any database and browse or modify data, run sql scripts, export and print data.

#7 – DOSBox Portable: DOS Emulator

DOSBox is a DOS-emulator that uses the SDL-library which makes DOSBox very easy to port to different platforms. DOSBox has already been ported to many different platforms, such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X…

#8 – FileZilla Portable: FTP Client

FileZilla is open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU General Public License

#9 – Firefox Portable: Web Browser

My favorite web browser, It’s all I ever use.

#10 – GIMP Portable: Image Manipulation

Stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a wonderful, and free, alternative for Photoshop.

#11 – Google Chrome Portable: Web Browser

Another great alternative to IE. The biggest benefit with Chrome, especially running it as a portable app, is it’s clean and fast interface.

#12 – IrfanView Portable: Image viewer

View, convert, optimize, scan, print, slideshows, batch processing: It’s an image viewer that does it all and does it quickly.

#13 – Open Office Portable: Office suite

The free and open productivity suit. Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Presentation.

#14 – Pidgin Portable: Instant Messaging

The universal chat client. IM friends on all of the major platforms.

#15 – PSMenu: Portable start menu

Create a start menu for all of the portable apps. It places an icon in the system tray, and allows you to run all of the apps on your flash drive without having to browse to them.

#16 – Skype Portable: IM, voice and video chat

The only thing Pidgin can’t do, voice and video chatting.

#17 – Thunderbird Portable: Email client

The email client from Mozilla, take your emails with you everywhere you go.

#18 – VLC Portable: Media Player

I should say “THE” media player. If you have a video or music file, VLC will probably play it.

#19 – Wireshark Portable: Network Sniffer

A wonderful, and free, network/packet sniffer.

#20 – Putty: Telnet and SSH client

Quick, fast, and easy way to connect to any telnet or SSH server.

#21 – AltCmd: File manager

Quick, dual pane file manager

#22 – File Unlocker: Unlocks files

Ever not been able to delete a file because it says it is in use?

#23 – Angry IP Scanner: Network scanner

Quickly determine what IP addresses are currently being used on any subnet.

#24 – Mail View: Email recover tool

Opens Outlook Express or Thunderbird email files and allows you to recover the messages in them.

#25 – ReStoration: Undelete files

Allows you to recover files that have been deleted.

#26 – Process Explorer: Process analyzer

See exactly what all of the currently running processes are doing on your PC.

#27 – VNC Viewer: Remote access

Connect to other computers running the VNC server.

This is just a list of the apps that I use on a regular basis. There are lots more at www.portableapps.com or www.pendriveapps.com.

Problem:

When you try to use the “out of office reply” option is Microsoft Outlook you receive the following error:

“The command is not available. See the program documentation about how to use this extension.”

Resolution:

There are two ways to go about fixing this problem.

Method 1:

Inside Outlook, Click the “Help” menu, and then click on “About Microsoft Outlook. Then click on “Disabled Items.” Select “outex.dll” and select enable. If this does not fix your issue then try method 2.

Method 2:

Close Outlook, Click Start Button, Click “run”, Type “Regedit”.

Browse to the following location: HKLU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Resisliency

Right-Click on the “Resisliency” key and select export. Save the .reg file somewhere incase you need to import this later.

Now Right-Click on any sub-keys of “Resiliency” and select delete.

Now startup Outlook and you should be able to use your Out of Office Reply.

Problem

When you right-click on a word document in explorer and select print you receive the following error message: “Ambiguous name detected: tempDDE”. When you do this process Word creates a temporary macro in the normal.dot file to print the documents. On occasion that macro may not get deleted as it should. That is when you receive this error.

Resolution

You can either open the normal.dot file and manually delete the macro, or just delete the normal.dot file and let Word recreate it. I find the latter the easier way to go. Here’s what to do:

Browse to C:\documents and settings\[USERNAME]\application data\microsoft\templates

Delete normal.dot

When you open MS Word the next time it will recreate this file, and you should not be able to right-click on documents and print them.

Problem

This problem is usually caused by the Sonic Record Now software. It adds a couple of registry entries that cause the CD / DVD drive(s) to disappear from explorer.

Resolution

You need to remove the upper and lower filters of your cd reg key.
1. Start > Run.
2. regedit
3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class  and select {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318)
4. Select File > Export
5. save the file to the Desktop in case you need to restore it
6. In the right panel of the Registry Editor, select the LowerFilters line, and then choose Edit > Delete. Click Yes in the Confirm Key Delete dialog box.
7. Do the same for the UpperFilters line
8. Close the Registry Editor.
9. Restart Windows.

1 Bottle Tobaso Smoked Chipotle hot sauce

1/3 Cup apple cider vinegar

5 Cloves garlic – minced

1-2 Lbs chicken wings sections

Combine hot sauce, vinegar, and garlic. Marinate chicken in mixture for minimum of 4 hours.

Bake chicken wings at 400 degrees for 30 mins.

While chicken cooks, bring marinade to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until it slightly thickens.

Cover cooked chicken with thickened marinade and serve.