Comments on: U Luv USB

U Luv USB

blahblahblah — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:16:24 -0800

Is there anything USB drives can't do? PortableApps has dozens of applications from Open Office to Firefox, that will run from a USB key (and there are other applications as well), or you can run an entire Linux or Windows installation from your drive, or just steal passwords. And don't forget the weird gadgets (here is a slideshow), including cool USB rechargable batteries, missile launchers [Google Video], and, of course, the ultimate USB hub.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:32:40 -0800

I have a boynq usb light. It's way lame.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:38:48 -0800

The rechargable battery is such a clever little idea. I love clever little ideas!

By: exogenous

exogenous — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:41:30 -0800

I think this USB powered DAC and headphone amp is kind of cool, though I haven't made one (yet). (When I first read this post I thought I was in AskMe and my first instinct was to point out the current limit of the USB bus /nerdout)

By: poppo

poppo — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:48:42 -0800

Let me know when I can plug it into my head

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:53:48 -0800

Can someone give an example of why you use a portable USB drive with apps on it?

By: trey

trey — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:01:16 -0800

You want to use a browser such as firefox or a program such as OpenOffice and the computer you are using doesn't allow installations.

By: Big_B

Big_B — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:12:25 -0800

Well the computer I'm on doesnt allow me to run apps from a USB device, so there goes that one.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:18:04 -0800

exogenous that's very cool. Do you happen to know of one of those (or similar) that will output balanced audio (XLR or 1/4")?

By: rogue haggis landing

rogue haggis landing — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:26:16 -0800

PortableApps also gives you a way to run Firefox and Gimp even though the IT guy has locked down your computer. Shhh.... don't tell the IT guy!

By: mitocan

mitocan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:52:35 -0800

USB Vibrator

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:13:48 -0800

There should be a controller for the USB missile launchers that looks like the hub in the last link.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:15:38 -0800

A friend turned me on to U3 a couple days ago, which looks to be a slicker, pricier version of PortableApps. Seems to have more software though. (If anybody cares to elaborate on the differences between the standards, please jump in!) Those rechargable batteries are such a great idea, esp. for travel. Wonder how well they work?

By: pandaharma

pandaharma — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:32:49 -0800

PortableApps is a great site. There's also Portable Freeware which has an even larger collection of software. A great alternative to PortableFirefox is Torpark. This is PortableFirefox integrated with Tor, which is great for relatively private browsing on possibly insecure computers.

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:43:20 -0800

There is no "PortableApps" standard. PortableApps is just a website that collects special versions of popular free software packages -- versions that have been custom-tailored to operating directly from a flash drive. Different developers may have different ideas about what that means. U3 offers an interface for buying, downloading, installing, and launching portable apps. If PortableApps is an art-rock collective giving away free CDs, then U3 is iTunes.

By: Mitrovarr

Mitrovarr — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:51:44 -0800

LordSludge: Those rechargable batteries are such a great idea, esp. for travel. Wonder how well they work? About half as well as normal rechargeables, and they cost roughly 6x as much.

By: taosbat

taosbat — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:15:05 -0800

Hey! Thanks, blahblahblah and all, I was just looking into usb-portable apps to see what's available and here are all these links.

By: potch

potch — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:52:24 -0800

Tinyapps.org has a bunch of rediculously tiny programs. Any of the ones marked with a green leaf can easily be used on a USB drive. Particularly of use to me were some of the file undelete tools. I've earned many a hug for resurrecting music, documents and presentations.

By: Duug

Duug — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:12:44 -0800

One word: mojopac

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:26:41 -0800

wtf is mojopac?

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:51:20 -0800

I want a USB surge-protector.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:03:12 -0800

I keep portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Miranda IM, OpenOffice and Abiword all, complete with a copy of the Elcomsoft password recovery suite, all on a 1Gb stick. I find the copy of Miranda really handy at work so I can keep in touch with my girlfriend at home, since our corporate IM can't reliable touch the outside world. Of course, there's usually the latest Venture Brothers and a couple other recent animations for easy group viewing... (This, however, is the same stick that's survived two washings and dryings...)

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:28:10 -0800

Is there anything USB drives can't do? Store data reliably, or so I'm told. I looked into putting various chunks of data -- email, bookmarks -- on a thumb drive to make useful stuff portable and singular across the various machines I use but got the jeebies about little silicon bits pinging off and taking six months of email with it. Highly discouraed was the use of the thumb drive with Thunderbird's spam filter, as apparently its rather disk-intensive.

By: effugas

effugas — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 02:49:31 -0800

Ogre-- Flash _used_ to have really bad failure rates after 10K uses or so. Then the controllers started cycling changes around the physical medium, and the actual hardware got much more mature. At this point, you're looking at 1M+ writes between failures. That's on par with, or beyond, magnetic discs.