One of the first things I looked for when I purchased a flash drive is the ability to encrypt my files. I did not see what I liked, so I had to scour the web and search pretty hard. In the end, I have lots of programs that will fit on a 16 meg flash drive. Currently, there are just over 7 megs of programs.

As a side note, I'm working on a new installer that can let you select which packages you want to install. Currently, there are 170 packages. I also created a USBStart program that starts a menu for me and automatically dismounts a drive when I'm done. I am also toying with an idea of having an NSIS program install files to a temp directory, run the program, and then clean everything up. That way, you can run programs that don't compress well on a flash drive (lots of files, etc.) but they will run from the hard drive directly, then clean themselves up right afterwards to ensure you have a squeaky clean drive.

You will find:

• OffByOne - An extremely small, yet nice web browser. It does not cache pages on your hard drive and can be ran directly from a CD. (version 3.5.a, UPX compressed)
• TrueCrypt - A free, open-source on-the-fly encryption for files and volumes. (version 3.1a)
• Notepad2 - A notepad replacement that is small, fast, and has lots of features. (version 1.0.12, UPX compressed)
• FreeOTFE - Free on-the-fly encryption for files and entire volumes that is compatible with Linux (loop-aes [under certain restrictions], cryptoloop, dm-crypt) and has lots of flexibility. Source code available. (version 0.59.00 Beta)
• Eraser - Securely delete files from your hard drive and wipe free space. Don't use it on the flash; your card will wear out quickly! (version 5.7)
• Iceows - Small unzip program that integrates into Windows and shows files in an explorer-like interface. (version 4.20b)
• XP-AntiSpy - Disable built-in update and authentication "features" in Windows XP. (version 3.94-2, UPX compressed)

Updates

The set of tools also includes its own auto-update program, which will copy just the changes between your version and the newest one available. When copying files, it also retrieves a compressed form of the file, saving you as much time as possible.

When you run the update tool, it will remove all of the changes you have made to the files. So, if you want to keep a plugin that you installed, you will need to reinstall it again.

To update your tools, just run "Update Tools.bat" and it will start up rsync for you. You probably don't want to do that too often, since the software included is not updated frequently.

If you want to keep these tools around and you do not want to overwrite files, I strongly suggest keeping the tools in a separate subdirectory of their own. Something like this:

E:\        <-- Your flash drive (safe)
E:\Tools   <-- Where the tools reside (cleaned out when updated)

Download

This is not a normal download. I am using rsync to distribute the files. You need to perform the following tasks to download the set of tools. It will use the update tool described above.

1. Download Stub.zip
2. Extract Stub.zip into a new folder.
   • If you do not make a new folder, other files in the current folder will be deleted. MAKE A NEW FOLDER!
   • If you use Windows XP, right-click and extract the zip file to a directory.
   • You should only see "Update Tools.bat" and the "Util" folder.
   • If you see "ask.com" or "rsync.exe", then you need to make a Util folder and put both of those files into the Util folder.
3. Double-click on Update Tools.bat
4. It will show a warning message and ask you if you want to continue.
   • Please read it all.
   • Press Y or y to continue, N or n to quit.
5. If you press Y, you will see the synchronization program downloading files.
6. When it completes, you are done.

Revisions

2004-08-12:

Removed CrossCrypt, but added FreeOTFE. They appeared to do similar tasks, but FreeOTFE had a GUI and supported more types of encrypted filesystems.

Moved Notepad2 out of the Util folder into the root.

2004-08-10:

Updated xp-AntiSpy.

Replaced PortableFirefox with the OffByOne web browser because it is much smaller and writes less to the flash drive. Unfortunately, it doesn't do flash, Java, or JavaScript. But it is only 1.2 MB and doesn't require anything else.

2004-06-30:

Removed a lot of garbage.

2004-06-28:

Initial version.