Christmas Survival Kit - Software you'll need for a visit to the relatives.

[markb]

Every year when I visit the relatives for Christmas I get the same question
"My computer has been playing up lately can you have a quick look at it?"

So this year thanks to the purchase of a 512mb USB Flash Drive and some extensive browsing and experimenting I've got plenty to keep me amused. I've put on my flash drive a lot of the software that is on the following sites:-

http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php

http://kk.hopto.org:8080/wiki/index.php/Portable_USB_Drive_Apps

http://www.kikizas.net/en/usbapps.html

http://www.no-install.com/

http://nedwolf.com/Freeware-Portable.htm

Nearly all of the software can be ran from, if not installed on a USB Drive and some of it is excellent. The biggest program is VLC which runs on under 20mb so I have even been able to put 5 CD's, 50mb of Mame32 Roms and Original Doom on my stick with a 130mb to spare


My favourites are:-
CDex CD Ripper - Runs from a Flash drive and is quick
Deepburner - A small powerful Burner
Portable Firefox - Saves all of your settings to a flash drive
Pstart - Excellent little starter screen, that auto updates drive letter
VLC Media Player - Plays everything I've threw at it
Tiny Personal Firewall - About 1mb and very secure (allegedly)
Microburner - A 1mb CD Burner
Adaware & Spybot - Can run off a USB stick


Also I'm going to take along the executables of Zonealarm and Microsoft Antispyware just to get rid of all the junk on everyone's PC, well it is Christmas!

[elvis]

NAI Stinger:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

Small (~1MB) non-installing executable that scans for the most popular trojans, viruses, etc.  It can be run directly from a write-protected USB pendrive or CDROM.  Updates about once a month, and is totall free (as in, costs nothing).

Ultimate Boot CD:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

As the name suggests, a bootable CD absoltely jam packed full of utilities.  Includes low-level hard disk fault checking for various brands (Seagate, Western Digital, Matrox, etc), memory testing utilities, video testing utilities, benchmarks, burn in utilties, partition management tools, disk cloning tools,  motherboard diagnostics, antivirus tools, etc, etc.  A must for any technician's toolbag.  Again, totally free (of cost).

And can I just say, for the love of god DON'T install Zone Alarm on anyone's PC.  It's a horrible piece of software that breaks more computers than it fixes.  I spend a great deal of my time UNINSTALLING it from clients' PCs after they've installed it and find they can't browse certain websites (particularly ones that combine Javascript with secure transactions, like bank sites and online stores).  And often on flaky systems, even uninstalling it will do more damage yet again as it destroys some poor innocent person's network setup.

If you use WindowsXP, the built-in firewall and a good virus scanner is plenty.  If you use any other windows version, I recommend Kerio Personal Firewall:
http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
It's a much more reliable and configurable personal firewall, and doesn't interfere with web transactions.

AntiVirus wise, I detest Norton and McAfee.  Bloated crap, that take up 30MB+ of system RAM for nothing.  Instead, try AVG or Avast Anti Virus, both of which are free for home use:
http://free.grisoft.com/
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

If Web security is important to you as a Windows user, then dump IE and change to Firefox:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Firefox is generally more immune to the ActiveX and javascript exploits that IE seems to struggle with.  Remember of course to update regularly, and don't stick with old versions no matter what browser you use

For MacOSX, UNIX, BSD and Linux users, you all of course don't have to worry about any of that, and can spend your holidays virus and malware free, blissfully unaware of such problems.

[grumble]

If you're a linux fan; try D.amn S.mall L.inux or DSL.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/