General Discussion

Hi. I've noticed that a lot of portable apps I've tried to install on my USB stick involve a lot of small files, which inflates the size of my apps quite a bit on the stick.

For example, Portable Firefox 1.5 with the extensions I installed comes in at 19.5MB, but size on disk is 22.7MB. Portable GIMP is even worse. Size is 17.5MB, but size on disk is 30.5MB, and it uses over a thousand files! Uniserver is almost as bad as Portable GIMP, too. 800-something files and going from 17.2MB to 27.3 MB. The whole Portable Apps folder I installed from the latest release (minus the old version of Portable Firefox which I deleted) goes from 197MB to 252 MB and uses over 5000 files! To contrast, a portable version of Ad-aware I found but have yet to use only has 8 files and only goes from 2.48MB to 2.56MB.

"Help.html" links to "johnhaller.com".

i would love to be able to be my own smtp server. on the go..

I just joined the forum so I could post this link as it might interest quite a few of you.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html
Essentially it's a guide to installing windows on a usb flash drive with the intent of it working like a live CD. There are loads of obvious uses for this, like fixing a computer that won't boot, or even running windows on a computer with no hard drive in it. Just thought it might be interesting!

Even these can go on a USB stick:

inkscape (open source vector graphic editor)
blender3d (open source 3d app)
hydrairc (open source irc client)

they all come in .zip format

does wackget actually split a file into 4 (for example) smaller files to download them, like other full fledged download managers?

i've also noticed that it takes a longer time to start the actual download when compared with other download managers.

I think the ability to use relative paths instead of absolute paths should be a requirement.

For example, in winamp I can set my media library directories to relative paths so that it can pick up and track media on and added to my portable hard drive. As another example, foobar is primarily portable, but its media library only allows use of absolute paths.

Hi John,

is it possible to change the sorting of the postings within a thread? It is a little bit hard to find and read new postings in a "hot-thread".

eg. (1.) = first posting; (2.) = second posting and so on:
this is the actual posting sorting settings:
(1.)
..(6.)
..(3.)
....(8.)
....(5.)
......(7.)
..(2.)
....(4.)


I think this would be much better readable - especially when people don't "reply" but "add a new comment" when answering to an other posting:
(1.)
..(2.)
....(4.)
..(3.)
....(5.)
......(7.)
....(8.)
..(6.)


Maybe it is possible to include individual view settings or change the (general) view settings if other people have a hard time to follow discussion in an 20+ postings thread, too Thanks in advance.

Why I use portable applications on my HD:

They are permanent and stable. Indeed If I reinstall windows xp, All my program will be ready to use, I will not have to lose time to reinstall all my favorites applications. Since the settins are stored to a local directory, I never have to reconfigure preferences and options. Indeed xml or ini configuration are remanent.

They are small and effecient. I can install them on my other HD. My c: drive including windows and program files is only taking 550 meg of space. This allow my pc to have extreme perfomance. Portable application are the tweaker companions, because they allow you to futher speed up your pc.

Does anyone know if it is possible to configure a flash drive, or any usb device, as a non-removable drive? I would like to enable autorun on my flash drive, and so far, I have not been able to find solid information about it.