Would You want This? Free Software on a Flash Drive

Here's a Flash Drive with 25 of the most popular Warrior Apps with an eye-catching menu. The Warrior Apps were gleaned from recommendations from the Main Warrior Discussion Forum. Most came from the "All-In-One: Free Software You Can't Live Without" thread sticky. As it turns out, all the open source / free software is available online in portable versions. (Some took a little digging but most were found here -> portableapps dot com) I just thought it would be more convenient to have these all together on a portable drive!


So what's the big deal? Why have this? Well, it's a lifesaver for "life's little emergencies" like your desktop crashes or gets a virus, you left your laptop at home, or your battery dies, or ???. In my case, I recently caught a nasty Trojan on my Dell laptop. Yeah, I usually get rid of these no prob, but not this time! All of the executable programs where infected - I had to wipe the hard drive and start over. (Luckily, all my data including an ebook that I was working on was intact) It took a few days to get my laptop back in order and meanwhile my Warrior portable flash drive picked up the slack!

Another reason is...if you work a 9 to 5 job (like I do), then it's great to be able to have lunch at your desk while putting the finishing touches on your ebook. I plug in my flash drive and fire up Open Office Writer and type away! Later, I can use Firefox & Roboform to log into my website's cpanel or FTP using Filezilla, etc. Well, you get the idea. I definitely wouldn't be able to install any of these apps on my work computer even though they are open source programs.

Internet
Firefox - Portable Version with popular plug-ins for online security and SEO
Thunderbird - popular Open Source email software
Miranda - Open Source Universal IM (Instant Messaging)
Filezilla - one of the better FTP programs
Chrome Plus - fast browser like Google Chrome with extra security features

Office - Website
Open Office 3.2 - MS Office replacement - creates PDF files
PDF Builder - Handy for merging, splitting, & stamping existing PDF files
Foxit Reader - PDF viewer known for it's speed and ease of use
Notepad ++ - Text editor for HTML code and much more
KompoZer - (Nvu) Website program for building / editing static websites

Multimedia
VLC - Video & DVD viewer - works with all video types
Faststone - Screen capture with a "markup" editor similar to Snag-It
Irfanview - image viewer / editor - handles all (most) image formats
Audacity - Powerful sound editor, recorder, mixer, etc.
PhotoResizer - Amazing fast / easy to use image resizer for web photos
BB Flashback - Video screen capture similar to CamStudio & Camtasia
Movie Maker - Special version has extra effects + many more transitions
VirtualDub - Video Enhancement Editor - adds web links and effects
Format Factory - Universal Convertor for all video, audio, and picture formats
Skype - Free worldwide phone calls using VOIP

Utilities - Security
RoboForm2Go - Portable version of RoboForm password manager
CCleaner - PC Cleaner for internet temp files and history files
7-Zip - Swiss army knife for zip, arc, rar, etc. compression files
SuperAntispyware - Portable version gets rid of viruses, malware, rootkits, etc.
Undelete Plus - Brings back to life files that were accidently deleted

Many of you will recognize most of these apps I'm sure - just know that these are full functioning programs and are not crippled or limited in any way. (Did I mention also that there's no shareware, trialware, nagware, or adware + virus-free!?) And so with a single click you are running these programs from the flash drive! (no installation on host computer) OK, to be honest there is some delay upon launch because the access speed of the USB port is not as fast as a hard drive. But IMO this is a small price to pay for having the convenience of all these apps almost anywhere you go. Yes, I always have the warrior flash drive in my pocket.

Why these 25 Apps? Believe me I asked myself the same question. First of all, the 25 icon display looks good on the iPhone menu and on most computer screen resolutions it ends up being very close to the physical size of the iPhone. I'm Serious! I did spend a considerable amount of time trying out and discarding many programs before I evolved to this set of 25. (But having said all that - I am open to suggestions because I'm looking at this from my own narrow perspective.) Anyway, believe it or not these 25 apps fit easily on even a small 1 Gig flash drive leaving room for 250 Mb for storage. Do they even make 1Gb flash drives anymore?...LOL

Now, I realize that everyone has their own idea about what apps should be on a flash drive. For instance, Roboform only allows 10 passwords on the free version so wouldn't LastPass be better? Or maybe we ditch Irfanview and substitute Gimp for image editing? For anyone you wants to change things around, I've included a Quick Start Guide which brings you up to speed on everything including "How to add new apps to the menu". I also started including PDF help manuals like these-> Faststone screen capture/editor and BB Flashback video capture software.

Another thing that is easily changed is the menu skins - I've included 10 extra skins for those who like doing this - and there's a bunch more skins available online.



So now that the flash drive is complete, where do we go from here? I mean this concept works very well. And, I still get a cheap thrill everytime that iPhone menu pops up! Maybe because most of the other flash drive menus that you see are pretty boring?

So, because the software is basically free then I wouldn't want to charge for it, right? But if this was to become a physical product then I would be able to charge for the flash drive itself plus my labor, shipping, etc. Or this could be a CD or even a digital download and customers will copy the contents over to an existing flash drive that they already have? Hey, I'm thinking this might make a good "App Starter Kit" for newbies - no more hassle with downloading and putting up with installation issues - just plug-in and go!

10 Freebies Available
Anyone with Windows 7 would like to test this? I know for sure it works in Win 2000, XP, and Vista but with Win 7 no clue. (Sorry, not Mac compatible) For any Warriors that want to try this - I have 10 Warrior Flash Drives available to send out - just give me an idea of how you would put it to use. Also, It would be great hear back any comments after you have had a chance to "test-drive" it.

Sparky