And what I found is portable clamwin. Like most anti-virus software it can download the latest virus definition file from the Internet, and can scan a drive for virus.

One think it doesn’t support is sitting on the background and check for virus in real time. However that’s not a big issue cause the only thing I want is to make sure my USB key is clean.

Though most of the Windows PCs have an anti virus software installed, it’s still a good idea to have one in hand, just in case.

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pstart fixed this. It is a program starter, and build with USB key in mind. Not only being portable itself, it can remember relative pathes. So if I add programs on the same USB key, I can start the program from within pstart whichever machine I’m on.

It has some neat features for a keyboard user like me:

• It can be called by a hot key, so I don’t need to move the most to the little tray icon
• It has a “search” tab, where I can just type the program names, and find out what I want.

This becomes one of the “must have” on my USB key.

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There are many ways to boot DSL, CD, USB, or from a host OS, as I’m still concerning the many old PCs that can’t boot from USB, I decided to give the embeded version a try. That is, boot from a host OS.

The package comes with a binary qemu for Linux and a binary for windows, and scripts to start them. I modified the Linux script a little bit to use my FreeBSD version of qemu from the ports tree. It starts smoothly. However, on my CY1.7 box with 1G memory, it is painful slow. I also tried it on another 866 notebook running win2K, slow too.

I don’t think it fits my needs as a movable platform to maintain my servers, plus it doesn’t have Emacs in its package system. So I decided to give it up.

But it is a good idea to have something with familiar interface with me. Today I learned some 1G USB key costs me only 199 RMB (around $25). I think I’ll get one when more PCs could boot from USB and the USB keys get cheaper. I could make a live FreeBSD with me, there are already some tools in the ports tree.

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Among the open source clients, sshwindows and putty are the most popular two. I choose putty because

1. I don’t like the cygwin layer
2. I don’t need the server side thing
3. putty is more featureful

Besides an SSh client, putty comes with many useful tools. The two I like most are

1. pagent.exe that hold the key phase so that I don’t need to type it in again and again. It can work with other tools supporting SSH2 key auth, like filezilla.
2. plink.exe works like a stream ssh client. It can be intergrated with many other tools that needs an external ssh client. I’ve got it running with win cvs and unison.

However, putty is not a green software. It stores infomation in the registry. There are puttyconfer that could do the import and export thing, but it needs a .Net framework available on the PC. So I only keep it on my USB key to do config copy/mirror thing among my putty setups and using the reg file way to do config import/export on daily usage.

I found this solution somewhere on the net and hacked it on. Unfortunately I can’t find the original source. Here’s what I have:

start.bat:

end.bat:

puttydel.reg

For the first usage, run end.bat to get putty.reg on your desktop machine from the registry, and run start.bat to put them back. Then keep these files with putty. Whenever you are on a new machine, run start.bat to import the settings. If you change your settings on the new machine, run end.bat to get the new settings exported. This will also delete the info from the registry. If you don’t like that, comment the puttydel.reg line from end.bat.

And although putty can support CJK pretty good, we’ll still get trouble if there isn’t the font we set on the random box. pietty comes handy on this for CJK users. And one more feature I like most: It can detect links like http:// or ftp:// and I can click on it!

So most time when I get on a foreigh machine, run pagent.exe for my key, run start.bat to import my settings, run pietty for the work, and run end.bat to do the cleanup.

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Fortnately someone has done a binary build that suitable for a USB key, that is Portable Firefox. It is in pretty good shape so I have no problem install plugins or themes, though I don’t have as much plugins as on my desktop. Check out their instructions for some special plugins.

One thing I must have is the switch proxy plugin. Because for some reasons I’ll need tor to access some sites band by some ISP. Tor is for anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. As said on their homepage. It’s basicly a socks proxy for the end user, using P2P technology.

The official site of TOR doesn’t provide a USB friendly binary. Fortunately (again) someone made a USB friendly torpark that includes tor and portable Firefox, and a wrapper. I don’t like the wrapper so I strim the TOR from it. It’s pretty easy: just delete everything except the tor directory.

One more thing to notice is that some common features like download history, browser history, form info, disk cache are disabled by default, to save disk space and life. If you don’t care too much about disk space and life like me, you could re-enable them in the options menu to get the familiar feeling.

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As I am an Emacs user, the idea thing is to bring Emacs with me. However, it is too laaaarge for a USB key. It’ll take half of my 256M key, and I’ll have severl MB of configure files and packages. And to get it fully working, I’ll need to find several windows binaries of open source software, and some of them won’t work like in nix environment.

Too leave room for the other applications. I decide to find some replacement. My initial requirements are:

1. Emacs like interface
2. support Chinese language
3. syntax highlight
4. available in both Windows and Unix
5. there is a dired-like mode

After several hours searching on the Internet, the best fit I can find is notgnu. A lightweight Emacs like editor. The only drawback is that it doesn’t support syntax highlight. First I think this doesn’t matter that much cause I won’t do too much text editing on a foreigh machine.

But I was wrong. One day I have to debug several dos/windows .bat files and I missed syntax highlight!

As I’ve did a pretty hard search the first time, I decide to give up requirement (0). And an obvious answer comes out: VIM! I know the basic dozen of vim commands, but, God, I don’t want to learn another set of keybindings to use it efficiently just because I’ll use it causually on a foreigh machine, and deal with all the config files!

OK, I’ll need to give up some thing more….

My current choice is pspad. It’s only for Windows though. But, damm, it’s so powerful, and easily configured, and less than 10M. Pretty much what I want.

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A USB key looks like the most light weight solution so late last year I’ve got my self a unibit 256M one. . The picture is taken from the manufacture site at http://www.unibit.com.cn/products_show.asp?id=53. It comes with a USB 2.0 interface so the speed is pretty good. What I like most is that it’s so thin that can perfectly fit into my wallet so I’ll take it everywhere I go and won’t worry about if I have it with me.

The next thing is to choose the software on it. As an open/free software fan I have 2 choices:

1. build a mini *BSD on it.
2. have a set of windows software on it.

The good thing for approach (1) is that I’ll have a full OS with me and a pretty familiar interface, especially if I build a mini FreeBSD. And I can have it running whatever OS is installed on the PC I borrowed.

However now adays there are still lots of PCs around with only a USB interface but not able to boot from a USB key. And in some network bars they may forbit me to change the BIOS settings to boot from USB.

Thinking it through I thing approach (2) is a more suitable choice for now. So in this category I’ll introduce some of the softwares I choose to install to the USB key and bring with me.

Some of the requirements for the softwares will be:

• Open software is most prefferred. Or at least free-to-use softwares. No commercial software.
• Must be small. To fit in to my USB key and don’t take too much space of it.
• Green software. That is, no registery writting, no dll installed to the system directory, and I can bring the settings with me on the key.

DDADDS

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