25 Must-Have Thumb Drive Apps

TrueCrypt – encrypt your thumb drive to protect your information

ToDoList – A tak management tool that allows you to repeatedly sub-divide your tasks into more manageable pieces whilst still presen¡ting a clean and intuitive user experience. (Windows Only)

Portable Firefox – Leaves no personal information behind on the machine - you can take along your browser/extensions/bookmarks anywhere

Pidgin Portable – All-in-one instant messaging (supports AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, G-Chat, etc)

WS FTP32 – ftp client

FileZilla – yet another ftp client

Notepad2 – a fast light-weight advanced text editor with syntax highlighting

Notepad++ - this is one of my favorite text editors – now made portable

Color Cop – this is one of my favorite freeware apps – includes an eyedropper you can drag over any window to grab the color value. It then offers a palette of 42 complimentary colors to the one you've picked.

Ifranview – a light little graphics viewer/editor that packs a big punch. You can use it to work with screen captures, create slideshows and more

GIMP – the popular open source image editor packaged as a portable app – very robust

7-Zip Portable – handles zip, gzip, tar, rar etc

Allway Sync – syncs files between your thumb drive and PC

Unknown Devices – helps you find out what the unknown devices in the device manager are

TestDisk – data recovery software that can recover lost partitions or make drives bootable again

UTorrent – my preferred bit torrent client – I love having this with me wherever I go

Roeder's .NET Reflector – recently purchased by Red Gate, this still-free app can be used to explore .NET assemblies, understand relationships between classes and methods, find where types are instantiated and exposed or check that code has been correctly obfuscated before release. There are also over 30 add-ins available.

Process Explorer – formerly Filemon and Regmon, this is an invaluable sleuthing tool

TightVNC – based on the popular VNC remote control software, this version can live on a thumb drive

WinMerge – compares differences between files and merges changes. It has the same features as the desktop version

Text2Html – a text to HTML converter – converts text files into HTML format

Portable Apps Suite – this is the mac-daddy of them all – it includes Firefox, Thunderbird(email), Sunbird(calendar),ClamWin (antivirus), Pidgin(see above), Sumatra PDF Readable, KeePass Password Safe, OpenOffice, CoolPlayer (audio Player) and even a couple of games

Restoration – Recover accidentally deleted files – even after they were deleted from the recycle bin

Infra Recorder Portable – cd and dvd burning

RockXP – allows you to recover windows passwords or keys, change keys, display system password, and more – sneaky!

Choosing A File Manager To Use

Most computer users today are spoiled by the richness of the graphical user interfaces or GUI. In Linux, we have dozens of desktop environments that compete against each other for dominance. Right now, GNOME seems to be winning. However, accessing servers remotely using the same desktop environment puts a heavy demand on the network connection. This is one of the reasons why mastering the command-line interface (CLI) is an added ammo in a system administrator's arsenal. Frankly, it is a must-have in my book.

Anyway, using the CLI does not necessarily have to be too tedious specially when dealing with file management, e.g. moving files from one subdirectory to another, etc. The task is made simpler by a file manager named Midnight Commander (after the popular DOS utility, Norton Commander).

Installation is as simple as invoking "sudo apt-get install mc". It should not take that long to download and install. PolishLinux.org has a short walk-through of what you can do with Midnight Commander.

Also, it is useful especially for new Linux users or those who are simply not comfortable using the command-line interface (CLI).

Since I am a CLI-user, I find that Midnight Commander, a Norton Commander look-alike, useful especially when deleting selected files or transferring selected files from one subdirectory to another.

The choice of File Manager is really a personal issue. The selection of a file manager is a highly personal decision. For most users, Midnight Commander is probably the command-line choice that is quickest to learn. Few users will want to use one of the generic file managers unless they are already familiar with it from another Unix-like operating system. Of the modern file managers, Konqueror the most satisfactory, so much so that otherwise dedicated GNOME users have been known to install KDE mainly so that they can use it.

However, for those who have always relied on file managers, the first choice has to be Krusader. Combining the centralized functionality of earlier generations with the look and feel of modern applications, Krusader is by far the most complete of the file managers I've mentioned.

Depending on your priorities, you might settle on another choice, but it's worth taking the time to explore your options. For many users, the choice of a file manager remains nearly as important as the choice of an editor is to a developer. A file manager can't force you to organize your files, but the right one can help you keep them that way.