2 Portable Apps To Keep You Linked To A Home Server
Last Updated on Thursday, 3 February 2011 09:53 Written by Alan Sunday, 23 January 2011 08:00
When you are on the road and need to be able to contact a home server to retrieve files or administer a website or business then the first thing you need is a USB key and the second thing is a couple of portable apps to run on it. While it may be nice to have a notebook or netbook PC and a WiFi connection for, a USB key can keep you going even without those things.
When I travel I carry a netbook, but if I just happen to be out then I don’t normally have that with me, but I do, however, have a USB drive on my keychain. So if we’re at my wife’s sister’s house and a need arises I can pop that drive into their PC and access the dashboard of my home server, or all of the files stored on it, or the admin page of my website and I won’t leave any user names, passwords, or other traces behind.
These are the two apps that I have loaded on my PNY Micro Swivel Attaché 4 GB USB Drive
Firefox Portable
Firefox Portable can be run straight from a USB drive and leaves no traces when the drive is removed. Running this I can type my DynDNS address into the address bar and, via HTTP, access the dashboard of my home server. From there I can check out stats, make sure everything is running fine, and even install an upgrade or reboot the server. If I put FTP in front of the address I can access the files stored on the server.
Filezilla Portable
Filezilla Portable is a free FTP program that runs great on a USB drive. It’s lightweight and leaves no trace when the drive is removed. If you want todo some serious moving around or uploading of files then you need a real FTP program and not just FTP access via a web browser. Plus it supports SSL and SFTP.
Those are my two go-to files when I am away from home. If you have others the please chime in in the comments below. Both are free, compact, and easy to install on a USB drive,
Windows Quick Tip – Keyboard Shortcut
Last Updated on Thursday, 9 December 2010 07:50 Written by Alan Wednesday, 19 May 2010 08:00
If you like keyboard shortcuts for some of the things you do – like Control-C for copy, then here’s one you may not know about. Well, at least I never knew until just recently. If you’re like me and frequently have lots of windows open at the same time, then hit Windows-D to minimize all of them and show your desktop.
Keep a Clean Desktop
Last Updated on Monday, 14 December 2009 07:28 Written by Alan Tuesday, 15 December 2009 08:00
If you’re like me you don’t want anything covering up that nice photo you have set for your wallpaper. I like to keep my desktop completely clean – none of the “clutter” that Windows puts there by default. But of course I still want easy access to all of my programs. So here is what I do whenever I set up a new PC.
1. We’ll start by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing View and then un-checking Show desktop icons.
2. Don’t be alarmed that all of your desktop icons are now gone because now we’re going to make them reappear in a cleaner spot. Right click on an empty area of the bar on the bottom of your screen the choose Toolbars and then click Desktop.
3. You will now see a lick to all of your desktop icons on the bar. Hover your mouse over it and you will have access to all of those items which once cluttered your desktop.
4. The final step is to hide this bottom bar so that it only appears when your mouse pointer moves to the bottom of the screen. To do this once again right click on this bar and this time choose Properties. Now, on the Taskbar tab, check the box for Auto-hide the taskbar. And, that’s it. You now have perfectly clean, but just as useful, desktop.
