Puter nerds only!

[P95Carry]

Seeing as we do book reviews at times and all use a puter - thought I'd post this stuff.

Not long ago I espoused the usefulness of Portable App's - for use on USB flash sticks.

Now - as another break from regular programing ...... a couple more items for y'all.

First another USB stick item (some may already have it) - and this is pretty cool IMO. Mojopac ..... it is available in the ''Freedom'' version as a freebie ..... only about 13Mb or so. Put it on your USB stick and run it to install what is in effect a bare bones Win XP, on the stick!. Rest of stick space can be used to store files as on any mem stick.

Then you can use that version to run over the top of your usual OS via USB port ... and install regular applications - well, most - I have found one or two reluctant. You can toggle between Mojopac and host and this means you have a portable OS of your own to use in another machine. Security issues seem fairly easy to take care of. Read/write speed of a USB needs to be reasonable to good to keep things from being too slow.

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Second item is a neato new application - "Stylizer" for those of us who work with CSS. The small Skybound software company, which used to sell ''Stylespread" has developed this to replace it and it's nice. Another tool I am glad to have. I like plenty of 'em on hand!

I got involved during the development of the beta, having bought Stylespread just before and so was giving feedback - and now have the full release. I hasten to add, I am in no way associated with them other than as an enthusiastic customer. So just bringing something useful to other's attention.

The screengrab below is very downsized but gives an idea of layout .... and their site has a nice demo to watch which shows things well. Left side is browser - IE or Firefox. I think the Firefox engine might well be upgraded to a later version at some point. Nice to toggle between the two to test style effects - tabbed browsing too.

Right side is a pretty intuitive area for the style sheet contents ... and changes show immediate effects. Selectors on left and properties to their right with dropdowns to open up specific properties. At bottom is a sorta style library which shows when adding things.

All in all a handy extra tool for some of us maybe .. helps my work I know.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Arkie]

Great, I thought I could live with just one USB stick.

*sigh* Back to the store. LOL.

Thanks Chris !!! I'm going to download them and play. Well when I get Another stick. LOL!!!!

[P95Carry]

Leonard - hopefully you'll find some deals on the flash sticks - my last two Memorex 2Gb ones were $17 each .. tho they are not the fastest read/write but adequate. "Traveldrive" they are called. I must have 6 or 7 sticks now and my wife keeps one for her puter so I can take images off her camera card and .. she has a quick place to back up critical data.

I think I mentioned but will make sure it's clear, that "Stylizer'' app' is not a freebie, in fact haven't checked on price tag but - for those who use CCS I think it's a worthwhile purchase.

[morintp]

OS on a stick? I love it!

[Arkie]

Chris,

I'm gonna have to look for a bargin. Time to start hunting the ole site again. lol.

Only bad thing about getting a new USB stick is I cannot use them on this old computer. 98SE. LOL. I know, I know, I'm outta date. But I do have my XP lappy and my other tower with Vista on it so I'm ok.

I think I will forgo the CCS one. I don't use them anyway.

[darkvibe]

Thanks for the heads up.

I've been using the portable apps at work so i have all of my favorites and check my home email with thunderbird.

[cmidkiff]

As far as an OS on a Stick... I've been using DSL (DSL information) for years. It's a 50mb image that gives you a very complete desktop environment, will run from a stick, or a business card sized CD.

But then I'm not really a Windows kind of guy.

[KevinInstructor]

Stylizer looks like a cool tool. Currently I use Adobe HomeSite/TopStyle for development with about a half percent of the time will pull out Dreamweaver. I can see how Stylizer has a place in a toolbox mainly because of the live preview feature.

My main development is not web programming but instead desktop solutions using VS2005 and when the need arises for web coding I don't like roadblocks i.e. fighting with some editor that dictates a method of doing something rather then me being in a great deal of control.

Think I will have to put in a request for Stylizer at work.

Thanks for the intel!!!

[friesepferd]

yea, i always have a Linux live CD around (pretty much the same thing as the stick you speak of). mainly so if windows gets all messed up i can go in and use it, get stuff off, etc.

[P95Carry]

One other thing I bought a while ago which is invaluable is an external hard drive housing with USB output. I have external drives already but this deal allows insertion and connection of any old drive (nearly) ..... and so for me it meant ability to check data I had left on about 8 old HDD's from earlier puters.

Nice potential insurance if one machine goes down for reasons other than hdd failure - and so ability to transfer to a backup machine. Got mine from Comp USA.

[bzdog]

Don't forget TrueCrypt for your thumb drives (or any private data for that matter).

-john

[P95Carry]

Thx for the link bz ..... fortunately my useage is almost exclusively ''in house'' but this looks good as a possible if working elsewhere.

[Scott]

Good stuff. I am going to test the mobile XP stuff soon. I have an immediate need for such an app. The true crypt looks good for my personal data I keep on my company laptop.