20 Super Useful Portable Utilities and Software
June 28, 2013
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Wherever I go, I always carry my arsenals inside my flash drives. I am talking about handy and
portable software tools useful for my blogging and PC troubleshooting needs.Well, there's a lot
to choose but its obvious that I love freeware but some of them are not, only made portable
by somebody out there.Of course good commercial software always deserves a license purchase.
The following tools mostly works on Windows and I am not if some of them available in Mac or Linux OS.
-From the name itself, Teracopy is a utility designed move and backup terabytes of files from machine to other storage or media.I always this tool when copying huge multimedia files such as movies or doing backups.It allows to drag and drop files and set the destinations storage to received the files.Teracopy can be used as you default Windows copying tool.Based on my experience I can say Teracopy is 50% to 70% faster copying speed compared to Windows default.
Unlocker Portable ( Freeware)
- There are times that when we tried to delete an annoying files,the system cannot because
a certain process is locking it.Using Unlocker you will just right click the file, unlock it, the process
that hooking the file will eventually terminated and Unlocker will allows you to delete the file.Another good thing, Unlocker will always show what process locking the file so,you can examine if its a virus infected and so on.
Attributes Changer ( Freeware)
-Is simply a third party utility for Windows allowing users to change the file attributes of any files or folder.Attributes Changer is very useful when a malware sabotage your file attributes like making it Hidden or set to System.Now, the next time you suddenly lost your files without deleting it and can't found anything even doing a whole drive search, try to open Windows Explorer then, go to Tools > Folder Options >View. Unchecked the following and click Apply > OK:
•Show hidden files and folders
•Hide protected operating system files
Check your files it will show up for awhile but it will gone hidden again or locked.Now with Attributes Changer you can reset everything to the default file attributes settings then, you can safely recover all your files.
FS Capture Portable
- A screenshot tool much better than the default Print Screen. It allows you to take screenshot in
your whole screen and save it as real image in various format like JPG, PNG,etc. Also has a file editor so , you can edit your image instantly, you can resize, add text captions,add image effects, crop, rotate, edge/ watermark and many more.
Watermark Factory Portable
-For Bulk Watermarking and many other useful features.You can read my review about the Watermark Factory.
Portable HD Tune
-Use to diagnose your hard drives health and detect early boot sector errors.
7-Zip Portable
- My favorite data extractor and archiving software.Its fast to compress file to a smaller size and supports various archiving formats.
GPU-Z
-Use to identify your motherboard model and other hardware details
Unknown Device Identifier ( Freeware)
- When you found out that a certain hardware in your client's computer need a driver but you don't
really know the hardware name or even manufacturer, here comes Unknown Devices a very tiny utility that will help you identify the missing driver for the certain device or hardware with manufacturer information.
SystemInternals Suite ( 95 Freeware tools)
-This one saves me a lot when doing computer troubleshooting.The SystemInternals Suite is a bunch of free and portable utilities that you can use to diagnose and monitor process inside your computer.My favorite is the Autoruns, ProcMon, ProceXP and RootKit Revealer.
uTorrent Portable ( Freeware)
-One thing I loved with Torrent is you can resume your download anytime as long as your connected to Internet. And so, far for P2P and Torrent client apps I recommend uTorrent,its fast, stable and lightweight.
VLC Media Player Portable ( Freeware)
- Can't live without VLC.Apart from its totally free, VLC is very user-friendly and support lots of
multimedia file formats including .flv. The most features I liked is I can maximize the media volume to 400%,making it louder but clear audio output even on common speakers.VLC also can play broken files, meaning unfinished downloads.
Allok 3GP PSP MP4 iPod Video Converter 6.0.0523 ( Commercial)
-Allok or All Ok is a perfect media files converter. You can convert music / video for mobile devices like iPod, MP3 player, etc. For more info you can read my review here:
Novicorp WinToFlash ( Freeware)
-This tool allows you to transfer your Windows Installer to your thumb drivers making it bootable.So, you can format and install Windows OS in your PC even without using a DVD Reader.
FileZilla Portable ( Freeware)
-Of course,who didn't know FileZilla? Its one of most widely used FTP application on earth.Using FileZilla you can transfer and move files to your hosting safely and remotely.
Teamviewer Portable (Free Version)
-A remote desktop software both available in free and commercial version.Using Teamviewer you can connect with your client PC seamlessly and your client also can monitor and control your desktop.
HostXpert( Freeware)
-This tool allows you to edit Windows host file easily.You can block any sites and even block your IT admin from setting up by turning the host file read-only attributes.
BootSafe Portable ( Freeware)
-When windows default Safe Mode menu doesn't work at all use BootSafe, a third party application use to login in Windows Safe Mode allowing to fix more things there putting back your pc to normal.
Windows Live Writer Portable (Freeware)
-I have featured this tool last year and for the updates, Windows Live Writer now can detect your blog templates so, now you're published post looks better on BlogSpot, I mean the paragraph formatting doesn't mess up anymore. Also you can arrange your post image in a slide or album types.
Hardware Monitor ( Free Version)
-Works like G-PUZ but it provides information regarding your current motherboard,CPU,HDD and Fans temperature so you can easily monitor hardware overheating.
For more portable apps visits: http://portableapps.com/apps and you can download their portable apps launcher as well.
portable software tools useful for my blogging and PC troubleshooting needs.Well, there's a lot
to choose but its obvious that I love freeware but some of them are not, only made portable
by somebody out there.Of course good commercial software always deserves a license purchase.
The following tools mostly works on Windows and I am not if some of them available in Mac or Linux OS.
- Notepad++ Portable ( Freeware)
-This is just an upgrade version of your Windows notepad but its very powerful and versatile.
I remember long ago we use the old windows notepad to manually code our HTML exercises and
also creating batch files.Well, Notepad++ still does the same however,it has an improved interface
and with better content formatting.I used Notepad++ as my text and code editor. 
-From the name itself, Teracopy is a utility designed move and backup terabytes of files from machine to other storage or media.I always this tool when copying huge multimedia files such as movies or doing backups.It allows to drag and drop files and set the destinations storage to received the files.Teracopy can be used as you default Windows copying tool.Based on my experience I can say Teracopy is 50% to 70% faster copying speed compared to Windows default.
Unlocker Portable ( Freeware)
- There are times that when we tried to delete an annoying files,the system cannot because
a certain process is locking it.Using Unlocker you will just right click the file, unlock it, the process
that hooking the file will eventually terminated and Unlocker will allows you to delete the file.Another good thing, Unlocker will always show what process locking the file so,you can examine if its a virus infected and so on.
Attributes Changer ( Freeware)
-Is simply a third party utility for Windows allowing users to change the file attributes of any files or folder.Attributes Changer is very useful when a malware sabotage your file attributes like making it Hidden or set to System.Now, the next time you suddenly lost your files without deleting it and can't found anything even doing a whole drive search, try to open Windows Explorer then, go to Tools > Folder Options >View. Unchecked the following and click Apply > OK:
•Show hidden files and folders
•Hide protected operating system files
Check your files it will show up for awhile but it will gone hidden again or locked.Now with Attributes Changer you can reset everything to the default file attributes settings then, you can safely recover all your files.
FS Capture Portable
- A screenshot tool much better than the default Print Screen. It allows you to take screenshot in
your whole screen and save it as real image in various format like JPG, PNG,etc. Also has a file editor so , you can edit your image instantly, you can resize, add text captions,add image effects, crop, rotate, edge/ watermark and many more.
Watermark Factory Portable
-For Bulk Watermarking and many other useful features.You can read my review about the Watermark Factory.
Portable HD Tune
-Use to diagnose your hard drives health and detect early boot sector errors.
7-Zip Portable
- My favorite data extractor and archiving software.Its fast to compress file to a smaller size and supports various archiving formats.
GPU-Z
-Use to identify your motherboard model and other hardware details
Unknown Device Identifier ( Freeware)
- When you found out that a certain hardware in your client's computer need a driver but you don't
really know the hardware name or even manufacturer, here comes Unknown Devices a very tiny utility that will help you identify the missing driver for the certain device or hardware with manufacturer information.
SystemInternals Suite ( 95 Freeware tools)
-This one saves me a lot when doing computer troubleshooting.The SystemInternals Suite is a bunch of free and portable utilities that you can use to diagnose and monitor process inside your computer.My favorite is the Autoruns, ProcMon, ProceXP and RootKit Revealer.
uTorrent Portable ( Freeware)
-One thing I loved with Torrent is you can resume your download anytime as long as your connected to Internet. And so, far for P2P and Torrent client apps I recommend uTorrent,its fast, stable and lightweight.
VLC Media Player Portable ( Freeware)
- Can't live without VLC.Apart from its totally free, VLC is very user-friendly and support lots of
multimedia file formats including .flv. The most features I liked is I can maximize the media volume to 400%,making it louder but clear audio output even on common speakers.VLC also can play broken files, meaning unfinished downloads.
Allok 3GP PSP MP4 iPod Video Converter 6.0.0523 ( Commercial)
-Allok or All Ok is a perfect media files converter. You can convert music / video for mobile devices like iPod, MP3 player, etc. For more info you can read my review here:
Novicorp WinToFlash ( Freeware)
-This tool allows you to transfer your Windows Installer to your thumb drivers making it bootable.So, you can format and install Windows OS in your PC even without using a DVD Reader.
FileZilla Portable ( Freeware)
-Of course,who didn't know FileZilla? Its one of most widely used FTP application on earth.Using FileZilla you can transfer and move files to your hosting safely and remotely.
Teamviewer Portable (Free Version)
-A remote desktop software both available in free and commercial version.Using Teamviewer you can connect with your client PC seamlessly and your client also can monitor and control your desktop.
HostXpert( Freeware)
-This tool allows you to edit Windows host file easily.You can block any sites and even block your IT admin from setting up by turning the host file read-only attributes.
BootSafe Portable ( Freeware)
-When windows default Safe Mode menu doesn't work at all use BootSafe, a third party application use to login in Windows Safe Mode allowing to fix more things there putting back your pc to normal.
Windows Live Writer Portable (Freeware)
-I have featured this tool last year and for the updates, Windows Live Writer now can detect your blog templates so, now you're published post looks better on BlogSpot, I mean the paragraph formatting doesn't mess up anymore. Also you can arrange your post image in a slide or album types.
Hardware Monitor ( Free Version)
-Works like G-PUZ but it provides information regarding your current motherboard,CPU,HDD and Fans temperature so you can easily monitor hardware overheating.
For more portable apps visits: http://portableapps.com/apps and you can download their portable apps launcher as well.