@Luke: I use http://portablegvim.sourceforge.net/ (GVim)

Wow! So many good suggestions! I love it. I will probably incorporate all of this into the post!

@ST/op: I’m surprised myself! I guess I figured that most people already know and use vim so no need to bring it up. But a portable version – that’s a good idea.

Any recommendations?

@Steve and @Mart: Oh wow, really? You can’t watch that crap from outside US? What is the point of that anyway?

Oh, wait – I think I know. Their sponsors don’t ship outside of the country so they probably figure that making the videos available to foreign visitors is waste of bandwidth. Sigh…

Also, I bet the reason why Amazon doesn’t sell digital music in your country is some silly tax or accounting gotcha or some “import/export” stipulation that makes no sense for digital goods but nevertheless is still in effect for them.

My personal new favorite program is LogMeIn…including the Free client. For all those that can’t figure by the name, it’s remote desktop software for PC and MAC, although you linux guys are out of luck.

It’s easy to setup, just run the executable and set it up. Login to your account on their site and bam, you can connect. You don’t have to mess with forwarding ports or configuring firewalls! Plus the 256 bit encryption is always a big plus. For basic remote support, it’s a life saver!

@Steve: Hehe yeah. Was watching Hulu just now. However, I couldn’t get the normal client to work on Vista 64. Some problem with getting the TAP driver to work. I tried installing an updated version but was unable to use it. Anyway, there is a post detailing how one can use the “Hotspot Shield for iPhone” service on a PC.

@Mart: Were you using HSS when you posted that other message? Your flag shows as the US :) Cool, eh? I hate getting that freaking message…stupid content providers and regional blackouts piss me right off :)

Oh, I love Putty too. Excellent little tool. I also still use DVDDecrypter and DVD Shrink (?)…great apps those ones. I use it to burn copies of my kids’ DVDs so they don’t use the originals…and scratch the crap out of them. I burn copies without the menus, etc. Very nice.

@Steve: Thanks for HotspotShield! I’ve been searching for a nice and easy way to watch Hulu and other US content site from my country.

Now to try if I can buy tracks from Amazon… :D

I have to second Mart’s listing of Foxit’s PDF Reader. What a great little program. Sits on a memory stick – it takes up between 2 and 3Mb. Unlike Adobe’s over 50!

I just downloaded a free tool from Anchorfree called Hotspot – it’s a free, secure, and private VPN. Lets me watch those Super Bowl commercials over on Hulu or NBC without being in the US.

Great post Luke, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention a portable Vim :) (there are a few ones around).

And yes, Mark Russinovich is an awesome guy!

I tried Ext2IFS some time ago, but had issues with it accessing ext3 partitions created with Ubuntu, which seems to use 256 bytes inodes by default. Ext2IFS only supports 128 bytes.

@Matt: portableapps.com has also a nice collection of open-source apps, with an optional launcher.

It’s almost scary how many of these I already know about/have installed/have on my USB stick.

I was going to add Unlocker to the list, then saw jambarama beat me to it. Very useful tool that… one correction though, the line added to the context menu is optional during installation – just untick the “Explorer Extension” box.

For a whole bucketload of useful portable apps, look up “WinPenPack”, I downloaded the 1GB pack then added all my other portable apps into the system because it organises them nicely under a launcher thingy.

It has portable versions of GIMP, Firefox, VLC, OpenOffice, an FTP client and server, a couple of p2p clients (although I prefer uTorrent), Miranda IM, VNC, InfraRecorder, Audacity, Virtual Dub, ClamWin Antivirus, Truecrypt, 7-zip… and the proverbial “many more”.

freesshd blows. I used it for a little while and the connection kept dropping off.