What development tools do you carry on your USB drive?

Answer 1

1. Firefox
2. Notepad++
3. Python
4. Some music (it calms me between coding jobs!)

Answer 2

I like PortableApps. I use NotePad++, OpenOffice applications, etc.

Answer 3

PortableApps as well. I played with a few Linux-on-a-sticks, including Slax (it's a great little distro!), but the computers at my school don't seem to allow booting from USB anymore :'(

I also managed to get Cygwin on my USB, but it's a little weird, and I don't use it often. Eclipse as well, but only if you absolutely need it, it runs slows as molasses.

Answer 4

apache, php5 and mysql (as well as notepad++)

I also have some scripts that copy the php.ini file to the C:\windows folder,etc.

Answer 5

It's handy to have http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ (grep/cut/sh etc...) You may need some environment better then cmd to run it. Try FAR - http://www.farmanager.com/index.php?l=en (use open source one).

Denver is all in one web server package (also with usb-flash install support): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=uk&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.denwer.ru%2F&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=

But it is for russian audience.

Also: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/

Answer 6

My VPN Client Software ;)

MMmm Sweet sweet remote desktop. drool

Answer 7

I was about to say: "Nothing" and I decide to double check my USB and I found VIM and my .vimrc and ProcessXP

I don't usually use it from there, but from time to time ( 3 -6 months ) I get into a new machine and copy them from the usb.

Answer 8

Ones not mentioned:

• WinSCP (for all your S/FTP, etc connections)
• LINQPad (for all your .NET code testing)
• PuTTY

Answer 9

Ubuntu Linux

Answer 10

• Strawberry Perl, I had to edit some batch files to use the USB e: instead of the hard drive c:
• MinGW, for GCC, G++ and added GDB, maybe MSYS when I get around to it
• MSVC6, just for console apps so far, haven't tried to include MSDN
• Codelite, for an IDE, better than Code::Blocks and lighter than Eclipse
• Ultraedit v9, more recent versions are too bloated and slow, and probably don't run from USB
• Quite a few other utilities that come in useful, e.g. grep, ssed, batch files to setup environment variables and start Perl, GCC or VC, etc.

Answer 11

For Windows, many of the sysinternal tools.

Answer 12

PortableApps.com has most of what's on my portable USB drive:

• Filezilla
• Firefox
• Notepad++
• PuTTY
• Wireshark

Besides those, I also have Beyond Compare on my USB drive.

Answer 13

The XamppLite Web-Server so I can be able to work and test any PHP, CGI or scripts wherever I go.

Answer 14

Note: I am a Windows developer. This colours what you read below.

• Dependency Walker (Depends.exe)
• WinZip
• Notepad++ (v5)
• DbWin32
• Process Explorer
• HEdit - a hex editor
• WinDiff
• Ripper - an app I co-wrote for stripping redundant lines from log files.
• DelSub - an app I wrote for deleting files with given extensions in a folder tree. Handy for removing NCBs and PCHs etc. before backup.
• DosHere - an explorer extension for adding a "command prompt here" entry to the context menu for any folder. This is the FIRST THING I put on any windows box I have to use.
• DeTab - an app I wrote for stripping tabs out of source files. Note to self - need to update this for Unicode.

Note the emphasis on debugging native code here, because if I'm out in the field, that's usually what I'm doing.

Answer 15

I would add to the list this great OSS for Windows:

• 7-zip. It can handle not only zips, gzs, bz2s, rars or arjs but even rpms or isos.
• Winmerge. A directory/file comparation tool is always necessary.

Answer 16

Mine just has music, and my GTD projects. Oh, and a couple of games for those in-between times ;-)

Answer 17

• Putty
• WinSCP
• Notepad++ - a must have.
• Firefox - another must have.
• XAMPP - there is a standalone version especially for memory sticks which works well.
• Netbeans

Answer 18

I have a full install (persistency broke on the LiveUSB version) of Fedora 9 (Sulphur) on one partition (ext2 so Windows can't see it) with the following tools:

• A terminal with vim! :D
• VirtualBox, for running a local Windows VM
• GCC, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.
• Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede, with Aptana RadRails and Pydev addons
• Compiz Fusion (the wobbly windows and animated menus help me concentrate!)

And on the other partition, my data and the following Windows tools:

• Eclipse 3.4 again
• PortablePython
• My own Py3k install
• Notepad++, the e text editor and the Intype text editor
• SuperTux unstable
• SuperTuxKart
• Vim (command-line!)
• Nethack, plus my assistant for it (a very good game, and has nothing to do with hacking the net!)

EDIT: I now have Fedora 10. Slightly slower, and needs vga= for the new boot to work, but the new features make it worth it.

Answer 19

One of my USB Flash drives has the books I bought in PDF format from Safari Online. The ability to carry ten or twenty books about .NET, HTML, CSS, SQL, Active Directory, Security, WPF, or whatever else I happen to have in there, and pull it up without breaking my back is PRICELESS.

Another has NUnit, TestDriven.NET, WinMerge, the scrollbar fix for VB6, AnkSVN, a copy of the C# specification, and a couple of homebrew tools.

Answer 20

When I get around to it, I'm putting the Windows Home Server PC Recovery image on a USB drive. Not only is it nicer than CD for recovering a home server CD, but you can also boot to a CMD prompt or run disk manager.

I prefer not to cache copies of downloadable software, since downloading anew often brings the latest updates. The exception is software I have to jump through hoops to get (registration, etc.)

Answer 21

I have my mobile phone number as the USB drive name so if I lose it an honest person could call me and return it.

Answer 22

In addition to most tools already listed...

Process Explorer
Process Monitor
AutoRuns
Expresso
KeePass
ReNamer
TrueCrypt

Answer 23

For Windows:

• PuTTY (PuTTY tray)
• Xming - X11 server
• tightvnc.exe

These let me access Linux systems where the real development tools live via SSH and VNC.

Answer 24

I'm surprised JGsoft's excellent suite of tools hasn't been mentioned yet, particularly considering the author is one of us:

• EditPad Pro (IMO, the best damn text editor there is)
• RegexBuddy (the regex debugger)
• PowerGREP (may not be vital if you're carrying Cygwin around, but it's more featureful than "real" grep and has a nice GUI to boot)

Sure, none of them are free, but they're sanely licensed and all of them support portable installation.

Answer 25

I go nowhere without puretext.exe. It's just a 28 Kb executable that gives you under Windows+V (or whatever key you want) what I would otherwise be doing quite often manually after hitting Ctrl+C somewhere:

• Windows+R
• N, O, T, E, P, A, D (if needed, often was still in my Run dialog...)
• Enter
• Ctrl+V
• Ctrl+A
• Ctrl+C
• Alt+F4
• N (for No)
• Alt-Tab (correct number of times needed, if any...)
• Ctrl+V

In other words: it pastes "pure text" from the clipboard, without any of the markup that might have been copied onto the clipboard with the text.

Any PC I work on for more than an hour - where I have permissions to get puretext.exe onto and running - I put it in C:\WINDOWS\, double-click it once, set it to autostart in its settings and always hide the icon in the task bar.

It is so worth it. ;-)

Answer 26

I carry a VirtualBox hard drive file that contains the whole development environment for our project.

It takes about a minute to set up on a any new machine for development in a familiar environment.

Install VirtualBox, create a new virtual machine, plug in the usb drive, point the virtual machine to the hard drive file, boot into the dev environment from the virtual machien. Takes about a minute atop of the download time of VirtualBox.

Answer 27

Currently: Python + Python Stackless Lua JCreator ConTEXT

Most of my USB is made up of Installers/Source code though :)

Answer 28

I have to have Directory Opus on my USB drive. I use it primarily for the search feature, which is so much better than what Windows provides.

Also, Keepass, already mentioned here.

Answer 29

Sysinternals tools

Answer 30

Assuming a Windows Machine:

• WinMerge
• Notepad++

Answer 31

If you have room for it, AutoPatcher (you run it on your PC to download all the windows updates available, then take it to their place and use it to patch their Windows installation).

Answer 32

When I am debugging something on someones' machine, the first thing I do is install Vim. Join us, it's a way of life.

Answer 33

A debuggin Tool or a Profiler.

Answer 34

• emacs
• tucan (for windows backups)
• putty
• winscp
• SVN repository

Answer 35

MemTest if it's hardware troubleshooting?

Answer 36

grep, definatly gotta have a grep tool of some kind.

Answer 37

I recommend WinDbg.

Answer 38

I can run Delphi5 on my USB, using some custom script to properly setup registry. It's pretty handy since it allow me to:

1. Debug (Assembly or Delphi)
2. Instantly create some mini native utility, or create some adhoc report for my user.
3. Fine text editor

Answer 39

The Portable Apps website has a load of applications that may be useful, such as WinMerge, Notepad++ and Gimp.

If you do a lot of web development that I believe thatAptana will fit on a thumb drive.

Answer 40

I use a 16GB USB-Stick (larger volumes are available) as a Linux-system, that contains my complete work-environment. Every computer I use boot from this drive into my system.

Answer 41

and FTP program like WinFTP and crossloop

Answer 42

I recommend .NET Reflector

Answer 43

If you are carrying around sensitive data, I would recommend an encryption tool like Toucan.

Other great portable apps can be found at portableapps.com.

Answer 44

• Snippet Compiler
• 7 Zip

Answer 45

I use to take with me UnixUtils.

UnixUtils are a set of commands of Unix ported to windows, so I only have to add a directory to the windows path and then i'm able to use most of the common linux command in the shell of a windows machine, making my job easier.

Answer 46

Gvim

Answer 47

I would have to second Sean's recommendation for PortableApps, since it sounds from your example like you might be doing pc troubleshooting and not development work. PortableApps provides portable versions of a number of significant tools you might need that will run completely from a thumb drive, including Firefox (browser), Thunderbird (email), FileZilla (ftp), and Open Office (word processing, spreadsheet, database, etc.), 7-Zip (zip file management), etc. If you happen to be a .NET developer troubleshooting an application problem, you might want to check out SharpDevelop which will run completely from a thumb drive.

Answer 48

As a WPF/Silverlight developer I would add Kaxaml and MS Blend

Answer 49

I would add LINQPad to this list. If you have to do anything at all with LINQ queries, it's must-have software. It has a self-contained executable so you could run it completely from a thumb drive if you wanted to.

Answer 50

I have a lot on one of my keys, mostly asm related.

• OllyDbg
• WinHex
• Masm32
• RadAsm
• Putty
• Psftp
• Portable Opera
• .Net Reflector
• Portable Firefox

I also have

• InfraRecorder
• MediaCoder
• GnuCash

And some other stuff that I can't remember as I don't have it on me :'(

I also have a usb key with backtrack3 on it and one with a windows image that I can use to install it on my netbook really quickly. I think this is a good guide on doing that.

Answer 51

Everything mentioned thus far is great.

However, if you're like me and tons of folks are asking you to deliver demons from their PC because they're not savvy users, then you'll also want to have a copy of a free virus protection software like AVG.

Answer 52

Expresso is a must-have for designing and testing regular expressions

Answer 53

• Visual C# and Visual C++ 2008 Express editions (extracted from the "offline install" DVD image)
• .NET Framework 3.5 full redistributable (and Windows Installer 3.1 to install it)
• 7zip portable & installer
• Process Monitor and Network Monitor from Windows Sysinternals
• Firefox installer
• IEInspector installer
• Code Architect's Regex Tester
• Windows Live Messenger silent installers (Contacts.msi and Messenger.msi extracted from the bootstrap web installer), A-patch, and an A-patch settings file to turn off all the stuff I don't want and set it up the way I like it.

Answer 54

I have ubuntu linux installed to my usb flash with: GIMP Eclipse NetBeans

Answer 55

I have a 160 GB portable hard drive from Western Digital -- So I carry around a lot of stuff with me.

In no particular order:

• XAMPP

• Portable Python

• 7-Zip

• SysInternals Suite
• DOSBox

• PuTTY & PSFTP

• MySQL GUI Tools

• Notepad++
• RegexBuddy 3
• LINQPad

The installers for every major web browser, Komodo Edit, Cygwin, Git, and my favorite Python modules.

Answer 56

I keep my acme-sac (inferno-based vm) builds for all platforms I interact with - Win, Mac, Linux, BSD. That way I always have my preferred work environment with me. For Win, I also throw in cdb.exe so I can have a real debugger instead of that DevStudio monster.