When most people think of apps that run from the USB stick alone, they think of PortableApps. However there is another choice, and it’s called LiberKey.

I will admit up front that this doesn’t look as good as PortableApps does, however I will say it runs faster and is easier to get to the apps you want quicker.

The first notable difference is that there are categories for apps, which PA doesn’t have (or if there is, I didn’t find that feature).

Secondly you can create both categories and groups. A quick right-click anywhere in LiberKey shows these options:

I even appreciate the fact you can add separator lines, too.

Like PA, there are different installations you can download. I chose to go with the largest, that being "Ultimate". It is jam-packed with apps. Lots of them. It will take time to go thru them all to see what you get.

In addition there are plenty more besides that. I honestly had no clue you could stuff this many apps on a USB stick – even for video editing.

As said above, LiberKey doesn’t exactly look good but wow does it perform well.

LiberKey doesn’t have to be installed to a stick. You could easily push it to CD or DVD instead and run it that way alternatively.

Tiny applications run faster because they require far less computing power. They’re useful for several types of computer users.

If you run a slower computer box, the less resource an app uses, the better.

If you have a slower internet connection, smaller apps that access the internet typically make far less demands on bandwidth.

If you’re a gamer, the game is your "heavy" app in the front, so using light apps in the background allow the game to run more smoothly.

Here are 5 of the better tiny apps.

AIM Lite

This is for use of the AIM messenger service.

Available for both Windows and Mac. I use this personally. Tab support, linked account support, secure login option, and an extremely small footprint.

Miranda

This is also an instant messenger but supports many different protocols such as Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, ICQ, Jabber (Google Talk) and more.

Unfortunately this client doesn’t do multiple accounts per protocol easily, however that will be coming soon with the next release. If you only have one account per protocol however, this will work just fine.

For those with really old computers or old OS virtual machines, the ANSI version of this software (available directly on the download page) will work on Windows 95 and 98.

JBMail

This is a very compact email client and will easily run off a USB stick. In fact it’s so small it will even run off a floppy disk (assuming anyone uses those things anymore). It does POP and SMTP, secure login support, has junk mail filtering and more.

It is a Windows app but runs just fine under WINE for those of the Linux persuasion.

WinSCP

This is a small and light FTP client that supports traditional FTP and Secure FTP as well. If you tried FileZilla but wanted something less resource intensive and faster, WinSCP is what you want.

0irc

The 0 is a zero and not the letter O.

0irc is the lightest GUI-based IRC client for Windows I’ve ever seen. It barely takes up any space at all at only 67k. Make sure to read the README so you know how to configure it first (and that’s really, really easy).

Software bloat is unfortunately all too common in many of the apps that we use, with two of the biggest offenders being email clients and instant messaging programs. While it’s true you could use web-enabled versions of these apps, sometimes this is just as bad because it causes the browser (no matter which you use) to use a lot of memory in short order.

If you’re willing to sacrifice a few features, here are a few apps that are super slim, super trim and barely take up any memory.

AIM Lite (Instant Messaging)
Link: http://x.aim.com/laim/

I use this personally. It surprisingly supports a lot of AIM features (including linking AIM accounts), basic video and sound and a few other things.

The best part is how little memory it uses. When idling it stays around 6,000K and at most fattens up to 12,000K.

To put this in perspective, most other IM programs will eat up at least 25,000K just sitting there doing nothing with no IM windows open.

TerrAIM (Instant Messaging)
Link: http://www.terraim.com

TerrAIM is the only AIM/ICQ client I know of that requires no installation whatsoever. It’s nothing but a single executable file. Run it and go. It idles at around 8,000K and doesn’t fatten up much larger than that.

The app is ugly by default (white text on black background with orange about the client), but fortunately there are simple themes you can download to make it look "normal", as in black-on-white.

The beauty of TerrAIM is that it could run completely from a USB stick with absolutely no problems whatsoever. One of the options in its preferences is "Save settings in a file rather than registry". What this means is that a small .ini file is written where the .exe is. All that’s requires is that both files are in the same directory.

Lastly, this client may not do multiple accounts, however, you can launch as many instances of the .exe as you want to connect to multiple accounts that way.

It doesn’t get much better than this for simple and light.

Miranda (Instant Messaging)
Link: http://www.miranda-im.org

I do believe this is the lightest multi-protocol IM client there is. It supports a ton of them. On first install it will do AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber (Google Talk), Gadu-Gadu, IRC and MSN (Windows Live). From the addons area you can find just about any other IM protocol on the planet.

Miranda has two versions of its client, unicode and ANSI. The unicode is for Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7, the ANSI for Windows 95/98/ME.

Miranda usually idles around 6,000K and usually doesn’t go past 10,000K. It is very slim on system resource use.

Microsoft Outlook Express 6 (Email)
Link: None, you already have it if you have Windows XP.

OE6 may be old and woefully obsolete, but it’s light. Being that mail is stored using individual EML files instead of a big honkin’ PST in the full Outlook version, this actually makes the client quite speedy.

You can store thousands of mails in OE6 and it doesn’t skip a beat. It works fine for IMAP and POP. The interface is simple, easy and friendly.

Possibly the only knock against OE6 is the lack of spam control; it has none. Your only option is to set up Message Rules per account or use a third-party spam utility, of which there are many.

Alpine (Email)
Link: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/acquire/

Those who have been using the internet long enough remember PINE, and some wish there were a modern(ish) variant of it for Windows. There is. It’s called Alpine.

Alpine is ugly and purposely done terminal-style. It does POP and IMAP, but it’s best suited for IMAP. It can also be used as a newsgroup reader.

For those of you thinking, "Does it do IMAP-enabled Gmail?", yes it does. But I strongly suggest you read these instructions if you want to give it a go. Read them before installing Alpine. Don’t worry, it’s not difficult. Not in the slightest. Just follow the dots, so to speak.

Sylpheed (Email)
Link: http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/

I first used Sylpheed in Linux and for a GUI-based mail client it’s very light. Sylpheed harkens back to the way Netscape Mail used to work, except packed with a lot more features, such as Junk mail control, multilingual support and a lot more. Don’t let the simple interface fool you, this client can do the job and do it well.

Claws Mail (Email)
Link: http://www.claws-mail.org/

This client can be run on many different OSes, Windows included. At first glance, Claws Mail sort of looks like a mashup between Mozilla Thunderbird and Evolution, but make no mistake, it is its own client and is packed with features.

Honorable mentions

Mozilla Thunderbird (Email)
Link: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird

Thunderbird is a great mail client and I use it myself – but I can’t count it as light. It is a bit chunky on resource. When idling it takes around 50,000K when used in Windows XP. Granted, Microsoft Outlook (full version, not express) takes up way more memory than that, but for a freebie I wish t-bird were a bit lighter.

aMSN (Instant Messaging)
Link: http://www.amsn-project.net/

This is for connectivity to the Windows Live messaging service, a.k.a. MSN. Nice client and all but could be a bit lighter. aMSN’s best feature is that the Windows and Linux versions are almost identical to each other – and that’s good.

Pidgin (Instant Messaging)
Link: http://www.pidgin.im

Pidgin is one of the best multi-protocol messengers that exists. It connects to everything and it’s easy. But it’s gained weight over the years and lost its lightweight status some time ago. It’s not nearly as chunky as others but it used to be less memory intensive.

Opera Mail (Email)
Link: http://www.opera.com/mail/

The email client within the Opera web browser is seriously good. Once you get past configuring an account (the hardest part) it’s super-easy to get along with. The only problem is that Opera is a modern web browser and like its counterparts takes up a bit too much memory to be considered light.

What do you use that’s light and speedy?

Let us know in the comments. Even if what you use is Linux and not Windows, chime in anyway.

Before the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, the industry was replete with internet business moguls of the time stating (or rather, yelling) GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY! THE CUSTOMER WILL RECIPROCATE!

Well, we all know that went over like a lead zeppelin. Nobody reciprocated at all and the industry took its lumps in grand fashion (to the tune of losing their shirts).

With today’s internet we have a relatively even mix of paid and free stuff.

Here’s my short list of stuff that’s worth paying for and what isn’t.

Flickr

Worth paying for? Yes.

Flickr, a Yahoo! company, is worth the yearly subscription fee for avid photographers whether amateur or professional. The best part about Flickr is that you can basically try everything on a free account before actually buying. Normally what most sites do is block specific features unless you pay. Not Flickr. You get access to it all and are more or less paying for more ability to upload and unlimited storage. If you need it, it’s there and the yearly subscription fee is fair.

Email

Worth paying for? No.

It was once true that people used paid email accounts primarily for larger storage space. But now all providers has gobs and gobs of email storage. The only thing you truly pay for in email is to remove ads – and simply put, that’s not a good sell. Sure, you may get other features like POP access, larger attachment ability and some other odds and ends, but the primary reason people do it is for ad removal. Not good enough.

Online Dating

Worth paying for? Yes.

Those looking for love online already know about the freebies Plentyoffish, OkCupid and Craigslist. They’re all terrible because they attract the bottom-of-the-barrel dregs of society. And no, I’m not accusing you of being one if you use those sites, but you know that there are more bad apples than good ones at those places.

Those who pay for online dating generally do meet better people. Whether it’s Yahoo! Personals, Match, eHarmony or the like, if you’re willing to put some green into it, the results are usually much better.

Video Sharing / Broadcasting

Worth paying for? No.

Video sharing sites fall under the same category as email in the respect that paying for it doesn’t really get you that much more. Vimeo Plus for example gives you 5GB of upload space per week, the removal of ads plus other features. But is that worth almost $60 a year? To most people it isn’t.

blogTV has also recently introduced a pro account. Once again, the allure of "no ads" is present, a "badge" (which is worthless), 8 new emoticons (also worthless) and some other features that most likely aren’t worth whatever the cost is.

Web Hosting

Worth paying for? Yes.

If you have your own web site or blog with your own domain name attached to it, yes it’s worth paying for basic virtual hosting. It’s better than running your own web server out of your house, you can install additional things like forums, experiment with PHP and MySQL, manage email lists, install lots of different apps (many of which are free) and a whole plethora of other stuff. Web hosting is not technically an "app" but rather a whole bunch of apps.

Web hosting is admittedly a geeky thing. But you have to be geeky to run a web site anyway so it’s par for the course.

I’ll put it to you this way: There’s a lot you can get for web hosting for just 5 bucks a month.

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it.

This is not going to be a technical explanation of how the Linux file system works but rather it’s immediate differences between it and Windows.

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You’ve heard time and time again from Linux fans that "Linux can do anything Windows can do". Is this true? Yes. However what the Linux fans usually don’t mention is how to do the stuff you do in Windows in Linux.

Bear in mind that "equivalent" in this context is a subjective term, because more often than not the apps you use in Linux to do what you do in Windows usually have more features.

Also bear in mind that the apps listed here are all available from Add/Remove in Ubuntu if you use that particular distro, so they’re really easy to get and install.

MSN / Windows Live Messenger

The Windows way: Windows Live Messenger

The Linux way: aMSN

aMSN does just about everything the standard Windows Live Messenger does. And yes it’s also a really good Hotmail notifier (for notification of new e-mails). In addition, aMSN has a Windows version so if you want to try it out on Windows, you can. And when you use it in Linux, it looks and acts exactly the same as the Windows version.

Multi-protocol instant messaging

The Windows way: Trillian, Miranda, Pidgin

The Linux way: Pidgin

Pidgin is available for both Windows and Linux, but strictly speaking of Linux it’s the best IM client they have. It connects to just about every IM service on the planet – including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk (Jabber) and lots more.

The other IM clients for Linux (aside from aMSN) really aren’t that great. Yes, they do the job but Pidgin is the best of the lot.

IRC (chatting)

The Windows way: mIRC (for most people)

The Linux way: XChat (for most people)

I put "for most people" at the tail of each listed above because there are actually many IRC clients – however the two listed above are arguably the most used.

mIRC is the best IRC client for Windows. It’s been around a really, really long time and is very well established – but it’s only for Windows. And it’s not free either.

XChat is free for Linux. There is also a Windows version of it but you can only use it free for 30 days, after which you have to pay for $19.99 for it. But the Linux version is 100% free.

E-Mail Client

The Windows way: Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird

The Linux way: Evolution, Mozilla Thunderbird

Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail are free but Microsoft Outlook isn’t.

Evolution is free and is usually bundled with most Linux distributions with the GNOME desktop as the standard mail client so you ordinarily don’t even have to download it.

The Evolution mail client is a powerhouse. Overall it’s arguably the most feature-packed mail app next to Microsoft Outlook itself.

Mozilla Thunderbird has been around for a while, is available for both Windows and Linux but is really showing its age. Chances are you’d probably like Evolution better.

Do you use Linux? What do you use to do the stuff you (used) to do in Windows?

Feel free to post commentary about the Linux apps that do the same (or beyond) stuff you do in Windows. People are more than happy to read about this stuff so they know what to expect.

Over the weekend I finally decided to check out Microsoft Office Live Small Business. I wanted to see what it was all about and what I could actually do with it. Note: This is not to be confused with Microsoft Office Live Workspace on the same site. This is labeled as “an online extension of Microsoft Office” – and that’s totally different. If you have MS Office installed, you can use that. If not (which I don’t), you can’t.

In the past I did use Google Apps before – but more on that later. Continued

Text editors are obviously not very exciting in the world of computers, however there are times when they’re absolutely necessary to get things done. For example, if you have ever dabbled in programming, used HTML, custom-made your own Cascading Style Sheet or the like, an advanced and fast text editor is required otherwise it takes twice as long to get things done.

For Windows there is no better text editor than Notepad++ (pronounced as it looks: “Notepad Plus Plus”). Once you start using it you’ll never use plain ol’ Windows Notepad ever again.

There are many perks to using Notepad++. Here’s a few of them:

• Syntax highlighting (color coding for specific programming languages)
• WYSIWYG
• Auto-completion
• Multi-document environment (as in tabs)
• Drag’n'drop support
• Zoom in/out
• Macro record/playback

There’s a lot more that this editor can do but you get the idea.

You can download Notepad++ from here. It’s free and ready to rock.

Nothing will slow down your computer faster than bulky apps. Go light and you’ll be able to do stuff faster. Fast is good.

MP3, WAV player: Old version of WinAMP (v2.81)

WinAMP v2.81 is the last version of the player before the introduced video support and then (as far as I’m concerned) it went all downhill from there.

This music file player does the job and does it well. If you press CTRL+D it makes it double-size (suitable for higher-resolution displays).

It’s very difficult to find a music player that’s faster than an old version of WinAMP.

You can download WinAMP v2.81 from here. Windows only.

Note to Linux users: XMMS is basically the same thing as it’s heavily pattered after this version of WinAMP.

Word Processing: AbiWord

Some people don’t feel like paying for Microsoft Word. And some also don’t like it that OpenOffice, while free, it just too big and bulky. There are those who just want a nice fast light word processor that can do Word DOCs.

If that’s you, you want AbiWord. The download is less than 6MB. You will be surprised at how well this software works. Runs on Windows or Linux.

File Archive Utility (ZIP files, etc.): 7-Zip

7-Zip is probably the absolute fastest archive utility next to using the command line itself. It may have a very basic look but wow does it work well.

If you’re wondering “Will this work with my existing ZIP files?” Yes it will. And it can create them too.

Text Editing: Notepad++

If you dabble in programming at all (PHP, Perl, etc.) you’ve probably come to the realization that Windows Notepad doesn’t really fit the bill. You need something more powerful, has some formatting options, etc.

Use Notepad++. I am a long-time user of this software and it runs flawlessly. Tons of options. Tons of features. This text editor gets it done right the first time. Even if you have a massive MySQL database that you need to edit “by hand” that Windows Notepad won’t open because it’s too large, Notepad++ will. Easily.

In addition, it’s one of the few text editors I know of that does macros correctly. “Notepad++ does macros?” Oh yes it does.

Hardware Reporter: Motherboard Monitor

Motherboard Monitor is mainly for those that want to know the nitty-gritty of their computer hardware, like fan speeds, temperature sensing and so on – all from an app in the Windows tray. This software is it.

If you’re the type that likes to custom-build your PC, overclock and so on, it’s highly suggested you get this app.