Windows only: Ketarin is a great thing for any travelling tech support worker, as it can easily keep a folder or USB drive full of installation packages up to date. The open-source, no-install-needed app works just fine as a go-between for your thumb drive or utilities folder and FileHippo, as it can automatically check the popular download site for new installers of your favourite apps with a simple URL copy/paste. If you're looking to keep an app not on FileHippo up to date, Ketarin's got you covered—you can point it at any download location and help it work through any variables an app maker might use to change up the names of their packages. In other words, if AwesomeApp1234.exe updates to AwesomeApp1250.exe, Ketarin can read the site and figure that out if you've told it to look for AwesomeApp{version}.exe.

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Windows Only: USBDeview is a handy multi-tool for handling USB flash drives. It is a lightweight and portable application that at its most basic allows you to see which USB devices present and past have been plugged into the machine you are working on. Available information includes serial numbers, hardware names, vendor names, whether or not the device is safe for a hot unplug or not, what drive letter is/was assigned to the device, and so on. Useful for diagnostic and informational purposes in that regard, it has an additional set of features. USBDeview allows you to assign a set an executable, command, or .bat file to be run when a device is plugged in. You can specify devices by a broad range variables including specific serial numbers or the general category like mass storage. You could for instance assign a backup program to run and sync files every time it detected you had mounted the external hard drive you use as a primary backup. USBDeview is freeware, Windows only. Thanks Taziar!

Windows only: OpenOffice.org 3, the latest version of the free, open-source office suite, has gotten a full thumb drive packaging by the PortableApps.com team. That's great news for anyone working while travelling, or who wants to test out the features and improvements of the 3.0 release without a full installation on their system. This OpenOffice version has also been rolled into the full PortableApp suite, a customizable, menu-launched package of nifty tools for your USB drive. OpenOffice.org Portable 3.0 is a free downoad for any thumb drive, but requires a Windows system (or Linux system with WINE) to run. It doesn't appear to require Java on the host machine.

USB Drives (for Windows systems): If you're the type who brings their USB flash-memory drive everywhere you go, yet often has to backtrack all the places you've been to find it, Flash Drive Reminder is definitely worth the download. The tiny app, and its auto-starting accompanying file, sit on your drive and activate whenever you've plugged it into a Windows system. You'll get a pop-up screen asking you to keep the Reminder app running during your session, and it takes up very little memory. When you go to log off or shut down your session, the reminder pops back up, reminding you to yank out your drive. That's about it, though there is a "quiet" version that doesn't present the pop-up window when you first plug in. Flash Drive Reminder is a free download, works on any USB drive (but only activates on Windows systems). If you've got a better system for remembering your drive, software or physical, let's hear it in the comments.

Windows only: Portable application Toucan backs up and syncs your data between two locations (like your hard drive and your USB drive). Weighing in at just over 4.10MB installed, Toucan offers several advanced backup and syncing settings, like incremental backup with compression (supporting 7-Zip format), portable drive variables, scripts and advanced rulesets. Similar to SyncBackSE but smaller and portable, Toucan is a nice option for making sure you've got everything on your thumb drive. Toucan is a free download for Windows only.

These days, it only takes an increasingly-cheap USB thumb drive and a program like UNetbootin to create a portable Linux desktop you can run on any computer that can boot from a USB port. But check out the list of distributions UNetbootin can download and install—it's huge, and the names don't tell you much about which distro is best for on-the-go computing. Today we're detailing four no-install distributions—Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, Xubuntu, and Fedora—and helping you decide which might work for that spare thumb drive you've got lying around, or as just a part of your multi-gig monster stick. Read on for a four-way faceoff of bootable Linux systems.

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Windows only: If you've got an older USB drive that can't quite fit all the great launchers from the PortableApps.com site, AppCompactor rides to your rescue with serious compression tools—in some cases, anyways. The open-source (and, of course, portable) tool offers a range of compression methods, ranging in compatability and effectiveness, that knock down the executables, ZIP files, and other elements that get to work once you point it at your portable app folder. In the case of portable CCleaner, it took more than 30% off the size; with IM client Pidgin's portable, however, it reduced by just 5 KB. Still, for those looking to fit just a bit more onto their thumb drive, AppCompactor is worth a try. AppCompactor is a free download for Windows systems only.

While not as grandiose as having your own secret bookshelf door, constructing a hidden USB data stash won't take a whole weekend and involve a table saw. At the DIY website Instructables there is a step by step tutorial on hiding your data behind a phone jack plate. By wiring a USB cord to the phone plate and making a USB cord with a phone jack terminal at one end, you'll be able to access your secret data stash.

Windows only: You've seen its flashy features and were impressed with its speed, and now you wish you could put Google Chrome on your thumb drive and take it with you wherever you go? It's far from official, but German blogger Caschy has put together a portable version of Google Chrome you can run off your thumb drive. Just unzip the download to your thumb drive and run ChromeLoader.exe. All your Chrome settings and profile information now save to your thumb drive. This is a very early solution, and we'll be keeping our eyes out for a more streamlined version from the folks at PortableApps, but if you're dying to take Chrome with you, this Portable Chrome should do the trick.

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Windows only: Encryption tool Rohos Mini Drive secures the files on your flash drive—but unlike our favourite encryption utility TrueCrypt, it creates partitions you can access even without administrative access on the computer in question (like a coffee shop workstation). Creating a drive is simple: Install Rohos Mini Drive on your primary workstation, plug in the USB drive you wish to secure and the wizard walks you through the rest. The only hiccup you may experience is if you have multiple USB drives plugged in when you run the wizard; just make sure you specify which drive if the auto detection picks your camera's SD card instead of your USB drive. Rohos Mini Drive has an autorun feature which can launch applications when it opens the partition, and a virtual keyboard for an added layer of security. The application uses AES 256 bit encryption and currently has a partition size limit of 1GB. Rohos Mini Drive is a free download for Windows only. Thanks, Pavv!