A Small IT Project (Literally)
My friend Narthex and I have been discussing, off an on, the virtues of having a secure suite of tools stored on a USB Flash Drive. And while that was a cool theory, I never really had a need for such a thing.
Enter my wife.
I sit at my desk all day, Trillian running, but I can't chat with her. Why not? Because the agency she works for has removed Windows Messenger from all their XP workstations, and they do not allow software to be installed. That is where the geek husband comes in.
I started looking around a while back for an IM client that would run from some sort of removable media. There is Miranda (www.miranda-im.org), but I've never used it. Ideally, the solution on my wife's end would be Trillian, since SecureIM would ensure that the IT wonks at her office wouldn't be able to listen in. And yes, they do that. I hope they are reading this blog - you guys are a bunch of clueless wanks. Yes you. In the white shirt. Get a real job! Failing that (which you will) at least figure out how to do this one properly! Dickweed. (There is some back story there, but I'll save it for later).
Ahem, excuse me.
It didn't take long to find trilliananywhere.com. By following the simple 'wizard', and extrapolating the info there to make the unlisted changes necessary for the latest version of Trillian (3.1 Basic in this case), it took about thirty minutes to get it working. I now have a fresh copy of Trillian, loaded with my wife's ICQ number, that will run from any location, including a USB key.
My next move is to stop by Best Buy, get her a 128MB key (they're cheap) and copy the directory over. The site even has info on how to create an autorun, so that whenever the disk is inserted, Trillian starts. Perfect!
The directory weighs in at about 15MB, so she'll have ample space left over to move files from work to home.
I'm tempted to move my Trillian install over to my USB key. I could then take it all with me whenever I move computers. And since I am looking at a virtual machine solution for web browsing and email, I would have an all-in-one type solution. All on a USB flash drive. Nice. That'll be the next project.
Enter my wife.
I sit at my desk all day, Trillian running, but I can't chat with her. Why not? Because the agency she works for has removed Windows Messenger from all their XP workstations, and they do not allow software to be installed. That is where the geek husband comes in.
I started looking around a while back for an IM client that would run from some sort of removable media. There is Miranda (www.miranda-im.org), but I've never used it. Ideally, the solution on my wife's end would be Trillian, since SecureIM would ensure that the IT wonks at her office wouldn't be able to listen in. And yes, they do that. I hope they are reading this blog - you guys are a bunch of clueless wanks. Yes you. In the white shirt. Get a real job! Failing that (which you will) at least figure out how to do this one properly! Dickweed. (There is some back story there, but I'll save it for later).
Ahem, excuse me.
It didn't take long to find trilliananywhere.com. By following the simple 'wizard', and extrapolating the info there to make the unlisted changes necessary for the latest version of Trillian (3.1 Basic in this case), it took about thirty minutes to get it working. I now have a fresh copy of Trillian, loaded with my wife's ICQ number, that will run from any location, including a USB key.
My next move is to stop by Best Buy, get her a 128MB key (they're cheap) and copy the directory over. The site even has info on how to create an autorun, so that whenever the disk is inserted, Trillian starts. Perfect!
The directory weighs in at about 15MB, so she'll have ample space left over to move files from work to home.
I'm tempted to move my Trillian install over to my USB key. I could then take it all with me whenever I move computers. And since I am looking at a virtual machine solution for web browsing and email, I would have an all-in-one type solution. All on a USB flash drive. Nice. That'll be the next project.
posted by DFMerrick at 23:30
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