Web developers are sometimes forced to travel. Unfortunately, lugging a big, bulky laptop around with all their programs is the only way to develop on the road. After all, using another computer is out of the question since it doesn’t hold all of your favorite programs. Luckily, there is a best of both worlds. Thanks to John T. Haller, the Apache Friends, evolt.org, winPenPack.com, and a host of others, you can carry an Apache server, a MySQL (and SQLite) install, a PHP install, a Perl install, a mail server, an FTP server, two popular web browsers, an FTP client, an HTML editor, an image editor, and a vector graphics editor on a 512MB flash drive to be used with any Windows computer. All using free software.

You’ve spent hours installing,configuring, and tweaking your system into perfection. Everydevice isworking properly, every patch applied, every last last application isup to date, and your system is contently purring like a lion with abelly full of wildebeest. This is a prime time to savean image of your system in case anything screws it up. Thereare manycommercial solutions available, but what free utilities will properlyback up your system?

Wait, what’s an image?