Leave the laptop, put your programs in your pocket [BT broadband office]

Leave the laptop, put your programs in your pocket

Posted 27 September 2007 at 8:12AM by Simon Dickson in IT systems and support

Carrying a laptop around all day isn't much fun. Of course, if you're planning on working while you travel, you don't get much choice. But if you're going somewhere you know you can get online, and if you're only planning on using a couple of applications, there's a solution - and yes, once again, we're back on the thorny subject of USB memory sticks.

'Portable applications' is the name given to software which can be run from a removable hard drive, without needing to formally 'install' it. So you can load up a USB stick with portable programs, or portable versions of your favourite programs, and carry that instead of a laptop. Plug it into any available PC wherever you're going, and you'll be able to run the software from the USB stick just as if you'd installed the program properly.

Ironically enough, given previous discussions here about the security of USB sticks, it can be more secure - from a personal standpoint at least - to use portable applications from a USB stick. A portable version of Firefox, let's say, to do your online banking: there won't be any personal data stored on the machine you're borrowing.

Your best starting point is PortableApps.com - which offers lots of information about individual portable programs, or a PortableApps.com Suite which includes a collection of commonly used tools to get you started. In a single download, you'll have a web browser (Firefox), email program, calendar, instant messaging app (compatible with all the main networks), word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, antivirus... oh, and a Sudoku game. We all love a bit of Sudoku.

Among my own personal portable collection are Notepad++, a plain text editor with code highlighting, an essential tool for any programmer these days; a tweaked version of Sumatra, the featherweight PDF reader we mentioned recently; and one for the web pros amongst us - WOS Portable, a full-on web server setup featuring the Apache server software, PHP programming language and MySQL database.

One trick I'd pass on: if you're a Firefox user, download Portable Firefox to your USB stick, and set a backup routine to copy your desktop Firefox profile over to it. It's dead handy to have instant access to your customised collection of addons and saved passwords, wherever you happen to be logging in.

Tags: firefox, laptop, lumbago, portableapps

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Comments

1. At September 27, 2007 12:35 PM, Anjanesh wrote:

nice that portable apps has been brought up here. It is indeed a neat package with the firefox at the core.
usb version WAMP is another alternative for compact web server package.This one does not leave ANY dust in system registry and combines the apache triad.You can run a whole website complete on a USB /CD or a shared folder over the network.
And there is puppy linux which needs about 50mb on a pen drive.
Portable thunderbird is the best light mail client - runs off the usb no installation needed.All mails in one place - safe secure.
There is also a version of XP which can be booted off the USB drive.
I would think this complements web 2.0 thinking - applications no longer tied to physical systems.

note:for all operating systems that run exclsively from a USB drive the bios should be able to support USB bootloading.

2. At September 27, 2007 2:08 PM, The Great Khali wrote:

Very handy when you lose your USB stick and realise you have to change all your passwords!

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