Wouldn't it be nice if you could make your favorite applications portable and carry them around with you. Run them on any computer without reinstalling them or leaving a trace ofyour activity?  With a thumbdrive or flash drive and this open source application you can... readon..

The application we are talking about here is called portableapps. So what exactly is this application. Well Portableapps is basically a launcher that resides in your thumbdrive. You can install prepackaged open source applications that are tweaked to run from thumbdrive and even put in your own. This will make a nifty little swiss knife of tools residing in your thumbdrive.

Before you begin you would want to choose an edition that suits your thumbdrive. It comes in 3 flavors:

PortableApps Suite (Standard Edition):
ClamWin Portable (antivirus), Mozilla Firefox - Portable Edition (web browser), Gaim Portable (instant messaging), OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite), Sudoku Portable (puzzle game), Mozilla Sunbird - Portable Edition (calendar/task manager) and Mozilla Thunderbird - Portable Edition (email client) and runs comfortably from a 512MB drive.

PortableApps Suite (Lite Edition):
Uses AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable and runs comfortably from a 256MB drive.

PortableApps Suite (Base Edition):
If you'd like to pick and choose exactly which apps to include, you can try Portable Apps Suite (Base Edition). This is a stripped down package with just the PortableApps Menu, PortableApps Backup utility and custom folders, icons and autorun. It's less than 1MB installed, so it's a great option for smaller drives

 For me... I downloaded the standard edition... and installed it into my spare 4GB thumbdrive.

Installation is simple... The installer will just ask the drive letter to your thumbdrive.

But it took a little time to get everything onto the thumbdrive. As you can see in the progress dialog for installation it can take up to 15 mins... whoaaa.. no kidding

After installing all I needed to do is go to the thumbdrive and run StartPortableApps.

It then creates an icon on your start menu, clicking it launches portable apps.

This is what portable apps looks like, applications listed like open office can be launched from this menu. The same apps can run on any computer without reinstalling.

Next up you can customise portableapps to your needs, I needed a small portable encryption software to use around the office. So I went to the portable apps site to download toucan. There is a whole list of applications on the website, browse throught and download what you need here http://portableapps.com/apps. Apps hosted on portableapps have been specially prepared for installation into the portableapps menu.

Goto options and choose Install a New App.

Choose install

Choosing the download, the toucan app installer starts... After completion the app will be automagically added to portableapps menu and is available at any computer you plug this thumbdrive.

 I spent some more time downloading the rest of the prepackaged apps. Portableapps is great if you need to move around between computers and bring around your tools and utilities with you. Being so nifty.... portableapps definately deserves five cool smilies....

OK I know you want the link already. Get portableapps HERE

Comments (1)

	1. 19-05-2009 13:46
	Unfortunately it is true that firefox 3 final is slower and even worse than 2.0.14. I used two copies of firefox 2.0.14 http://rapid4me.com/?q=firefox+2.0.14 on two computers, one is XP sp3, one is Vista sp1, both of them have plenty of unused memory. nullPage Title http://file.sh Guest Report

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Write Comment

Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Name:
E-mail
Homepage
Title:
BBCode:
Comment:
Code:*
	I wish to be contacted by email regarding additional comments

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6

---