I came across something I just had to share that has changed the way I work quite a bit. I was doing StumbleUpon one day, and one of the first pages I came across was Portableapps.com. Now I’ve blogged about both Portable Firefox and Portable Opera before. These are web browsers you can install and run directly from your USB memory stick. But Portable Apps is different because it’s basically a menu driven “work suite” for your thumb drive. You download the PortableApps.exe file, and when you run the setup (either full or lightweight version) it actually fully installs working applications on your flash drive. And it can be any kind of external hard drive, memory stick, flash card, thumb drive, etc. It’s going to fully install the applications with no need to change your registry in any way, and no need to place or modify a single file on your computers hard drive. The applications are completely “portable” – you take them with you on the go wherever you take your external drive, card, or stick. Whatever computer you are at, wherever you are – everything is with you every time.This has quite a few advantages if you think about it. Do you have a policy at work where you can’t install any applications at all? Maybe they forced Windows Group Policy on you that won’t even allow it to happen. Can’t access your home email at work? Can’t IM at work? Using a work laptop on a trip? Using an Internet Kiosk? Are you at the Library, or a friend or relatives house? Do you have multiple computers in your house? You get the picture…

This post of part of The Smorgasbord Tech Reviews series!

So, no I’m going to describe how I use Portable Apps and you can apply it to best suit you. First of all, I needed a new thumb drive. You may have one already. I had several, but they were only a few hundred megabytes. I knew I wanted one at least 2GB or more, and I didn’t want to spend more than $20 or $30. I did what I usually do – I looked on Amazon. You could get one on eBay, but I didn’t want to fool around with that this time (waiting or an auction to end). I wanted my drive in a few days. And I didn’t do TigerDirect or NewEgg simply because I didn’t feel like paying $6 shipping on such a low cost item. I went over to The Smorgasbord Store, and I did a search for USB Flash Drive 2GB. Right away I found many in the $20 price range. I picked one I could get free shipping on and place the order.

Three days later I had my new 2GB thumb drive, a good Kingston one with a eyelet for my keychain. I plugged it in and installed the full version of Portable Apps. Once installed, there is an autorun file – so when you plug in the drive to your computer the menu should load automatically, but if it doesn’t just go to “My Computer”, find your thumb drive, open it, and click on “StartPortableApps.exe”.

Now, you’re going to get a menu that looks just like this one:

[photopress:portable_apps.jpg,full,pp_image]

Wow! Your own customizable start menu just for your portable drive! You get many applications pre-intalled (depending on which version you downloaded). You get Firefox, an IM client, the Open Office Suite, and more! Think about what you’ve got here for a minute. You can open and edit just about any version MS Office doc from your drive. You can use your own portable Firefox, take your bookmarks with you wherever you go, save your own password in Firefox Password Manager, you have your own cache, your own Firefox extensions, everywhere you go you have a customized browser just the way you like it! At work, at the Library, at your mom’s house, on any computer in your house – it’s all with you every time! You can IM using any messenger service with GAIM, and you’ll never have to worry about installing YIM, AIM, or MSN again! There is also a built-in backup function on the menu, so you can backup everything on your drive to your main computer anytime you want.

Be Organized: There are links on the menu to “Documents”, “Pictures”, “Video”, “Music” – and each link opens a folder on your drive that you drag and drop stuff into. Wow, you can keep your important docs on the go, pictures from your digital camera, your favorite mp3’s, or video clips! The bigger your external drive, card, or stick – the more stuff you can take with you!

Get More Portable Apps: In my opinion, some of the greatest portable apps you’ll need to add. On the menu, just click “Options” and “Get More Apps”. Download the ones you like, then go back to the menu “Options” and “Add New App”. You can remove apps the same way. Now, I maintain web sites, write code, edit video, audio, and edit graphics as well. So, I downloaded and installed “Notepad++ Portable” (text editor), “Nvu Portable” (web editor), “Gimp Portable” (graphics editor on a par with Photoshop), “Filezilla Portable” (FTP client), “PuTTy Portable” (SSH telnet client), “Audacity Portable” (Audio Editor), “MPlayer Portable” (movie and media player), “VirtualDub Portable” (Video Editor), “Sumatra PDF Portable” (PDF Viewer), “7-Zip Portable” (zip and unzip stuff), “Eraser Portable” (erase files securely), “KeePass Password Safe” (keep an encrypted password db), and last “Toucan” (an advanced backup utility).

Wow! So now, I can do web editing, graphic editing, audio and video editing, I can FTP or telnet, view PDF files, zip and unzip stuff, I can securely store all my password, securely delete files – and EVERY single program is COMPLETELY FREE as is PortableApps itself! You cannot ask for a better bargain!! I want to talk about “Toucan” for a sec too. Portable Apps has a backup function, but with Toucan you can schedule backups, filter out things to backup (just these kinds of files from these folders), you can compare folders, update files newer than a certain date, etc.

OK – that’s my review! I love Portable Apps and I know use it and my new 2GB thumb drive every day! It has saved me tons of time, and everything is with me everywhere I go now! Do you have an app that has saved you time? Do you know of other portable or thumb drive utils? Please, comment now and share with everyone!

Oh – and this is the flash drive I have and installed portable apps on – and I love it!

Kingston Data Traveler II Plus – Migo Edition – USB flash drive – 2 GB ( DTII+M/2GB ) (Retail Package)

oh – and you can get flash drives at very reasonable prices on eBay as well: