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I found this little gem, which is a mini version of the free OpenOffice, which can be placed on a standard USB2 Disk key. It comes in handy when using someone's computer that may not have a complete office setup, such as not having a spreadsheet. Simply place your data in a folder, on your Disk Key, and this stand-alone application in another folder labeled, Applications. Now, you can travel and leave your laptop at home; just use a friend's computer without having to install extra software they may not want. http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

It was my understanding that MS Word's save with password command is seriously broken, and I have told clients that. It doesn't affect their policy, in fact one uses the *same* password for all files, all employees. Just so they can say they are doing something even if it is the ultimate minimum.

But that same client sometimes has ultra sensitive documents and they still use the same thing. Some people do save in password encyrpted zip files.

Now if the Save as ODF plugin provides a really secure encryption method (which the Sun page does NOT say), that would be a very good thing to announce to people. Does anyone know about this? Even if say Word 2003 has better saving that would still be no difference as there are less than 10 machines probably with Word 2003 on it in a hundred person office I know and it would probably cost a bit to upgrade (they are used only to edit docs that have to edited in 2003).

The only problem is, this would not be good for documents that must not change. Sometimes opening a Word doc in OOo and saving back to .doc will introduce slight changes. Also I am going to have a hard time believing the metafile drawings in Word will save correctly but interested in ways to spread OOo.

Finally I'd like to mention I often install OOo on an Internet cafe machine (gets erased on reboot anyway) since the autocorrect saves me much typing. (I use an ipod but a usb pendrive would be the same). Check out www.portableapps.com, the OpenOffice on it works absolutely fabulously, no need to install on the hard disk and everything that normally goes in the windows folder stays on your usb drive! It is lightning quick and includes the Gimp and other packages too.

There are Portable Apps: http://portableapps.com/, now profiled as something you can
carry with you on your USB memory-stick. These are applications like firefox, gimp,
etc etc, which do not need "to be installed". They have been modified to ignore
as much as possible all that MS-registry nonsense. You can guess: when I need to install
firefox on some computer, I just simply copy the portable one to some suitable place
on the disk, and I do not need to be "Administrator" or whatever they call it.

So instead of inventing installers, one should be "inventing" "portable Applications".
Be it on windows-whatever or even on linux

I wonder if portableapps or one of the other groups could sue them for patent or copyright infringement...probably not but it's a nice thought.

Since portableapps was previously mentioned, I won't go into more detail. I didn't see a link in the above posts so here it is: http://portableapps.com/

Install this on your USB key drive and you will have an on the go system that has email, browser, word processor, etc.
It will work in linux as well.

I've been doing this for years, going clear back to toting a Zip disk around with me that had Eudora on it, executing the program from the disk along with carrying the files I'm working with at the time.

I'm doing this now with my sandisk titanium Cruzer 2 Gig. I've got my email client, Eudora, that runs just fine executing from the flash drive. My FTP client, leapftp is similar. Effectively, my "My Documents" resides on the flash drive, too. Then there's the suite of portable applications from http://portableapps.com/ I use portable Firefox, OO and Putty and have lots of room left over on the 2 Gig drive.

Since all that good stuff is on that little flash drive, I back it up automatically every night so if I lose it, it's no biggie. Encryption is a good idea..

I'm with the other comments about being nervous if MS is running the show. It's going to be more about restrictions than enabling.

Just use PortableApps.com today. It has better compatibility, working with most Windows OSes (95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista) as well as Wine under *nix. It's open so you can add any software that's already portable to it. And it's much more popular than U3 ever was, with over 20,000,000 apps downloaded. Plus it works from any drive you'd like: USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, network share, etc... so you're never tied down.

Just use PortableApps.com today. It has better compatibility, working with most Windows OSes (95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista) as well as Wine under *nix. It's open so you can add any software that's already portable to it. And it's much more popular than U3 ever was, with over 20,000,000 apps downloaded. Plus it works from any drive you'd like: USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, network share, etc... so you're never tied down.

I was talking to a friend who is a very casual PC user the other day and she told me that she had just had Ubuntu installed on her machine by her pet IT guy because she was concerned about the amount of spying that Windows did. She probably had a hooky install of Vista, but that's by the by, and it's a concern that I've seen both with XP since Genuine Advantage was enforced and with Vista.

The big sell for me is replacing Microsoft software - if I have to use Windows (and as a contractor this isn't a matter of choice - it's often down to my employer's IT policy as it is now) I try and employ as many non-MS products as possible, using PortableApps if necessary, which replaces IE with Firefox, MSN with Gaim, MSOffice with OpenOffice etc etc. I wouldn't say that these apps are 'better', just that they're better for me, although when demonstrating to other people, the price tag is a help too.

I have a P600 in my basement that I watch divx movies on while I work. It's an XP box. I always had to shrink the playback window to about 300x200 so they wouldn't stutter. I always figured it was that there just wasn't enough horsepower in the cpu or bandwidth to the video card to do full screen.

Then I tried VLC Media Player Portable one day, since I was having a codec problem with one of my movies.

So, I'd start a movie and out of habit shrink the window down to a non-stutter size. But one day a buddy was in the shop and clicked the full screen mode. And surprise! It worked 100%, without a single stutter. They all did. Turns out my P600 had plenty enough horsepower to play full screen movies. It was WMP that was the problem.

Just goes to show you what tight code and self discipline can do when you're programming.

Add that to the fact that, even if I hose my HD, I can boot into a Knoppix|Kanotix|Ubuntu|whatever CD|DVD and use MS Office perfectly well without even needing to install an OS! Another thing I love about MS Office is that, if someone who doesn't own it needs to edit an MS Office file, I can legally hand them a copy for free, or point them to the free download page. There's also an MS Office page at Portable Apps, and they have a version (also free) you can run from a USB thumb drive, no installation needed! So the group of people I can share documents with isn't limited to people who have paid for (or pirated) a certain version of my office suite.

Except that all of that is untrue, and those advantages belong only to OpenOffice.

I'm sure that MS Office has some technical capabilities that Openoffice lacks. But I don't know what they are, and it appears that I don't need them. But I have just documented some advantages that Openoffice enjoys but MS Office lacks, and I need|want those advantages more than I need the unknown, unused advantages of MS Office. Ergo the war, as you say, is over.

I don't know about the Delphi PHP IDE in the article, but if you are looking for a new develpoment enviroment, I would strongly recomend trying eclipse http://www.eclipse.org/ with PHPeclipse http://www.phpeclipse.net/tiki-view_articles.php and XAMPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. This compination is far more powerful than Dreamweaver, free (as in beer and speech), and has plugins available to support almost every every language I can think of. Which will help you in learning new languages with out having to learn a new IDE. Inaddition it can be made to run off a USB drive. Eclipse is java based so it is available for linux windows or osX.

The only advantage Dreamweaver may have is the WYSIWYG editor. There is an eclipse plugin for this (included in easy eclipse mentioned below) but I haven't used this much, since it's geneally faster and more reliable to edit the code to get the result I want. PHPeclipse includes an browser preview pane that, with the exception of directly editing the view in a WYSIWYG maner, is just as functional.

My two favorite features are the integration with XAMPP (an extrememly easy to setup and use local LAMP web server, which should work with Dreamweaver too) which allows for a Dreamweaver style design view for PHP code, and the Remote System Explorer (RSE) http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/tutorial/ plugin which allows you to connect and work on files on a remote webserver as if they were local, which is great for quick fixes and fixing typos.

To use eclipse, PHPeclipse, and XAMPP to create a portable development environment on a USB drive, check out http://www.plog4u.org/index.php/Using_PHPEclipse:I nstallation:XAMPP_Example_Installation for eclipse and PHP eclipse installation into XAMPP and this thread http://portableapps.com/node/929 to make it all portable. I would also recomend checking out http://www.easyeclipse.org/site/home/ for easy installation of eclipse with many of the most useful plugins preinstalled for you.

I've backpacked around the world a couple of times now, once for 18 months, once for 9 months, mostly through Africa, Middle East, South America, and Europe. Don't take the laptop unless you intend to make a living on the side from travel writing, otherwise its just a dead-weight that will cramp your style and cut you off from other people.

My first trip was pre-ubiquitous internet, my tech total was a shortwave radio, film slr, and a paper travel diary. Lightweight, low stress, and forced me to talk to people :-)

My second trip I took my Palm III (AAA powered) with a fold-up keyboard to type up my diary, but to also use for games and organising things. However that felt a bit dorky to use, I was constantly buying batteries, and nobody would let me install the palm sync software needed to download my diary to my blog.

Instead I found that internet cafes were everywhere and cheap as, especially in the so-called 3rd world (even Easter Island had one!) Perversely, the USA was the country with the worst public net access and facilities, there's an inverse law in there somewhere. They are all you really need now as they are offer full services (CD/DVD burning, MS Office, Skype headphones, etc), especially on the backpacker trail.

My one suggestion is that you take an off-load option for when your digital camera gets full. My sister recently used her iPod for this, but it got corrupted and she lost a bunch of photos so be careful of this one (note you should have FAT32 formatted iPod to allow you to then off-load from the iPod at a net cafe). You'll need to get the special adaptor for this, and leave enough space for photos or be prepared to delete songs as you go.

On my last short trip I used a 4GB USB key to off-load from my 10Mp digital slr, but for my next big trip I plan to take my 60GB 2.5" hard drive in a USB case loaded with various Portabe Apps http://portableapps.com/ (especially the virus scanner!), any files I think I'll need, and all my MP3's so I can vary what's loaded on my small cheap MP3 player. It's light, small, and easy to hide. Even then, I'll still be burning photos to DVD and posting home on a regular basis just in case.

John.

I agree Travel Light. You will hate your laptop if you need to carry it everywhere.
If you're backpacking for a year you'll probably end up throwing out or sending home
stuff as you travel trust me light is right.

If you're addicted to your own electronics pick up a 1 GB USB key and put
portable apps suite on it.
http://portableapps.com/

Definitely add spybot search and destroy and clamAV so you can give the more dodgy looking computers a quick scan...

I'd also throw on putty.exe, winscp and skype.

checkout this site for other good tips:
http://www.runpcrun.com/usb-flash-key-2006

you can create your own menu with Pstart
http://www.pegtop.net/start/

If you have personal data set up the key with truecrypt (I still have to do this)
http://www.truecrypt.org/

more on encyption:
http://www.madirish.net/?article=156

Most internet cafes run windows so don't expect anything else... most have no clue about
security and I've used my USB key pretty much everywhere, just tell them you're saving a file, or cant speak the language... ;)

Put a long neck loop or lanyard on it, and when you plug it in put the neckloop next to the keyboard so that you're less likely to forget it.

Worst case if you lose it you can buy another one and spend 1hr downloading alls the apps from the web again.

Have fun.

And you didn't whip out your usb thumb drive with portable open office?

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

Please hand in your Geek Card and hp calculator at the door.

As a matter of fact, there is a way to run it from a pendrive

"PortableApps Suite your computer, without the computer" http://portableapps.com/suite Would be a good thing for them to go with, too bad its only for windows.

I didn't change over to FF 2.0, mostly out of sheer laziness.

Then I went and grabbed FF Portable & just unzipped it into a folder.
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_port able

There's an installer, but you can just unzip the .exe
Note: The actual FF executable is a folder or two deep

• Office Suite - OO.o Portable, most likely. There is also AbiWord Portable, but the article mentions an office suite, not just word proccessing.
• Internet browser and email are presumably the portable version of Firefox and Thunderbird.
• Instant messaging has two options, Gaim Portable and Miranda IM Portable. Never heard of the second before.
• Audio/video player - VLC Media Player Portable.

Do you think such a project would work here as well?
It could. Depends on how the most libraries are about people running independent stuff on their machines. (This is usually what people use if they don't have their own computer. Some 'free' terminals are actually quite restrictive in how they're used.) Also students are likely to erase the memory stick so they can use it entirely for their own purposes. So if you're using a device to promote something, you might need to figure out how to make the installed software read-only.

If so, what software would you want to see loaded up?
For starters probably not much more than what can already be found at PortableApps.com. Stuff like VLC, Firefox, and some other miscellaneous cool and useful stuff. Depending on the device capacity, might even have an entire OSS creative suite (Blender, Gimp, Audacity, etc.) or even an liveUSB 'nux distro of some sort?

I just looked into something like this for myself and found portableapps.com. You can load up your standard OSS on a USB stick and then use them on any windows computer. I went out and bought the fastest USB stick I could find and loaded a few of my favorites on there (Firefox, 7Zip, OpenOffice and a few others). It's been really helpful to have the software I want when I am in a variety of locked-down university computer labs and I can do things with this software that the other students around me can't like open some obscure types of compressed files, save documents as PDFs, and browse the internet ad-free. Highly recommended if you often use public computers or work on other peoples' machines.

Here are a few examples of things that can be loaded.

Portable Apps
Apps that have been made to be put on a USB
http://portableapps.com/

TheOpenCD
http://www.theopencd.org/

Check it out, some good stuff at
http://portableapps.com/

Of course you could always use OpenOffice.org Portable and all you need is your thumbdrive. Don't even need the internet connection.

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

This would be fantastic if there were a portable apps version of it. Currently I run portable Firefox and Thunderbird off my USB drive from work, and they're great. Having all that extra functionality bundled in, as well as only having one program running would rock.

In fact, if I had my choice (and I don't - I don't/can't do code), I'd have the whole thing installable in a single sub-folder that could just be moved wherever, whenever I wanted.

Hey presto, your wish has been granted. Have fun. :)

Not only that, it installs without your permission, on a standard windows setup. I had no idea USB drives can autorun like CD's. Anyway, here's the info on the horrible thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3 and how to fix it: http://www.google.com/search?q=uninstall+u3 and then I hear this is the good stuff: http://portableapps.com/

You don't have to give up control of your information just to have access to it from most any computer.

With a USB thumb drive (which has ever increasing capacity) along with some apps from here, I can have the best of both worlds. My data is with me at all times, and it's in my hands, not the hands of some corporation which may use my data in ways I don't like, or lose it, or go under.

Closest solution to this I found is Portable Thunderbird. Though if you recieve large attachments your going to need a big thumb/pen/memory/flash/usb stick/drive/thingy (Or whatever people in your neck of the woods call it).

If you can't install programs on your work computer, there's always...

(1) Portable Open Office: http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

It is "no-install" in the sense that the file you download just unzips OO into a folder for you.

If the download size is a big deal, (2) Portable Abiword is much smaller, but only does basic word processing stuff.

If you can't install programs on your work computer, there's always...

(1) Portable Open Office: http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

It is "no-install" in the sense that the file you download just unzips OO into a folder for you.

If the download size is a big deal, (2) Portable Abiword is much smaller, but only does basic word processing stuff.

You just may not have enough memory for the last one

You just may not have enough memory for the last one

You just may not have enough memory for the last one

You just may not have enough memory for the last one

I carry the full PortableApps suite http://www.portableapps.com/ (89.5MB) on one of my Transcend my 2GB SD card that I swap between my camera, Treo 650 & a Rosewill SD/MMC USB 2.0 pocket card reader ($5 at http://www.newegg.com/. here is a list of some of the apps included:
7-Zip Portable
AbiWord Portable
Audacity Portable
ClamWin Portable
FileZilla Portable
Firefox Portable
Gaim Portable
GIMP Portable
Miranda IM Portable
Nvu Portable
OpenOffice.org Portable
Sudoku Portable
Sunbird Portable
Thunderbird Portable
VLC Media Player Portable
Plus more

I keep a CD of Kanotix around at all times. It's a Knoppix variant, but I find that Kanotix has a cleaner look and feel. It's also better for a HD install, since it uses only Debian-unstable packages instead of the mix of testing and unstable that Knoppix uses.

However, I'm going to my parents' home for the Xmas holidays, so I'll be using their WinXP machine. I happened to have a USB flash drive lying around, so I packed it with portable FOSS Win32 packages from , including FireFox, Thunderbird, GIMP, OpenOffice etc. These packages install everything, including dlls, into an application folder and are executed directly from the USB drive. The added benefit is that you can copy these packages from machine to machine simply by copying the application folders; there is no need to run an installer every time or alter the Registry.

I downloaded the beta portable. http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_port able/test

And never forget that you can type wiki $something in the address bar of Firefox (including earlier versions) and have it bring up either the wikipedia entry that term or, if it can't find that, the closest match.

My favorite feature ever.

Also -- let's not forget Portable Firefox has the RC3 version out (which, from what I can tell, is Firefox 2.0 in everything but name) here

My impressions of 2.0? It's got some nice tweaks, it feels faster, it uses about 25 meg less Ram on my windows machine and about 30 meg less on my Mac. All in all, a solid build. Lacking in whiz bang features maybe, but a nice solid build.

I'm at work and have to surf with the screwed IE

As long as flashsticks aren't banned at your location, you should be able to use Portable Firefox.

For anyone that wants to try it without any problems can download the portable version from here: http://portableapps.com/

you can take your apps (or at least some of them) with you today: http://portableapps.com/
you can't sync, 'though

Firefox Portable 2.0 RC 2 has been released. For the unfamiliar, Firefox Portable is Firefox packaged with a PortableApps.com launcher so it can be run from a USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc and used on any computer. It can also be run from a local hard drive (even your desktop) making it a great way to test out another version of Firefox without impacting your installed version. Grab it from the Firefox Portable 2.0 RC2 Homepage.

Firefox Portable 2.0 RC 2 has been released. For the unfamiliar, Firefox Portable is Firefox packaged with a PortableApps.com launcher so it can be run from a USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc and used on any computer. It can also be run from a local hard drive (even your desktop) making it a great way to test out another version of Firefox without impacting your installed version. Grab it from the Firefox Portable 2.0 RC2 Homepage.

Just out of interest, is there any way to 'slipstream' (to use an MSism) an extension into a FF install? I want to build some to just hand out to people with IETab ready to go.

I'm assuming that the parent is working in an environment where he can't load Firefox because of lack of admin rights to his workstation? If so, try installing it into your profile where you do have rights, it runs OK for me that way.

Why install? Download Firefox Portable. (I guess portableapps had to rename it because a search for "portable firefox" still brings up the old home not used for absolute aeons, as we measure time on the intarweb.)

If they can run programs off of their own USB devices, there's always Firefox Portable. Love it.

Its also quite a stretch for me to get FF on my work computer. I'm sure the case is the same with many slashdotters.

Portable Firefox

I've been using Firefox 2.0 daily builds and Thunderbird 2.0 alpha along side the stable versions for quite some time using PortableApps.com. They are an entirely self-contained directory separate from your regular install.You can even run PortableFirefox from a CD so make sure to turn on the disk cache, otherwise performance is slow.

Firefox's auto incremental updates work great, plus it remembers your tabs so after the restart I'm right where I left off. I'm enjoying the built-in spell check--right now in fact. Firefox's reopen recently closed tabs feature on the renamed History menu is a life saver. I just accidentally closed this tab after checking that my links worked and Firefox brought it back complete will all form information. Google Suggest in the search box rocks.

The RSS feed summary page is cool and has support for Simple List Extensions. Check out a sample here: Jeff Bezos's Wish List. The ability to subscribe using your chosen feed reader is nice.

The tab bar is interesting. It changed to a grey gradient from a lighter, whiter washed out look a few builds ago. The grey doesn't match well with the Windows XP light tan gradient toolbars and the overflow arrow on the side of the tab bar are too faint to be noticeable. The list all tabs drop down on the right side is great though. I guess Mozilla has reached their goal of making the active tab better distinguished.

Generally, it seems to me that memory usage is lower than 1.5, even with 4 windows with 10+ tabs each. :-)

I'm lovin' it!