As you know, USB Flash Drives, External hard disks and so on have been around since Windows 98 when USB first came on the market. Now, applications have sprung up which are now 'portable' enough to be carried on a single USB stick with 100MB or more.
Installation is easy, download your application to your PC, insert your USB drive and create a folder to put your applications in e.g. Apps. Depending on the program, in some cases its just case of either:
a) Extract the files from a ZIP or other archive and place them in a new folder
in your apps folder.
b) Run the install program and point it to the USB drive e.g. J:\Apps\MyProgram
c) Create a new folder on USB drive and copy the program file to the new folder
Locating and running your program every time can be chore, so you need an easy
way to launch your program from one place. You can write a simple Launch.html
file with a list of your program in to and create links using HREF to point
to your applications using relative paths. For example,
1. <A HREF="\Apps\MyProgram\Program.exe">My Program</A>
2. <A HREF="\Apps\My2ndProgram\Program2.exe>My 2nd Program</A>
and so on. Then when you want to launch your program, click on the link and select Run from the dialog box.
Now, you need some programs to put onto your USB Drive which you can then use on the move without having to install it on every PC you need to access.
1. Web Browser. Try the Firefox Portable browser. Size 6.1 MB
2. PDF File Viewer. Try the SumatraPDF viewer. Size
3. Text Editor. Try EditPad Lite editor. Size 3.6 MB
4. System Information. Try CPU-Z (1.0 MB) or Astra32 (1.8 MB) programs.
5. Virus Checker. Try McAfee Stinger to remove specific viruses (not all). Size 1.9 MB
6. Graphics Editor. Try Photo Filtre, a small but powerful graphics tool. Size 3.6 MB
7. Office. Try Portable Open Office suite. Size 69 MB.
8. Email. Try Mozilla Thunderbird Portable. Size 6.7 MB
9 .Hex Editor. Try Adanced heX Editor. Size 564 KB.
10. Media Player. Try VLC Media Player. Size 9.8 MB
Most Operating systems are not very portable except the very old ones or new ones such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Live Linux versions. Linux is ideal because its so flexible. The Kernel can be stripped down to bare essentials and you can specify which applications to include. A list of ones to try include:
1. Damn Small Linux. This can fit onto a 50 MB CD or USB stick
2. Knoppix. This larger one will fit on 2GB devices or less.
3. PC Linux OS.Another OS in 2GB of space.
4. Winuae and E-UAE. Amiga emulators.
5 Softmac. Run Mac emulator in less than 500 MB.