Portable Apps for Anchored Authors-Mobility Perfected

I’m in the honeymoon phase, and everything is blissful.

Actually, it’s a bit more than that. Portable Apps are made for anchored authors, and I’m lovin’ it.

If you’ve not heard of them before, you’re in for a sweet surprise. Portable apps (applications) are applications that can be installed on a USB drive. They leave no imprint on the computer itself, and don’t install any part of themselves in the operating system. Once you’ve removed the USB drive, there’s no trace left.

So far, so good. If you’re working a day job like I am, where applications and Internet usage are strictly controlled via some sort of IT lock-down, portable apps are a fabulous work-around.

You can get a portable application, or portable version, of nearly every common type of program out there, but the best place to start is http://www.portableapps.com, where you can download and install on your USB drive a whole suite of portable applications and a “start menu” that pops up when you click on the logo in the system tray – which gives you a left-hand start menu for the computer itself, and a right-hand start menu, for your personal applications.

PortableApps.com Suite^TM includes a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, sudoku game, password manager, PDF reader, minesweeper clone, backup utility and the integrated menu:

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)
Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
ClamWin Portable (antivirus)
Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)
Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader
KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)
Sudoku Portable (game)
Mines-Perfect Portable (game)
CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)
OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)
- Writer (word processor)
- Calc (spreadsheet)
- Impress (presentations)
- Base (database utility)
- Draw (drawing)

In the two weeks since I started using the suite, I’ve deleted and added apps, including GIMP (GNU Image Management Program), which is a damned good image editor that I’ve ended up using as my default editor, even on my computer at home and for image manipulation in my day job.

The office suite files are comptable with Microsoft Office. And Thunderbird, the email client, sucked up and installed all my Outlook Contacts without me having to dump to CSV, or convert in any way.

How much you want to add and subtract will also depend on how big your USB drive is. I have a 4Gb drive and I’m already using space management strategies — not because of the portable apps, but from all the other files I carry around with me to support my writing, including all the marketing materials for every book I’ve every published, so that I can respond to marketing matters quickly.

I’m putting one of the new 128Gb drives on my Christmas list (I’m already drooling).

If you’ve in severe IT lockdown, you might find that some of the applications don’t work. For example, I can’t get the instant chat or email client (Thunderbird) to work at the office. They work just fine at home, alas. But I’m more than happy with what does work, including Keepass, which carries all my logins and randomly-generated passwords for everything – something I put into place a few weeks ago after my PayPal account was hacked.

I’ll continue to work with applications and add-ons, and refining the process. I’m still using a Microsoft Briefcase in conjunction with the suite, to keep all my working files coordinated between USB and home computer, and I’m still hunting for a decent task manager – the one that is buried in Sunbird is a clunky afterthought.

I’m going to be travelling the weekend after next, and can take an old XP laptop with me. Rather than installing files and applications on the laptop, I’ll use the portable applications on the USB drive to make my weekend productive, as the USB drive is already set up. I’m looking forward to being able to use Thunderbird to bring all my email down to the computer in one central location, instead of hitting six different web-mail programs.

If you use a computer with your day job, this might be a good way for you to keep your writing mobile and always synchronized. Check it out.

Oh yes, and the best for last: It’s free.

All the programs are open-souce and hackers everywhere are constantly building add-ins and extensions, themes and other widgets.

Open source software writers depend upon user donations to pay for their work. I’m so happy with the Portable Apps that I’ll donate my next royalty cheque.

First appeared on Anchored Authors on August 18, 2008

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