Netbooks, low-cost portable computers optimized for web usage, are continuing to sell at a torrid pace, with Acer expecting 50 percent growth in the global netbook market in 2010, to 42 million units. In the meantime, standard technologies, operating systems and other options in these diminutive systems are undergoing rapid shifts. Here are eight up-to-date tips to keep in mind if you’re in the market for a new netbook.

Don’t Settle for a Tiny Display. As Om has pointed out, netbook specifications continue to encroach on standard laptop specs, to the point that the real differences between them are blurring. And as The Register and market researchers at Canalys report, in 2010, many netbook manufacturers will be emphasizing systems with 12-inch displays, to possibly broadly replace those with screens of just 10 inches. You can already find systems with larger displays, and indeed, you’ll likely have a better experience with them.

Don’t Go for a Tiny Keyboard. Many netbooks come with chiclet-style keyboards that can make typing difficult, but this is rapidly changing. As PCMag.com notes, many new netbooks, such as the Toshiba mini NB205, come with full-size keyboards. I’m also a fan of the keyboards on the Acer Aspire One and Dell Mini 10v systems. Get a keyboard that won’t cramp your style — that’s where the market is headed.

Consider the OS Up Front. Linux-based netbooks continue to offer low price points and often come with good open source applications. Next year, Google (s goog) will attempt to redefine the netbook with its Linux-based Chrome OS, focused on cloud applications. In the meantime, Microsoft’s (s MSFT) new Windows 7 operating system is squarely aimed at the netbook market, and netbook manufacturers are reporting that it’s ushering in strong sales.  As always, consider what types of applications you’ll use as you weigh various operating systems.

Free Apps Can Improve Your Experience. When evaluating a netbook’s platform and what you’ll do with it, don’t forget that there are many free and open source utilities and applications that make navigating, handling hardware resources and other tasks easier. You can find 10 good ideas here.

Complement Low Local Storage With a USB Drive. Netbooks typically make many compromises in terms of local resources when compared to larger laptops, with storage among the most common. You can complement low local storage with an inexpensive, external USB Flash drive, however. There are also useful web sites, especially PortableApps, that you can use to stock up your Flash drive with useful, free applications.

Check the Battery Life. Many netbooks offer outstanding battery life — in some cases, all-day power — but not all of them. Make sure to check reviews of the netbook you’re considering for battery life tests. And once you’ve become a netbook owner, remember to follow best practices — especially turning the brightness down — in order to maximize its battery life.

Take a Hands-On Test Drive. While there are many good deals online for netbooks, if possible, I recommend going to a retail outlet to do a hands-on test drive. Because netbooks are practically defined by the compromises they make, this can help you identify any problems that you might find intolerable over time.

Pointing Devices Matter. Speaking of personal preferences, people always vary widely in terms of the pointing devices they favor. For example, I’ve tried many netbooks that I would never buy simply because the highly sensitive trackpads on them bother me. This is another reason why a hands-on test drive makes a lot of sense.

PortableApps là trang web không có gì xa lạ với mọi người, đây là trang cung cấp các ứng dụng miễn phí chạy trực tiếp mà không cần cài đặt (portable). Gần đây PortableApps mới cho “ra lò” 3 ứng dụng portable đáng chú ý là : Google Chrome 3.0.195.27, Skype 4.1 và µTorrent 1.8.4.
Đọc tiếp… »

Do you carry a USB Flash drive with you? If you don’t, you absolutely should — especially if you’re a netbook user, because the small systems tend to feature hardware compromises, and a go-anywhere USB drive can compensate. The pocketable drives have fallen radically in price, even as capacity on them has risen smartly.  Here are some useful, free resources for quickly stocking your USB Flash drive with essential applications without a lot of annoying downloading and installation.

For well under $150 you can now get a 64GB drive that fits in your pocket, and keep it loaded with countless free applications and the same saved preferences that you keep on your primary computer. Having applications in your pocket means that you can work from anywhere, and a 64GB drive is more than enough to take care of most people’s essential daily backup needs. The following sites provide free, powerful ways to get the most out of your drive.

PortableApps. PortableApps is without a doubt the king of all sites that let you quickly and efficiently put bushels of useful open-source applications on your USB Flash drive. It won four awards at SourceForge’s recent Community Choice Awards (recognizing top open-source efforts) including Best Project. The PortableApps suite of applications includes the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, a useful text editor, security software, backup software, and far more than that — all free. However, PortableApps is only for Windows at this point.

The Linux Alternative. Lots of folks are using Linux netbooks, and there are resources similar to PortableApps for stocking a USB Flash drive with solid Linux tools. One of the best ones is PendriveLinux. In addition to letting you stock your drive with useful mobile applications, it gives you useful tutorials on keeping any number of small-footprint Linux operating systems on your drive.

What About the Mac? This post is about using a USB Flash drive with a netbook, and Apple (s aapl) doesn’t make netbooks. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get a lot of use out of a pocketable drive containing solid Mac apps. Like PortableApps on the Windows platform, MacLibre lets you put a slew of useful open-source Mac applications on your pocket drive.

Downloads in Different Flavors. In a recent post from Datamation, the editors singled out WinPenPack as “similar to the better known PortableApps.com, but it includes a lot more software.” What looks especially interesting is that the collections of applications that WinPenPack puts on your USB drive come in different flavors, such as “Personal” and “Web.”

All of these sites, and a handy pocket USB drive, can give you many more choices and more security when you’re on the go. A USB drive with solid capacity is also an excellent holiday gift for the geek in your life.

PortableApps é uma coletânea de softwares independentes para serem rodados a partir de qualquer dispositivo portátil, como, por exemplo, qualquer MP3 player, iPod, pendrive, HD externo ou até mesmo CD! Você não precisa instalar no computador e sim no seu dispositivo.

Você pode baixar um pacote com a Plataforma do PortableApps e mais uma serie de programas ou baixar apenas a plataforma e escolher quais os aplicativos que você quer inserir nele manualmente.

O pacote abrange os seguintes softwares: Firefox Portable, OpenOffice Portable, Thunderbird Portable, messenger portátil, calendário, o antivírus ClamWin em versão portátil e até um joguinho de Sudoku. Está disponível no site do BAIXAKI no link abaixo e também podem ser adicionados mais aplicativos que são baixados na página do PortableApps

A plataforma e os programas individuais estão disponível no site da PortableApps – http://portableapps.com/.

Para o pessoal das Ciências, Física, Astronomia… tem o Stellarium versão portable, é uma mão na roda na hora dar alguma aula ou fazer alguma observação.

BAIXAR PACOTE |  BAIXAR PLATAFORMA | BAIXAR APLICATIVOS

For over a year now I have been using a lovely little app called Portableapp (www.portableapps.com). Essentially this is an operating system (windows based) on an USB pendrive. It comes with a large number of free app such as Openoffice, Firefox and Sumatrapdf to name a few. One can also install additional software quite easily. The best part about this software for me is the fact that I can also carry around files on the pendrive that i might have need of. This is of course subject to the pendrive having sufficient space. I use a 1GB pendrive.
The question that is probably going through your head is why you would need to use this. The answer is simple, you need this if you use shared computers such as at work or at internet cafe’s and you would like to keep your data and usage of this private. The advantage of using portableapps is that it does not leave any kind of tracks on the host machine.
Try it you might like it.

Ah, I might as well. It’s September 11th today, so I kept quiet on Twitter from 8am to 12pm my time which is Pacific Standard. It was kinda hard since I had lots and lots to share today but naah…. I got it over with. Hey did I just insert a four-dot ellipsis? And forget a comma? Oh, what the f*ck. Yeah, you heard me; I censor out any words that aren’t said on television or radio. Hey, there was this one quiz on Sporcle.com about “7 dirty words.” I think I got like four of them right but the other ones I had no idea. Yeah, I actually took that quiz. Sporcle has a lot of other interesting crap like science quizzes, a Sept. 11th quiz (for today, it was created yesterday)… holy crap I’m on a 1280 by 1024 pixel resolution screen, but this is my dad’s upstairs computer (he forgot to turn it off lol). My mac has a resolution of 1024 by 768, but that’s my mac’s monitor since I have a Mac Mini. But Mac Minis require this special monitor adapter which I really don’t understand why. It doesn’t make the graphics any better! Thank god for Firefox’s spell check as well. I’m using Firefox on PortableApps.com platform as I said before in my rant about Base64 that didn’t really make sense but who really gives a sh*t (I almost didn’t censor that) but anyways, yeah, who gives a sh*t. Aw sh*t forgot what I was gonna say but “gonna” ain’t a word and “ain’t” isn’t a word. I think this may be my longest rant yet and everyone’s sleeping now so I better log off.

PortableApps è un sito che mette a disposizione tante applicazioni in versione “portable” (o portatile che dir si voglia), cioè quelle applicazioni che per eseguirle non richiedono alcuna installazione, ottime per portarcele dietro con una pen-drive. Sul portale sono presenti tante applicazione divise per categoria: dalla grafica ai giochi, dalle utilità alla musica e video e altre ancora. Sono presenti le versioni portable di molti software, tra cui: Mozilla Firefox, ClamWin, KeePass, OpenOffice, Sudoku, Sumatra PDF, CoolPlayer, 7-Zip, NVU, FileZilla, aMSN, VLC, Audacity, GIMP e tanti altri software. Il sito mette a disposizione anche una suite di software, disponibile a questo indirizzo, che raccoglie alcuni tra i più importanti software in circolazione.
Possiamo scaricare tutte le applicazione che vogliamo gratuitamente e senza effettuare registrazione, sicuramente un sito che deve stare tra i nostri preferiti.

Link PortableApps

Diyelim ki iş yerinde ya da okuldasınız ve kullandığınız bilgisayarlarda işinizi görecek programlar yok, üstelik bu programları yüklemeye zamanınız ya da yetkiniz yok. Fakat siz bilgisayarda çalışırken müzik dinlemek, yazı yazmak, maillerinizi kontrol etmek gibi şeyler yapmak istiyorsunuz. PortableApps sayesinde dilediğiniz bek çok işi yapabilecek programları flash belleğinizde taşıyıp çalıştığınız tüm bilgisayarlarda kullanabilirsiniz.

PortableApps Suite, portableapps.com un hazırladığı ücretsiz bir uygulama paketi ve tabi ki içindeki tüm uygulamalar da ücretsiz. Programların hiçbiri kurulum gerektirmez ve ayarlarınızı flash belleğinizde saklayabilir. Yani her bilgisayara oturuşunuzda internete girmek ya da müzik dinlemek için programlar indirip kurmanıza gerek yok. PortableAppsSuite içinde media oynatıcı, tarayıcı, ofis uygulamaları hatta küçük oyunlar bile var.

Suite 3 paketten oluşuyor. İlk paket sadece platformu içeriyor, siz istediğiniz programları yükleyebiliyorsunuz. Platform flash bellek içerisindeki programlara hızlı erişmenizi sağlayan, bir nevi başlat menüsü. 2. pakette ise OpenOffice yerine AbiWord kelime işlemcisi bulunuyor. 3. paket içeriği ise şöyle:

• Mozilla Firefox (tarayıcı)
• Mozilla Thunderbird (email)
• Mozilla Sunbird (takvim)
• ClamWin (antivirüs)
• Sumatra PDF (pdf görüntüleyici)
• KeePass (şifre düzenleyici)
• Sudoku (oyun)
• Mines-Perfect (oyun)
• CoolPlayer+ (müzikçalar)
• PNotes (not uygulaması)
• OpenOffice.org (ofis uygulamaları)

1. Paketi(1Mb/1.3Mb) indirmek için buraya..

2. Paketi(46Mb/150Mb) indirmek için buraya..

3. Paketi(124Mb/355Mb) indirmek için buraya..

İndirilebilir tüm portable programların listesini görmek için buraya..

Platformu ya da Suite‘ i yüklemek için istediğiniz versiyonu indirin ve çalıştırın. Kurulum klasörü olarak flash diskinizin ana dizinini seçin, mesela F:\. Platformu Türkçe kurabilirsiniz.

Diskinizdeki programları çalıştırmak için diskinizin ana dizinindeki StartPortableApps.exe uygulamasını çalıştırmanız yeterli. Zaten varsayılan olarak Windows flash diski taktığınızda ne yapmak istediğinizi soracaktır.

Platforma uygulama eklemek için PortableApps menüsünü açın. Seçenekler > Yeni bir uygulama kur‘ a tıklayın. Açılan pencerede indirdiğiniz programı seçip aç‘ a tıklayın.

Veri kaybetmemek için flash diskin tüm uygulamalar ve platform kapatıldıktan sonra çıkarılması önerilir.

امروزه وسايل قابل حمل مانند : MP3 Player,موبايل و … با تار و پود زندگی ما گره خورده و ما هميشه و همه جا آنها را با خود داريم و از امكانات متنوع آنها استفاده می كنيم ، اما امروزه نوع ديگری از امكانات قابل حمل در حال گسترش است كه قابل لمس نبوده ولی تاثير خود رو بر روی زندگی‌ما دارند .                برنامه های قابل حمل (portable application) كه به اختصار (portable Apps) هم گفته می شه در يك تعريف  می توان گفت : “يك برنامه ی قابل حمل گونه ایی از برنامه های نرم افزای كامپيوتری است كه قابل اجرا از روی  دستگاه های ذخيره سازی برداشتنی مانند:CD-ROM drive,USB flash drive flash card, floppy disk هستند”.                                                                                                                                          برنامه های قابل حمل برخلاف برنامه های معمول كه برای اجرای آنها حتما بايستی عمليات نصب  (install) انجام بشه نيازی ندارن و كافیه اين برنامه های را روی فلش خود كپی و هر جا كه خواستيد به راحتی برنامه را اجرا و از آنها استفاده كنيد البته فراموش نكنيد كه همچون برنامه معمولی كه نياز به نصب دارند برنامه های قابل حمل هم ممكن است روی يك سيستم عامل خاص مانند : Win XP قابل اجرا باشند پس در انتخاب سيستم عامل دقت كنيد  .

لازمه بگم تنوع برنامه های قابل حمل كه اكثرا كم حجم و رايگان  هستند كم نيستند و شامل برنامه هایی‌ همچون :مرورگر، پخش كننده ، حذف كننده فايل های موقت و صدها برنامه ی جالب ديگه می شه ، اگه بدتون نمی ياد چندتاشون رو امتحان كنيد بريد به لينك ها ی زير كه مجموعه ایی از آنها را در اختيار شما قرار می دهد.

• portablefreeware‍‍Collection
• portableapps
• 55Portable Apps for Making a USB Super Stick
• (100Portable Apps for your USB Stick (for Mac and Win
• 24Killer Portable Apps For Your USB Flash Drive

امروزه وسايل قابل حمل مانند : MP3 Player,موبايل و … با تار و پود زندگی ما گره خورده و ما هميشه و همه جا آنها را با خود داريم و از امكانات متنوع آنها استفاده می كنيم ، اما امروزه نوع ديگری از امكانات قابل حمل در حال گسترش است كه قابل لمس نبوده ولی تاثير خود رو بر روی زندگی‌ما دارند .                برنامه های قابل حمل (portable application) كه به اختصار (portable Apps) هم گفته می شه در يك تعريف  می توان گفت : “يك برنامه ی قابل حمل گونه ایی از برنامه های نرم افزای كامپيوتری است كه قابل اجرا از روی  دستگاه های ذخيره سازی برداشتنی مانند:CD-ROM drive,USB flash drive flash card, floppy disk هستند”.                                                                                                                                          برنامه های قابل حمل برخلاف برنامه های معمول كه برای اجرای آنها حتما بايستی عمليات نصب  (install) انجام بشه نيازی ندارن و كافیه اين برنامه های را روی فلش خود كپی و هر جا كه خواستيد به راحتی برنامه را اجرا و از آنها استفاده كنيد البته فراموش نكنيد كه همچون برنامه معمولی كه نياز به نصب دارند برنامه های قابل حمل هم ممكن است روی يك سيستم عامل خاص مانند : Win XP قابل اجرا باشند پس در انتخاب سيستم عامل دقت كنيد  .

لازمه بگم تنوع برنامه های قابل حمل كه اكثرا كم حجم و رايگان  هستند كم نيستند و شامل برنامه هایی‌ همچون :مرورگر، پخش كننده ، حذف كننده فايل های موقت و صدها برنامه ی جالب ديگه می شه ، اگه بدتون نمی ياد چندتاشون رو امتحان كنيد بريد به لينك ها ی زير كه مجموعه ایی از آنها را در اختيار شما قرار می دهد.

• portablefreeware‍‍Collection
• portableapps
• 55Portable Apps for Making a USB Super Stick
• (100Portable Apps for your USB Stick (for Mac and Win
• 24Killer Portable Apps For Your USB Flash Drive

It turns out, it is “really-really-ridiculously” easy to create your own U3 applications! The good folks at eure.ca have made available a tiny application named “PackageFactory” that does this magic (free of cost!).

Note that the application you are trying to convert to U3 must be self contained. i.e., It should not depend on the registry and/or be tied to absolute directories. Applications that are built for PortableApps are therefore excellent candidates for conversion to U3.

(Please be aware that you can create a “thinstall” of ANY application.. and then convert the resulting .exe file into a U3p file using PackageFactory!).

Here’s an example of how you can use PackageFactory to create a U3 version of the wildly popular password storage tool KeePass:

1. Download and install PackageFactory

2. Download the Zip package of the latest version of KeePass (ver 2.08 as of this writing) from the KeePass website

3. Extract all the contents of the downloaded zip file into a folder on your computer:

4. Launch PackageFactory :

5. Drag and drop the KeePass.exe file from the downloaded folder into the area marked for the purpose on the PackageFactory screen. Add/Edit the Program name and description fields as required, and then click on the “Create” arrow:

6. The program then creates a .u3p file and prompts for a location to store the newly created file.. Select your desktop, and hit the “Save” button.

7. Click on the U3 icon on your taskbar. Then, click on “Add Programs” and select “Install from my Computer”:

8. In the “Open File” dialog box that pops up, select the keepass.u3p file that you created (Step 6)

9. This will create the necessary scaffolding on the portable/USB device for “Keepass” … note that the application is still not ready to launch .. We have not yet added the required support files.

10. Navigate to the System/Apps folder on your U3 device, and locate the folder containing the KeePass.u3p file(This is a hidden folder.. so, you may need to update your folder options to show hidden files). It should look like:

11. Copy the remaining KeePass support files from the extracted Zip file into the “Data” subfolder (K:\System\Apps\60F08E21-C250-4FDD-A804-CA25DD2892E2\Data in my case). Finally, the folder should contain ALL the files (and folders) that were present in the Un-Zipped (step 3 above):

That’s it! You should now be able to launch KeePass from your U3 Launch applet!

Tip: You can actually convert the PackageFactory application into a U3 file using the same process and keep it handy on your USB device for future projects

PortableApps provides portable versions of popular applications such as Firefox, OpenOffice, Pidgin, GIMP, VLC, and FileZilla.

By Portable I mean that you don’t need to install it but just unpack it in a drive and voila.

So PortableApps has issued recently a new beta version for their Platform 2.0 release Download here.

There are a few enhancements in the new version: switch themes, transparency -desing stuff, often-used apps movility o top of menu, and unistall funcionality.

via WebWorkerDaily

PortableApps has issued a new beta version of its Platform 2.0 release, downloadable here. If you’re unfamiliar with PortableApps, I covered it previously here. It’s a suite of pre-selected free, primarily open-source applications that you can stick on a USB flash drive. It’s especially popular as a way to store many useful applications on a pocketable drive, so that you can work anywhere, from any computer. It’s only available for Windows (s msft) at this point, but if you tote any type of portable drive, it’s worth having. Here are some of the details on the new beta.

You can find an exhaustive list of the enhancements in the new version of PortableApps here.  Among them is the ability to switch themes, with many available color schemes, and to set the transparency of menus to your liking. One very handy new feature is that you can move your most often-used applications to the top of the menu of apps, so you don’t have to scroll for favorites. You can also uninstall any application from the suite by right-clicking on it, and selecting “Uninstall.”

I carry PortableApps on a flash drive, and like to use the suite on netbooks, because the applications have small footprints, and open and close quickly. In the new version, you can check any drive you’re using the suite on for errors, too.

One of the best things about PortableApps is that the (primarily open source) applications included in the suite are hand-picked and are generally very good. In fact, if you get the suite, you may just fall for one of the applications you try, and start being a full-time desktop user of the app in question.

Among many other applications available in portable versions, with launchers that let you run them from the drive you store them on, you get:

• 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)
• Mozilla Thunderbird – Portable Edition (email client)

You should note that the beta is just a testing version, but it is stable, and it’s a quick download. Especially if you’re a fan of the PortableApps suite, you may want to try it out. There are a couple of known issues with the beta, but they’re minor, and you can view them at the bottom of this page.

What are your favorite apps in the PortableApps suite?

Google瀏覽器的好用，
短時間就迅速竄起囉！

但是用習慣免安裝軟體的人，
對於習慣使用 portable 軟體，
沒有 chrome 真的挺辛苦的，
chromium ，
給了我們另一個選擇唷！

chromium 是 chrome 的開發版，
雖然是開發版，
聽起來像不穩定的版本，
不過對於單純上上網的人來說，
應該是還可以啦！

最重要的是，
免安裝！

直接到 http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/ 下載，
就可享受免安裝 chrome 的樂趣了！

PS:chromium 還不只支援 XP 唷，也支援 Linux 唷！

免安裝軟體愈來愈多、愈來愈好用，
這邊介紹幾種用來管理免安裝軟體的免安裝、選單式的–整合軟體。

1. PortableApps http://www.pegtop.net/start/
   
2. Pstart http://www.pegtop.net/start/
   
3. Asuite http://sourceforge.net/projects/asuite/
   

以上幾種是不錯的可攜式軟體的管理軟體。

另有一種 CodySafe ，( http://www.codyssey.com/products/codysafe.html )
這個軟體較新，
但是不是免安裝，
必須 Install 之後再來將軟體管理到 USB 隨身碟去。

If you happen to carry a USB thumb drive or a netbook for mobile work, you’re probably already familiar with PortableApps. It’s a collections of great open-source applications in one free download. Many of the applications are lightweight, portable versions of larger applications that come complete with launchers that make it easy to run the applications anywhere — even if you’re not on your own computer.

The team at PortableApps regularly updates the already good-collection of titles in the suite, and this week added two new applications: Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition, and VLC Media Player 1.0, Portable Edition.

Even if you don’t use the whole PortableApps suite, these are outstanding applications for a portable drive or a device such as a netbook. Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition comes bundled with a PortableApps launcher, so you can launch it directly from a USB thumb drive and have Firefox available with all of your customizations, no matter where you are. It syncs with your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords so it provides a lightweight portable facsimile of your normal Firefox setup. You can find installation instructions and usage tips for Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition at the bottom of this page.

VLC Media Player has long been one of the best open-source applications available for multimedia content, especially video. It’s compatible with nearly every video format found online, even the more obscure ones from remote parts of the world. It’s also out in a new version 1.0, which we covered on the OStatic blog. The new version now does live recording and has instant pausing and frame-by-frame playback. There are also new HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, and more). VLC Media Player is also good as a way to broadcast streaming video content on the web, which is a trend on the rise in businesses and entertainment arenas alike.

You can now download the Portable Edition, Version 1.0 of VLC Media Player here. Its tagline is “play your media anywhere,” because it will fit snugly on even a small USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive or netbook.  It also won’t leave a history of your usage on any computer you choose to use it on. The updates in version 1.0 are substantial, and even if you normally use another media player, version 1.0 of this open-source offering is good to have in both the full release and the Portable Edition.

Which applications would you like to see made into Portable Editions?

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition

your browser, your way… in your pocket™

Mozilla Firefox_®, Portable Edition is the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser bundled with a PortableApps.com Launcher as a portable app, so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you.

PortableApps.com Suite and PortableApps.com Platform

your computer, without the computer™

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a complete collection of portable apps including 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 integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you’re ready to go.

Portable & Private for Me

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

My Settings, Anywhere, My Way

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

Free to Use & Share!

The PortableApps.com Suite and Platform is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn’t a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don’t even have to give out your email address. It’s 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share.

Download Now!

I’ve written before about the PortableApps suite of mobile applications, which is a convenient way to put many free, open-source applications on a USB thumb drive, or any portable drive, in one download. Once the applications are on your portable drive, you can use them from any Windows-based computer, anytime. USB thumb drives offering lots of capacity have become very inexpensive, but what if you have an older one with less capacity, or a drive that’s nearly full? If that’s your situation, Tiny USB Office is a solid suite of tiny applications that, at only 2.5 megabytes, can give you a lot of functionality on virtually any drive.

Tiny USB Office contains small, portable versions of common Windows applications in several useful categories, and they load and unload like a charm from any portable drive. In the suite, you get:

• Database Creation (CSVed)
• Data Encryption (DScrypt)
• Email Client Software (NPopUK)
• File Compression (100k Zipper)
• File Sharing (HFS)
• File Transfer (FTP Wanderer)
• Flowchart Creation (EVE Vector Editor)
• MSN Messenger Client (PixaMSN)
• Tree-Style Outliner Software (Mempad)
• PDF Creation (PDF Producer)
• Password Recovery (XPass)
• Secure Deletion (DSdel)
• Spreadsheet Creation (Spread32)
• Text Editing (TedNotepad)
• Word Processing (Kpad)
• Program Launching (Qsel)

The applications in Tiny USB Office are definitely not full-blown replacements for the applications you normally use, but they’re not intended to be. Instead, they are tools you can keep in your pocket, like a Swiss Army knife, to get most common computing tasks done when you need to. For example, the Kpad word processor looks and feels a lot like Windows Notepad, and isn’t meant to be a replacement for a full word processor. But Kpad is perfectly fine for composing a blog post while on the go, or reporting from an event.

Some of the applications are very tidy, focused and useful tools to have on hand, and you may come to like them. The EVE Vector Editor, for example, is a very simple way to do on-the-fly flowcharts, and PDF Producer does quick and easy conversion of files to PDF.

I’ve come to depend on my USB thumb drive for mobile use, and many owners of netbooks are increasingly using them to add a little local storage capacity. No matter what type of portable drive is available to you, Tiny USB Office is one of the leanest, meanest way to get lots of tasks done on the go.

What apps do you have on your thumb drive?

PortableApps, which allows you to carry around your favorite open source apps on a USB stick is one of the coolest projects out there.  Today we will look at CodySafe which is a similar project that gives PortableApps some competition.

Installation

Installation is pretty straight forward following the install wizard, there are tool components that are optional but I recommend installing them because they are pretty neat.

Then you obviously want to make sure you are installing to the correct portable USB drive.

Starting Out

Unlike PortableApps there is are no applications installed by default.  You will have the drive tools and folder directories but that is it, you will need to add applications individually.  Also notice the menu has a Vista interface look and feel to it.

When you do click to get more applications it bring you to codyssey.com where you can browse through different categories.  You are also urged to use sites such as portableapps.com, portablefreeware.com, and pendriveapps.com.

Installing Applications

Let’s take a look at adding an application developed by Codessy called Freeraser which is a file shredder that will securely delete data.  When running the install wizard make sure to select portable for the installation mode.

Again make sure you are installing it to the correct USB drive that CodySafe is installed on.

After the installation is complete you will see the new app in the start menu of CodySafe.

Additional Features

As previously mentioned there are some cool additional tools that can be installed such as Drive Doctor that will scan and repair sectors on the USB drive.

Here is a look at the other tools available in the CodySafe Control Panel.

Conclusion

CodySafe is a cool new way to transport and access your favorite portable applications.  The user interface is visually appealing and is very easy to use.  The author points out “CodySafe was developed in full compliance with PortableApps platform and, therefore, any application downloaded there and installed to the CodySafe-enabled drive will be fully functional.”  Right now the project is still in beta and some might find it a bit time consuming to download and install a bunch of new applications that are included in portable apps by default.  If you have the time and gumption CodySafe is definitely a fun new toy for portable applications.

Download CodySafe