Portable Softwares and USB Pen drive - Made for Each Other!

UBS and Portable Softwares Just 2 days before, I returned from my week-long trip to Bhilai. Before leaving I knew I would be missing my PC and all the luxuries of a personalized system. The only option was to use my dad’s laptop to be able to keep posting here.

Enter portable softwares.

While new softwares and upgrades are launched on a regular basis, on a parallel note, their portable versions are also coming out to help those who travel a lot and have to use public computers as a rule. These softwares came to my rescue and I was able to continue with my blogging without interruption through the laptop.

What are portable softwares?

These are nothing but the same popular softwares that you have been using till now. They are reduced in size to become portable so that they can run all by themselves without needing any user files stored in the Operating System. Hence you can use these softwares on almost any computer supporting the platform it was designed for (usually Windows or Mac). To be able to keep these softwares with you at all times, you need a portable storage device as well - the USB Pen Drive.

USB Pen drives are easily available nowadays. They can range from 2GB to lots of GB’s depending on how much you can lay your hands on! But even a 2GB pen drive is more than enough to store all the softwares you would need to work on an alien computer.

Why do you need Portable softwares?

As I said before, portable software help you to work on any compatible computer without hindrance. What if your favorite software is not installed on that computer? Just plug-in your USB and you are good to go!

Apart from that, they are important from the point of view of security as well. Working on a friend’s or cafe’s computer can be unsafe as the computer might be spying on you. Portable softwares ensure that you need not use programs installed on that machine. Here are some security tips for public computers.

Few Must Have Portable Softwares

PortableApps is an excellent resource where you can find all the softwares to use on your pen drive.

Internet Softwares

Mozilla Firefox - The best browser is portable!
Mozilla Thunderbird - You need not leave your emails behind. Good for those who use it.
Pidgin - Don’t stop chatting on the move.
FileZilla FTP - A lifesaver for bloggers. Useful if you need FTP access.

Office Softwares

OpenOffice.org - This is really useful word processor but quite big in size. There’s an alternative.
AbiWord - Smaller alternative to OpenOffice.
Mozilla Sunbird - For all your organizational chores.

Audio/Video Softwares

Audacity - Quick Audio Editor
VLC Media Player - All time solution for watching videos. Life saver!
VirtualDub - Video editing tool.

Utilities

Keepass - For storing all your passwords.
ClamWin - Small anti-virus tool. Always ensure safety of your pen drive from viruses.
7 - Zip Portable - For quick archiving of files.
Irfanview - All-time image viewer.

There you go, these softwares should fulfill all your needs of portable computing. The Portable Applications website has some wonderful packages as well to install all of them instantly and a nice autorun menu for easy interface.

Something to Remember

Whether you are a professional or just a little-bit-interested-in-computers person, get yourself at least a 2GB pen drive and have these softwares installed. With this in your bag (or neck…!) all the time, you would find yourself comfortable working on any computer. The simplicity that it brings is the reason why it is included in Zen Computing!