LifeHacker has compiled a great list of portable applications as part of a post entitled “Geek to Live: Carry your life on a thumb drive (or iPod).”
Some of our favorite self-contained, standalone applications that don’t have to make changes to the operating system to run include:
- Web browser: Portable Firefox, 7.55MB installed
Includes all Firefox profile information, like bookmarks and extensions.- Office Suite: Portable Open Office, 90.6MB installed
Spreadsheet, word processor and presentation software.- Email: Portable Thunderbird, 21.7MB installed
Email, address book and mail filters.- Instant Messenger: Trillian Anywhwere, ~34 MB installed (depending on the size of your Trillian profile)
Multi-protocol instant messaging client works with AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ and IRC.- Virus Scanner: Portable ClamWin, ~15Mb installed (with definitions)
Open source Windows virus scanner.- Remote Login: TightVNC (viewer executable only), 159KB installed
Log into your remote VNC server with the TightVNC viewer. See previously-posted feature, How to control your home computer from anywhere for more information on using the TightVNC viewer.John Haller’s excellent Portable Apps site also offers the Portable Apps Suite, which includes a web browser, email client, web editor, office suite, word processor, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client and FTP client and weighs in at a mere 117 megabytes (44MB for the Lite version).
Also, Adam recently covered how to run a CD-ripper and music player from your iPod so that you can listen to the music on your ‘pod without ever launching iTunes in his article, the self-sustaining iPod. (Remember, to use the iPod as a hard drive, in iTunes’ preferences pane, check off “Enable disk use” in the iPod tab.)
Hmmm… sounds like it might be time to get my own 1GB portable life device.
