A couple of months back I came across a handy bundle of 37 essential PC Repair tools which easily fits on a 32MB USB Flash drive making it a really versatile and highly portable PC Recovery kit. I've been out on the hunt since then for more of such useful tools and recently came across this entire productivity suite which can be carried on a flash drive and worked on using any computer.

The suite is called Portable Apps and the tightly integrated bundle can be downloaded for free from their site. The bundle contains a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, anti-virus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all pre-configured to work portably - right out of your thumb-drive.

Installation is extremely easy - can be carried out almost blindfolded. You're good to go as soon as you unzip the package on your portable drive. The full package even includes a XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin) integrated web-server, portable GIMP, Media Players like Audacity & VLC and miscellaneous compression utilities, HTML Editors like NVU & Konqueror, the full OpenOffice Suite etc.




Portable Apps suite comes in two flavours - Standard and Lite, none of which would fit on a measly 32MB flash drive. The Lite version, which is approx. 30MB in compressed form takes up around 105MB after installation. The Standard version can eat up almost 260MB space. While you just might be able to fit it on a 256MB drive, you'd be left with very little work space. The whole purpose of portability is defeated if you can't carry your work around. I'd suggest at least a 512MB drive to give you some decent breathing room.

The advantages / conveniences of this suite are limitless. They've put up a nice summary on their site... to which I don't think I can add much. So I'm going to quote it verbatim.

Possibilities

• Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks
  
• Carry your calendar with all your appointments
  
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
  
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
  
• Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
  
• Carry your anti-virus program and other computer utilities
  
• Carry all your important passwords and account information securely
  

The Convenience Factor

• Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
  
• Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
  
• Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
  
• Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems
  

If you're a supporter of the Open Source movement, you'd be happy to know that all the applications included in this package are built around the very same concept. What more - every other week, the guys at PortableApps keep introducing new utilities bundled in PortableApps compatible format - all ready for download and installation.


What are you waiting for? Get Portable Apps today...

Since I started my Electronics-ICT studies I started to need something like this, so the first thing I did was getting myself a 1Gb flash drive . I must say it's getting an addiction to put as many of my applications on it (since a lot more apps can run from a USB stick, like Opera, Notepad++, ProcessExplorerNT, DevC++, ...), like this I can happily work with my prefered applications at school (since we have to work with InternetExplorer, wich is slow and doesn't have mouse gestures like Opera does).
Unfortunately my USB drive isn't exactly fast, some of my applications feel slow, just because they have to wait for the flash drive, so if I can give you an advice, spend some more money on a faster drive (especialy if you want to run oOo, it's over 100Mb in size and it loads terribly slow)

Yeah true... luckily enough, just a couple of days before I found this suite, I'd bought a 4GB USB 2.0 flash - works at decent enough speed. I got another 40GB pocket USB drive. I've got this suite installed on both.

It'd be too much to expect a USB drive to perform as fast as your local HDD. I guess the convenience you get out of carrying your work along like this kind of compensates for the lack of speed.

this is something i need i have just placed them onto my flash drive for if i ever need them at college or anywhere else.
say if i am at some ones house who doesnt have an internet browser. that might happen if they deleted some files that ie needs and didnt ahev another browser i could plug this in an volia they have an internet browser to go and get one to put on their computer.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Answer:Screeech.... Thump. We will never know. .Solitude ...more

Hello All, I wanted to know what you think is best. If you have tried Streets and trips 2006 and or Road atlas USA 2006. Does anyone know which is best? Anybody have an opinion on these softwares. Im taking a big trip wanted to know which i should buy thanks G ...more

This is a great tool created by Google with Nike for all football (soccer) lovers worldwide! Check it out, it's a must get! It updates the worldcup scores and inform you whenever there's a goal! It also have links to tonnes of football videos that you can grab off Go ...more