Portability - Part 2

In this edition, we take a look at some software to get you started on the road to portability. Just as a reminder, my definition of "portability" for these blogs is the ability to work on your most important data anytime, anywhere, on any computer...and to have all the computers looking at the most up-to-date versions of your work. The good news here is that all the software we are going to talk about today is FREE!!

Foldershare

I told you about this great software about 15 months ago. I continue to use it today on all my computers and it continues to be one of the most important parts of my portability scheme. There are two really good things about this program...first of all it is free...and second, it requires no additional hardware on your part. Foldershare is a Microsoft program that is easy to install and use. It runs continuously in the background, using the Internet to keep all your computers connected and sharing information. It's main job to keep your most important documents synchronized on the computers and files that you designate.

For instance, I installed my business accounting software on both my home and office computer. I use Foldershare to keep the accounting data in sync on both computers. So, I can work on my accounts at both my studio and home. As I save the data, Foldershare uses the Internet to keep the files in perfect synchronization. If the home computer is off, Foldershare will sync up any new data when the computer is turned back on. I also use it for all my spreadsheet and and word processing documents...but in this case I also have my laptop involved as I am always creating new data when on the road. I pick and choose what data is synched on what computer.

Another side benefit of Foldershare is that it acts as a backup of all your most important data. Lets say one of your computer's hard drives goes bad or your laptop is stolen. Your most important data is already backed up on one of your other computers. I also use it to continuously backup my wife's data from her computer to my external backup drive. It saves time and money as she does not have to worry about having a separate backup drive or remembering to back up her data on occasion. Foldershare can be downloaded for free from the Foldershare.com web site.

PortableApps

I discovered this incredible set of applications a few months ago and it has been an important part of my portability arsenal ever since. The PortableApps Suite includes several specially designed programs that are installed and run on your removable USB drive rather than your computer's hard drive. They include portable versions of Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail program, portable FireFox web browser, a calendar/address book software, Sodoku, a complete portable version of all the OpenOffice Suite programs, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program and several others...and a few other programs that you might find useful.

As I said, you install the program directly onto your portable USB drive so that the programs on it can be used on any Windows-based computer. I installed the programs on my own 2GB Lexar USB drive (about 1" long). After installation, I still have about 75% of my USB drive available for storage of the data created by these portable programs. I also store some other data on it that I use with software that is installed on all three of my computers. As an example, my Lotus Organizer software, which is my Personal Information Manager of choice, can't be installed on my portable drive, but the data can be and is. To make this work easily, I told each of my three computers to make my USB drive be recognized as Drive S:...and I told Organizer to access its data from drive S:. Very useful.

Regarding the software that comes as part of PortableApps, it is all good stuff. I think Thunderbird is a far better e-mail program than Outlook Express, and with its optional calendar
program, it even rivals Outlook itself. As far as the OpenOffice Suite goes, I have been using it for over a year on my laptop and I think it is fantastic. It is just as good as Microsoft's Office, it's free, and I can access and save data that was original created in Office. So having a portable version of OpenOffice is a real bonus.

I keep my USB drive in a certain pocket so I know where it is at all times when not plugged into one of my computers. So as I move from place to place, my major office-type programs are always with me. But, what if I lose my little USB drive? After all, it is only one inch in length. Fortunately, PortableApps comes with its own backup application, so I save my portable data to a backup hard drive every day so that if something happens, I can be up and running on another drive in no time. If I happen to travel someplace without my laptop, I can visit a cyber cafe and plug my USB drive into one of their computers and be up and running in a few seconds.

If all this sounds interesting, I suggest you head over to the PortableApps Web site to read more about it and maybe give it a try. You may discover that you like it a great deal. When you visit their site, you will see they carry several other free portable applications. In the next episode, I am going to talk about some of these other portable applications and a few others that are not listed.