Portability - Part 3

As I began this series of blogs on portability, and, more importantly, started using portable software for my own benefit, I didn't realize the depth of the subject. There are hundreds, if not thousands of portable applications out there available to make your computing life easier and more productive. And the scope and sweep of this relatively new area in computing is getting bigger and bigger. In this issue, I plan to tell you about a few of the applications I have found to be pretty darn good at what they do. I also plan to cover some up and coming portable applications in future blog when they actually come to market...and there are some very interesting ones now in beta. But, let's begin with some applications that might be useful to you right now:

Avast! Portable

After the last blog, two readers inquired about the dangers of sticking your portable USB drive into computers other than your own. That is a very valid question, and, in fact, if you do that a lot, you will more than likely catch a virus. But there are solutions. In the PortableApps Suite that I wrote about last time, there is an anti-virus software included called "ClamWin." It is one that I had not heard of prior to discovering PortableApps Suite, and in doing my research, I found a few users who report that the software gave out some false positives when doing scans. For that reason, I deleted it from my USB drive. But, there is a great, free anti-viral software out there that I have used for years and now comes in a portable version. Avast! is a free program that has been around for some time and upgrades its virus definitions on a daily basis. It has done a good job for me and millions of other users for a long time and now is available for your portable drive. You can read more about it and download it from this Web site.

Debrief

To put it briefly (no pun intended), Debrief is a note-taking application that allows you make notes, or cut and paste useful info from web sites and e-mails. You then can organize them into categories that appear on the left side of your screen. I like this easy-to-use program a great deal, although I must admit I am starting to use a different program now that I will tell you about in an upcoming blog. But for simplicity and ease of use, this one is hard to beat. Read more about it and download it from their Web site. Again, the portable version is free, although there is a paid professional version that is also available.

EssentialPIM

If I wasn't so in love with Lotus Organizer, EssentialPIM is the program that I would use as a personal information manager. In fact, I did use it for a while until I broke down and purchased Organizer. The curious thing about the software is that you pay $29.95 for it if you want it installed on your computer, but the portable version is free. Go figure. Anyway this software package is similar in so many ways to Microsoft Outlook (without the e-mail). It has separate sections for your calendar/scheduler, to-do lists, address book, and a note taking section similar in layout to Debrief. In addition, there is a "Today" page that opens automatically when you access the program that gives you a complete overview of your schedule and to-do lists. The one thing I really like about this program that you just don't see in other programs is its color. You can create different colors for different categories and the colors are assigned to your schedule making it easy, useful, and more pleasurable to use. This program is definitely better than the Sunbird software that comes with PortableApps. Check it all out for yourself at their Web site.

PokerTH

OK...this one is for fun. If you have ever wondered if you are a good poker play, try this out and see. It is free and won't cost you anything to find out the truth about your skills. The game is Texas Hold 'em and you can set several parameters for the way you play the game. It is fun to try and play and it helped me figure out quickly that I should never play the game for real money. But I love to play it for a few minutes when I need to take a break from life. I look for a decent hand, then go all-in to see what happens. You can download it at the PortableApps Web site.

Pidgin Portable

Pidgin is probably the best software you can use if you are into instant messaging. As is usually the case, your circle of friends and family probably use different software that don't mix, such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Jabber. Pidgin allows you to use all of these under one program rather than having to install one of each. It to is available for free at the PortableApps Web site.

IrfanView and GIMP

These are free software products that do an excellent job for manipulating and improving your photographs. They are now available in portable versions. I have written about both of them before and for free, you just can't beat them. And, they are a whole lot cheaper than Photoshop!. You can download GIMP from the PortableApps Web site. IrfanView is available from the Softpedia Web Site.

As I said earlier, there is a ton of portable software available, many of them for free. Do a Google search and you will see what I mean. Check out Softpedia, Pendriveapps, Portablefreeware, and of course, the PortableApps Web site. And remember, any program you choose can be added to your PortableApps menu by installing it from your USB drive rather than your regular hard drive.

As I side note, I have been running the beta versions of new FireFox 3.0 on my USB drive. Doing it this way, one can try out the new version and not interfere with the installation of stable version 2.0 on my computer. It's pretty cool, by the way.