A few years back jump drive manufactures started making jump drives that were "U3 Enabled". These drives would auto start a Start Menu like program that listed portable applications that would run off your drive without needing to install your programs onto the computer. This was a great idea but there was some major problems. First, most of the software was proprietary and the free software was mostly worthless. Secondly, the drive took a long time to startup because of the way the software was implemented. Thirdly, it only came on select jump drives and couldn't be installed on any other jump drive. The free alternitive called PortableApps, has fixed all of these problems with an installable application that would work with any jump drive as small as 64mb and they offer their own launcher tool that takes much less time to load. Unlike U3, PortableApps has a ton of free, useful, software. You can install many of your favorite free programs such as OpenOffice, the Gimp, Notepadd++, Firefox 3.0, games, even software that can make your jump drive into a full web server and many more.
Having all these apps on a jump drive may sound nice but what is the real practical use for it? Think about it this way, you are on vacation and you are forced to use your cousin Lou's piece of junk computer. He doesn't have any of the software you need and his hard drive is so full that you can't install anything on it. If you have your trusty jump drive on you then all you have to do is plug it in and start up Thunderbird and check your email then if you use the Foxmarks add on for Firefox you can surf the internet with all of your bookmarks right there on your jump drive. While you are surfing you can start up VLC and listen to your music that you have on your jump drive. Then when you are done you can payback your cousin Lou by letting Clamwin clean out his virus infested computer because his OEM copy of Norton's has expired and he has been "Reminded Later" for the past 5 years. Then after his computer has been saved from every virus known to man you can start up VirtualDub and start making your vacation video and burn it to a DVD with InfraRecorder. Then, leave his computer completely unchanged (except for having removed his viruses). That is why everyone should be using PortableApps!
1 comment:
Thats a very interesting post. I have been inspired. Thanks.
Post a Comment