OK this will be a brief post on how to get started with portable applications, explain how they work, and what you can do to get them running.

Now the first task is to download your portable applications. Most of the portable software out there is actually freeware and 100% legal. Now if you use freeware, (these are things such as Firefox, Thunderbird), you’ll be more than happy to know these are available in portable versions, now what this means to you is that from now on, you can carry your browser around with you, and so anywhere in the world have all your bookmarks, tool bars and whatever add-ons you like to use. With Thunderbird, you will always have your emails with you, all your templates and so on. Read more

It appears as thought Adobe has been working on making online applications. They made an online version of Premiere, it was not available for end users, however it has been embedded into websites. You can use it for simple video editing on youtube and PhotoBucket. Now with it’s success it appears as though they’ve been working on an online version of photoshop. It hasn’t been released as yet, however they have released a sneak preview. Here’s a screenshot:

I also found a link to a podcast that shows it in action. They show the demo at about the 16.10 mark.

The online version has been called Adobe Photoshop Express. I’m not sure if it’s designed to be embedded for use inside other websites like Photobucket, and facebook, or whether Adobe will allow us to use it, as is. I personally can’t wait, and will let you know as soon as I find anything.

I personally am a very big fan of anything that allows you to go mobile. Portable applications are one big step towards it. The benefits are multiple, you can take your applications anywhere, it’s secure, your software is only ever running on your portable drive, you control it, you can take it anywhere, it’s incredibly easy to backup, it runs on almost any windows station in the world, (hardware and os version dependent), I could honestly go on and on. It’s also come in handy when working on someone’s computer and needed to have a piece of software they didn’t have. And the software available is growing every day.

I’m going to try and bring to you as much information as I can on the topic, as well as software updates.

I was first introduced to portable apps about six months ago, and as it stands, I honestly don’t know where I was without it. Now I can go anywhere and bring all my work with me. My own browser, email client, even anti-virus.

Oh and what’ the best thing about all this? It’s 100% free, (so far anyway). The only thing you need is a usb drive, or other portable media.

The majority of my stuff I’ve gotten from www.portableapps.com however there are many other sites out there. This site targets windows users, however there are sites for mac, and sites for linux, (Actually for linux you can download live CD’s and usb versions of the OS).

Google has added Presentations to the Google docs family. It’s quite good for people like me who are gmail users and sometimes can’t be bothered loading up a separate application for the slide show, and just have it load up in another tab. Basically Presentations is an online application that allows you to view Powerpoint files as a web page, which is quite handy particularly if you tend to check your mail on the go, and I know it’s rare, but not every computer has powerpoint.

Personally I think it’s great that we’ve finally moved to an online suite that allows us to do our work online. It allows us to be able to do any work we like anywhere in the world. Running on servers that are more reliable than our home computer, which decreases the chances of data loss, and allows you to have it backed up in a reliable place, and also allows you to back up on to your local computer or to a flash drive. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve been caught in a situation where my computers drives malfunction and I have a document to print and am unable to print it because it is stuck on a computer with no way of getting it off. This was prior to the Internet days I know, but it is good knowing that there is a good chance I’ll never have to worry about that again.