Friday, January 13th, 2006, 3:01 am
Portable Applications
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One of the most unusual drives
T is worth bringing to people’s attention a new concept in computing: portable applications. Applications reside on a USB drive and can be run and used anywhere, any time on any modern computer which is capable of a USB boot. Data files can be stored on the device, unlike for example, most Live CD’s. The portable application Web site offers a large variety of programs. Below is the list of portable applications with equivalents on Sourceforge, some of which are under development:
- For browsing: Firefox
- For communication: Gaim
- For Web development/design: NVU
- As an office productivity tool: OpenOffice.org and AbiWord
- For diary/scheduling/PIM: Sunbird
- As a mail client: Thunderbird
It is not only applications that get mounted onto USB devices nowadays. Entire operating systems, notably Linux distributions, have become portable as well. I once mentioned this as an expectation for he near future in Computers as Relics and Computer Become Host. That’s where I expressed similar ideas that envisioned a USB-based or portable hard-drive-based operating systems. The concepts, which are very reminiscent of a Live CD, were brought to my attention via a reader’s comment.
