Ditch the laptop

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Monday , March 03, 2008 at 0205 hrs Notebook computers are continuously shedding weight but they still weigh a few pounds and it therefore becomes inconvenient to carry around the laptop on the shoulders. Do you really need your laptop wherever you go? Not always.

For instance, you are travelling for a business conference or to an internet cafe or a friend’s place that will definitely have spare computers but you still prefer carrying your personal laptop just because it contains all the software programs, application settings and data (like docs, photos, music, videos, etc).

If you are in a similar situation, it’s time to give your shoulders some rest—leave that extra ‘laptop luggage’ at home and just use a USB Flash

Drive (also called a pen drive or a thumb drive).

You are probably using USB drives to transfer documents and presentations but these tiny key chains can also be used for carrying software programs—plug it into any computer and start working as if it were your own PC. When you are done, eject out the USB drive and no traces of your computing activity are left on the host computer. All the changes in files and software preferences are also stored back onto the flash drive. Here are some resources to help you turn that USB drive into a personal computer.

PortableApps: This is a excellent collection of some useful programs like Firefox (for web browsing), OpenOffice (like Microsoft Office), Pidgin (for chat) and GIMP (for photo editing) designed to run from any removable disk without installation. PortableApps also includes VLC

Media Player that can virtually play all multimedia file formats.

Do checkout some other wonderful sites like portablefreeware.com and tinyapps.org for downloading apps that can run off your USB drive.

MojoPac: This program turns any USB drive into a self-contained Windows XP computer. First you need to install the MojoPac software on your USB drive. Then install all the applications, games and upload other files to the new MojoPac PC that resides on the USB Drive.

Now plug this MojoPac-enabled USB device into any Windows XP computer and you’ll see the same work environment.