USB Apps Update

Da Vinci — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:30:09 +0000

Portable apps have proven to be very popular and quite resilient in spite of the popularity of on-line apps. On-line apps like Google Apps, Zoho and Basecamp offer solutions for collaboration and portability, but there aren’t many good on-line solutions for applications like text editors, image editors, operating systems and browsers. Because of the need for these types of applications and the benefits of using USB apps I have been adding to my USB app collection. To be fair I have replaced some portable apps with on-line apps, e.g. I prefer Google Reader to GreatNews because desktop RSS readers become bloated and slow down as you add feeds, but at the same time I have discovered a few new portable applications.

SIW – System Information for Windows provides detailed information about your Windows computer, including hardware specs, software and drivers. SIW can reveal passwords and software serial numbers or registration keys. The information can be exported to text documents which is a handy backup to have.

Ad-Aware – Probably the best free spyware detection software. Ad-Aware can be made portable by downloading and installing as normal and then simply copying the installed folder to a USB drive.

Damn Small Linux – DSL is basically a fully functional desktop squashed into 50MB of space. It has a fairly friendly GUI and includes most of the typical applications one might need. What’s the purpose? It offers a rich set of tools that you can use on a locked down or problematic computer. There are many other alternatives (e.g. Bart PE portable or Ubuntu virtual appliance)

Da Vinci Planet » Damn Small Linux

USB Apps Update