Portable Apps - useful for internet cafes

Have just spent a lot of time frustrated with internet explorer in poorly-equipped internet cafes. Just re-found a cool little set of programs to use when using public computers, such as at internet cafes or libraries. Head over to portableapps.com to download the application suite. Basically, it’s a portable platform that runs miniaturized versions of a variety of internet- and productivity-related programs. That is, you can have a cf card (or thumb drive) or whatever portable media you choose that has all of the programs that you usually use, though sadly, no photo mechanic or photoshop, and you don’t have to worry about installing them or leaving anything behind on the computers you use in internet cafes (passwords, browsing history, documents, emails, etc.). There are a lot of programs that work in the portableapps environment—the firefox browser, the thunderbird email client, filezilla ftp, notepad++, open office, clamwin antivirus, and many, many more. Basically, it’s a way to save the time you spend trying to figure out windows in a foreign language, a way to use programs you find familiar, and a way to use a public computer in a safer way. Best of all, it’s free.

by M. Scott Brauer at Sun Oct 14 12:59:36 UTC 2007 (ed. Mar 12 2008) Nanjing, China | Bookmark this | Digg this |

Thanks for this, i was just wondering where to find them

by Andrew Wheeler | 14 Oct 2007 13:10 | Paris, France |

Thanks Scott. Do you know if are there some portable ftp and browser. I spend a lot of time another day trying to install an ftp to send some pix in an internet cafe.

by Hernan Zenteno | 14 Oct 2007 14:10 | Buenos Aires, Argentina |

Hey Hernan, the portable apps suite supports filezilla, which is an ftp client that can also do sftp; the nonportable filezilla is what I’d been using before I found out about portable apps, anyway, so it’ll get the job done for you easily. As for a browser, you can use a version of firefox with portable apps.

by M. Scott Brauer | 14 Oct 2007 14:10 | Nanjing, China |

A really useful image viewer that works either on your computer or from a memory stick is Faststone I use it now instead of Bidge…

Check out:
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

I did a mini review here
http://www.docphot.org/?p=22

Cheers

Martin

by Martin Shakeshaft | 14 Oct 2007 16:10 | Back home, United Kingdom |

I checked out FastStone, unfortunately, there is no mac version =(

by Jessica D. Korman | 14 Oct 2007 16:10 | New York, United States |

One great little tool is the JungleDisk.com USB drive program. You install it on a USB drive and it allows you to access your JungleDisk from any internet cafe. JungleDisk is an interface you can use to take advantage of Amazon’s S3 web service (basically unlimited redundantly backed up online encrypted storage). Check it out at http://www.jungledisk.com

-m

by Micah Walter | 15 Oct 2007 00:10 | Portsmouth, Dominica |