Once you have the flash drive of your choice, it's time to stock up on the tools you'll need when you are away from your regular system. The term "portable software" usually refers to an application that can run from a single folder (usually on a removable device) without adding any files or Registry entries to the host system. Although this leaves out traditional behemoths such as Microsoft Office or Adobe's Creative Suite, you can still find a lot of handy, useful software that meets the portable requirement.

Your suite is waiting: If you want an all-in-one package of basics-spreadsheet, word processor, graphics you can have your pick of portable suites, all com¬pletely free (in some cases, donations are accepted). An excellent collection is PortableApps, which comes in two sizes: the 260MB Standard (on the DVD) and the 105MB Lite. The Standard version has a portable version of the Open Office suite, while the Lite version contains the AbiWord word processor instead. Both ver¬sions include an antivirus program, a Web browser (Mozilla Firefox), an instant messenger (Gaim), a sudoku game, a calendar and task manager (Mozilla Sun¬bird), and an e-mail client (Mozilla Thunderbird).



You can find another allin-one free collection in winPenPack (on the DVD). The winPenPack suites come in more flavors than Portable Apps does-Essential, 1Gb, School, Game, Web-and you even have an option to make your own. You can also download individual applications. The offerings fall into a wide range of cat¬egories, from office, Inter¬net, graphics, multimedia, and development to securi¬ty, system, and utilities. The choices include considerable overlap with Portable¬Apps; both offer Mozilla and OpenOffice products, for example.

What's for launch? Running your portable applications will be easier if you have a pop-up menu launcher. You'll find one on U3 flash drives, as well as in both PortableApps and winPenPack. In each case, an icon appears in the taskbar tray (the icon-studded area near the clock); click it to see a Start-menu equivalent that lists the applications on your flash drive.

Personally, I find the winPenPack launcher the most flexible and the easiest to customize. You can download winPenPack Launcher separately. If those launch¬ers don't meet your needs, you can try still another free portable-app launcher, Pegtop Software's PStart (on the DVD).

Roam the lands of the free:
Big collections are not the only place to find portable apps. Sometimes you can discover a portable version of your favorite program just by going to your
usual search engine and entering the application name and then "portable" as keywords.