Six freebies to run off a USB thumb drive
(Kim Komando)


Did you know that a thumb drive can do much more than simply store documents? There are now a good number of essential programs that are designed to work from a thumb drive. They allow you to work on nearly any computer in a familiar environment using your own settings.

Portable programs don't require the installation process of traditional programs. Everything you need stays and works on your thumb drive. When you pick up and go, all of your work goes with you.

You can use portable programs to ensure that you don't leave traces of your work or Web surfing on a borrowed computer. The following are six useful portable programs:

1. A Web browser
Portable Firefox is a great way to surf the Internet from a borrowed or public computer more privately. You don't have to worry about leaving behind your browsing history. Another benefit is that you get to take your bookmarks (Favorites) wherever you go. Portable Firefox takes up 16.9 MB on a thumb drive.

2. An e-mail program
Portable Thunderbird is the full-feature e-mail program that you can take wherever you go. That means your address book and saved messages travel with you as well. It can be set up for multiple e-mail accounts and offers the mobile convenience of Webmail. You'll need 8.9 MB of space to put Portable Thunderbird on your thumb drive.

3. Programs like Microsoft Office
Portable OpenOffice.org lets you open and work on your documents from nearly any computer. It features a word processor, a spreadsheet, a slide presentation program, a diagramming program and a database management program. Each is compatible with documents from Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Access. So you don't have to take your laptop everywhere you go. If you want this portable powerhouse, you'll need 167 MB to spare on your thumb drive.

4. Adobe Acrobat-like PDF viewer
Foxit Reader is a small, capable PDF viewer. It offers basics like printing and keyword search. Pound for pound, Foxit Reader might even make a decent substitute for the much larger Adobe Reader on a home desktop. Foxit only takes up 2.76 MB.

5. Encryption
Anytime you take work on the road, you should secure the information from thieves. A great way to do this is through encryption. Even if you lose your thumb drive, your documents will be unreadable. TrueCrypt can encrypt everything on your thumb drive. TrueCrypt is not automatically portable, but it is easily made so. Read the steps on using Traveller Mode. The portable version will take up only 599 KB on a thumb drive.

6. Antivirus software
Portable ClamWin is an antivirus program that you can use anywhere. It can scan a hard drive, a folder or an individual file. The only catch is that it does not download updates automatically. Check for updates whenever you use an Internet-connected computer. Portable ClamWin takes up 15.1 MB on a thumb drive.

A free program, not portable, that will do essentially what Remote Desktop

does is tightVNC. It can be downloaded at http://urlsnip.com/141367. It works

on both Windows XP Home and Pro. In a situation where a user would like

to remotely control another computer, I (John Polich) recommend it.

http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html