The Backstory: In 2010, I have set a goal for myself to experience one new thing per week, every week of the year. Each week, I try something I’ve never done before, and then I document my experience here, regardless of whether I succeed or fail. Read more here.
Week: 29
The Challenge/New Experience: Create a portable application suite for USB thumb drive.
Hello again, Dear Reader. You know, one of the things that I strive for with this year-long challenge, tangentially, is not to have too many similar tasks in a row. I have a lot of “crafty” items on my list, a lot of cooking items, a lot of computer geeky items. I just did a computer geeky one last week, so it wasn’t my intention to do another this week, is my point.
But, I did anyway. I have plans for a pretty cool New Thing coming up in another week or so (something that needs to be done when I have a TON of free time and the right frame of mind), so I’ve been knocking out some smaller “filler” items while I try to arrange scheduling for the bigger one.
Anyway. Let’s talk about Week #30 — portable applications. A portable application is a smaller, scaled-down version of a software program that you can run directly off a USB drive. Couple of advantages to this:
- A portable application doesn’t make any changes to your registry or your hard drive, and uses up less of your PC’s resources to run.
- Helpful if you’re working on a computer where you’re not allowed to install your own software, like a work computer.
- Really really helpful if you’re troubleshooting problems on a friend or relative’s computer, which is so jacked up it won’t even allow you to download or install antispyware programs.
More about this task after the jump!
Continue reading 2010 Challenge, Week #30 – Portable Application Suite