Tag Archive: pen drive


After a few month of inactivity, I’m back with some comments on Portable stuff (in terms of technology, of course).

In the last few weeks portals like Android and Me and Engadget (If anyone knows others please share them with us) have been releasing a lot of news about tablets, android based for the most part. While I really think this is quite good, it’s also quite frustrating and limited.

For two years I’ve been a user of portable applications and games. Back in the beginning of 2008  I received my first U3 pen with 16 GB and another one, a DATAFERRY with 16GB. After a few months using, and loving, U3 I got tired off all the good applications where payed, and not that cheap most of them, so I changed to Portableapps.com, a free and opensource platform to take your applications with you. For instance, this post is being written on the portableapps version of Firefox.

Thanks to the possibility of taking all of my favorite applications with me, and having an Asus EEE 901 (20GB SDD) to tag along, I end up realizing that there’s a huge flaw in today’s software. Most software isn’t developed with Portable guys (like me) in mind. When you have a netbook with only 20GB available you start to rely on your pen drive for most stuff. And if you discover that you can carry applications in your pen drive instead of installing them on you pc, them you will understand my reasoning. Also, my EEE 901 has Ubuntu linux on it, being the core of the OS in the 4GB SDD and the HOME partition on the 14 GB SDD. If I went around and installed all the stuff I need I would run out of space in no time (and trust me, my installation of Ubuntu was 6 months ago and I only have 600MB out of 4GB free).

And if I’m going to a place where I know that I’ll have a pc available, I don’t want to carry my netbook with me (the screen is to small for a long term usage). So what’s my “solution”? Portable windows applications. If you go to any kind of torrent site you’ll loads of software, from the MS Office tools, to burning software, media players, games and other software. However, none (or very few) are legal copies of the software you want/need to use.

The way I see it, we are going to have a real battle between OS in the (very) near future. Mostly because they will all want to be the masters of Tablets, in the same way that Windows is the master of personal computers (I know there are a lot of Mac and Linux users around, but let’s face it, most of the computers have windows installed).

And if the event is inevitable, as I think it is, them, in my opinion, developers should start focusing on making their applications portable and able to run from a pen drive.

Just imagine the following situation:
We are a supervisor at a construction site, going around with your Windows tablet pc, taking notes and checking stuff, saving the documents and notes directly to your loyal high-capacity pen drive. You finish your walk-around and it’s time to show the results to your superior. Unless your superior has the programs you use to take the notes, you’ll have to show them on the tablet screen, that might not be the most comfortable screen to see it. But what if the programs you use are portable editions, that can easily run from a pen drive? You just un-plug the pen drive from your tablet, plug it on his computer and voila! You are now showing the result of your work on a comfortable 14″+ screen.

I hope I’ve made my point clear. In the near future we need legal and ready to use portable applications. As for me, I’ll continue to use the not so legal version (I actually own all the “portable” applications I use) but portable applications because I have to think about my health (specially my eyes).

Be well!

Francisco Ribeiro

How to Make a Portable Game System.

So I was surfing the web for portable games, i.e. games that I can run from a pendrive on any windows/wine computer and found this site. I haven’t try it out, but I just loved the idea of it, so I decided to share this you.

The concept is quite simple (of understanding at least). You take a normal game system, like genesis or Dreamcast and using a series of mods and tweaks, turn it in to a portable game system, similar to a psp or a Nds.

Now, I’ve always wanted to have a N64, to play Mario 64, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and so on, so I think is this time I’m going to give it a try.

On another topic, this blog is receiving a lot of visitors (as soon as I know how to post the chart I’ll do it). However the social vibe widget I’ve put on the side bar doesn’t register any movement at all. So I need to ask, are you unsensitive to the problem of hunger or you haven’t notice the widget. The reason why I’m mentioning this is that we all live in the same planet and we all need a Global Conscience.

Francisco Ribeiro

I’ve just started using Portable dropbox from http://greg.webhop.net/

After a long (and stupid fight) with the software I got it working and it’s simply great.

One of the greatest uses of dropbox is the possibility of having your files with you on the computers you use. The one disadvantages of the software is the usage of dropbox on computers that are not used just by you.

Now thanks to Greg and the guys at portableapps you can take, and use, dropbox on any computer that runs portableapps (have to try to run it on wine).

In order to use the great portable app you need to be a user of portableapps (of course) and download dropbox portable from Greg’s web site. Them  just install it as you would with any other portableapps application and just press next. After the application install start it from the portableapps menu, input your login information and press next (always next).

The syncs files will be on x:portableappsdropboxmy documentsmy dropbox (or something like this) you cannot change the destination folder.

Wait for the files to sync and your good to go. Dropbox on any windows computer 🙂

Conclusion:

Pros:

  • It’s a portable dropbox… what else can I say?

Cons:

  • Can’t choose the destination folder

Classification: 9/10

Links

Greg’s Portable Dropbox

Portableapps

Technical sheet:

  • Review written on the web application via “Firefox” 3.6.3 for Windows Vista
  • Computer used: Asus Laptop (don’t recall model) running Windows Vista