Portable Apps

One of the best products that I have been given from work is TextHelp Read and Write Gold Mobile. It allows me to use students computers that they are familiar with during evaluations or training. I still go through the process of allowing the students to see all the options (WYNN and Kurzweil). So I started to think that there has to be some other applications that I can run from my portable drives.



With just a little searching I came across http://portableapps.com/suite. I am impressed with the list of applications that are on this list. I downloaded the Suite product. In the suite application you get the following the applications

• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)


• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)


• Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)


• ClamWin Portable (antivirus)


• Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)


• Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader)


• KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)


• Sudoku Portable (game)


• Mines-Perfect Portable (game)


• CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)


• OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)


• Writer (word processor)


• Calc (spreadsheet)


• Impress (presentations)


• Base (database utility)


• Draw (drawing)

I have been using these products on a thumbdrive that I had hanging around it is a 1 gig drive. The application worked seamlessly on any PC computer that I plugged into as long as they accepted USB products. Since I installed the suite and it worked well I decided to give the other apps a whirl.

The new apps that I have added is the accessibility products - on-screen keyboard and screen magnifier. I am not crazy about the magnifier but it does exactly it is meant to do. It has come in handy a few times for my consumers. The on-screen keyboard app just allows you to find the windows on-screen keyboard that comes with windows. The benefit to this feature is that if you are on a unfamiliar computer it will remembers your settings for sound, hover to select or click to select, always on top, keyboard layout and more as you move from PC to PC. One less thing to worry about.

There is only one educational app which is a fun little app called portable planetarium. It is a app that seems will get little use in the classroom. The app that I have to give props to portable apps for is giving GIMP Portable. If you like Photoshop, GIMP is a product that will do the same with less bells and whistles.

If you are a mobile consultant or student, this is a great little application to have on your jump drive. All your settings are saved so there is no stress of having things look different.