PortableApps
Those of you that are unhappy with the software provided on the college computers (outdated stuff like IE 6 and Mozilla 1.5 web browsers) may want to set up a USB drive with the Portable Applications software suite so that you can run other programs.
It’s easy to do this — visit the PortableApps.com web site and download either the Suite (easiest) or the PortableApps tool plus the specific applications you want and install them to your USB drive.
Now when you insert your USB drive, you’ll have a new option in that dialog box — Start PortableApps. Click that and it’ll bring up the PA menu; choose your application from the list and you’re ready to work!
I recommend making sure you get Firefox, Pidgin, ClamWin, Sumatra, and either OpenOffice Writer or AbiWord at a minimum. On my own USB drive, I put the Suite and then added FileZilla, 7- Zip, and Notepad++ for the web development work I often do. I’ll probably add Thunderbird and the GIMP eventually, once I clean off some of the junk (I do have a 2GB drive, but still…).
