Hi all,
Let me start out by saying how much I love portable apps and the freedom it gives me to work mobile. I've been toying with the idea of using portable apps on my computer (Vista) instead of the larger downloads of OO, Firefox and other software I can easily run through PA. The idea is to have a hard drive that is light because of PA and therefore performs much faster, plus I would end up with less digital clutter.
I like your input on this please?
Is my thinking on the right track or not?
Cheers
Monika
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you're on the right track. I've done this with my latop as well, except I used a full install of FireFox so it can setup extensions and things that I don't know how to do.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
thanks Oliver. I like your suggestion of using a full install of Firefox for the same reasons you said. Is it possible to sync my PA Firefox bookmarks with the full install on my laptop at all so that I carry the same version away from home whenever I go?
Monika
yes, you can. It can be slightly tricky, but it can be done. There's instructions over here. Just do the instructions in reverse.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Monika,
I have found it so much easier to use multiple computers since loading them with PortableApps. Now all I need to do is copy the \PortableApps folder from the root of my USB device to the root of my hard drive and create a shortcut to the platform (C:\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\PortableAppsPlatform.exe) and I have my full productivity suite up and running in no time.
I always kept my Firefox bookmarks everywhere by using the delicious online service, and its FF extension - this works just fine on Firefox Portable. I use the PortableAppsUpdater to keep the suite on each computer up to date. If I have made any important changes to my Firefox configuration I use FEBE (FF environment backup extenstion) to move the changes from one computer to another, or back to my USB device. And if I don't fully trust the computer (used by clients, or worse, by the kids) I use the Firefox Tools menu to Clear Private Data.
The only disadvantage with not rushing back to grab my USB device (SD card actually) before using a different computer is how to make sure I get any changes to my personal data back onto the USB "master", but I'd already developed a simple workflow procedure to do this. So the irony is that PortableApps have helped me keep my digital life everywhere even when my USB device is elsewhere!
and it's saved me at least 2ce after system failures, where the hard drive would not boot.
When that happens, if the HDD is still OK, the cleanest thing to do is re-install the OS.
I was able to go in using a Live Linux CD (Knoppix) and copy the whole Portable Apps directory to an external drive.
Then all I needed to do was to wipe and re-install the OS on the HDD, and then copy the whole Portable Apps directory back again.
Voila! No SW reinstalls, and all my settings still the same.
BTW, even if your HDD is failing, you can often use Knoppix to get in and salvage your files.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
@ solanus: Not sure what type of Linux Knoppix is but what you said makes sense and sounds exciting too. I can't wait of running PA on my home machine now. Thank you for your input.
Monika
It started as Debian. In all likelihood it still is.
Many generally available Linux distributions are based on Debian, for example ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu, and the ububtu derivative MintLinux which some "purists" refer to as "ubuntu Vista"
I've seen IRC quit messages and forum sigs that have said "ubuntu is an African word that means I can't install Debian"
Klaus Knopper has packed as much into Knoppix as possible so as a live system it is enormous (700 megs compressed CD) and slow compared with a lean mean product like DSL (DamnSmallLinux) or PuppyLinux (around 80 megs). My favourite is Puppy as mentioned elsewhere, and it loads entirely into RAM if able and contains about everything you need to get out of trouble.
Richard
Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?
Klaus has redesigned Knoppix 6.0, with a different interface (LXDE) and a trimmed down list of apps.
http://knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix60-en.html
It's also way prettier.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
What you are thinking of doing is a good idea, and solanus has the reasons why. I myself do this on my university provided laptop so that I can just have the system drive reimaged, leaving my data drive untouched.
The easiest thing is then dropping a link a shortcut in the start up folder to the PA menu.
Limits are for people with no imagination.
@ Augi: Cheers, could you please elaborate what you mean by system drive re-imaged? Is that like a backup to do a re-install if the system crashes? Excuse my lack of knowledge with this.
Monika
Reimaging is a form or restoring a system or partition from a backup file. My university uses commercial Ghost software to create backups and restores the computers bit-for-bit as they were in the event something happens.
There are other programs for personal use, the one I use is called PING, short for Partimage Is Not Ghost, but it does what I need of it.
Limits are for people with no imagination.
Correctly it is called a "disk image" and most computer manufacturers in-house use image CDs or DVDs to install the already configured system on to a computer on the production line. Or they buy hard drives to which this has already been done.
In many cases when you use a system restore facility, often from a hidden partition, you are using an image created from Norton Ghost, which may or may not have the identity of the restoring software hidden from view. Some of Toshiba's laptops are a good example of a not well hidden application identity
I've not used PartImage (which I think is Open Source), but have an older copy of Norton's Ghost (which is commercial closed source software).
Something I've done for years now is make partition backups and/or drive backups using Ghost straight from an installation on each machine.
Often I will then do ghost snapshots "as-is" on a specific date on a regular basis. This makes for very much faster restoring of a damaged drive or partition than the cumbersome reinstall from scratch with all apps and drivers. Typically a quarter of the time, or even less.
I store all my ghosts from different machines on an old computer (IBM Aptivas do this well) which is on my LAN. Because of the size of Ghost files, the archive server has very much larger HDDs (typically 80Gb or even 160Gb, and several of them, running a Linux system called NAS-lite which looks to the rest of the LAN like a windows desktop as far as shares are concerned.
Ghost 2003 will recognise partitions formatted in ReiserFS, ext2 and ext3, FAT-16, and FAT-32. Later versions may include the various Unix filesystems, I'm unsure on that.
If you create an image in Ghost on to a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, if the resulting file is over the just-above 2Gb limit of FAT-16 partitions, it will create more than one file. The first always has the extension of .gho and subsequent ones (if created) will end in .ghs. Always keep them all together, preferably in a directory (I don't like the word folder), to prevent their getting seperated, because they will have no value or use if that happens.
Ghost actually copies files rather than sectors, which means it can be useful for removing illegal or unwanted files from a drive if you step back in time before they appeared, and also means an infection can be eliminated in the same way.
It comes with two levels of compression too, for reducing the size of the backup it creates. Backups can obviously only be made to a different partition or drive from the one you are backing up, or can be burned to CD or DVD - and spanning of volumes for huge installations can be done; it prompts to remove and insert a new CD or DVD at the appropriate time.
Altogether extremely useful. And I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone who looks after more than one computer - or even just one
Just a caveat though. Data can be irretrievably lost if the transfer is bungled. So it pays to understand what you are doing (specifically with filesystems) if you decide to do this.
Happy to discuss this if anyone wishes to do so.
Richard
not the Wizard from Oz
Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?
Another free imaging app is called Drive Image XML.
My hard drive is partitioned into three drives, one for Windows and all my apps, one for my data files and one for my C: drive backup. I backup my C: drive periodically, especially before I install any new software, thus if I don't like the new software or it screws up my system I do a restore from my backup and everything is back to the way it was. I don't loose any data since it is on a separate drive.
I also backup my data drive, just not as frequently as my C: drive. And every few months or so I copy the current backups to another pc.
It takes about 15 minutes to backup or restore my C: drive. A major requirement of this process is being able to boot a system that will have access to the C: and E: drives when doing a image restore. For this I use a Bart PE system.
I never have to reinstall apps. Doing clean installs and then installing reams of Windows updates then installing my apps and installing their updates then customizing things to the way I had them before use to take me DAYS. Imaging is so much faster.
Ed
It runs in Windows, backs up to CD or DVD, and is pretty fast.
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
I have an 8g flash drive and I use the portable apps nearly everywhere, on my laptop, company/vendor/client desktops, library PCs, PCs in public locations, parents PC, other family member's PC, friend PC, hotel lobby equipment, etc. This allows me the opportunity to use the same Apps everywhere and keep my data with me.
Sometimes, this does not always work because the client or vendor wants MS Office and once I found the USB ports locked down on one computer in a library, but the USB ports were available on other machines.
It is much easier to carry a flash drive than lug a laptop around.
Just my opinion and experience; yours or others may differ.
Bob
I goes without saying that PA on a USB is the best thing since sliced bread, but this thread isn't about whether portable applications should only be on a USB or internal hard drive.
In my and others' opinion, it is a good idea to have PA installed on computers, because of the convenience to backup the software; one need only copy the folder to an alternate location or non-system disc. Reinstall the OS or ghost the system drive, and everything is back to normal.
Limits are for people with no imagination.
@ Bob: Cool idea and I so agree with you. I'm actually a huge fan of the eeePc's and have a little mini 701 that is ideal for travel without the clutter and weight. While I like the idea of traveling with the USB stick and PA only, there are times when I need to write (I'm a writer) and therefore if I don't have access to a computer right away I lose my inspiration and ideas.
Monika
I use PortableApps.com at home. Sure, I have it on my 16GB flash drive I carry everywhere, but at home, on an external hard drive that doesn't get moved (it's the old kind that needs a separate power cord, but it's 300GB @ 7200RPM), as well.
Pretty much everything that we can run portably, we do. When I upgraded to Vista, I had shortcuts on the desktop for everything in minutes, and it was all preconfigured. The apps did not seem like they'd just been reinstalled, it was business as usual.
Two caveats:
One, we have two installations of Firefox and two of Pidgin. One for me and one for my wife. This means, every few days or couple weeks when a new Firefox comes out, I install it 3 times (don't forget the flash drive, which is not synced with the local one - they're two completely different profiles with different extensions and usage goals).
Two, we have a lot of programs. We use the R34 MOD menu for the folders. We need the folders. Actually we don't use the actual menu all that much, but when we do call it, we want to find what we want much faster. I'd like to say I'm using the official menu (and I am, on the flash drive) but at home it's different.
@NathanJ79: Wow, thank you so much for pointing me to the R34 MOD menu. I never knew of it until I read your comment and it is just that little bit of extra I was looking for to personalize my PA installation.
I also have tons of stuff I use on a regular basis and this will make it easier to get organized in a clean fashion.
Monika
I should point out that the R34 MOD menu is "unsupported" here and has "known bugs" for certain people, and that it uses an "outdated code base". John T. Haller, who runs this site and makes the original platform, and does a lot of other great stuff here, prefers that those points are made whenever the R34 MOD menu is mentioned. I've never had any problem with it myself, and didn't really intend to recommend it so much as just mention it, but as you took it that way, I felt the need to add the rest. It pretty much just means that R34 is a fork of the original menu and anything wrong it may do is not the fault of those here who work on the original menu.
PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 is supposed to have folders, and some other cool features that the R34 menu doesn't have, so whenever that comes out, hopefully the confusion will go away.
@ NathanJ79: Ok, I fully understand what you are saying and appreciate you did take the time to come back and add this. I shall keep my eyes out for 2.0 of PA then too as this would give me all I need from within the one suite. Once again thanks heaps.
Monika
If consumers start buying One Laptop Per Child type devices, it will jack up the price of everything else with higher power.
Aside from being off-topic, that doesn't make sense.
Average users don't need extra power, especially when they only use it for web browsing and document writing. Demand drives the market, so if there is a need for ultra portable, low resource netbooks, then the ultra powerful laptops would only reduce in price to look more promising. The powerhouse desktops and laptops aren't going anywhere, so why worry?
Limits are for people with no imagination.
I only use portable apps, except for a few system tooly things I like in the tray. Easy to restore from crash, (as mentioned) easy to install on new computer, can have same things on my computer, USB stick and external HDD (which I do.) Downsides are minimal compared to advantages.
I am not my signature.
On my USB key i use truecrypt (ie. all my portable programs are in one file), when i put in my key it asks for a password them mounts the TC file as a drive (i use v:\). Since there is only one folder on my key with the TC program files and the 4GB TC volume i back this folder up to my laptop. i got to thinking that i don't really need to install Firefox, pidgin, etc, as i have them in the TC file. TC works fine with the command line so i put a few cmd files in the folder like FF.cmd, my shortcut to Firefox points to this cmd file. This is the contents of the file:
@echo off
IF EXIST v:\StartPortableApps.exe GOTO runProg
TrueCrypt /v myTCfile /l v /m rm /a /q
:runProg
start /Dv:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\ FirefoxPortable.exe
exit
Ass you can see, it checks if the volume is already mounted (v:\), if it is it just runs FF (:runProg), simply. It's gotten to a point now where i can't stand installing programs (:
A few advantages:
1) Security, if my laptop gets stolen the thief can't use FFs remembered passwords to log onto any of my online accounts. Also you may like to know pidgin stores all your IM (e-mail) passwords in plaintext, eek!
2) Installing on another PC, all i have to do now is copy my TC folder to the new PC, i have a little cmd file that copies the shortcuts to the Quicklaunch toolbar. Copy folder, run cmd file, ALL my programs are installed, no configuring, no downloading all my add-ons, no having to put passwords into all your sites, it's so easy.
3) Paths, one big advantage i have found in using a TC mounted volume is that i know my programs will always be on the v:\ drive, even though it's portable.
4) A silly little advantage is you can run a few programs with one shortcut, just add more programs to the cmd file (ie, FF, Pidgin, Thunderburd).
Disadvantage: needs to be Admin to run TrueCrypt.
So i say YES, run everything portable, i can see no downside. If you can look into using TC volumes, especially on a laptop.