So, how many people have you converted to PortableApps or just portable applications in general?
Maximum PC got me, they reviewed the suite/platform and had it on their CD; I got it then.
When I got my third flash drive (my second good one) I loaded the first one up with copies of my wife's Firefox and Pidgin, and other apps she might find useful, and built her a custom suite.
We have a friend who doesn't have a computer, but borrows his aunt's computer to get online. We went out and bought him a 4GB flash drive and put a custom Suite on it, and some other stuff.
I've shown off my flash drive and what it does to co-workers, and three have expressed strong interest in it, and have said that either they'll check into PA on their own, or they'll get a flash drive and have me set it all up for them.
Tried telling my brother about it, but he's not interested. He'll pirate a program and tell me about it, and I'll be like "well there's this open source app, it's just as good..." and I think he drowns me out. But I try.
And of course I wrote the wikiHow article on Firefox Portable and contributed to various wikiHow articles about application portability.
Application portability is a big deal for me; it's both very cool and very useful. So hopefully some of my enthusiasm rubbed off on others and turned a few.
Anybody else have good stories about turning someone to PA or even FOSS in general?
[To use a GameFAQs fad] "inb4JTHclaimsusall"
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Me :lol:
A friend of mine got interested as i loaded in his computer my PFF (when i still used it) and now every app he discover, app he ask me abourt it being here portabilized. I'm still trying to convince him to enter the site himself 8·/
Could you please move this to the off topic forum? It's not really directly relevant here.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
Sorry Chris. You're right. I almost said I couldn't, then realized Drupal was a rarity among forum platforms that actually does allow topic creators who aren't power users or otherwise have elevated accounts to move their topics to a different board.
Anyway, one of the co-workers I mentioned brought in a microSD card plugged into a memory card reader, and was running the Lite version of the Suite. Menu was 1.5.2 and Firefox was 3.0.7. Firefox wasn't working, so I set it up to use the corporate intranet to get online... then installed Adblock Plus and showed him the homepages of yahoo.com and myspace.com. And copied over VLC. I thought that was included, but I guess not...? If I would have had more time, I would have set him up with the latest Firefox at least, if not the latest menu as well. 1.5.2 is fine, though. Maybe a theme.
just like 2 of my friends
one had a 4gb flash drive with u3, he liked it, but the apps were like years old and saw me and my PA.c system and we built a custom suite with a lot of apps that he liked
the other just liked the plain idea of having Firefox on a flash drive, carrying his favorites and history to any computer he would use (as long it had a spare usb port)
Of all the useless features that just make PA.c's Platform nice, but not inherently useful, the wallpaper swapper may have brought in a new user. I had the Platform set to use a custom wallpaper, and hide the desktop icons. A guy walked by and was admiring the "screen saver" (because there were no icons). He thought the "screen saver" was pretty cool, but had forgotten all about that when I showed him the menu and Firefox, VLC, Notepad++, and explained that it keeps all its settings on the flash drive.
It's amazing to think that there are still people out there who do not know just how cool flash drives can be.
Lol. There are still people that hardly know how to turn a computer on.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
I converted about 4 coworkers to PA for now, and they all use it daily like I do.
I tried to convert a neighbor... She asked my "Why do I need to have my personal information with me?"
I explained that she could have all of her bookmarks from Firefox on her flash drive, media, and even office tools, and she still didn't understand... I guess I couldn't convince her.
Hey! Where'd it go?
pa is much better than the dead U3
And... That has nothing to do with what I said.
Hey! Where'd it go?
... And last Friday, I had a high school student come pick up her laptop. We had to restore it to factory defaults, and that lacked ms word. Another Agent first set her up with AbiWord but she came back needing an excel spreadsheet editor. I installed OO.o portable on it. He installed the original later, thought OO.o portable was overkill, and deleted it.
When she came to pick up her laptop, she asked both of us if OO.o "could be put on a jump drive to open the files at school". I said yes.
Limits are for people with no imagination.
Congratulations, Geek Squad is awesome.
I bought a digital camera from Best Buy in CA in 2004. Little over a year later, it broke, through no fault of my own. I took it to Customer Service, and they said that because they couldn't make out the serial, I was S.O.L.. Not in so many words, but they couldn't help me.
Well, I was about to move to NC anyway, so I just took it as a loss. I was almost tempted to just buy another one, and write its serial down somewhere, but I didn't. I drove out to NC for the move, and a month or two later, after I'd transferred my identification and documentation and all that, I went into Greenville's Best Buy. Their Customer Service said pretty much the same thing, but a Geek Squad agent was nearby, heard what was going on, and made it his mission to get the serial number. He put it on a scanner, and used something like Photoshop to enhance the image. He tried a few things in the computer, and finally got my information to come up. I had the option to buy a new warranty -- which I took -- and I had to buy a new memory card, as the new one takes MMC and the old one took CF. Still, I went from a 3.2MP Canon Powershot to a 4MP Powershot, and a 256MB CF to a 2GB MMC for about $60 -- back in 2005. Not bad at all.
The camera acts up (shutter doesn't open fully, gotta prod it along with fingers) but still works. It's a year out of its extended warranty, but we're gonna buy a new camera anyway, and gift the old one, probably to one of the kids (niece or one of the nephews, I'm not a dad yet). There's no question where we're buying it. The Greenville, NC Best Buy is way too small, and cramped, but the people there are very nice and helpful. Opposite from the Santa Rosa, CA one in both regards (though I never messed with Geek Squad in CA).
A really cool setup for a customer with any kind of computer would be a local install of PortableApps (the best apps, kept up to date) as well as one on a flash drive, with all the Data directories synced, so when you plug the flash drive in, the files are all compared, the newer set copied over the older set. Have the local computer use Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird as default web and email, and files to open with their respective portable apps. Disable splash screens on the local install, but leave them on the flash drive.
My next convert is my brother. 3200 miles away, back in CA, he uses various computers. I tell him about the greatness that is PortableApps -- he says "**** it". Literally. That's his attitude about, well, a lot of stuff. Same thing when I try to explain the appeal of Rockband. Great guy though, just hard to get through to. He'd rather tell me I need to get an Xbox (the first one) and mod it, either to run Linux, or emulators and homebrew. (That does sound appealing. I just don't see the advantage to doing all that on an Xbox when a PC will suffice.) Anyway, I think if he were to get a flash drive and actually try it, I think he'd be sold. If I can get my hands on a portable hard drive, I'll erase my 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager, load it up with stuff he'd use, and send it on down his way.
Just talked to my brother out in CA, seems he's about to reinstall Windows. I'd told him about PA before, and he'd given me one of his favorite lines, "F*** IT", kind of a raised-voice but casual, I guess surfer-type tone. Well, this time around he was more interested in being able to reformat, and still have his Firefox (and other apps) configured and waiting. Pretty smart dude, I told him basically what I do and I think he's got it from there. I steered him away from the Suite, told him to get the menu alone (optionally, but helpful) and get apps a la carte. So far he's downloaded the menu and Firefox. I think he's running it on a 120GB WD Passport.
Side note: He tells me his "C" drive is actually a 500GB external hard drive. His internal 160GB drive Windows is installed on is his "F" drive. He has no idea why this is or how it got that way, but by all accounts it hasn't hurt anything.