Portable Computing, For The Rest of Us...

I can't believe the plethora of laptops that get advertized in magazines and malls today. Most everyone wants one, myself included. Who hasn't dreamed of lugging around a laptop so you can use a computer anywhere you wish? With the advent of WiFi-enabled coffee places and wifi hotspots, you can even go online anywhere. Here's a sample list right here: http://www.wifinder.com

But reality does bite. Laptops are expensive. They get outdated quicker too, because they have a limited upgrade path attributed to their compact frames. Very impractical, indeed. You could probably get a PDA/Phone device instead but cellular phone companies charge high rates metered by the kilobyte. PDA-Phones aren't cheap either. A Palm Treo 650 will set you back Php 37,000.00 .

Then there's what Scott Dunn calls internet-on-a-stick, the solution for the rest of us. Take you browser, email and data with you anywhere you go. The main idea is to use these portable gems saved on USB thumb drive or stick that you can bring anywhere. You do have to find a way to get to the net though. That won't be hard. Internet cafes can be found all over.

There are a number of portable applications you can store and run from your USB thumb drive. You can use Portable Firefox for web browsing, Portable Thunderbird for your email, Sunbird for your schedules and to-do lists and the Portable OpenOffice suite for your word processing, spreadsheet and presentation needs. There's even a portable version of multi-platform GAIM messenger. GAIM, being multi-platform,
lets you sign on into your AIM/ICQ, IRC, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo messaging accounts.

I've already tried Portable Firefox and Portable OpenOffice. I would like to have them permanently on my USB stick but it only has 118MB of space in it. Its a 128MB stick, but the formatting takes away some of that. Plus, I need to leave space in there for other files I need. I use my USB stick as a portable rescue kit of sorts. If I had a 512MB stick, I could probably download the whole set of Portable Apps. A 1GB stick would be phenomenal though. That would leave enough space to use encryption. That way, I can use my own browser (and favorites), use my own email program (and save my mail), and store my files securely (with encryption) wherever I may roam.

By the way, all of these portable solutions are from opensource projects. The original non-portable versions are also opensource. Because of the community involvement that the opensource movement advocates, solutions do come from many sources. It just goes to prove that however idealistic altruism is, it solves many dilemnas if the solution is commonly pursued by many. If only everyone in the world would give something back, then we'd have a better world.