For me, I love Portable Apps! They are exactly what I need being that I’m always on the move jumping between several computers daily. It allows me to have all the apps I need with me at all times (including a Firefox with all the bookmarks, synced right up to my last browsing session). In the past I always kept my Portable Apps installed on a flash drive I would carry with me however I always seemed to misplace them or leave them at home by mistake, and as luck would have it, this normally happened when I needed them the most. So this brings me around to a groovy new way I’ve been using Portable apps for several months which work on all my systems. First of all, you’ll need a Dropbox account and (obviously), the Dropbox software installed on all the computers you’ll be using. If you need to know more about Dropbox, check out this very comprehensive groovyPost. Provided you have all the tools we need:
Dropbox installedThe setup file for the Portable apps suite of your choosing (get it here),
let’s get on with it :) . Launch the portable apps installer and chose Suite Light, as I won’t be needing the OpenOffice.org suite, but feel free to use that one (provided you have enough free space on your Dropbox).
On the screen, Click Browse
Now, select the folder in your Dropbox where you want Portable Apps installed. It could be the main “My Dropbox” folder, or you could create a subfolder, just to keep things in perfect order… I’ve created My Dropbox/MyGroovyPortableApps in my screenshot below.
Click OK to save the install location and Install to kick things off. All done, you should be all set at this point. Feel free to jump into your Dropbox folder you performed the install and all your apps should be sitting there ready for you to launch. The only other thing you need to remember is to save any documents you work on inside your Dropbox folders so they will sync to your other systems. Enjoy your new untethered App access! Also, regarding Dropbox – Are you concerned about privacy in regards to keeping your data in the cloud and the Dropbox folks peaking at your data or is it something else? When the same app is used on both computers on the same time I get conflicts. Is there a way to avoid this endless syncing of “workdir” files? thanks If you additionally put your portable apps into a TrueCrypt file you end up with a super secure container that follows you to your devices via cloud, and can be mounted as a drive and contains all your favourite tools. I do that with the USB versions of WinSCP and TimePanic, etc… Cheers, – Patrick Comment Name * Email *
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