Take everything you need with you on your USB device (thumb-drive, external Hard Drive, iPod, etc). Use your own bookmarks, passwords, email, office applications, contacts and much more on any PC. Steps

1. Obtain a portable device. Any external hard drive, a thumb drive (the higher capacity, the better), or even your iPod can be used to store standalone applications. iPods will have to be used in ‘disk mode’ (holding the center ‘select’ button and the ‘play/pause’ button while the device is starting up). You can purchase a thumb drive (Patriot Memory 4GB) on eBay for under $60. Be careful if purchasing thumb drives on eBay, there have been reports of drives being sold with much less capacity than advertised. Read the warnings on eBay.

2. Determine what applications you will need to take with you or access when away from your normal computing location. At the very least, install an email client (if your email provider allows POP3 access) and an internet browser. You may also want office-type applications as well as some entertainment sources.

3. Download applications that have been designed or re-engineered for portable use. You can search the internet using key words, or head to some sites devoted to portable computing. Try http://www.portableapps.com and www.no-install.com Most of the applications you will need can be found on these two sites. Others are: http://www.portablefreeware.com , http://www.kikizas.net/en/usbapps.html

4. Install (extract) your chosen applications to your USB device and take it with you!
A couple of apps that you should have:
A list of portable applications:1by1 – MP3 directory player7-zip portable – Archive managerA43 – Windows Explorer replacementAceMoney Lite – Financial tracking softwareEssentialPIM – Free versionFirefox Portable – Portable version of this awesome browserFoxit PDF – Portable PDF ReaderFilezilla Portable – FTP clientPortable GAIM – Multiple IM clientGIMP Portable – Image ManipulatorGoogle Talk – Portable versionOpera USB – Portable version of Opera browserPortable Scribus – Portable Publishing ToolOpenOffice Portable – Full Office SuiteSyncback – Syncronization / backup applicationThe Sage – Great DictionaryThunderbird Portable – Email clientTorpark – Portable TOR browser clientuTorrent – Lite bittorrent clientTrueCrypt – Free encryption softwareSudoku Portable – To pass the time…and others!!!