BlueCapra

Using Technology To Solve Problems and Create Solutions

Portable apps – An office in your pocket

by Leave a Comment

Imagine yourself getting ready for a day in your small business.  You wake up early, eager to start the day.  You exercise for 30 minutes and feel amazingly energized.  You are ready for anything.  You kiss your spouse, tell you children bye, and head to the office.

You have the most amazing ideas on the drive.  Product concepts, new sources of revenue, a cure for the common cold (well, maybe not that amazing…) all pop in your head with ease.  You carry your laptop into the office, sit down at your desk, ready to make history.  You press the power button and………… nothing.

Portable apps computer problemYou spend the next hour trying to revive your poor laptop.  How could your computer do this to you?  After all the amazing idea on the ride to work, how could this happen to you?  The ideas are fading.  You scramble to write down as much as possible before getting too frustrated about your computer.  Sure, there are other computers that you can use but all your information is on that dead laptop; passwords, documents, work files.  Not gone, but locked away.  You can hear the poor bytes just screaming to be let out.  What can you do?

Anyone that uses a computer for work runs the risk of losing data or productive time due to hardware problems.  Computer hard drives can crash, fans can die, and operating systems can go a little wacky, all for no obvious reason and often at the worst possible time.  You can backup your data but even if you remember that, all you have is backed up files, not a workable computer.  What can you do?

Portable apps to the rescue

Portable apps listUSB drives have come a long way.  One of the first one I purchased was a 512Mb ( 0.5Gb).  The more commons sizes now are 8Gb and higher.  They are faster, smaller, and more reliable than ever before.  They are so fast that you can run programs directly off the USB drive.  These programs are called portable apps.  There are a variety of portable apps that are free and easy to use.  Here are the ones I personally use (for a more comprehensive list, check out PortableApps.com):

These programs turn your USB drive in to an office in your pocket and any computer you use into a productive machine.  For example, let’s say most of what you need access to is web-based in the form of a blog.  With the portable version of Chrome, you now have a browser you are familiar with.

But what good is a browser without your bookmarks?  Xmarks is a plugin for your browser and free service that backs up and synchronizes your bookmarks on their servers.  You can have your bookmarks at your fingertips, even after your main computer dies.  As long as you have the Xmarks plugin enabled, you can have the same bookmarks on multiple computers, updated constantly.  I highly recommend it.

What about web development?  Last year, I decided to learn PHP and MySQL.  To test out the pages, you have to view them through a browser on a web server.  If you are just learning, the result is a lot of extra time transferring the data up to the server.  To remedy that, I installed a web server on my USB drive.  The particular one I used was XAMPP.  It is easy to install, easy to use, and works great.  If you want to learn web development, you can use XAMPP to get more done in the same time.

Portable apps can be a productivity-saver on those days when your regular computer decides not cooperate.  You can have your browser and bookmarks, FTP program and sites, and audio recording software as well as a number of other great programs at your fingertips, no matter what computer you use.

With all these options, how will you setup your portable office?

(photo by: David Castillo Dominici)

What’s in your pocket?

by Leave a Comment

My pockets are full.  I’d like to say it they were full of money, but I tend to carry a collection of small items that may or may not be indispensable.  I carry what I think I will use on a regular basis, is fairly easy to carry, and mean something personal.  If I had a cool Batman utility belt, I would have it filled most likely.  I like small gadgets.  But, with everything, there must be a limit and carrying 50 pounds of stuff is too much for even the ultra-dedicated.  So, how do you choose what you carry and what does say about you?

I became interested in the concept of EDC or Every Day Carry (a good website I enjoy looking at is Everyday-Carry.com).  For most people that I have read about online, that concept tended toward weapons, survival, and other stuff of questionable use (at least, in my opinion).  There is always a wide selection of what people actually carry and I am very interested to see what people decide to dedicate their very limited personal storage space in carting around.  So what is useful and what is valuable?

It is said that you can tell what a person values by looking at how they spend their money.  Do they give to charity?  Do they spend all their money on fast food then complain they can’t lose weight?  Do they visit Starbucks often but complain they have no money to save? Do they spend more than they earn?  Money talks, in more ways than one.

That led me to wonder, what does the stuff in my pockets say about me and my values?  Before you can examine your stuff, I would suggest that you consider how it is organized.  I believe there are about three concentric circles of stuff that radiate outward from the person:

  1. EDC or on your person – items you would have in your pockets pretty much at all times
  2. Within arms reach, but not on your person – items you would carry in a coat, purse, backpack, other storage device that is not with you 100% of the time, but is very often at arm’s reach
  3. Ten-foot rule or very common places – items that you keep in your car, office, bedside table or dresser, etc.

Do you have an idea where your things fit within these three circles? If not, sit down and make a list.  Be specific and detailed but not to the point that you have a list of hundreds of items.  Just the items you interface with often, you want or need to have with you at particular times, and items that have meaning for you.  Do you have a particular pen or brand of pen you always use?  Do you rotate through a number of similar items (knives, key chains, etc) depending on where you are going?  Do you need a Sherpa to help carry your stuff?

In an upcoming post, I will explain what I have in each of the three areas, why I chose those items, what I would change and why, and how those choices speak of my values.  Until then, get working on your list, start thinking what those items really mean to you, and how your past and future choices express your personality and values.