Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Portable Applications - How far will they go?

Have you heard of this term "Portable Apps" ?? When I heard of this term for the first time I thought it was some kind of application which is written in Java which can be easily ported to other platforms.. ;) But that's not the case.. The definition goes something like this

"portable - carried or moved with ease
app - a computer program like a web browser or word processor
A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug, none of your personal data is left behind."

from the site PortableApps.

It's funny that oneside world is moving towards bigger machines with GBs of RAM for hosting faster/bigger applications and on the other side we have started looking for applications with small footprints that can be carried in a USB drive mainly to minimize the security theft of our data. I think employers should start forcing employees carrying sensitive data to start working with PortableApps thereby reducing the chance of data theft that has been happening recently with the reports of lost laptops with sensitive customer data.

I am surprised to see so many utilities/audio/video/games available for portable apps. I think one good outcome of this will be the shift in the developer mindset to develop applications with smaller footprint which has been lost in the past decade b'cos of the availability of huge storage spaces.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take your applications, settings and data with you on any device, and run on any PC. How? Use Mojopac!

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.

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Benefits:
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Portability
Playability
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iPod Liberation
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The Mojo Experience

Using MojoPac is exactly as if your MojoPac iPod or USB storage device is an ultra portable Windows XP PC.

Your experience using Mojopac is exactly as if you are using an ultra portable PC (your MojoPac device) and docking it to a computer (the Host PC you are plugged into).

Your MojoPac PC is running from your portable device, but it is borrowing the resources (screen, processor, CD/DVD drives, internet connection, printers, etc.) of the Host PC. In other words, MojoPac is your real PC (your applications, settings, data), and any computer it is connected to is being used as a utility to run MojoPac.

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Anonymous said...

@evangelism: "reducing the chance of data"

Yah. Because it's so easy to lose a laptop, and so hard to lose a tiny little USD stick...

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