Small, light, low-cost netbooks like the Acer Aspire One and ASUS Eee PC may be all the rage - but they may not be the ultimate portable computer.  That honor belongs to the ubiquitous USB drive - powered either by flash memory or by microSD cards.  At a fraction of the size, weighing almost nothing, and costing less than $2 per GB of storage, the devices can be loaded with excellent free software and with an available USB port on a nearby computer make the ultimate portable PC.

The key to this small portable computer is the software that runs on it.  Fortunately, the Portable USB Apps collection from theinfobox.com.  This collection of freeware and open source applications contains just about everything you need to do almost anything on a computer.  It make take a while to download, but contains the following:

Productivity

• AbiWord
• DIA (diagrams a la Visio)
• EssentialPIM
• Open Office
• PS Pad
• SciTE (Scintilla-based text editor)
• Scribus (desktop publishing)

Internet

• Bitcomet
• Filezilla
• Gaim
• NVU
• Skype
• Sunbird
• Thunderbird

Utilities

• 7-Zip
• DSynchronize
• FreeCommander
• FastStone Capture
• HDDLife
• PStart (program launcher with USB support)
• PC Inspector File Recovery
• PC Wizard
• System Information for Windows
• WinAudit
• XP SysPad

Security

• CyberShredder
• dsCrypt
• Eraser
• KeePass
• Clam AntiVirus

Multimedia

• Audacity (audio editor)
• Blender (3D content creation)
• CDex (audio CD creation)
• Coolplayer and VLC (media players)
• EasyThumb (image conversion, resizing)
• GIMP (image editor)
• Inkscape (Scalable Vector Graphics - SVG - graphics editor
• IrfanView (image editor)
• VirtualDub (video capture processing)
• WinDV (video capture)

Games

• Alien Blaster
• Armegetron (Tron clone)
• Bricks2000 and Crack Attack (Tetris clones)
• Cube, DaveGnukem and Tremulous (first person shooters)
• Dark Oberon (Warcraft clone)
• Disasteroids 3D
• FooBilliard
• GeneRally and zeRace (racing)
• NagaSkaki, Pawn and Slow Chess Blitz (chess)
• Narkomania (Minesweeper clone)
• Othello
• Sudoku

Education

• Celestia
• Periodic Table
• Solar System Information

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