Blogging seems to be like sharing sourdough starter. Once you get some going, everybody has something new and cool to share and it grows and grows...

Brian Fowler, our ebooks guru, just shared these tidbits with me - so I must turn and share with you.

Portable Applications. What is it? Your cool new USB Flash drive that I told you to buy a few weeks ago? Well you may be able to load applications onto it to use when you're on the go - so you know you'll always have your favorite programs available wherever you are.

Brian says, "These two programs are designed to work on most any flash drive. However, there is a "standard" that has appeared for putting programs on flash drives called U3. People looking to buy flash drives, and want to use programs on them, should look for U3 compatible drives. This is new, so there are not many yet, but that should change.

Portable Open Office. Remember me waxing poetic about Open Office and Open Source Software? This is a portable version you can take on your USB drive.

Portable Firefox - you can load this alternate web browser onto your flash drive and use it instead of Explorer to browse the web when away from your own computer. Most techy types prefer Firefox to Explorer because you do not suffer from the same amount of pop-ups and other troublesome internet woes that you do with Internet Explorer. I use both Firefox and Explorer - but I must say Firefox is better.

from JohnHaller.com - about using your usb flash drive safely with portable apps...