Luckily, there are a few shortcuts available that provide all-in-one solutions to give you a running start. These packages include a lot of essential software, without the  RAM-stealing shovelware you tend to bundled with new PCs from most major hardware manufacturers. Whenever I set up a new PC, I like to strip it down to the bare essentials and build it back up piece-by-piece; these packages help expedite the process considerably.

Google Pack

Some people think Google is angling to take over the world, and using the free Google Pack to get a web working computer set up might just be helping them reach that goal faster, but it sure is an attractive option for those looking to get started with easy-to-use, free software covering a gamut of uses. There are things you expect, like Google Chrome, Google Earth and Google Talk, and some less predictable entries that round out the standard fare very nicely.

There’s Picasa for light photo-editing and sharing, Mozilla Firefox (with Google toolbar) for more fully-featured web browsing, Skype for inexpensive and/or free long distance telecommunication, and a couple of security solutions to keep your computer running smoothly and securely. The only downside to this all-in-one that I can see is the inclusion of Real Player, which as far as I can tell, has little or no relevance in today’s online world.

The Mac Sale

It’s more expensive, and it’s Mac only, and it’s only available for a limited time (or this one is at least), but if you’re looking for a more eccentric bundle and you’re partial to Apple hardware, The Mac Sale offers a nice mix. In its current iteration, which is only available until August 18th, retails for $49 and includes $450 worth of software.

My personal favorites among the offerings are Scribbles, a drawing and illustration program, and WriteRoom, a simple, productivity-enhancing word processor, both of which I already own. Those two alone are almost worth the $49 price of admission, but throw in a task manager, a clipboard utility, and a powerful Spotlight enhancement/replacement, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide bargain. Even if this deal has ended by the time you’re reading this, poke around for other Mac software package deals, because there’s usually one ongoing, like MacHeist, or the MacUpdate bundle.

Tiny USB Office or PortableApps

Both of these mobile app packages fit on any available USB drive, and can have you up and running on whatever computer you have access to, so long as it has an open USB port. Both come with a variety of apps, all of which take up very little drive space, allowing them to run from the drive itself.

Tiny USB Office is a collection of light but functional independently developed freeware. You’ll get a text editor, file compression, file encryption, an MSN messenger clone, and numerous other tools, all in one convenient download. PortableApps is a little fancier, let’s say, and comes with portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird, along with OpenOffice.org, a PDF reader and an IM client, and even a game or two thrown in for good measure. It’s also the beefier of the two, but at 350MB, you’ll still have plenty of room aboard your drive for documents and other files.

Part of the fun of being a web worker is kitting out your own hardware, but you don’t always have the time for a lengthy and involved setting-up process, so I find these software packs can be a good way to help you hold on to some of the fun of setting up, without all the hurt of digging around for individual programs. Plus, with the USB drive suites, you can be up and running on any computer in no time. The selections may be a little hit or miss, but you can’t beat them for convenience.

Do you use a starter pack to help get your web working machines set up?

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I carry PortableApps on a flash drive, and like to use the suite on netbooks, because the applications have small footprints, and open and close quickly. In the new version, you can check any drive you’re using the suite on for errors, too.

One of the best things about PortableApps is that the (primarily open source) applications included in the suite are hand-picked and are generally very good. In fact, if you get the suite, you may just fall for one of the applications you try, and start being a full-time desktop user of the app in question.

Among many other applications available in portable versions, with launchers that let you run them from the drive you store them on, you get:

• ClamWin Portable (antivirus)
• Mozilla Firefox – Portable Edition (web browser)
• Gaim Portable (instant messaging)
• OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite)
• Sudoku Portable (puzzle game)
• Mozilla Sunbird – Portable Edition (calendar/task manager)
• Mozilla Thunderbird – Portable Edition (email client)

You should note that the beta is just a testing version, but it is stable, and it’s a quick download. Especially if you’re a fan of the PortableApps suite, you may want to try it out. There are a couple of known issues with the beta, but they’re minor, and you can view them at the bottom of this page.

What are your favorite apps in the PortableApps suite?

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If you happen to carry a USB thumb drive or a netbook for mobile work, you’re probably already familiar with PortableApps. It’s a collections of great open-source applications in one free download. Many of the applications are lightweight, portable versions of larger applications that come complete with launchers that make it easy to run the applications anywhere — even if you’re not on your own computer.

The team at PortableApps regularly updates the already good-collection of titles in the suite, and this week added two new applications: Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition, and VLC Media Player 1.0, Portable Edition.

Even if you don’t use the whole PortableApps suite, these are outstanding applications for a portable drive or a device such as a netbook. Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition comes bundled with a PortableApps launcher, so you can launch it directly from a USB thumb drive and have Firefox available with all of your customizations, no matter where you are. It syncs with your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords so it provides a lightweight portable facsimile of your normal Firefox setup. You can find installation instructions and usage tips for Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition at the bottom of this page.

VLC Media Player has long been one of the best open-source applications available for multimedia content, especially video. It’s compatible with nearly every video format found online, even the more obscure ones from remote parts of the world. It’s also out in a new version 1.0, which we covered on the OStatic blog. The new version now does live recording and has instant pausing and frame-by-frame playback. There are also new HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, and more). VLC Media Player is also good as a way to broadcast streaming video content on the web, which is a trend on the rise in businesses and entertainment arenas alike.

You can now download the Portable Edition, Version 1.0 of VLC Media Player here. Its tagline is “play your media anywhere,” because it will fit snugly on even a small USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive or netbook.  It also won’t leave a history of your usage on any computer you choose to use it on. The updates in version 1.0 are substantial, and even if you normally use another media player, version 1.0 of this open-source offering is good to have in both the full release and the Portable Edition.

Which applications would you like to see made into Portable Editions?

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I’ve written before about the PortableApps suite of mobile applications, which is a convenient way to put many free, open-source applications on a USB thumb drive, or any portable drive, in one download. Once the applications are on your portable drive, you can use them from any Windows-based computer, anytime. USB thumb drives offering lots of capacity have become very inexpensive, but what if you have an older one with less capacity, or a drive that’s nearly full? If that’s your situation, Tiny USB Office is a solid suite of tiny applications that, at only 2.5 megabytes, can give you a lot of functionality on virtually any drive.

Tiny USB Office contains small, portable versions of common Windows applications in several useful categories, and they load and unload like a charm from any portable drive. In the suite, you get:

• Database Creation (CSVed)
• Data Encryption (DScrypt)
• Email Client Software (NPopUK)
• File Compression (100k Zipper)
• File Sharing (HFS)
• File Transfer (FTP Wanderer)
• Flowchart Creation (EVE Vector Editor)
• MSN Messenger Client (PixaMSN)
• Tree-Style Outliner Software (Mempad)
• PDF Creation (PDF Producer)
• Password Recovery (XPass)
• Secure Deletion (DSdel)
• Spreadsheet Creation (Spread32)
• Text Editing (TedNotepad)
• Word Processing (Kpad)
• Program Launching (Qsel)

The applications in Tiny USB Office are definitely not full-blown replacements for the applications you normally use, but they’re not intended to be. Instead, they are tools you can keep in your pocket, like a Swiss Army knife, to get most common computing tasks done when you need to. For example, the Kpad word processor looks and feels a lot like Windows Notepad, and isn’t meant to be a replacement for a full word processor. But Kpad is perfectly fine for composing a blog post while on the go, or reporting from an event.

Some of the applications are very tidy, focused and useful tools to have on hand, and you may come to like them. The EVE Vector Editor, for example, is a very simple way to do on-the-fly flowcharts, and PDF Producer does quick and easy conversion of files to PDF.

I’ve come to depend on my USB thumb drive for mobile use, and many owners of netbooks are increasingly using them to add a little local storage capacity. No matter what type of portable drive is available to you, Tiny USB Office is one of the leanest, meanest way to get lots of tasks done on the go.

What apps do you have on your thumb drive?

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OldApps delivers exactly what its name implies: older versions of popular applications, where users may favor the older versions because of their smaller sizes, or their lack of complexity, or both. Here’s more on what the site offers, and what to be careful about.

While at first glance it may seem anti-evolutionary to seek out older versions of applications, don’t you favor some apps simply because of how quickly you can get in and out of them to get work done? One of my favorite examples of this type of application is IrfanView. IrfanView is a lightweight but very capable image editor, and I often prefer to go into it quickly to get work done rather than load a much more bloated program. The developers of IrfanView know that this is an attraction, and they smartly offer a link to OldApps.com for people who want previous versions.  (You can also find many good light footprint apps at TinyApps.)

According to the latest data from OldApps.com, you can now download 2,835 old versions of 193 applications for free. You can get lightweight, easily portable versions of ICQ Lite for instant messaging, less complex and bloated versions of image editors such as IrfanView and Paint.net, lighter versions of Adobe Reader, and much more.

It is wise to keep security in mind when using older versions of applications, especially browsers and messaging-oriented ones. I primarily use OldApps.com for smaller, more portable versions of my favorite desktop applications that I can use on a USB thumb drive or netbook. These aren’t my primary devices, but they help me get mobile work done with portable applications. I’m not interested in bloatware for them. I keep them secure even as I use light and portable versions of applications, and if you’re increasingly using these types of totables too, look into OldApps.

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Only a few years ago, many people carried USB thumb drives that topped out at 256MB of capacity, and those were pretty expensive. Now, you can get this 8GB SanDisk drive for under $25, and I’ve seen other 8GB drives for under $20.

What if you want more serious capacity, for backing up key files, or loading up lots of applications? Check out this citation, from 2006, of a 64GB USB flash drive going for $5,000.  Times have changed dramatically since then. Corsair has a 64GB drive for under $65.

USB flash drives also now come with numerous types of extra attractions. Several of Kingston’s drives now offer SD card reader options. These are very convenient for transferring photos to and from digital cameras and the like. If a diminutive form factor is your thing, consider the Kingmax Super Stick, which, as seen above, is about the size of a stick of Trident gum.

If you do adopt a USB thumb drive, also see this post I did on PortableApps and MacLibre–two easy ways to get tons of open source applications on your drive in one quick download.

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