Open Source Portable Apps puts the cloud and more on your keychain.

Here’s an interesting little stack of open source that has been around for a while, but has just been discovered by yours truly. Designed to work on any storage device, it’s right at home on a USB memory dongle. Portable Apps may very well solve a big problem of mine since work at several computers through the course of and am always installing as updating apps and moving data between. It’s also intriguing that I could carry a dongle instead of a laptop when I travel, assuming i can find a library or stay in a hotel with public computers.

The free, open source, dongle friendly, PortableApps.com Suiteâ„¢ is a collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you’re ready to go.

Currently Portable Apps is a Windows only product, but it’s open source, so versions for other OS’s are likely to evolve.

Where does this fit on the Third Pipe? Making your your work environment as well as data portable and device independent is essential in the Third Pipe world.