Now that I am back in consulting business, I often have customers where I am not allowed to connect my Mac on the network. Annoying!!!! But this is not a big issue since now it is easy to bring you environment on a USB key.
XWikey: my wiki on a key
On a daily business, I have installed my personal XWiki on my 2Gb USB Key, and a JDK (for windows, on OSX I am using the default one). So with this solutions I have my personal CMS, Website and applications with me, and I can use it from any computer available. I work on any site, any meeting room directly on my Wiki even when I am not connected. I am using a packaged Entprise XWiki that comes with Jetty and HSQL, so it is a complete and self contained environment. I just changed the start and stop scripts to point to the JDK that is on the key. Nothing exceptional here, but it is very useful.
Others portable applications
I know that a Wiki is not enough most of the time to " bring your life with you", and you may want more, such as Open Office, Mail and Web clients, ... Some of the packages you can use:
- PortableApps take a look to the list of applications that are available in a portable fashion
- PenDriveApps
- Framakey
The next test will be to run the OS from the key, I have not done it yet, have you? Some options for this: