In theory, it's possible to grab an iPod Classic and use this both as your portable music device and also as a removable hard drive where you can store both your most important files and also your portable applications. Could be an ideal way of taking your most important work on holiday or on the road, without dragging your laptop or annoying the family with your Blackberry. Biggest problem is that not every application is available in a portable format.

PackageFactory for U3 is a tool that you can use to package your Windows application in a portable format for your USB device. That's the theory, at least. The problem is that it's quite tricky to turn commercial software in to a portable version as they rely on the host Registry and need to be installed on the system. Any app that requires minimal Registry intervention should be able to be packaged as portable version. This is free for non-commercial use.

PackageFactory for U3 link.

Every time I head over to London on a business trip, I forget how heavy my laptop seems to feel by the end of the day. Take a MacBook Pro, plus power cables, and it's a surprisingly heavy weight. You do wonder if there are better solutions. Apart from purchasing a Netbook, the other option is to take a Blackberry, which will enable you to access your email on the move. The other solution is to use someone elses machine (and there's nearly always a temporary host PC you can use in the office) and take portable versions of your favourite software on a USB stick.

PortableApps Suite Standard 1.5 is a collection of free portable applications, including Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice, that you can use from one central interface. Simply place this on an external drive (USB, flash or even your iPod Classic), plug this in to a temporary host PC and you should be able to use your apps without writing personal information to the host computer.

PortableApps Suite link. 

There's nothing more frustrating when you have to work on a temporary computer when you are working away from the office. If you had your own way, you'd probably spend an hour re-configuring the computer, installing your favourite apps, before you even start to use the PC. However, you probably won't be able to install software, make system changes, so you're restricted to the basic installed apps. One solution is to take your own portable USB drive, with installed applications, and use this on the host PC.

Opera 9.61 USB Edition is the portable version of the web browser that will enable you to install it on a portable drive (or even your iPod) and then connect this to the host PC and use the apps in a self-contained environment without them leaving a trace on the host PC. It means you can use your own configured browser, with all your favourite bookmarks, without it leaving a web trail when you remove the USB device. Ideal.

Opera USB Edition link.

Sticky notes are great for taking notes or ideas, perhaps when your're on the phone. Place them around your monitor screen and after a short period, they start to lose their stickiness. If they fall off and land on your desk or the floor, you may find the cleaners have removed your notes when you return to your desk the next morning. It's too easy to do. The other option is to ditch the sticky notes and place similar computer-based notes on your desktop. Safer for the environment, too.

PNotes 4.0.112 is free sticky notes software for your PC that enables you to place the notes on your desktop. You can use various skins to spruce up your notes so that each note looks different. You can have different notes between your home and work based 'to do' lists. Of course, you might want to take these 'to do' notes on the road, so there's also a portable version of PNotes.

PNotes and PNotes Portable link.