PC Advisor has recently put up a How-To article on how to carry portable applications with you on a thumb drive or memory card, so that you can run applications you're familiar with on any computer.

The claim is that your own applications will launch when you plug the thumb drive in, will run with your personal settings, and you can save any work you do on the thumb drive and "leave no trace" on the computer used.

How to run applications from a USB flash drive.

This isn't a "how to run any application" this way, and only works for programs you can download from sites distributing programs they've adapted to the method, but there appear to be enough program choices that you can have a familiar program set up to your own taste even if it can't quite let you run your favorite program.

If you use "public" computers, as at libraries, this should be a handy thing to have. You can carry your own programs, and favorite sites and browser setup, and write anything you do on the same thumb drive so you don't forget to take your results with you.

The article is simply stated and is a pretty quick read; and it appears to have links to everything necessary.

For future reference, since mudcat is forever but posted articles aren't:

The method and applications mostly described are at:

http://www.portableapps.com/.

Alternate sources for programs to run this way are:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/

http://www.liberkey.com/

An alternate launcher for running the portable aps is suggested at:

PStart.

A question not addressed in the article is the possibility of cross-contamination by malware that is inevitably present anytime you carry readable/writable media between computers. The risk should be minimal if you use the same safe practices as with any computer, but should perhaps be applied more conscientiously and "with due diligence" to strange machines.

I'll note that I haven't tried any of this out as yet, but PC Advisor is a well known source of information, and probably can be trusted as much as any - even if they are Brits.

John