I recently started playing around with flash drives and portable applications and I found several different solutions for carrying your desktop around in your pocket/backpack/wallet/on your lanyard/etc. Me being me, I just had to try them all to see which one I liked best. I could go with the first one, and it could work, but the other one could work way better! So here is what I found …

U3

- U3 is a new flash drive technology that basically tricks the computer into thinking it is a cd drive so that it can run autorun.inf files. The ‘intended’ purpose for this is to run the U3 Launcher, which is basically a fancied up launcher for portable apps. I picked up a Sandisk 1GB Cruzer Titanium from staples for $20 to mess around with it, and I got to say I am very disappointed. Apparently there are two version of the u3 launcer, 1.2 and 1.4. My drive came with 1.2, which found out after plugging into my computer, does not like Vista, will not run on Vista, and as far as I can tell can’t ever be used as a U3 compatible drive again after being plugged into a Vista machine. I love the flash drive though, I think I am actually going to upgrade to a 4gig one once I settle on a portable application solution. Would also give me a second chance to try out U3.

Ceedo

- Ceedo is an installable version of U3 with pretty much the same suite of applications available for it’s ‘launcher’ with one notable difference, it costs money beyond the cost of the drive. It does have two things going for it though. It loads much faster than U3(and it also does so automagically) compared to my friends 2GB U3 enabled drive. It also has an additional $20 add on called Argo that will essentially let you install any application(non msi I found out) from a regular download executable and it will ‘portable-ize’ it and place it in your Ceedo environment. It didn’t work with the one application I wanted it to because of the applications licensing, so that kinda throws it out the window for me. But both Ceedo and Argo come with a trial period.

PStart

- Another launcher I found is called PStart, not as fancy as the previous two but free, and oh so simple to use. It is just a customizable launch pad for all your portable apps on your thumb drive. No real operating environment to speak of as the other two have, and no library of applications built in. But with the portable application listing you should be able to find anything you need.

If anyone knows of any other alternatives that I did not find, leave a comment and let me know. Like I said, I like to try it all before I settle on a decision.