1. Open Office Portable (240MB installed)

If you are looking for convenience and consistency in the document, and spreadsheet software that you use then Open Office is the ideal option for you. Open Office is a free alternative to other office suites that can easily cost you a few hundred dollars. The best part is that this version is able to run easily from a USB Thumb drive, allowing you to keep your software and your documents all in the one place.

Download from PortableApps.com – http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

2. Firefox Portable (27-77MB Installed depending on options)

If you are a Firefox convert, then you will like the idea that now you can take your favorite web browser where ever you go along with the convenience of keeping all your favorites, and passwords there as well, plus leaving behind no personal details.

Download from Download.com – http://www.download.com/Firefox-Portable/3000-11745_4-10437430.html

3. Notepad ++ Portable (8.8MB Installed)

For those who need a text editor that is a little more powerful then Notepad, Notepad ++ gives you the extra the added extra’s that help when you are coding or need to work with multiple text files.

Download from PortableApps.com – http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable

4. VLC Media Player Portable(30MB Installed)

No longer do you need to hope that the machine you need to use has a suitable media player installed, VLC Media Player offers, a good range of file type support and CD and DVD play support. Don’t get caught out not knowing if your file will play or not.

Download from Download.com – http://www.download.com/VLC-Media-Player-Portable/3000-13632_4-10526524.html

5. Fox It Read (7MB Installed)

Never get caught out again without having a reader for your PDF documents. While Adobe Reader is common, it is just the time that you really need it that it is not there, FoxIt Read solves that problem.

Download from foxitsoftware.com – http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm (download zip file and extract.

And for a Bonus

6. Portable Thunderbird (25MB Installed)

Now you can take your email with you everywhere. No longer do you need to remember what you downloaded on your laptop or your home computer and hope you have what you need or remember to update. Keep it all in one program which you can use no matter what computer you are on.

Download from PortableApps.com – http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable

There is a total of six apps which covers possible 80% or more of what you may want or need to do when moving between computers. Even using these applications may be a more appealing option for your home computer. All up the install space you should need will come to less then 400MB, so even with documents and some other files, a 1GB USB Drive should be ample space to store these applications as well as your documents.

You can download the portable version of Firefox at Portableapps.com. While you may find that you can browse the web with any web browser if forced to, why should you have to. If you prefer Firefox, now you can take it with you. This is not the best part though. You can now take all you favorites, extensions and stored passwords. Which as you can imagine could save you a lot of trouble trying to remember passwords, or that link that your book marked yesterday.

The other added benefit is that no personal information is left behind, when using portable firefox, which means you can surf from an internet cafe with a little added confidence, that you wont find one of your accounts at a website somewhere compromised after using the internet cafe.

This is for the most part due to a lack of need, or what the large companies that offer this applications see as a perceived need.  Companies of all sizes be they one person or 1,000 employee’s all have the potential need for CRM software. However not all companies have the ability to afford the same sort of software that is available to these large companies.

This is where the potential to use a hosted solution has good potential to save money, while also making it much easier for you to access the software from where ever you may be working. One possible option is the offering from SugarCRM offers a range of different solutions, that start from about $40/user/month. So for a one person business your expense to manage your customer data, could start from just $40, and is easily expandable to include more users as you need.

With software of this calibre available as such an affordable monthly price the idea of trying to keep trak of your customer information, and sales process information in books, or files is almost unimaginable. The amount of extra time your spend looking for, and recording this information would i imagine almost easily pay for the cost of CRM software, as mentioned above.

When it comes to office software (meaning document, spreadsheet and presentation, creation and manipulation) you may wonder what options there are. While so many people have pretty much gone by default to using a program like Microsoft Office, not all internet cafe’s provide this software on their terminals. Well if you are happy to try another program, then something like the portable version of Open Office may be just what you need.

Open Office Portable is a free download, that is 86.4MB self extracting file. Once downloaded, it is a simple matter of running the file, telling it where you want it (which can be a USB key) and waiting the less then a minute it takes to extract. Straight away you can go and open the program, and be typeing a letter, or creating a spreadsheet in no time at all. Expanded the complete package takes around 240MB of space, so you will probably want at least a 1GB USB drive, but very few available now are smaller then this anyway.

The problem with carrying them on a USB drive is that not all internet cafe’s allow you or have the facility for you to plug in a USB drive. Additionally not all have the most recent software or software that is compatible with your document format. Don’t despair, as there is a way that you can keep your documents handy and access them from any computer that you can access the internet on.

The solution is Google Documents. Google Documents, is an online application, which includes Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Forms. If you already have a Google account you can log straight in and be creating documents in less then a minute. Additionally all the documents can be conveniently stored online for access whenever you log in, or saved in a number of different formats to your computer.

Another feature i liked is the ability to share the documents with other users that you choose. Which could be a great business benefit if you have a partner or wanted to go over something with a client in another city, you can both be looking at the document at the same time while you explain different parts of the document.

You can login to Google docs at http://docs.google.com.