Portable Lifestyle
"From receiving my first external hard drive to the multitude of wireless and portable gear I've accumulated over the years its time to brag a little."
My pc life is 99% portable apps, period. The only thing I need at someones house or a fresh format are large installers like Games & Drivers. As of 2012 you can pretty much find a portable version of the Software you currently use or a similar or better form of it out there for free. Here is some links for new comers...
Or you could potentially create a portable version of the Software yourself with VMWare ThinApp, which is, you guessed it, an app that makes regular apps into portable apps that just happens to be available in a portable version.
The Freedom is great. "I don't need my computer" is what you can say once you make the transition, you just need "A" computer. Most of the apps i had to sacrifice on like AVG, Acrobat. And I can't stand installing Adobe products I purchased @ my technical institute. And in some instances I had to use FAT32 File System. Why? Because MACS can only Read NTFS file systems & they can Read & Write on FAT32. Important factor when you will be split between both machines quiet often. The downside, FAT32 cannot handle files larger than 4GB.
The Software I got later one were more difficult things like Crap Cleaner & SpyBot. Leaving AVG was a great move as well because instead of one app scanning I now have several smaller apps which find more than one AVG ever will. Glary Utilities is probably one of the best cleaning apps I use regularly. Foxit Reader is my PDF replacement instead of that heavy Acrobat installer. Every browser now has a portable version same with Thunderbird.
In the end what does it matter? It matters because of configuration settings. The time it takes to download and install all this Software is NOTHING compared to the time and headache you spend setting things up and configuring to your personal liking. So by having one big folder filled with all the Software you use ready to go to copy and paste into a C drive is PRICELESS Information and Tools.
Format Windows 7 on SSD: 30m
Install Drivers Etc: 5m
Install Your Games: 5m
Fresh Start In Less Than One Hour: PRICELESS