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Portable Applications for the BCM Team

In an incident or business continuity response it is often a requirement to work remotely or away from a normal place of work.

Laptops are often used but sometimes these are not available or may not be appropriate. There are a number of open source, compact applications that when combined with cheap and freely available USB memory sticks that can create a normal desktop environment, or at least one that is useable and functional.

Putting these together is a technical and time consuming task so PortableApps have created a suite of applications to make things easy.

The Software

PortableApps Suite is a collection of portable applications including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. To download and learn more click here

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind

Applications included in the standard suite include

ClaimWin portable, anti virus
Firefox portable edition, web browser
Gaim portable, instant messenger
Open Office portable, office suite
Sunbird portable, task and calendar manager
Thunderbird portable edition, email

Additonal applications include image editors, FTP client, RSS Reader, media player, compression utility and a number of games

If you want to me more adventurous and create your own suite of applications there is a comprehensive list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Portable_Software

Access to corporate networks will probably be required so a VPN client may also be added for secure remote access.

Portable applications are those that can be run without any installation, this being their distinguishing feature and what makes them useful for business continuity and incident managers as you can use them from web cafes or any unsecured computer.