Someone asked about what I use for mobile work since I wrote about SyncToy and I’ve written about PortableApps.com before. Here’s the details on hardware and my must have applications, that I use in conjunction with the SyncToy trick I wrote about yesterday.
Hardware- I use a Palm Treo 650 GSM that I paid to get unlocked to use in Europe too. I ended up just using my Cingular SIM in Denmark and Finland though– and the Palm worked great! I did disable email though, I think GPRS would have been a fortune that way. Next time I’ll look at getting a SIM there with data coverage. Sometimes there is a good deal on Palm Treo 650 at Amazon
I just bought a Ritek 150x 2GB SD Card for extra speed running Thunderbird and Firefox as PortableApps. I swap the 2GB card in & out of the Treo, and use a SanDisk MobileMate SD+ 5-in-1 Mobile Reader
Software- On the Treo, my must have applications are ChatterEmail, CityTime, DateBk5, eWallet, Resco Explorer, mo:Blog, SeaTraffic, TinySheet, TrackerDog, TravelTracker, Uninstall Manager. I’ve used most of these for years either on the Palm, PocketPC or both.
Lately the most indispensable Palm applications have been ChatterEmail and SeaTraffic. ChatterEmail provides GREAT, always-on, "push" email WITH NO EXTRA FEES. All you need is an IMAP email server. I can’t say enough good things about ChatterEmail and its author, Marc Blanc. SeaTraffic is awesome for this area. Traffic is so unpredictable and often bad. SeaTraffic lets you route around it, or even just brace for the worst before you turn the ignition.
As for PC applications and portability, it is web apps or the PortableApps.com stuff I wrote about in the previous posts here and here. For use on my PC (or other PC’s) I keep these Portable apps on the SD card- Firefox, Thunderbird+Engimail, and Gaim.
