For a while now, I've been toting a USB thumb drive around in my pocket loaded with my favorite applications, and backups of important files. It's amazing how much capacity you can get with these little gadgets now, for very little money.
In this post, I'll cover good, free open source applications that you can store on a thumb drive. You can also use this post to put more than 50 open source applications in your pocket in one hour. Once you have enough of these with you at all times, you can stop thinking about your computer being where you store all your favorite applications, because you can use your favorites anywhere. Let's start out with the truly remarkable
PortableApps.com Suite.