Going Ultra-Portable With Mark Wharton

One of the benefits of my job is getting to meet our readers when they come to town. Such was the case yesterday when I spent a couple of hours with Mark Wharton, aka K0LO, at my favorite hang-out in Colorado Springs, Pikes Perk.

Mark surprised me a bit by unleashing his “mobile” kit: a tiny 8 GB USB key containing every application needed to surf the web, vpn in to his network, image a drive, launch a recovery version of Vista, and other applications available from PortableApps. He keeps all of his documents with him by using SyncToy on his various computers, and syncing them to his USB key. He’s got a complete mobile set up in the portable confines of a 8 GB USB key. Amazing. 

Mark is an engineering teacher at Penn State and primarily uses a Lenovo X41 Tablet PC as a teaching tool to present his lesson. He told me that he rarely sees a student use a tablet pc even though many of his students comment on his use of it. Most of his students take notes in the traditional manner: pen and paper.

This mobile kit was actually an upgrade for him, having moved up from 6 USB keys.  Once Mark returns from his vacation, he is going to write-up an article for us about how he uses this ultra-mobile set up, and why it works so great for him. Until then, if you find yourself moving from computer to computer a lot, I’d suggest you first take a look at FireFox Portable.

Mark’s old mobile kit is on the left. His new mobile kit is on the right

Mark using my Motion Computing LS800 Tablet PC. I’ll have more to share on that later.

Mark trying out the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC