My Place of Work is pretty stuck on Microsoft, both for public and employee computers. I asked Tech Support to have Firefox installed and it took ages before they actually agreed to install it. The installation was only on a few employee computers that I usually work on, on the condition that if there were any problems (I can’t imagine what problems there would be, but this is what I was told), I would have to handle them myself. This was right as Firefox 1.5 was being released, but they installed the previous release instead. In order to upgrade Firefox or install any plugins and extensions, I have to call Tech Support because administrative privileges are required (which I don’t have…probably for the best). I haven’t bothered calling Tech Support for this, because, well, they seemed fairly grumpy about installing Firefox in the first place.
Which is why I am enamored with the Portable Apps Suite. I now have portable versions of Firefox, Gaim, Nvu, AbiWord and Sunbird on my work-supplied flash drive. I can be on any computer at work and use Firefox–with Flash, with Greasemonkey, with all of my bookmarks–without having to deal with Tech Support. I keep my calendar with me on my flash drive now. I’ve tried out AbiWord, which I’ve come to find is a nice little word processing program. I can hop from computer to computer without having to log in and out of my personal profile and still have lots of my customized tools with me.
My Portable Apps have become so important to me…I hear wedding bells.
Ye Old Goblin Cartoons 