Our computers are equipped with our favorite programs and applications. The customization we take our systems through is meant to personalize them and make working with them easier for us. Which is exactly why when we shift to another computer (even temporarily, like working on a computer in an internet café) we find absent some of our favorite applications. If it is only a matter of one or two absent programs, then one can quickly download and install them on a fast internet connection; however this is only possible when we have administrative privileges on the computer, which we usually do not have on somebody else’s computer.

Solutions to this problem have come in many ways. The most recent approach is to store our files online and make them accessible through the internet. But that solution is only viable for documents and files; as far as programs are concerned, the same administrative privileges obstacle is faced. This is the reason the best solution to the mentioned problem is to have portable software.

Portable applications are programs which one can install on one’s flash drive. Since flash drives are themselves portable, we can carry our favorite programs with us to whatever computer we like.

A portable suite of the most popular computer programs can be easily gotten with the help of Lupo PenSuite.

The suite comes in three forms: Full, Lite, and Zero.

The Full version is nearly 200MB in size and includes an impressive array of programs and games which can be installed on our flash drives. The Lite version only includes the highly used and important applications and is sized at 70MB.

The Zero version is only the open source launcher of Lupo PenSuite and gives people (developers, mostly) a great chance to create their own custom suite of products.

Whatever Suite you download, it is customizable. Therefore I tried out the Full version, planning to remove the programs I felt were unnecessary. The downloaded file was in EXE format and was basically a self-extracting archive. The entire program was in a single folder which I could choose to extract anywhere. Since no installation was necessary, I could extract it in my flash drive and make it portable.

The main window of the program is located at the bottom right hand side of the screen and this is how it looks like:

To the right, one can access the folders containing a user’s documents such as pictures, videos, images, files, etc.

Clicking on any category on the left will expand it, showing the relevant programs. For instance this is the result when the “Internet” category was expanded:

Subcategories can also be expanded to get the desired programs. The complete list of available programs is very impressive and well worth the download size of 200MB.

Additional programs can be added in a few easy steps. A tutorial can be found here. A list of programs that cannot be included in Lupo can be found here. To remove an existing application we simply delete its folder in the main folder.

For the computer user whose flash drive can support the size, the Full version of Lupo PenSuite is definitely the option to go with. (Note that the disk space required by Lupo after extraction is nearly 300MB.)

This great program also supports customization via skins (get them here) and the ability to add and remove programs.

For the modern computer user who wants to take his programs and files with him/her wherever he/she goes, Lupo PenSuite is a program one cannot afford to miss.