One of the problems with netbooks that have solid-state drives (SSD) installed is that the space on those drives is limited. It's a fact that the Windows operating system uses up most of that space. What happens when you want to use a bunch of applications with it and then find out that the space is nearly gone? A USB drive (preferably a flash drive) can save you hours of grief if you know what to put on it.

Portable Applications

If you're in this position, you should take a look at PortableApps.com. Heck, even if you aren't in this position, I recommend you take a look.

The people developing these versions of popular free Windows applications do it for the greater good. This is completely non-commercial. All of your favorite applications are supported, along with some you may have never heard about. Try these on for size:

• Firefox
• Thunderbird
• Filezilla
• 7-Zip
• OpenOffice.org

…and many, many more.

If you look around enough, you'll also find hacks that will allow other software to become portable. I use one for WinRAR and another for UltraEdit.

Operating Systems on a Stick

This is something that works on newer computers, but not so much on older ones.

If you visit LiLi USB Creator's Official Website or UNetbootin – Homepage and Downloads (among other sites), you'll find software that allows you to create live images of Linux distributions.

With WinToFlash, you can transfer your Windows setup CD or DVD to a USB drive. It's much easier than trying to do installations from optical drives, especially with netbooks.

Just the Beginning

As netbooks become more ubiquitous, more and more software applications will be made into portable applications. I'm taking note of all the locations where I can find the best of the best as I add more netbooks to my collection of computers.

This is something where it really pays off to do the research. Having smaller, portable applications makes using all kinds of computers easier to work with. Software installation, using the old-fashioned methods (in Internet years), inevitably leads to operating system problems requiring clean-up and optimization. I anticipate that all operating systems and applications will eventually be replaced by portable versions, allowing people to use the best tools for their requirements.

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How are netbooks and notebooks different? Does the operating system determine what classification the laptop belongs to, more so than the size?

When you take all aspects of a particular laptop into consideration, what identifies a laptop as a netbook as opposed to a mini laptop? Are those pink netbooks really netbooks or are they mini laptops being marketed as netbooks?

Laptop Operating Systems

If you've done even a little research on netbooks, you will appreciate that netbooks are designed to be lean on resources. This primarily means the operating system needs to use as little memory as possible and not hog all the machine's resources before any other kind of program is launched.

The names of the operating systems can obscure your choices to a degree, unless you know what the operating systems are. If a laptop is running Windows Vista or the new Windows 7, you can bet you bottom dollar that it isn't anything close to being a netbook. Both of these versions of the Windows operating system are memory hogs. On the other hand, if it's a new laptop and it's running Windows XP, there's a good chance that it's a netbook even if it's not called a netbook.

The rest of the lean operating systems are UNIX derivatives, most likely Linux distributions. When you see that the laptop is running Ubuntu, that's Linux. If you see that it's running Google Android, that's Linux too. There's nothing stopping the manufacturers from installing other lean operating systems (such as FreeBSD), but Linux and Windows XP seem to be the most prevalent.

Laptop Features

A recent development that blurs the lines between netbook and notebook (or mini notebook) is the addition of features not normally found on netbooks, making the netbooks hybrids (or making the notebooks into hybrids, depending on which way you look at it). Since netbooks are designed for Internet interaction more so than offline use, it's expected that features necessary for offline use wouldn't be included.

The first netbooks didn't come with optical drives (DVD or CD) because it was expected that installation files would be retrieved from the Internet. Clients such as Firefox (for web browsing), Mozilla Thunderbird (for email) and even office clients like OpenOffice.org can all be installed by downloading them. The plugins, such as Macromedia Flash, are download files as well. In essence, the character of a netbook is that it's designed for the "net".

Netbooks owners started complaining and now laptop manufacturers are creating hybrids that include at least one optical drive. There are other unnecessary features, in my opinion, being added to further obscure the differences.

Netbook or Mini Laptop

Laptop manufacturers are using "mini laptop" to describe the hybrids instead of netbook because they've added features which defeat the netbook purposes while still making them smaller than the normal-sized notebook. They've beefed up the memory, used Windows Vista instead of Windows XP, added optical drives and have included numerous other features which completely defeat the purposes of lean and mean netbooks.

The only question I really have is, why bother to compare laptop computers if the laptop manufacturers are going to end up making everything the same and just call them by different names?

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