The office that follows you everywhere and is always there when you need it, and not there when you don't. But how does this wonderful portable office come about? Is it some weird set up with strict rules? Hardly! I'm going to show you how to set up a portable office using computing accessories you probably already have.

• Laptop. Yes, I said laptop, not PDA. PDA's have their uses, but sometimes you need an easy to use input system (that would be the keyboard), long life, plenty of space and extendibility. Ah yes, the laptop. The lower strength version of your desktop computer. Anything above 700MHz-1GHz should be plenty. After all, if it's just for some simple data entry, research and the like, you don't need anything more than that. You could probably get by on half of that too. Make sure to password protect the BIOS (if you're not sure how, get a knowledgeable friend to do this) and have strong passwords on your operating system log in. Just in case of theft.

• USB Flash Drive. These little things are absolutely wonderful. So light, so portable and so much capacity for so little. You could use these for data backup (you do make backups, don't you?), for primary storage instead of using the laptop's (see above) hard drive, or if you buy two (2) or more, you could have one for primary storage and another for backup. The advantages to this is, once again, in case of theft, greater security because once you're finished using the laptop, you can put your USB drive into your pocket where it's safe and carry on doing what you need to. Another of the advantages is that if you can't use your desktop computer or laptop for whatever reason, you can just use a friend's computer or visit an internet cafe, plug in your drive and continue working. With added software, you can even encrypt everything on the drive so only you can see and access the files on there, once again, in case of theft. Get the highest capacity ones you can afford. A typical 256MB USB Flash drive can hold over 120 average documents and images. That's pretty good, isn't it?

• Email. I would imagine this goes without saying. Whether it's provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), a free email provider or other specialised provider, you will need to have an email account. Preferably two. One for business emails, one for personal emails. I recommend purchasing a domain for your business email, as it looks more professional and your customers will see that you are running a serious business. Your personal address could even be located also at your domain, but using a different address. For example, your.name@yourdomain.com is perfect for business, while yourfirstname@yourdomain.com or yournickname@yourdomain.com is fine for personal use, where mostly friends and family will be contacting you. If you choose to subscribe to different email lists that are related to your industry, create another account or use a forwarder. It will help in case of sudden spamming to your address and will help keep you more organised when you next press your email client's button to send/receive. Web-based access is a must as well. It's alright to use a client like Mozilla Thunderbird, but for times when you can't have your computer with you, you can always just log in to your web-based facility and still be able to check to see if that important email you are waiting for has come in.

• Online File Storage. This can be particularly important. You could use this to backup your USB drive or to upload documents that are particularly important and don't want to risk being without your laptop or USB drive and will absolutely need access to certain files. You can upload them to an online file storage provider. These providers will let you use a certain amount of space on their servers to store whatever you need. Basically like an online briefcase. The capacity for these services can range from 1-2MB up to and over 50MB. Choose one based upon how many files you will need storing, your budget and use Google or Clusty to read some reviews to make sure you pick the right provider. Some providers combine your email and an online file storage service into one, so when you receive an email attachment, you can directly send it to your online file folder for extra backup an/or to better organise your files. These services truly are great.

As you can see, using a combination of the above can mean that you're not isolated to your computer at home, and travelling professionals never need to feel afraid of losing work or accidentally leaving something behind. I mention theft a few times to make you aware that a portable office means less damage is done (besides the cost of the laptop) in case of theft, it is a reality, but probably unlikely, if you're careful. You can carry your office with you conveniently or find internet access somewhere from a cafe or kiosk and quickly get the files you need. With xDSL becoming more and more common, it's now even easier to get what you need from the information superhighway when you need it. Geeks may enjoy being confined to their PC, but for the rest of the population, a portable office set up may be just what one needs.