I’m not sure on what nerd-level you put yourself, but I feel sincerely handicapped if I don’t have my computer at my disposal with my code editor and apache service running. It happens quite often that I come up with new ideas for programming or I just have the urge to test something out, and I’m on a computer where it’s not feasible to install all the software and services I need to test these things out. I actually have a couple pages in a notebook (the paper kind) covered with code snippets. I give you the solution.

You can have all the software and services running off of a flash drive, which will work as a plug-n-play wherever you are. You can find everything you need, and much more, from PortableApps.com. For your graphic-design needs: Gimp Portable. For coding, with all the syntax highlighting glory: Notepad++ Portable. For your localhost php server: XAMPP (not portable by name, simply install on the root of your flash drive. The only problem is changing the config files every time Windows assigns your thumb drive a new letter).

There are many more apps you can install on your flash drive, such as OpenOffice Portable, AutoHotKeys (I like!), Firefox Portable, Thunderbird Portable, and a range of useless crap: i.e. games. These all make life easier, in that instead of lugging your laptop around, you just take your thumb drive and plug it into any Windows machine and run your favorite apps with your settings, leaving no traces on the host computer.