Useful things you can do with a USB Flash Drive…

Dec.22, 2009 in GTD, Geeky, Tech Tips, Technical, Tips N Tricks

You probably have at least one USB Flash Drive sitting around. There are all sorts of useful things you can do with a USB drive.

Speed up your Windows Vista / Windows 7 Computer – There is a feature called ReadyBoost present in Vista and Windows 7 that will allow you to use a USB drive to essentially increase the speed of your computer. ReadyBoost creates an extra cache memory on your USB drive. It does seem to be more beneficial to older computers or heavy multi-taskers. Instructions – Windows Vista and Windows 7
Portable Firefox – Now I’m no Firefox zealot by any stretch but with Portable Firefox, you can take your bookmarks, settings, and plugins with you – basically your whole web browsing “experience” on your thumb-drive. More information and download here.
Make your files portable and back them up at the same time – Microsoft has a tool they have released called Microsoft Synctoy. With this tool you can configure your computer to automatically synchronize the documents on your PC with your flash drive. This ensures you always have the most up-to-date copy in both locations allowing you to pop out the drive and roll knowing your stuff is all there – and when you bring it back it will update your PC with the changes. Instructions and Download
Create a suite of Portable Applications to use Anywhere – A portable application is simply a program that will run without being installed – you can use your USB drive to contain the applications and settings and use any computer to run them. PortableApps.com has created a single download that you can extract to your USB drive and have access to 147 different portable applications to run off your USB Drive. This is an awesome compilation that allows you to get all the apps in one download – More Information and download here
Backup and Encrypt your files – Using the portable version of TrueCrypt (included in PortableApps.com’s package)and Microsoft SyncToy (mentioned above) you can create an encrypted, portably accessible backup of your computer’s files.