whodawannahuh?

Lately people have been yelling at me for not posting anything to this blog, I've been rather busy with a few other projects I am working on. I will do my best to keep posting to this on a more regular basis. Today's post is about flash drives and how to make them very useful. In case you don't know a flash drive is a very small piece of hardware that you can plug into your USB port and it acts just like any other memory on your computer. It has become very popular lately to store files so you always have them with you, or to easily move files between computers. If this is all you are using them for you are missing out on how useful they can really be! As I mentioned above the flash drives acts just like any other memory drive on your computer, meaning that not only can you store files on it, you can also run applications from it. Think about how useful that is! No matter where you go in the world, no matter what computer you are at you will always have your favorite applications with you and all your settings. There are actually a few limitations to this I might add, while you can install programs to the drive doing so means it will only work on your local computer. A better way is to find applications that don't need to be installed. There are tons of them out there but it will take a bit of looking. If you want the easy way out just download this zipped file, it contains many good applications I have on my own drive. Some of the applications that I find VERY useful are:

1. Portable Firefox, a must have! Always have your bookmarks and settings where ever you go.
2. portable Sunbird, a portable calendar program, a great way to always have your calendar with you.
3. KeePass, stores and encrypts all of your passwords, plus it has a nifty auto enter feature. A very useful and safe program.
4. Restoration, this program allows you to undelete files. Extremely useful to have, especially if you accidentally delete your roommates final paper freshman year ;)
5. Autoruns, this program detects everything that runs on your computer when it starts, great if you find something is slowing your computer down and you need to delete it manually.

After that all the programs you put on are up to you. From the zipped filed linked to above, I've kept the cd/dvd burner program and I have a few network tools. I know some people who like to put a portable version of Open Office on there so that they can work on documents even if the computer doesn't have Microsoft Office. Well that's it for this post, if you have any questions drop me a line =)