Laptops For Less Blog

10 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your USB Thumb Drive

Plain vanilla USB [Universal Serial Bus] Thumb Drives are much more versatile than most people realize. As well as storing data and files, they can carry applications, encrypted vaults, and even full installations of Windows operating
systems. Here is a list of ten cool things that can be done with a USB stick:

Anonymous Surfing

With the version of Firefox available from Portable Apps, you can surf the web and enjoy all your bookmarks and extensions, without leaving any trace on the computer you are using. If you want even more security, you can use a plugin such as FoxyProxy, which will mask your IP [Internet Protocol] address. To install Firefox, all you have to do is copy and paste the Firefox folder from your computer, or you can install Firefox from Portable Apps directly onto the USB drive.

Carry Your Applications with You

It can be really annoying when you take your files on a USB drive to another computer, only to find that the computer doesn’t have the software installed which you need to open the files. There is a solution. The PortableApps.com website has an extensive list of open source applications which are free to download and use. All you need to do is download the PortableApps installer and then select the applications you wish to use. Then run the installer and install the application to the root of your USB thumb drive. That’s it. When you connect your USB drive to a computer, Portable Apps will open up. Amongst other things, there is a portable version of OpenOffice.org; a fully featured office suite with word processor, spreadsheet, database and more, which is compatible with Microsoft Office.

Use Autorun to Launch Programs Automatically

It’s possible to run a script to set an application to launch automatically when the USB stick is inserted into a computer. (This won’t work if Autorun is disabled on the computer – this is sometimes done for security reasons.)

Here is the script. Copy the following and paste it into notepad:

[autorun]

ShellExecute=filename

Label=description

UseAutoPlay=1

You need to replace ‘filename’ with the full path to the application. So, if you want to automatically run an application called myapp.exe in a folder on the USB drive called programs, you would replace ‘filename’ in the script with /programs/myapp.exe

Replace ‘description’ with a short description of what your application does. Save the file as autorun.inf. You have to select ‘All Programs’ instead of ‘Text document’ from the save menu, otherwise notepad will stick .txt on the end and
the script will not work.

Disguise Your USB Drive as a Broken USB Cable

Imagine the surprise on your friends’ and colleagues’ faces when you insert what looks like a broken USB cable into your computer, and then launch a movie from it. http://www.technobuzz.net/hide-the-usb-drive-inside-a-usb-cable/ has a
tutorial for doing this. Only works with very small USB drives.

Data Encryption

If your USB Thumb Drive contains any sensitive data, it’s a good idea to use some kind of encryption to prevent other people from accessing the information if the drive should be lost or stolen. There is a free program called TrueCrypt
which enables you to do this. Please note: you need admin access on the computer you want to use the encrypted drive on, so this limits the usefulness of TrueCrypt somewhat.

Help! I’m Lost!

If you’ve ever lost a USB Stick, you know it can be a big problem – not only have you lost all your files and data but what’s worse is that the drive has fallen into someone else’s hands. You can encrypt the data to prevent other
people accessing it, but it would be great to get the drive back, right? Well, the Daily Cup of Tech people have a possible solution. You can download a program called LostDrive.zip from http://dailycupoftech.com/have-your-lost-usb-drive-ask-for-help/, and unzip it onto the root of your USB drive. It opens a message box with your personalized message on it, requesting that the finder returns the drive to you.

Lock and Unlock Your PC

You can use your USB drive to lock down and open up a PC, similar to using an RFID [Radio-Frequency Identification] tag. You just need to insert the USB thumb drive when you want to begin working, and pull it out when you are finished, and
no-one else will be able to use the computer. A commercial application for doing this is Rohos Logon Key. There is a free trial download here: http://www.rohos.com/products/rohos-logon-key/

Carry Your Music with You

Your USB thumb drive can be a portable jukebox – carrying not just your music, but the player as well. Audio players such as CoolPlayer+ and WinAmp can be installed onto the thumb drive. They can also be set to autorun as described
above.

Run an Operating System for Dedicated Tasks

The simplest operating system to boot from a USB drive is Linux. There are several low-footprint versions which will fit on a USB drive of reasonable capacity. Examples to check out are Damn Small Linux, Webconverger and Puppy Linux.

Run Windows from a USB Drive

It is not easy to modify Windows to work on a USB Thumb Drive, but there is a tutorial which explains the whole process. You need a separate Windows license to do this, as Microsoft will only allow you to run Windows on one computer – a
USB Stick or hard drive counts as a computer when it comes to installing Windows. You need a USB drive of at least 1GB. It’s better to use a USB hard drive, as a thumb drive will only support 100,000 writing processes before it becomes unusable. Here is the web address where the tutorial can be downloaded: http://www.winusb.de/tutorial3.zip

If you are planning to buy a USB thumb drive, don’t forget to checkout LaptopsForLess.com. They carry a full selection of USB thumb drives along with all the computing accessories you could ever need!