Being a geek on the run I often find myself wishing that I had my laptop with me, or that a public access computer had application X or Y on it. Well, I have found my solution. U3 enabled USB thumbdrives. U3 is a new technology that allows you to use applications that do not modify the registry or files on the local computer. For example, I can run FireFox from my U3 thumbdrive and not worry about the cached files from the websites I visit remaining on the host computer (very valuable if you are visiting sensitive websites such as bank sites or corporate email).
When you pop your U3 compatible drive it it asks you for a password (which you can disable) and then loads an icon in the system tray that works like a second Windows "Start" button.
Unfortunatley not all applications are U3 compliant. But with a little tweaking you can make most applications work just fine. Here is a list of applications that I have either hacked to be U3 compliant (and don't worry I own licenses for all of them) or that have U3 compliant versions: Firefox, Yahoo Widgets, Putty, Mozilla Thunderbird, OpenOffice.Org, Avast Antivirus, Winrar, Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, Flash Professional 8, Dreamweaver 8, Ethereal, Audacity, Winamp, Nero 7, Gimp, and quite a few more. So now I have the abillity to sit down at any computer and run these applications from my thumbdrive. Yes, there is a little performance loss because I am running from a USB drive, but it's not to bad.
The best news, you can get a 1GB U3 compatible drive for $35 or $20 after $15 mail-in rebate. You can see a list of available applications at U3.com. Here is a full list of U3 compliant drives.
For those who already have a thumdrive and don't want to purchase a U3 compliant drive, check out PortableApps.com for applications you can run from your thumbdrive.
1 comment:
Brother, thank you so much! That is just what I was wondering about when I woke up this morning. Love ya!
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