Kumar @ Singapore: 2009

5 hidden utilities with which your thumbdrive can perform wonders. Everyone poses a pendrive today. They become smaller than a matchbox, provides 16 GB of storage and costs not more than Rs.3000 . Here are some ways to do magic …

1. Carry the music environment around you.

Being a music addict hurts you if you cannot able to access to your songs all the time and have to wait till you get home to listen to them. Consider 5 minutes per song, you could fit 400 files which is about 33 hours of music in 2 GB pen drive and naming those 400 songs are quite difficult. Winamp Portable Edition has the solution for it. It has organised media library. It is portable and easily accessible.

2. Carry your applications with you.

Applications can be directly installed to a pen drive and run directly from it without any restrictions or limitations on installation programs.
Portableapps.com provides you a software for this. Where you can choose the applications of your desire from the given list.
Check here at http://www.portableapps.com

3. Learn to use Linux.

Wondering about this use? It is easy actucally.. You can install certain Linux versions in your pen drive and can also operate using it. It is very useful for students who want to learn Linux, but don’t want to install it as their OS. There are many Linux versions for pen drive like Knoppix, Damnsmalllinuc, Puppy Linux, Linux Mint , etc. Make a Google Search for this and you will get plenty of websites. My choice is www.pendrivelinux.com . This site is really helpful for non-geeks and non-techies.

4. Creating Windows Vista/Windows 7 install drive.

Note : Your pendrive should be atleast 4GB and your PC should have the BIOS option for booting from the USB.

a) Format the pendrive and partition active.
b)Insert Windows Vista/7 DVD as a administrator.
In the Command Prompt or cmd type
E:\boot\bootsect.exe\nt60X:

Where the drive letters E: is for DVD and X: is for pendrive.

c)Copy the files and folders from the DVD to the pendrive.
d)Plug the pendrive into any PC and boot from it.

5 . As a Backup.

If the files you want to backup are few , then why buy an external hard disk drive , try it with a pendrive instead. You can backup these files onto the pendrive manually or usually programs that can automate backups. You can use softwares such as Allway Sync or MS Sync Toy.