U3 technology
By CarlKnittel
@CarlKnittel (692)
United States
September 29, 2008 3:28pm CST
I LOVE MY NEW THUMB DRIVE
I've beeen wanting one of these things for years and when Wal*Mart's back to school sale included a 2gig thumb drive from SanDisk under $13 I snapped it up. When I got it home I found out it was a U3 drive that supported programs loaded onto and run from the flash drive. I updated it with several free programs including firefox so that I could save my bookmarks when using the public library computers.
I just discovered that I could save my tabs when signing off the computer so that they reload when I get back on. Not only where they there when I got another computer but they had refreshed to include new content.
I LOVE THIS THING!!!
1 person likes this
5 responses
@commanderxo (1494)
• Canada
30 Sep 08
Man...don't you just love technology these days?
Now, is that JAWS or MAGic that you've got there?
cdrxo
@CarlKnittel (692)
• United States
30 Sep 08
I never heard of either. It's a SanDisk cruiser micro 2 gig drive with u3 smart drive technology. i loaded mozillas browser and email client as well as several games and a couple utilites i haven't figured out yet. they all came free from the download site so I took advantage of the price.
@commanderxo (1494)
• Canada
2 Oct 08
I did a little reading on it, and from what I understand...you can download any program you have installed on your PC onto the disc...take it with you anywhere you want to go...plug it into another PC, and use that program WITHOUT having to intall it on that second PC. You can just boot the program from the disc, and run it.
Now if that ain't cool, I don't know what is.
Niice going Carl.
cdrxo
@CarlKnittel (692)
• United States
14 Oct 08
Although I haven't upgraded mine that far yet there are plans in PC magazine to turn the U# drive into a private computing platform. You can even make it bootable with it's own (Linux) OS. i have loaded the right software but haven't set it up yet to provide trace free surfing and e-mail on public computers. It is possible, with the right configurtion, to do all your internet work in virtual anonymity without leaving a trace on other computers by having all the web activity route through the thumb drive. It can even secure you against spying from other people on the same network with U3 firewall and security software.
1 person likes this
@doubleloveyou (2466)
• United States
30 Sep 08
Ok I have to admit I have never heard of the thing. So will I contribute greatly to this discussion? No. But I definately am going to look into what a Thumb drive is. Sounds great. I have 3 computers that I work on and I hate having to set everything up on each computer. Thanks for the information.
2 people like this
@CarlKnittel (692)
• United States
30 Sep 08
these things are variously known as Data Keys, Flash Drives and Thumb Drives. There's probably a few names I haven't heard as well. They use flash memory to save files on a small device around the size of your thumb or smaller. A lot of them have key ring attachments that let you keep them handy. They plug into the computer at a USB port and act as portable memory so you can move files around to other computers like a floppy disk but more convenient and durable. You can check out one of the major brands by doing a search for "cruzer micro" or SanDisk".
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
7 Aug 09
I have to agree that U3 is a remarkable technology and could prove very useful. nevertheless, my first task when I acquired a U3 flash drive was to remove the feature. I use a flash drive as a Live USB drive for Ubuntu, so I prefer a blank drive.
@howard96h (11640)
• New York, New York
30 Sep 08
I have a few of them myself and I love them, so much better than saving stuff on cd/dvd's and I like that you can password protect it so no one can gain access to it. I back up all my important files, photos and music.
2 people like this
@CarlKnittel (692)
• United States
30 Sep 08
I use the library computer a lot and also needed to take PowerPoint files and such back and forth to the church computer for leading music. The flash drive seemed like the most useful tool since not all computers have floppy drives anymore(the churches doesn't) and burning Cd's for such a small number of files seems silly. The only problem is that the front USB port is in a small cavity the drives body won't fit into at the church so I have to plug it into the back from under the sound room desk.
1 person likes this
@LouiseKnittel (4764)
• United States
29 Sep 08
I have liked playing some of the games on it too! 
Your going to make everyone want one!
Your going to make everyone want one!