Fun with flash drives...

The coolest thing I can think of doing with a flash drive is running an OS on one of those 16GB Corsair's.

Put your flash drive one one rail on a train track and a coin on the other and see which one looks coolest when they get run over.

It would be very slow. Seek times on a flash drive are fast but transfer times are slooooowwww.

Check out http://portableapps.com/
I keep portable Firefox and Thunderbird on mine plus a bunch of general tools and files I need to have for work or for helping friends remove malware etc..

haha, yeah, that might be a good idea... but i kinda want to keep it functional (the train idea).. that and i'd have to find a train somwhere, and find out when it runs every day... that's requires getting up from my computer... anyway.

Some tools might be nice... and yes, the transfer rates on BIG files are terrible... but much faster on a mass of small files (600mb of music transfers 2x as fast or more than a 600mb movie) at least for me. I was kind of wondering why more devices don't have usb ports just for thumb drives (eg car stereos, mp3 players, etc.) you know, make in dash cd players obsolete, haha. especially with the price of flash being down so low now. i mean 10 bucks a gig was unheard of last year, and now it's common place. :-p

Now that would be cool; run Netware on it. I don't know if it ever had USB drivers though.

Clarion does have an in dash unit that you can hook up a flash drive directly into the face of it.

Where & how did you get the portable firefox? Would be nice for using my schools computers, I hate IE.

Portable Firefox can be installed on portable apps. Just look above.

I have used it as a Windows "pagefile.sys" before. It is OK. I have 4GB of Main Memory DDR2, so it does not help much. Right now, I am hunting down "free" portable application to store on my flash memory stick. So far, I have found Firefox, Acrobat Reader, and Adobe Photoshop.

http://portableapps.com/

Theres lots on there...

hummm, I wonder if gimp will work on a thumb drive.

Thanks. Works great!  

any app that stores all its files in its home directory should be able to do it.

You can do a lot with a flash drive:

1. Use it to store and transport files (duh.)
2. Put syslinux and a live CD's files on there and boot the computer without having to burn a CD.
3. Use the trick from #2 to boot a computer that has a dead HDD and no CD drive. Much easier than PXE netbooting.
4. Use it as a paging file disk with virtually zero access latency.
5. If it's big enough and the computer will boot from USB, use it as a SSD in a computer.
6. Wear it around your neck to say "I'm a geek! Hear me roar!!"

You can copy save files over to it and hack your XBOX.
You can remove the casing and encapsulate it in a lego.
You can get a wireless bridge that supports USB drives, then hide it away for secure, stealproof storage.

You can sharpen it to a fine point and toss it like a ninja star.

You can put porn on it and put it in a school computer. Auto play will begin playing the videos automaticly. (make sure volume is up for maximum effectiveness).

To MU: Are you saying that creating a PXE boot server is not fun or exciting? lol.

PXE is a pain when all you're trying to do is boot one computer.

I use portable Firefox and Portable VLC off of my OCZ Rally Gen1 1gb USB Key. Its very fast, and is useful on my dads laptop, on which he doesnt want any new programs installed on.

My dad and I have 6 USB keys alltogether:
1x Sandisk Cruzer Micro 256mb
2x Sandisk Cruzer Micro 512mb
1x EP Memory 1gb
1x OCZ Rally Gen1 1gb
1x 2gb ADATA key

The OCZ is by far the best. The ADATA is not that great and takes up a lot of room. The EP memory and Sandisk keys are okay. If I were to get a new key it would be the 4gb OCZ Rally2 for $40 or so

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

cool... I saw that ocz rally 2 on newegg just last night. it looks good... And i think you can put pretty much any program you want onto a flash drive... like diablo 1 !!! that'd be somthing to take to school, hahaha. Anyway, if you read the "computer use policy" 99% of the time you can do run any program you want as long as you don't install it... so if it's on a flash drive i think you're good... technically you could have 4 flash drives.. boot up ubuntu, and have a few other progs without ever installing a thing. (4 drives would be faster than one massive one) just plug em all in and reboot!
you say clarion huh? I was thinking more like just somthing that fits in your dash and reads folders/mp3 off of usb connected stuff.. with a power amp... screw cd's flash drives are much easier and smaller.

You can install programs onto a key, but when you try to use it on another PC, you have to install the program. I did this with the Imperial Glory Demo.

You can hack the program to work off of a flash drive. That, either or get portable apps, or U3 ones

Gimp portable. Also on portableapps...

easy, i put Halflife on my corsair GT 2GB, it run on really old PC's as well as new.

how did you do that?

easy, when you istall a disk copy of HL, (not a steam version), it asks you to specify where you want it installing, it gives you a standard place (C:/prog files...) but i said I:/ (my drive) and it installed. i can launch it by clicking on the exe.

however keep your keycode handy as you need to re enter it each time you log onto a NEW computer as it si saved int he registry.

NOTE: some network have policy which dont allow you to run of removable storage, if so copy file on Documents folder or desktop.

If this still doesnt work the the NTFS policies have been changed and it not worth trying to combat it. hope this helps.

You're talking of HL 1 right?

I wasn't talking about cds, almost all the companies have one that runs mp3's off cds. I was talking about one that you plug a usb flash right into the front and it plays.

Clarion Double-Din USB headunit

Clarion Single-Din USB Head Unit

Now those are only a couple of the ones they have. I have a GM car, so I was seriously thinking about the Double din one. I will say you pay a premium for the technology though. Their Cheapest one with USB is 299.99 I think they have four total that do it. Now I am not sure about other companies as I haven't really looked, I am not seriously in the market for it right now, as I don't have the money.

Is that the Voyager GT? From what I have read that has the fastest read and write speeds of any of the flash drives right now. How do you like it? Have you noticed it to be much faster then others? I am asking because I recently lost my other 2 gig drive and was looking for a replacement and at 26.99 for the 2 gig, that one is not bad priced, if the speed claims are real. I am wanting to be able to use it as a ready boost drive for my laptop as well, that's why I will pay the premium for the speed.

That's why I carry mine in my pocket. That says "I'm a geek... but I'm not going to let you find out that easily!"

Just finished installing HL1 on my OCZ Rally. It took like 20-25min

Im going to try it on another PC now....

I hope it automatically saves the save files onto the key...

Gimp portable. Also on portableapps...

is it part of one of the suites that they have?

installing the Best VideoGame EVER on my USB key...
its 40mb alltogether

anyone want to take a guess?

hint: they still are making sequels

still ... darn!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portable_computer_...

halflife 1 and the game I just installed arent on that list, but they work fine

give up on the mystery game? ITS CIVILIZATION II!

sick game...

i also have Quake 2, but I played it so much when I was younger I doubt I can play it more...

MOO2

using a portable password manager would be good word play with the whole USB Key aspect of it

Master of Orion 2 was definitely THE game.

yeah, i understood what you were talkin about... I was just saying that i wouldn't want a cd player with a usb plug in it... i was thinking more or less just a usb plug and controls and displays.... that's cool though.. i just don't understand why it's not a standard... cuz it's so cheap. and so effective. :-p

No 360 hacks or programs.  

I swear if there's portable apps/hacks for 360 out there then they're very hard to find.

MS has been cracking down on xbox hacking so.....

get it right... it's "M$"!!!

haha... anyway, yeah microsoft hates it when people figure out ways to use an xbox for more than games... because you know... that doesn't boost hardware sales... :-p (if they'd make a system they made money on they'd forget about mods/hacks cuz it'd boost sales.) well, other than the fact that it ticks off develpers when people copy games/get them for free/ buy the 360 and skew the potential audience stats. hehe... but other than that... they could make a 300 dollar system that kicks graphical butt... throw linux on it and with a few drivers you could play the hottest pc games for what it costs to buy an 8800gts 320 meg, give or take a few bucks...

Just finished installing HL1 on my OCZ Rally. It took like 20-25min

Im going to try it on another PC now....

I hope it automatically saves the save files onto the key...

At school this year, we kept playing Counter-Strike from the network trash folder or portable hard drives, never installed a thing, just copied the folder to the trash once and everyone was playing straight from the folder.

If you're looking for an OS to run off a flash drive, try Knoppix. I have it on my 1GB drive, and if you know your way around Linux, you can modify it so you can add extra apps and save files and have a persistent directory. Well worth checking out.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Plenty of choices on that site, you can even do Ubuntu, but Knoppix is the easiest one.

Download predator on your computer and use your flash drive as a key to get into your computer, if you try to unlock the computer without the right password or flash drive it flashes an epic "access denied" message...super secret agency