Did you know this storage device can do much more? Marchelle Abrahams investigates...
Gadgets with dual purposes are becoming all the rage, with manufacturers realising devices with single uses are fast becoming obsolete.
Take the humble USB flash drive for instance. It’s small, compact and can store your most cherished playlist. But did you know this storage device is capable of so much more? You just need to know how to harness its power.
Dead drop
You might have seen pictures of flash drives jutting out walls on Instagram and thought “oh, it’s probably an art installation or something like that.”
In reality it’s nothing like that.
Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space where USB flash drives are embedded into walls and buildings, making them accessible to anybody in the public space.
There are dead drops scattered all around New York City and started out as a project by Aram Bartholl. Today the movement taking shape on a global level.
Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop - just plug your laptop to a wall to share your favorite files and data.
Visit: https://deaddrops.com/
Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. Picture: Wikimedia Commons
Lock and unlock your PC
According to Gizmodo.com, you can lock and unlock your computer with a simple USB. The trick is to use an app, like PREDATOR, which you can download for free. The app turns your flash drive into an access control device - a physical key for your computer. When locking your PC, unplug the USB stick, or plug it back in and your computer will be unlocked.
Visit: https://www.predator-usb.com//predator/en/index.php
You can lock and unlock your computer with a simple USB. Picture: Max Pixel
Boost your RAM
ReadyBoost is a special disk cache service in Microsoft Windows that uses fast removable devices, such as USB flash drives, for speeding up smaller random disk reads. In other words - it catches some of the data to your USB in lightening speed.
So, how do you make it happen?
The most effective way to determine whether a specific flash drive meets ReadyBoost requirements is to test it. Windows Vista and Windows 7 automatically test removable storage when attached, according to Microsoft.
Store games
PC games consume large amounts of disk space. To free up extra space, you can install them direct to your flash drive and run them from there. This also automatically speeds up your device, but take into consideration that you may still require a disk to play, depending on how the game was coded.
Connect to wireless networks
Unfortunately, this only applies to Windows.
All Windows PCs include a feature that can save your current wireless network's name, password, and other information to a USB stick.
According to Gizmodo, you can use the USB to quickly connect to your Wi-Fi network on other computers without typing the password over and over again.
And, it even quickly connects an Xbox 360 to your Wi-Fi network - select the Windows Connect Now option while setting up a wireless network on your Xbox.
