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10 Technical and Cool Uses Of Usb Flash Drive You May Not know

I"ll summarize some interesting uses of a spare usb drive that some of you maynot know about.

Pure Technical Uses Of Usb Flash Drive Cool and Silly Uses Of Usb Flash Drive

Five Pure Technical Uses Of Usb Flash Drive You May Not know

1. Lock & Unlock Your Computer

You can lock and unlock your computer with a physical device, pretty much like they do in the movies. Use the free PREDATOR application, which turns a USB flash drive into an access control device – a key for your computer. When you leave your PC, unplug the USB stick and your computer will be locked. When you return, plug it back in and your computer will be unlocked. It’s like using the Lock function in Windows, but you don’t have to type your password when you return.
When you unplug your USB flash drive, your open windows will minimize and your screen will go dark – plug it back in and your screen will turn back on.

2. Quickly Connect To Wireless Networks

Windows includes a feature that can save your current wireless network’s name, password, and other information to a USB stick. You can then use the USB stick to quickly connect to your Wi-Fi network on other computers without typing the password over and over again. In fact, you can even use this USB stick to quickly connect an Xbox 360 to your Wi-Fi network – just select the Windows Connect Now option while setting up a wireless network on your Xbox.

To save your Wi-Fi settings to a USB flash drive >> click the wireless icon in your system tray >> right-click your current wireless network >> select Properties on the Connection tab >> click the Copy this network profile to a USB flash drivelink.

Click the Next button and Windows will copy the settings for the configured network to your USB stick. Connect the USB stick to another computer, and then double-click the setupSNK.exe file on it to install your network profile on the computer.

3. Increase Performance With ReadyBoost

if you have a slow hard disk drive in your computer, ReadyBoost can help speed things up. When you enable ReadyBoost for a drive, it acts as a hard drive cache, caching frequently used files. If it’s faster to read from the USB stick instead of your hard drive, Windows will read files from the cache on your flash drive instead. You won’t see much of a performance boost if you have a 7200+ RPM drive – if you have a solid-state drive, Windows won’t let you use ReadyBoost because the cache will be slower than your SSD.

To enable ReadyBoost, right-click a USB stick in Windows Explorer, select Properties, and use the options on the ReadyBoost tab. Windows will only let you enable ReadyBoost if your USB stick is fast enough, so you might see these options grayed out for some devices. ReadyBoost also requires a flash drive with at least 256 MB of free space.

Apart from uses like file sharing, data storage, remote access, password protector, the one feature which has come to popular use is ReadyBoost .It's a feature enabled in Windows 7 computers. It enables the users to use the memory in the USB flash drive to speed up your computer. In a way, it is used as RAM. Theoretically, upto 256 GB of RAM can be enabled to your computer using this feature.

A detailed explaination here

4. Install A Portable Web Server

If you’re a web developer, you can install Server2Go on your flash drive and turn it into a portable web server. Server2Go includes a complete WAMPP server stack – that’s Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. You can plug the Flash drive into any Windows computer and quickly launch your web server – no installation required. Having a complete web server package in your pocket can be ideal for demonstrations at meetings and many other purposes – you’re only limited by your imagination. Server2Go is a completely free download.

5. Portable apps

You can also install a wide variety of portable applications which you can run off your USB stick without installing them. Check out our list of the best portable apps to get started!

Cool and Silly Uses Of Usb Flash Drive

6.Bury it in a wall with its end sticking out.

This is a USB "Dead Drop" - Anonymous P2P file sharing network.

But WHY?

As you can see its not very convenient. You could end up with scratches on your laptop, a broken USB port, broken USB drive or all three. More importantly, why would you be bothered about checking it out or leaving something on it? The answer to that is - because it's fun (for some people at least). It isn't solving a problem, it isn't meant to be practical or useful.

Across New York, there are USB drives embedded in walls, buildings and curbs. The idea is to create an anonymous, offline file-sharing network in public space. The drives are completely public and anyone can plug in to drop and download files.

Seriously, you can plug the USB drive into your laptop. Like that guy right there.
It's part of an art project called "Dead Drops" by Aram Bartholl and I have to say, it's pretty awesomely creative. I mean, if I saw a USB stick stick out of a random wall, I'd be dying to know what's in there. I'd have to plug in. It'd also be interesting to see what people would anonymously share on the public drive, well, until some jackass decides to upload a virus to screw up everybody's computer

7.You can create a stripe set between two thumb drives, essentially a mini RAID0 array. The data is then inaccessible unless both drives are mounted, so the two drives can be given to two trustworthy people and then only used in tandem, kind of like missile keys.
So it's not especially useful, but it is cool.

8.This can be done

9.this one might be silly but, maybe helpful,,, save all your important info like your mobile password(i have iphone and it is locked with 4 digit key), health insurance details, address, phone number and a copy of your driver's license and contact numbers of family, few close and good friends(incase of emergency to call them) and attach the pen drive to your house keys.

Hope this might be helpful in some situations(atleast you met with an accident and you are alone- police might want to use it if you dont have your wallet on you or some situations(you can fill)).

any suggestions are accepted and further edited on request..!

keyboard layout Q-W-E-R-T-Y and not simply A-B-C-D-E-F?

It hasn’t been done randomly or just for fun, it has a very distinct and purposeful reason behind it.

The current format of the keyboard was devised long back in 1870’s by a gentleman named Christopher Sholes. Though, it definitely was not the first format to come up, it didn’t take much time to switch to this one. Starting with lexicographic order i.e. A-B-C-D-E-F, after various trials and errors and taking hundreds of cases, Christopher Sholes gradually reached the Q-W-E-R-T-Y. It was really well received (evident from the fact that we still use it).

When the typewriter was invented, it used a metal bar to hold the character alphabets and the other end of the bar was attached to a linkage carrying a carriage with the coated ink. When a key was struck, it would emboss its character on the paper placed beneath the carriage. However, when an operator learned to type at a great speed, a certain flaw invoked. When two letters were struck in quick succession, the bars of the typewriter would entangle and get jammed.

Christopher Sholes found a way out. He proposed that the letters of frequently used letter pairs should be in different rows. For example, ‘C-H’, ‘S-T’, ’T-H’, ‘W-H’ and more. He also formulated that to speed up the typing process, there has to be a regular alternation between two hands. So observing thousands of words, he placed the letters in way that most words would make use of both hands.

He also observed that almost every word in the dictionary carries a vowel. According to him, the most frequently used vowel was ‘A’ and the most frequently used letter (non-vowel) was ‘S’. So he placed ‘A’ and ‘S’ together and chose to keep less common letters like ‘Q’, ‘W’, ‘Z’, ‘X’, ‘C’ around these. This was complemented by placing fairly common letters like ‘M’, ‘N’, ‘L’, ‘K’, ‘O’, ‘P’ at right extremes to create a perfect alternation between both the hands.

All these factors tested with thousands of trials gave us the format that we still use and perhaps would be using till eternity.

5 features that differs Windows 10 from Windows 8

Microsoft is launching Windows 10 as the new face of both Windows and eventually Windows Phone. At one point during Microsoft’s Tuesday press event.during Microsoft’s Tuesday press event, Terry Myerson, the executive vice president in charge of Microsoft’s OS group Microsoft is looking for user feedback, and what I demo'd on Tuesday may not be the same OS that customers receive next year.Windows 10 tentatively scheduled to be launched around the middle of 2015

Windows 10: Expanded Start Menu

it looks like someone conjoined the Windows 7 and Windows 8 experience.As you can see in the below screen on the left, there’s a list of frequently used apps, along with shortcuts to PC settings, as well as your documents and pictures folders. At the bottom, there’s a shortcut to launch an “all apps” view. It appears that you should think of Live Tiles more like notifications rather than app shortcuts, although you can use them either way.

If you want, you can resize the Start menu, increasing or decreasing its size and adjusting its position.

Windows 10: Multiple desktops

Instead of too many apps and files overlapping on a single desktop, it's easy to create and switch between distinct desktops for different purposes and projects ( whether for worker or personal use)

Windows 10: Search improved

In this latest version they moved the one of the major functionality of the Windows 8 Start page to the desktop environment of Windows 10. I am talking about the Search button it is added to the taskbar with this your "searching" for recent apps or documents is often quicker.

Windows 10: Snap enhancements

Working in multiple apps at once is made easier and more intuitive with snap .A new quadrant layout in Windows 10 allows up to four apps to be snapped on the same screen.it will even make smart suggestions on filling available screen space with other open apps.

For example that once you snap an app, Windows 10 suggests another, similar app that you might want to snap next to it, from a small collection of windows. The feature is intended to save you the hassle of hunting about through menus to actually construct a virtual desktop. Time will tell whether these suggestions will prove useful, but it’s a good start.

Windows 10: New Task view button

The new Task view button on the task bar enables one viewforall open apps and files, allowing for quickswitching and one touch access to any desktop created.

	Moto 360	Samsung Gear S	LG G Watch R
Design	stainless steel gray leather with suede finish	Plastic and Some parts of stainless steel	Stainless steel frame and supported by a 22mm calf skin leather strap
Display	1.56-inch back-lit LCD display 320x290 pixels Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection	2-inch curved Super AMOLED Display 360x480 pixel resolution	1.3-inch Plastic OLED (P-OLED) 360x360 pixel resolution
size	Diameter of 46mm and 11.5mm thick Weighs 49 grams	58mm , 40 mm and 12.5mm thick	Diameter 46.4 mm Screen size 1.3 inch
Color	Light stainless steel case with gray horween leather band Dark stainless steel case with black horween leather band	Available in Black and white colors	Available only in Black color
SIM Card Slot	Yes 2G and 3G	Yes 2G and 3G Calling	Yes 2G and 3G
Operating System(OS)	Android 4.3+	Tizen OS	Android 4.3+
Processor	TI OMAP 3 Processor	Dual-core 1 GHZ Processor	1.2 GHZ Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Processor
RAM	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB
Storage	4GB Internal storage	4GB Internal storage	4 GB Internal Storage
Battery	320 mAh battery Wireless charging and comes with a charging Dock	300 mAh Li-ion battery ( rated to deliver 2 days of charge with typical usage)	410 mAh
Connectivity	Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy Connectivity	3G Connectivity Voice Calling Bluetooth 4.1 Wi-Fi Connectivity	3G Connectivity
Certification	IP67 Rated it as Water Resistant	IP67 Certified dust and water resistant	IP67 Certified water resistant
Sensors	Features a Pedometer and Optical Heart Rate Monitor	Features a Heart-rate Sensor	Sensors include gyro/accelerometer/compass and barometer.
Special Features	Single button, vibration motor , dual microphones	Shows notifications from Text messages , social networks, calendars etc independently without the need to access the smartphone Voice functionality for dictating and voice commands Included its own S Health app to track health statistics 24-hour news service from Financial Times and more	This feature provides users with information regarding missed calls, meetings, events and local weather forecasts. Users can also track their heartbeat. Other sensors include gyro/accelerometer/compass and barometer.
Price	$250	$300	$400
Release date	September 2014	October 2014	October 2014

Moto 360

Samsung Gear S

LG G watch R

Lenovo IdeaPad A10 V/S Acer C720 Chromebook

the Lenovo Ideapad A10 and Acer C720 Chromebook both run on the same OS(Android ) created by Google.

The tablet is undoubtedly among the most affordable computing devices you can buy these days. But they are not very good with productivity as they do not have keyboards and are not built to take on high-powered tasks.

But then the Lenovo IdeaPad A10 is different. It is an Android multi-mode tablet which you can use in a laptop mode with its keyboard and in a stand mode where the touchscreen is more dominant.

Lenovo IdeaPad A10 and Acer ChromeBook C720

some of the difference between those two devices are shown in a tabular form.

Differences	Lenovo Ideapad A10	Acer C720 Chromebook
1.Design	Ø A10 is Lighter and Thinner Ø Weighs just a Kilogram Ø Screen size is 10.1 inch	Weighs 1.4Kg Screen size is 11.6 inch
2.Operating system	Ø Runs on Android 4.2 OS Ø Supports all other Apps	Ø It is actually a browser and runs Android OS and Ø It does not supports Skype(not yet added in chrome store)
3.Processing speed	Ø Rockchip RK3188Cotex- A9 quad core processor. Ø Provides better Multi- tasking, power saving than Acer’s c720’s. Ø A10 offers full Android Multi-tasking. Ø The Battery life is it gives couple of hours more than chromebook.	Ø Acer C720’s dual-core Intel Celeron Processor. Ø It gives 8 hours of battery life.
4. Touch screen	Ø A10 is Laptop as well as a Tablet with touch screen. Ø It offers a 360 degree fold option.	Ø Chromebook is completely a Laptop and Ø Does not offers touch screen.
5. Price	Ø The price is around Rs. 19,800.	Ø The price is around Rs. 22,500

And it is not just about a cheaper price tag. The Lenovo IdeaPad A10 offers more features for the price, the touchscreen and the multi-mode design just being two of those. This is not taking away the fact that the Chromebook is still among the most affordable computing devices available in the market.