A USB flash drive consists of a NANDtype flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB universal serial bus interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, much shorter than a floppy disk to inches or . to cm, and weigh less than ounces g. Storage capacities typically range from MB to GB with steady improvements in size and price per gigabyte. Some allow million write or erase cycles and have year data retention, connected by USB . or USB . USB flash drives offer potential advantages over other portable storage devices, particularly the floppy disk. They have a more compact shape, operate faster, hold much more data, have a more durable design, and operate more reliably due to their lack of moving parts.

Additionally, it has become increasingly common for computers to ship without floppy disk drives. USB ports, on the other hand, appear on almost every current mainstream PC and laptop. These types of drives use the USB mass storage standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unixlike systems. USB drives with USB . support can also operate faster than an optical disc drive, while storing a larger amount of data in a much smaller space.

In short: When you download it, save it in like, My Documents. Clarification: Open My Documents, and locate the file. You have moved it over. Windows XP Home Edition does not have a encryption feature, only the Professional Edition. However, there are two freewares that can do the job.

Here are the instructions to use it. Everyones got files theyd like to keep out the the hands of intruders or casual passerby. Today well go over a simple way to encrypt sensitive files or entire external disk drives to protect them from prying eyes. TrueCrypt is a free, open source encryption application that works on Windows and Linux. Given the right credentials, TrueCrypt will create a virtual hard drive that will read and write encrypted files on the fly. Fear not; thisll make sense once we get it set up. Set up the encrypted volume location 1.

Download TrueCrypt, install and launch. The curious can flip through the dropdown and view info on each option, but you pretty much cant go wrong here; the default AES selection will work for most purposes.

100MB, giving no hint to the actual size of its contents.

TrueCrypt wants something totally badass, like 20 characters with letters and numbers mixed together, something hard to crack.

The whole point here is to keep snoopers at bay, so make your password reasonably difficult to crack or guess. Hit the Format button to go ahead with this operation, which may slow down your computer for a few seconds. Your encrypted volume location is ready for use. Heres how to get to it.

Select an available drive letter from the list in TrueCrypt, like Z:. If you enter the correct password, the virtual drive Z: will be mounted. Drag and drop all your sensitive data to this drive and work from it as if you would any other disk. Ubuntu or MEPIS and try it out. Linux will work with your hardware. If the computer was running XP then chances are it has the RAM and processor speed to do real justice to a Linux distro. Most live Cds include a hard drive installer. Almost all hardware now works with Linux; the exceptions being some of the latest boards for which drivers have not yet been written. So there is a very good chance your computer will work just fine under the Linux OS. 95 for a CD, UBUNTU will send you one for free, but it takes a while as they are mailed out of Europe. CD tab at the top of the page. Do NOT defrag your memory card, flash memory, or thumb drive. Solid state memory has NO moving parts and is not mechanical, so it will NOT benefit from defragmentation. To derive the benefit from defragmentation without wasting your time or energy, use an automatic defragmenter. It is more convenient than scheduled or manual defrag. You cant, you should remove the card and use an adaptor to plug the card into a USB port.

You should just go out and get a USB pen drive instead and leave the card for exclusive use in the camera. Less chance of anything going wrong.