Anyone else find these to be useful? Before I started this job, I never thought much about them My first week here I had so many people ask me if I had one so they could give me documents and files that I needed. As it turns out, this little thing has become a valued tool for my job. I bought a Memorex 1GB drive for $50

Yup, use them all the time. Great way to transfer data from office to home and back. Also, to perform interim backup of vital files that you just can't afford to lose.

They're awesome.

That's a good price for a 1GB.

My 512 was that price.

I love them. I have two 512's but I've been using my iPod for backing up important files. I carry my ipod with me all the time so I can have some music to listen to. I have the 60 gig model. More than enough for my music and files.

Yeah, fifty bucks is a good price for a 1GB drive. You've got to like a handy storage device with no moving parts. Technology rocks.

I got mine from buy.com

I bought mine in Jebel Ali for about $28 (128Megs). I used it to store all the pics Liz sent of Sterling til I got home! In about three months they went from being a pretty good idea to being indispensable!

I usually just use my laptop, but if I DID get one, it would be the Swiss Army Knife one.

Is that the same as a jump drive?

Yep ruggysgirl, jump and thumb same thing, same as flash.

I had a 512MB and gave it to the Mrs when I ran out of room and got a 1GB from Corsair for $50 or $60.

I thought i just saw a 2GB for $70 somewhere, but I can't find it now.

They plan on banning them here at work 😞

why on earth would they ban them at your work?

Because they can be a great way to steal proprietary data, introduce viruses and worms, are used by many to store illegally downloaded MP3s (on the work broadband connection), etc., etc., etc.

I know that besides storing my babys picson mine, I have an AN/USM-674 controller (a PC used to control an automated Huntron Tracker ATE (automated Test Equipment) unit. I have a program on the controller that keeps track of all our jobs, and how much cost we've helped avoid for the ship and the Navy. I have to send out a quarterly report from the tracking program, but the controller isn't on the LN to email it directly, and early in our recent deployment, the A: drive died (brand new controller too!) so I used my thumb drive to transfer my reports via the USB port!

BTW, we saved $438,017.21 in fiscal '05!

Security I suppose, they don't want and documents leaving with confidential info? That's all I can guess. They're planning on implementing a domain policy to disable the flash usb driver on all machines.

They enjoy their power, they made me remove a screen saver I wrote that displayed the time and whether you had new mail or a meeting because "third party screen savers aren't allowed". I thought it was nice to finally have a screensaver that provided you with information.

"You've got to like a handy storage device with no moving parts. Technology rocks."

A friend of mine left his thumb drive in his pocket when he washed his pants.

The darn thing still had all his data when it was dry!

These things are the greatest.

Zoinks, you WROTE the screensaver? Would you mind sharing? 🙂 clive(dot)foster(at)gmail(dot)com

they should ban floppy disks, cd's, the possibilities are endless

CWFoster,

Sure, I'll look for it when I get home (or tomorrow if don't get on the puter tonight) it's on the server somewhere (I hope anyway).

I deleted it from my flash drive because I mistakenly copied it back to my computer at work one day and they sent me a message telling me it was on my machine again.

Now that I have this thing, I have no idea how I got by without it! It seems I use it at least 2 dozen times a day at work.

We have the same security issue at my office. Problem is can't disable USB ports due to the variety of other devices that use them. And as far as we have been able to tell, there is no way to only lock out USB drives and allow other USB connections.

As for the Navy, I spent almost a whole day yesterday listening to a sales pitch from a software company who's biggest client is the navy.