Pen drive is no more a fashion... nor is an accessory. With the growing demand for the capacity, Pen Drives have become a part of our lives. But very few of us seem to use them carefully and derive their ultimate benefits. Here are few tips that lead to perfect utilisation of them.

Virus:  Pen Drive and Virus go together. You may be utmost careful in keeping your computers updated. But we can’t expect that with every system to which we attach our pen drives. The Auto Run feature in windows is normally a culprit to let unwanted files into a pen drive. So it’s better to enable your pen drive with antivirus software. We have numerous free applications such as `Panda USB vaccine’ that could save our pen drive, wherever it goes.

Hard Disk for Media:  Don’t worry if your Desktop is filled with those classic movies, songs and e-books. Just opt for a pen drive that could act as a hard disk to store such `not so necessary` files. A 32 GB pen drive would worth about 700 Rs. and could take care of your media. So! Let’s a pen drive be your media storage so that you can not only keep your drives clean but can also attach to any source such as a TV.

Your wallet of secrets:  A pen drive is small and portable. It can comfortable be placed at a corner of your purse or even hang around to your neck. There are numerous applications available that can turn a pen drive into a secret wallet. Companies like San Disk were also providing embedded programs such as `Sandisk Secure Access’ to instil some privacy in the pen drives.

Software:  A pen drive can be a hub for numerous applications. Whole lot of softwares can be run through pen drives. One can even install an Operating System through a pen drive. So a pen drive is nothing less than a Swiss knife for the one who knows how to use it.

Tricks and Stunts:  Techies can do weird things by using a simple pen drive. They can turn it into a ram, speedup your windows or even use as a key to start the computer. But such tricks do require a lot of vigilance and need some supporting applications. Meanwhile we can try a few tips like increasing the transfer speed of data by altering the properties.

- Nirjara.