And flash drives go beyond data transport and storage. With new U3 platform USB flash drives, you can actually take not only your favorite files, but your favorite applications with you wherever you go. Once plugged in to the inevitable USB port found on any modern Windows 2000 or XP equipped PC, your U3 automatically pops up, “leeching” services like screen display, memory and Internet connection from the “master” computer – but for all practical purposes, you're using a separate computer, with no impact on your host PC's hard drive or registry.

 

 

But even those who complain (some would say nitpick) at U3's alleged shortcoming appreciate the idea of carrying their PC on a keychain. And so, parallel to U3 (actually, somewhat preceding it), there has evolved another “platform,” one that entails re-encoding or otherwise manipulating popular software packages (usually open source) into portable editions suitable for use on flash memory drives.

 

 

 

Portable apps, like U3 platform devices, claim to leave no traces of activity on a host computer's hard drive. Note that this does not mean that use of drives like these are undetectable; there are a bunch of tricks a savvy system administrator could implement – like recording system activity with Windows' Performance Monitor, or installing a keystroke recorder – that could rat out users who prefer to keep their computing activities under the radar. In that sense, both U3 and non-U3 portable devices offer the same advantages or disadvantages. In fact, despite the hype, there are actually many similarities between U3 and non-U3 portable devices – so much so that portable apps can generally be used on U3 devices (I haven't been able to determine yet if the opposite is true).

 

So what's the big deal about U3? Is U3 the real thing, or just hype? It seems to me that your attitude to the brewing “struggle” between the approaches will be based on your attitude regarding the ubiquity of Microsoft Office, or the “benighted attitude:” most corporations have to “alternative” OS's like Linux, or “why buy software when there really is an open source application for every need?” Personally, I subscribe to some of these points of view myself (I won't say which, though, to avoid excessive e-mail flaming), but that's because I have a modicum of computer knowledge and experience. That makes me (and you, too, if you hold these positions as well), far different – dare I say more technically sophisticated – than the average user. I don't mean that as a put-down of non-techies, or as a compliment to myself – but I don't see casual Windows users setting up a USB flash drive with portable OpenOffice. In fact, most casual Windows users wouldn't use – and may even be afraid of – OpenOffice, believing that their OO documents will not be compatible with “real” Office, the one made by you-know-who.

 

Most users – even casual ones - can see the value in portable USB computing, but as any computer help desk veteran can tell you, there is a technical threshold that such users will not go beyond, even if they can improve productivity and save oodles of money and time. This is certainly one reason (note that I said “one”) why Linux is still an outsider in many corporate offices; the first thing many sysadmins will tell you is that they personally like Linux and can see how it would benefit their companies – but they fear they will end up spending all their time teaching users the charm of Gnome or KDE, leaving them working overtime doing the actual backup, maintenance and other “real” tasks they were to do.