The storage space on a memory stick is so big nowadays, that just using it to transfer some documents from one place to another seems a waste.
A year or two ago I started experimenting with portable apps, applications that need no installation on the machine on which you are working. If a laptop is too bulky to carry around with you, and you know you’ll have access to a computer with a USB port on it, why bother.

I began with PortableApps.com, from here you can easily download a suite of applications with a basic customiseable usb interface to at them. The standard suite includes Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Clam Antivirus, and some other great little things.

After you start building more portable applications up, you may find the PortableApps menu system gets a little too cluttered. In which case, try out PStart its smaller and highly customiseable.

The next issue you really need to consider now is backup. Contrary to some manufacturers beliefs, a USB stick can fail and 50% of the time its unlikely you’ll be able to retrieve the data off it without shelling out a fortune to a data recovery company.

The best place to backup a USB stick is probably to your own PC (I wouldn’t reccomend backing up to someone elses) there are portable tools to assist in backup procedures, but as a script fan I cobbled something together using the XCOPY which is basically an advanced copy command. You can use it to copy only those files which are newer, in other words, update. Ty creating a text file n the root folder of your pen drive called pendrivebackup.bat with the command line:

xcopy . c:\PenDriveBackup /y /d /o /e /i /k /c /h

Once created, pop a link to it in your PStart menu then whenever you plug your memory stick into your own PC, run it. It’ll take a while the first time you run it.

If you ever lose your stick, you’ll no longer be worried about losing too much data. You may, however, be concerned if someone not particularly honest finds it. In which case, may I recommend some software called TruCrypt. With it you can create an encrypted folder on the stick that is only acessible with a password, and iit can be rn as a portable app!

So there you have it, a quick run though to get you started using your USB memory stick in a more productive way.