Question: I bought a USB flash drive that says “U3” on it. What is U3?
Answer: Part of answering this question has to do with how programs get onto your computer. When you go to a store and buy a piece of software; after you bring it home, you take the CD or DVD and put it in your CD or DVD drive and run a setup program. That setup program peppers your hard drive and a database called the Registry with the parts and settings required to make this new software work. When you want to remove the program, you run an uninstaller that removes those parts and settings. That process doesn’t lend itself well to taking a program from one computer to another. So, a new class of software has been developed, called “portable” applications. Portable applications don’t require installation, and don’t leave any files or registry entries on a computer that has run them. They can be copied to any flash drive, like the way we used to copy DOS programs to floppy disks in the 80’s, then the flash drive can be plugged in and used. A U3 Smart flash drive automates the process of working with these portable applications. When you plug in a U3 flash drive, Windows sets up two separate drives. One looks like a CD-ROM and contains all the portable programs. The other looks like the normal flash drive and will store your data. Now, if you need the whole space for data or don’t care about the portable apps, you can remove the U3 part. So far, only SanDisk makes U3 compatible drives, and Best Buy’s Geek Squad may have some, but U3 is intended to be an open standard. Another plus is that the portable apps are compressed on the U3 drive maximizing the amount of data storage space you wind up with.
Cool Site:www.skype.com Two weekends ago, we took our daughter back to Texas Tech (Wreck ‘Em Tech!) While she’s there, we use Skype from www.skype.com to keep in touch with her. Skype is owned by eBay, I think, and allows you to make calls to other Skype users for free. You can also call phone numbers using a service called SkypeOut and with a SkypeIn number, others can call your Skype account using their home or cell phones. You download the Skype client program and install it onto your computer. You set up a Skype account, and then you can keep in touch with people around the world, even. This is a great service for missionaries that have the capability to use it because it allows them to keep up with the folks at home and vice versa because your Skype account can have up to 10 different SkypeIn numbers assigned to it in up to different countries. Skype is also available as a U3 portable app. I even have it on my Pocket PC handheld. You can get MySpace IM with Skype and it can use your webcam or video camera to do video calls. You don’t want this to replace your home phone because Skype doesn’t do E911, but for $2.95/month, you can make up to 10,000 minutes/month of calls to anywhere in the US or Canada.
Cool Gadget: As you may or may not be aware of, Polaroid in February announced they’d be discontinuing instant print film cameras. That news made me wax nostalgic, remembering summers taking pictures, hearing that distinctive motor sound, and watching with baited breath while our pictures developed right before our eyes. But that’s so 20th Century, because now Polaroid has announced that they’ll be adding photo printing capabilities to digital cameras. Makes sense, right? They didn’t say when this is coming, but we do know that the pictures will be the same 4x3 size our SX-70s had been.
It's All “Geek” To Me: Router: A router is a device that connects networks together. It determines what messages should stay on your local network, and what messages should be sent out to the other network. With the rise of broadband, the “other network” is typically the Internet.
