Flash Drives

With prices starting around $20 for 128 Megabytes, these are the most useful tech devices in recent years. I know your think they aren't so great and in many ways your right. Memory sticks or Flash drives or USB drives aren't really that special. They are glorified floppy disk. (Do you even remember floppy disks?) The difference is even the 128 MB version I mentioned above hold the equivalent of 92 floppy disks. Also they fit in your pocket. Everyone has at least one USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector on their computer. USB has become the standard for a huge array of devices. You are thinking "So What?" This means they aren't going away very soon. They are also smaller and more resilient than the old floppy disk. They had a ton of form factors. I put some pictures of various Flash drives at the bottom.

To give some perspective, I always carry my memory stick with me. I have a 1 GB memory stick. That is a little less than two CD's worth of information in my pocket. I have all of my lesson plans, videos, music, pictures, PowerPoint files and other documents on the stick. If I ever need it I just pull it out. When you need to give someone a file at a meeting just pop it out and point them in the direction of the file.

When you plug one into you computer you can access it the same way you would any of your hard drives. Another benefit over floppies or CD's for that matter is speed. Depending on the technology of the USB connector you plug into you can move data at speeds approaching 480 MB per second. This mean you don't need to copy the file off to your desktop for a smooth presentation.

Want more info on Flash drives? Check out this wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive