Fantastic Flash

摘要

Flash drives have all but killed the floppy disk. To drive the nail further into floppies' 3.5-inch coffins, developers are making apps that launch directly from a flash drive for use on any computer. You don't need to install the programs on your PC, and they leave no remnants when you remove the drive. Iomega, for instance, has corralled a number of self-launching apps for download from its site for use on its Active Disk-powered drives. And by year's end, SanDisk, Kingston, and others will introduce drives that support the U3 (www.u3.com) standard, which enables a multitude of portable apps. Don't want to wait that long? Plenty of programs now work with any flash drive. Here's how to start using three of our favorites.