Windows only: Speed up your computer with a spare USB thumb drive with eBoostr, an XP-only application that brings the benefits of Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost feature to XP. The app can work with up to four devices, up to 4GB on each, and its smart-cache feature gives speed boosts to your more frequently used apps and data. eBoostr could be perfect for XP users who want a little extra memory but don’t want to install RAM themselves, or even for laptop users who’ve filled every free slot. eBoostr comes as a free trial version, which gives you four hours of functionality each time you boot up, or costs $29 for the full version. eBoostr [via Download Squad]
Windows only: USB thumb drives, memory cards and MP3 players are easy to take with you—and easy to misplace. Portable application iHound aims to make it easy to locate your items and report their theft if they’ve fallen into the wrong hands. The program places a small “MyPasswords” file that looks like a text document in a device’s root folder, and if that file is opened, the iHound website can report the approximate location, IP address, computer name, and more and print a formatted police report. iHound is a free download and free to use after sign-up, although its maker says he may begin charging $1/month for each device starting in February.
iHound Software [via TechCrunch]All platforms: Pen drive-sized operating system Damn Small Linux—the savior of old PCs, non-booting systems and efficiency-minded users everywhere—released its 4.0 version this week. Notable changes include:New drag-and-drop capabilities in the file manager Improved Wi-Fi support (through ndiswrapper, madwifi, and other modules) New GUI interfaces for changing system preferences, managing printers and other tasks Kernel upgrade to 2.4.31, which means better power management and device support
Damn Small Linux is a free download that fits inside less than 50MB, so it’s easily booted from a CD, a USB drive, or an ancient PC with only 8MB of memory. Hit the link below, choose your download mirror and download the dsl-4.0.iso from inside the “current” folder.
Damn Small Linux [via Download Squad]Windows only: Carry any application with you on your thumb drive with freeware virtual PC software MojoPac Freedom. Back when we showed you how to build your own PC-on-a-stick with MojoPac, the application had a $30 price tag, but it has since launched several versions, and MojoPac Freedom is the freeware version. Even better, MojoPac Freedom supports all the data and application support of the rest, lacking really only customer support (aside from other premium features most regular users will never need). It still supports taking Microsoft Office, iTunes, video games, and virtually any other app portable. MojoPac Freedom is freeware, Windows only.
MojoPac [via CyberNet]Booting Linux from an external drive with the applications and settings of your choice has never been easier after this week’s release of Puppy Linux 3.0. Like Damn Small Linux, Puppy is small enough to fit on a USB thumb drive, and like Knoppix , you can boot it from CD. Puppy can also add your favourite open source applications to the desktop and save multiple user profiles back to your writable CD or thumb drive, too. Let’s take a look at how you can take your operating system, apps, data and user settings to go with Puppy Linux.
PC only: Minuscule Linux distro Puppy Linux got a major upgrade this week to version 3.0, adding Slackware compatibility (which lets users install Slackware packages on Puppy). At a slim 97.6MB, Puppy’s meant to be run from a bootable CD or USB drive and offers a full-on portable desktop operating system environment with the Mozilla Application Suite, AbiWord, Sodipodi, Gnumeric, and Gxine/xine built in, and the whole shebang runs from RAM. Puppy’s a free download for PCs that can boot from USB stick or CD.
Puppy Linux Main Release [via PC World]
