USB Tutorial:  Turn a USB stick into a Hard Drive or Local Disk

This is a very valuable tutorial, especially if you are looking to partition a USB stick.  Another application for turning a removable drive into a local disk, is that now many software programs can be loaded directly to a USB drive.  The first program which comes to mind is iTunes.  I know you need My Documents and a Local Disk to install it, so after this tutorial, I’ll try installing iTunes and share the results.

The process of turning a USB stick into a hard drive is fairly easy.  However, there are limitations.  For example, this works best with Windows XP operating systems.  You also need to update the drivers for the device for any computer you are going to use.  Typically, this isn’t a big deal as you can easily do this for your work and home computers.  However, this isn’t a great solution if you are trying to create a partitions USB stick for distribution to many possible users [say trade show give-away].

Couple of items you’ll need:

• USB_LocalDisk.zip files [download here]
• Windows XP
• USB stick

What we will do, is connected the USB stick, find the driver code, update the driver code and re-connect the device.  Simple.

Here are the details:

Who’s up for a little bit of fun.  Who’s up for driving your co-worker totally crazy.  We are.  Here is a great USB joke device that when connected to your PC will randomly lock your CAPS button, make keystrokes or jiggle your mouse around on the screen.

What is particularly nice about this useless USB gadget is the ability to select one, two or all three options and control the speed in which the phantom activities take place.  It’s also a complete and finished product…much better then our USB hack we mentioned for creating a

There are a large number of computer users out there which need to eliminate the function of their computer going into sleep mode.  I was talking to a friend of mine last night who had this exact problem.

The problem was at the corporate level the IT guys started a function that once your computer went idle for 30 minutes the screen saver would pop up requiring a password login.  The reason behind such a decision was unclear, but it’s probably related to measuring productivity.

Well, as any good employee would do, you  search Google for a work around.  Today we found one.  The USB shake stick, which doesn’t actually shake, but is a device that keeps your mouse moving in the screen so that sleep mode never turns on.

You can avoid sleep mode through this USB stick by simply connecting it to your computer and setting up the preferences [shake speed of mouse icon].

Although the above example is a great way to circumvent a corporate policy, there are a couple legitimate reasons.  For example,

The floppy diskette was an icon of portable storage.  For years, this was the de facto standard for moving information from one location to another.  Heck, an entire industry was made for duplicating floppy diskettes.  Today things are a bit different.  We still have the specialized duplicator equipment, but the media has changed.  Now, the de facto standard are USB flash drives.

Well, this commercialized floppy has the look and feel of the old days, but all the flare and space of modern USB sticks.  Check out this USB floppy drive.

Granted, the size is a bit much for today’s UberGeek, but clearly a great conversation piece.

If this has your wheels spinning then check out our USB tutorial on modifying a true floppy diskette into a USB drive.

Source:  UberGizmo.

An Instructables member took an extra Wiimote and turned it into the eye-site gauge for the famous USB missile launcher.  Now you can have all the fun with the added pin-point accuracy for a deadly shot with your missile launcher.

With a spare remote, USB cable, USB missile launcher and some code they guys at Instructables provided, you too can have this USB hack.  The only concern you should have is the foam missiles really aren’t all that accurate, at least not the sample we tested.  But hey, forget about the logistics of it all, it’s the cool factor we’re chasing after.

Source:  Engadget.

Lets cut out the middle man (PC or laptop) and directly wire a Western Digital Passport to your USB DVD Player. This hack will give you the ultimate in A) storage size of movies and B) portability without lugging around a laptop.

If you can’t see the video click here.

Today LifeHacker syndicated a short description on how to place a Wiki on a USB stick…and I thought…hmm interesting idea. So digging into things a little deeper it seems no more complicated than putting WordPress on a stick. But I think most of you would ask, why? The reason would be for off-line edits, organizing or remote access where there is no internet connectivity or you are in a facility which limits your access (schools & gov’t agencies).

Here is the web page from the MediaWiki website which gives you all the juicy details on placing a wiki on a stick.