Put a Reward on Your Soon-to-Be-Lost USB Thumbdrive
Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:20AM EDT
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I'm thinking about running a contest at CES this year to see who can scavenge the most USB drives over the course of the show. I figure the winner will come up with 30 at least, given how often they are handed out at CES and how easily they are lost by those who take them.
Well, maybe you want your lost thumbdrive returned to you because of its important contents. Tim Fehlman has a pretty genius idea: Add a little application to the drive that pops up a simple notice when it's inserted into a USB port, indicating who the owner is and offering a reward of a new USB drive with double the capacity of the one found if it's returned to the owner.
If you want to install this little utility on your own thumbdrive (and you might want to do it before you take that next trip), you can skip through Fehlman's instructions except to see what the finder of lost drives will see when he tries to use your drive. Scroll down to the link that says "LostDrive.zip" (under ***Update***), and just extract it to the root folder of your USB drive. Replace the "readme.txt" file with your own address and reward or whatever else you'd like your special message to say, and you're done.
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2 Posted by vintage_lotus_racer on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:36PM EDT Report Abuse
Good idea. Now since I didn't make the party, do you want to send me one of your freebie USB drives? ;^)
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3 Posted by sydney.bayarea on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:52PM EDT Report Abuse
After reading this, I will simply create a simple .txt file headlined "A REWARD $xx.00" which will get anyone's attention once they access the drive. Using the "A" as the first letter will ensure the document will be the first in the list of documents when opened, so it will get noticed. Also, just apply for a free online voicemail account. Use it within the document for your contact information, and also for other online activities, taped to the back of your other electronics, etc. Makes sense????
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4 Posted by cjmanapsal on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:26PM EDT Report Abuse
how i bout i do that and not give em rewards!!! hooray! lol
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5 Posted by jaredablon on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:28PM EDT Report Abuse
There's a new product coming out that's an Out-of-Range Alarm for USB Thumb Drives. It reminds you if you leave your Thumb Drive behind in a computer. Take this survey and you will be eligible to be a free Beta tester: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=w3YTACpyYnJjoo1j4Kx7AA_3d_3d
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1 Posted by brian_wcu on Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:29AM EDT Report Abuse
Sounds great, however, I wouldn't want to give out any personal information on a device that is easily lost. Secondly, I wouldn't have any information that could be considered classified or confidental for obvious reasons. If your information on your thumb drive is that vital, MAKE A BACKUP on your PC or another storage device, that is the best way to insure that you won't lose that career changing report, or whatever it is on there. A better idea would be to have it password and id protected, so that only you can access the information. trust me you are better off being out of the $30 then to have someone you don't know accessing all that personal information you put on the highly loseable thumb drive.