USB stands for universal serial bus, USB drive is a medium to trasport data and application between the computers. Transporting  data is probably the most common use for a USB flash drive but there are more other things that can be performed with USB drive. Here are 5 ways you can use that USB flash drive to do more than just move data.

1. Boost Vista Performance

If you are one of million users using Vista you can use a USB flash drive to speed up your system with the ReadyBoost technology. Ready boost technology is one of the feature of Vista o/s that
can use the storage space on a USB Flash drive as an additional memory cache to aid the memory cache on  hard disk. Using ReadyBoost is easy. You just insert your USB flash drive into your Vista system and follow the onscreen prompts to configure and use ReadyBoost.

2. Boot an Operating System

Operating system such as Windows XP and Linux can be booted from good quality USB drive. There are couple of hurdle to be passed such as Bios and USB drive compatibility.

3. Run a website

You can easily run a Web server that supports Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Perl right from a USB flash drive with Server2Go. You can use Server2Go right out of the box without any installation. It runs on all versions of Windows, supports most common browsers, and is completely free. For more information visit Server2Go

4. Lock your PC

Isn't this cool. locking your PC with USB flash drive. Yes you can lock your PC using USB flash drive with the help of freeware called predator. Once USB drive configured with predator and plugged in to PC everything works perfectly, but when you remove your USB drive keyboard and mouse are disabled and screen darkens. Again when you insert USB drive and enter password everything will work normally again, visit predator site for freeware

5. Run a Portable Application

Portable application such as Open Office, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and other can be directly run from USB drive, Visit portableapps.com for more informaton on portable applications.