Making it our own
While the software that comes pre-installed on the Kingston U3 DataTraveler is good stuff, to us, the real excitement of U3 is the ability to use the programs we normally work with. Quite a few popular programs are available in forms that can run on a U3 smart drive.

It's easy to go hunting for software to add to your U3 smart drive. Just click the Download Programs button in the U3 Launchpad to visit U3 Software Central, as shown in Figure C, and start your search.

FIGURE C

U3 Software Central is the place to find additional programs for your U3 smart drive. Click picture for a larger image.

As of early June 2006, there were dozens of U3-compatible programs available here. They run the entire range of possibilities from games to lots of media viewing and managing tools, to communication programs and U3 versions of business applications.

We wrote this story with the U3 version of OpenOffice.org that you can download here, did the screen captures with IrfanView, and submitted the story using the U3 version of FireFox to connect to a Web-based email account. While working, we chatted with friends using a copy of Trillian, which was, you guessed it, downloaded from Software Central and installed on the U3 drive.

Because everything needed to write the story was stored on the smart drive, we were able to do the work on various different computers while scarcely missing a beat. When it was time to move on, all we had to do was save our work, close all our programs, and click the Eject button on the U3 Launchpad. No fuss, no muss, and no trash left over on the computer we happened to be working on at the moment.

Minor snags
That isn't to say everything went 100% smoothly. There are always minor snags when dealing with any product. In this case, the first minor snag had to do with drive letters. When I was working on my main desktop computer, the U3 drive appeared as drive "M:". That's because my desktop machine has several hard drives installed, along with a flash memory reader. This meant that earlier drive letters were already taken when I plugged in the U3 drive.

The other computer I used didn't have all the extras installed, and the U3 drive appeared as drive "E:" on that machine. When I switched from my main machine to the second one, OpenOffice Writer tried to find this article on drive "M:". When I tried to reopen this document on the other computer, OpenOffice Writer couldn't find it since the drive letters had changed. I had to manually navigate to the "E:" drive before it could open the file.

Another minor hiccup came when ejecting the U3 drive from the computer. If you have looked at any of the data on the U3 drive with a program that resides on the computer the drive is plugged into, you may need to shut down that program before you can safely eject the U3 drive.

These aren't major problems, and they all have to do with the way Windows works rather than any flaws in the U3 standard or drive, but they show that you do need to be at least a little computer savvy to use a U3 drive effectively.