TrueCrypt
USB drives are a great way to carry work with you when you travel. They're light, they're cheap, and they have enough capacity to handle large image files, hefty documents, and entire presentations. But you can easily lose or misplace them--a serious problem if your files are personal or sensitive.
The free TrueCrypt does an excellent job of keeping your files safe from prying eyes, even if your USB drive falls into the wrong hands. You get a choice of many different encryption algorithms, including the powerful 256-bit AES and 448-bit Blowfish methods. The program will not just encrypt the files and folders, but also hide them so that no one but you knows that they are there.
This isn't the most intuitive of programs to work with, so take some time to read the manual and be sure to use the program's built-in wizards.
Download TrueCrypt | Price: Free
USBDriveFresher
The more you use a USB drive, the more it becomes cluttered with excess files. For example, your drive may have old Thumbs.db files, which Windows uses to display thumbnails of pictures--but if you don't keep the pictures themselves on the drives any longer, there's no point to retaining the .db files. You may also notice odd file names that start with underscores, and other weird bits and pieces that serve no apparent purpose.
USBDriveFresher is a simple little program that automatically cleans the clutter for you. Run it, and it sweeps out unnecessary files so that the drive contains only the items you want. You can have the program do its work automatically whenever you plug in a USB drive, or else manually run the app. You can also customize which files it should clean.
Download USBDriveFresher | Price: Free
