PC Wizard Benchmarking Tool

PC Wizard is a benchmark and hardware information tool that will run off your flash drive, although it does make changes to your registry when you use it. From teh website:

PC WIZARD 2008 is a powerful utility designed especially for detection of hardware, but also some more analysis. It’s able to identify a large scale of system components and supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results.

PC WIZARD 2008 is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.

Instructions for using it are at the bottom of the linked page.

Sony's Vaio UX Updated With Flash Drive

Replacing solid sate hard drives with flash drives is the future of laptops and portable computing devices. The flash drives are lighter and more durable and should allow for some more interesting designs, since they can be crammed into a variety of spaces (witness the side variety of shapes and sizes of the USB drives).

Sony has just updated their Vaio UX micro computer with a 32GB flash drive replacing the mechanical one. Here are the drive’s other specs:

* Intel Core Solo U1400 (Ultra Low Voltage)
* Intel GMA950 integrated graphics
* 512 MB DDR2 PC3200 RAM
* 32 GB Flash drive
* 4.5″ WSVGA display (1024×600)
* Keyboard, stylus and biometric fingerprint sensor
* Integrated Bluetooth, WLAN and WWAN capability

Sandisk Cruzer Contour Drive

I love some of Sandisk’s new designs—and positively lust after their new MP3 players and pocket video player.

Their new Contour flash drive is pretty sleek looking, too.

It comes in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB configurations and has a minimum read speed of 25MB per second.

The Countour also includes U3 technology so you can carry your files and software on a secure USB drive. You can have your wallpaper, preferences, favorites, profiles, and more - everything you need for a familiar computing experience on any PC, wherever you go. Additional software includes Skype, CruzerSync™, Avast, SignupShield and HP Photosmart.