Years ago, I got into the habit of travelling around with a USB memory stick, probably long before they became the fashion accessory they are now. It became invaluable for three reasons:
- I keep a copy of my current resume on the stick. If I meet somebody at a show or conference, I can give them my memory stic to copy off the file.
- I use it for backups – encrypted, of course – of the files on my laptop while I’m away. That way, I have an ‘offsite’ backup of anything that has changed since the machine was last backed up on the network, simply by carrying around the key.
- It’s become one the most used elements of my tookit for migrating files. I’ve used it to swap files between machines, copy important documents between the office and a client when I didn’t or couldn’t take a laptop, and I’ve used it on a number of occasions for migrating Windows XP users between machines.
When I went to Sorrento for a conference in March, however, I lost my USB stick. I searched everywhere I thought I might find it, and just assumed I’d lost it somewhere amongst the conference rooms or my hotel room. In fact, as evidenced by an email last week, I’d lost it at the airport. And my faith in human nature has been slightly restored, because the gentleman that found it checked the info on the stick, found my resume and through that, found me. The stick itself arrived back just this week. I’d just like to say thanks to Mike for finding, discovering, and returning the stick 🙂