Article: 23 things to do with a thumb drive: put your USB drive to work as a portable desktop, PC recovery kit, entertainment platform and more.

Once known as simple little gizmos that were basically just modern replacements for floppy disks, USB flash drives have suddenly grown up.

You can now replicate your desktop environment, encrypt files on the fly and even rescue your PC with one of these formerly modest devices.

Here are some of the coolest things you can do today with the innocuous-looking thumb drive on your desk, as well as details about some particularly useful new drives.

Your desktop in your pocket

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