Operation & Use:
As most of our audience is aware, using a thumb drive is straight-forward. Plug the Crucial Gizmo! Flash Drive into an open USB port on your computer and you'll be up and running. Upon installation of the Gizmo!, Windows XP brings up the root directory of the drive. Windows treats flash drives like any other hard disk, allowing you to drag/drop/copy/paste any files you want onto your Gizmo! In the picture below you can see we have added a few folders to demonstrate this.
The security software included with the
Crucial Gizmo! Secure Flash Drive deserves a detailed description and walk-through. As mentioned, the built-in software known as the PortableVault comes pre-installed on the flash drive. This software allows users to encrypt files or entire directories using 256Kb Blowfish encryption. When you launch the "PortableVault," you will be prompted with the screen pictured below. After setting a few variables and choosing a password, you can begin protecting data on the thumb drive.
The next time you run the "PortableVault" executable, you will be asked to input the password you just choose. When you are successful, the vault opens (pictured below). Please be aware if you forget your password, consider the data gone - permanently. There is no way even Crucial can recover your data without the password.
The PortableVault is pretty simple to use once inside. The vault allows you to make a directory structure of your choice, with folders and sub folders. After you have organized your files, you click the "Protect" button on the right-side of the screen. The software can be annoying because it forces you to "Protect" all of the files in the vault before closing it. This check seems unnecessary to me. Obviously if the user is putting files into the vault, they wish for those files to be protected. Therefore there is no reason to force the user to protect all files before closing the vault, seeing how putting files in the vault would imply a users desire to protect the file. Perhaps Crucial can update the software, bypassing this check and automatically protecting all the files in the vault when the software is closed.
