Buried among Windows Vista's many annoyances is a handy feature to speed up your system called ReadyBoost. It allows you to store commonly used files in a flash memory drive or SD card. The computer can retrieve these files more quickly than from the hard-drive and, as a bonus, you constantly create a backup of important data. Here's how to do it according to the good people at How to Geek:

"Turning this feature on couldn't be simpler. Just stick the flash drive, SD card, or whatever flash device you want into your computer. You'll see this dialog pop up:

"Click the 'Speed up my system' link, and you'll be taken to the ReadyBoost panel for the flash drive:

 "Just select 'Use this device', and set the amount of space you want to use. Windows will create what is essentially a paging file on the disk, and will use it for faster access.

"Note that this will only work with USB 2.0 devices or SD cards."