I came across a good deal on USB Memory sticks some time back, so bought 5 identical ones. The only problem I have is that I keep using sticking the wrong one in my computer whenever I’m looking for something. I don’t really want to scribble on them with indelible markers (which is what someone suggested) Can you think of a better way?

This question came up in passing while I was speaking to a young friend of mine a few days ago. With memory getting cheaper and cheaper, it’s easy to splash out and buy a bunch of cheap ones, but the problem my friend was having was distinguishing between one and the other. I personally would probably use different coloured indelible markers and place a differently coloured dot on each one, but he didn’t really want to do this. So here’s another suggestion.

Why don’t you get yourself a label maker like the Brother P-Touch PT-1280. It creates laminated labels for you, which you can just stick onto your USB sticks and remove when they’re no longer required. This label maker has a whole selection of different features including the ability to print on super narrow tapes which are just the right size for CD spines, and I think I would use one of those for your USB sticks. It produces a whole range of font styles and framing options for your label, even up to 2 lines in width and can use tapes of different colours if you wanted to add some flair to your labels.

It’s currently on sale for $11.99 (with free shipping to the US) at Buy.com which is really cheap for the convenience it affords. So, check it out if there’s anything you need to label.