I think I have lost 50 gigs worth of USB flash drives. You know, those tiny little hard drives that are no bigger than your thumb.

That, of course, is the issue. They are so tiny that I keep leaving them all over the place. I remember when the USB drives came out and they were magical and lovely and wee of capacity. (My first one was 8 megs and I was in love. I lost it the second day.)

I had a couple that I wore around my neck but I felt like a member of the Geek Squad nearly immediately so off they went. And then I lost them.

A few fit on my keychain but the fasteners were so weak that I lost them in short order, too.

So I was thrilled to find US Modular's Handy Drive, the first one of these things that lives up to its name.

Yes it is a cool USB drive with a retractable USB slot. But it also has a cool LED light built in and a retractable pen. And it fits on a keychain.

With capacities of 128MB up to 4GB, there is one of these for every budget. The best part is it remains small, so fits anyplace and doesn't need a driver for Windows XP or the Mac.

You can get the details at www.usmodular.com.

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YouTube, the wildly popular video sharing Web site owned by Google, has a great idea. What about all of those old TV shows we missed as kids? There's not enough market for most of them to make network or cable television, but there is an unlimited number of people who remember "My Favorite Martian" and "I Spy" with great glee.

It's a great idea and perfectly timed as more "grown-ups" are trying to establish the reason for being for YouTube, which features about 5,000 videos of guys hitting each other in the groin last time I looked.

(This just in: Mexican drug gangs are now posting boastful slide shows of their murdering rampages on YouTube.)

Anyway, anything that gets more adults using the system is good for advertisers, who make the online world go around.

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Microsoft's release of Windows Vista has been a global thud, according to analysts. Sales are soft and prices are expected to drop. Why? Mostly because businesses are in no hurry to switch to Vista and consumers are overall pretty happy with Windows XP. While the switch from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was viewed as a gigantic step forward, Vista isn't seen like that.

Obviously as new PCs are ordered more Vista installations will be out there, but the upgrade crowd isn't flocking to the cash registers. I think it will be some time before people are willing to pay $160 for a software upgrade when a new PC can be had for just twice that much.

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WEEKLY WEB WONDER: There is a new search engine out there where real live humans will help you make better searches. It's a great idea. Check it out at www.chacha.com.

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James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair company, and a computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com.