With all the craze over having your life on a USB drive, Tim Fehlman over at DCoT came up with a script to have your drive “ask for help” if you ever loose it. It turns out that a man named Erik came up with the idea to have his kids wear a USB drive on a trip to Disney, and lo and behold, when one of said kids wandered off, that drive was the key to finding the parents fast and easily.

If you want to read the whole story, go here: DCoT Helps Find Lost Child.

Anyways, there were many comments to this post, both good and bad. Some stated the drawbacks that only using this system implies, while others were drawn to the techy solution found for a common and recurring problem. I was very interested in all the discussion and opinions generated buy this post, and in all my reading over there came up with an idea that, while not original, I think at least deserves some pondering. I posted this idea as a comment over at DCoT, and I’m now posting it here for your perusal.

I agree with some of the people here, in that the USB drive on its own is not enough. As almost everyone has stated here, even though computers are widely available, they’re not available everywhere.

So I thought, how about having both? Think about it. What if your kid has a serious disease, like diabetes, or is lactose (sp?) intolerant, or has gluten intolerance? You could have the card or dog tag state your child’s name and contact info, and a statement that says something like “##### has ####### disease. For instructions, please read USB drive.” Then on the drive you put instructions on how to deal with whatever symptoms may occur as a result of his/her disease. That way, the person who found the child would go and find a computer on which to read the USB drive.

So, if it is a simple case of Lost and Found, there’s no need for the drive and your child gets back to you quickly. But if there is a medical problem, then they have the information needed to care for the child until you can be reached.

Now, Tim has several other scripts that are really useful. I’m only linking two here, but go over and browse DCoT, you’ll not be disappointed.

Resources:

• Have Your Lost USB Drive Ask For Help
• USB Drive Splash Screen

Anyways, I had to tweak WordPress so that the images would display the way I wanted them, so I’ll probably make a tutorial showing you how. But that is for next time!