Featured Linux Download: Speed up your Linux box with a thumb drive - Lifehacker

SwapBoost is a surprisingly short bash script that increases your virtual memory by the amount of free space on the USB drive. SwapBoost isn’t identical to ReadyBoost since ReadyBoost does more than just turn a USB drive into swap space, however SwapBoost is surprisingly easy to get going:

A very cool idea this one. I’d be intrigued to see if the performance of the USB key needs to be at a certain point for it to give a benefit. I once went through three USB keys before finding one that Windows Vista considered to be good enought for ReadyBoost.