usb
Fix
DIY 9V Battery-Powered USB Charger
6:30AM Sarah Rae Trover | Sure you could go buy a USB charger off the shelf, but what fun would that be? Try making one yourself with a little help from a 9V battery and a few extra components. More »
Work
Copy Music To Your Android Phone Over USB
4:00AM The How-To Geek | Android: The Simple Help tech blog walks through the process of adding music to your Android-based phone using a USB cable and some simple file copy action. More »
Travel
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Most of the discussion to date of the forthcoming USB 3.0 standard has centred around its much higher speeds. As the USB Forum itself likes to point out, a 25GB HD movie file could be copied in 70 seconds with USB 3.0 (versus an estimated 14 minutes on the current USB 2.0 standard). However, there’s another feature that’s potentially equally useful, especially for travellers: USB 3.0 overcomes the current USB limitation on recharging devices that are completely out of power. While USB charging via a notebook can be incredibly useful, it generally won’t work if the device has gone completely flat — at that point, you need it to be plugged straight into a wall socket until it’s got enough charge for your PC to recognise it when you connect it. As Jeff Ravencraft of the USB Forum explained at last week’s Storage Visions conference in Las Vegas, that’s no longer the case: “We now supply power to the device if you have a completely dead battery.” USB 3.0 isn’t expected to be widespread until next year (and isn’t supported in the current build of Windows 7), but it’s still something to look forward to. More »
USB 3.0 Allows Stone-Dead Devices To Be Recharged
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Most of the discussion to date of the forthcoming USB 3.0 standard has centred around its much higher speeds. As the USB Forum itself likes to point out, a 25GB HD movie file could be copied in 70 seconds with USB 3.0 (versus an estimated 14 minutes on the current USB 2.0 standard). However, there’s another feature that’s potentially equally useful, especially for travellers: USB 3.0 overcomes the current USB limitation on recharging devices that are completely out of power. While USB charging via a notebook can be incredibly useful, it generally won’t work if the device has gone completely flat — at that point, you need it to be plugged straight into a wall socket until it’s got enough charge for your PC to recognise it when you connect it. As Jeff Ravencraft of the USB Forum explained at last week’s Storage Visions conference in Las Vegas, that’s no longer the case: “We now supply power to the device if you have a completely dead battery.” USB 3.0 isn’t expected to be widespread until next year (and isn’t supported in the current build of Windows 7), but it’s still something to look forward to. More »
Organise
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Flexicord takes an unusual approach to managing cables: it ships in a coiled form, but “remembers” the shape you stretch it into (rather like the bendy toys of my childhood). End result? Once cables are positioned, they won’t move, but a protective layer ensures data isn’t corrupted and wires don’t snap. The one in the shots (shown off at the CES Unveiled event this week) is an HDMI cable, but what I’d really like is the USB model for my home office. It’s only a prototype for now (commercial release is scheduled for later this year), but a useful option to bear in mind for future cable management projects. More »
Flexicord Remembers Not To Get Tangled
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Flexicord takes an unusual approach to managing cables: it ships in a coiled form, but “remembers” the shape you stretch it into (rather like the bendy toys of my childhood). End result? Once cables are positioned, they won’t move, but a protective layer ensures data isn’t corrupted and wires don’t snap. The one in the shots (shown off at the CES Unveiled event this week) is an HDMI cable, but what I’d really like is the USB model for my home office. It’s only a prototype for now (commercial release is scheduled for later this year), but a useful option to bear in mind for future cable management projects. More »
Work
USB 3.0 To Transfer 25GB In 70 Seconds
4:59AM Adam Pash | USB 3.0 will be unveiled next Monday, and so far the new specs for the protocol look incredible, promising 25GB transfers in a mere 70 seconds. To put that in perspective, the same transfer would take 13.9 minutes with the current USB 2.0 protocol and 9.3 hours on USB 1.0. Looks like the future of wired syncs and backups is bright and blazing. [via Gizmodo] More »
Work
UNetbootin Creates USB-Bootable Linux the Easy Way
7:30AM Kevin Purdy | Windows and Linux only: Free bootable image creator UNetbootin automates the downloading, imaging, and installing of Linux distributions onto USB thumb drives, creating a persistent, boot-anywhere desktop. We’ve previously featured rather involved guides to putting Linux on a flash drive, but UNetbootin does it all for you, from downloading the right ISO to setting up a USB stick as a bootable Linux drive. It can also convert almost any bootable ISO, so if you’ve got an old, smaller thumb drive not seeing much use these days, you can use UNetbootin to install a partition editor, a file-recovering live CD, or the Windows password-cracking Ophcrack. UNetbootin is a free download for Windows XP and higher and Linux systems. UNetbootin [via Tombuntu] More »
Organise
Portable Start Menu Ties Together Your USB Workspace
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Free thumb drive utility Portable Start Menu is a handy, multi-function tool for anyone who uses a USB drive to launch portable applications. The program can search out and find any self-running .exe file on a thumb drive and add it to a start menu that sits in the Windows system tray while the USB drive is plugged in. The app also has a “Quick Start” function that you can access with a shortcut to launch any program, and Portable Start Menu can create its own AutoRun file to have it launch once it’s plugged in. Portable Start Menu is a free download for Windows systems only. Portable Start Menu [via The Red Ferret Journal] More »
Fix
Thumbscrew Makes Your USB Drive Read-Only
8:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Let’s say you’ve put together a killer USB PC repair kit filled to the brim with antivirus, file recovery, and adware removal tools, but shortly after you plug your thumb drive into the infected machine—in the midst of your repair—your thumb drive is affected as well. Freeware portable application Thumbscrew protects your thumb drive from being written to so that your data remains safe no matter where it’s plugged in. Even if you don’t need it for PC repair purposes, it could still prove useful for keeping your files safe from the kids or something else along those lines. Thumbscrew is freeware, Windows only. Thumbscrew [Iron Geek via MakeUseOf] More »
Unlock USB Support for VirtualBox in Ubuntu Hardy Heron
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | VirtualBox makes virtual installations of Windows and other operating systems easier than you’d think in Linux (as mentioned in our second look at Ubuntu 8.04, “Hardy Heron”), but the key missing feature from its free, open-source edition is USB support. Your iPod need not feel shunned from Linux land any longer, however, as the Ubuntu Unleashed blog offers step-by-step instructions on installing and configuring VirtualBox with support for plug-in devices. It’s specific to the newest Ubuntu and a little bit more than the “five easy steps” promised, but it should only take a few minutes to unlock the bridge between your system-in-a-system and all your gadgets. Howto: Install VirtualBox in Ubuntu Hardy Heron with USB Support in 5 easy Steps [Ubuntu Unleashed] More »
