GetUSB.info has reported on several off-the-shelf USB extenders, but they are high priced, at least for the home user. If you have low signal strength and on a tight budget, here is a tutorial on making your own beefed up WiFi USB extender.

Using this home-brew WiFi extender will help pick up dozens more hot-spots in your area; don’t believe it - we’ll you’ll just have to try it - this really works. The premise of this solution is taking a parabolic dish and bouncing all possible waves into the focal point of the “dish” or in this case, the WiFi USB stick. (more…)

The WiRanger from Icron is a wireless USB hub making it easier than ever to unclutter your desk and redistribute that crap to the credenza, filing cabinet or your buddies cubical.

“Icron’s flexible ExtremeUSB technology is the engine that enables USB 1.1 or 2.0 connections over any media: wireless, cable, power line or fiber optics.”

so given Icron are experts with USB, jumping into WUSB is a logical move.

What I like about this solution is no software is needed for configuration so Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac users can benefit from this product. The hub uses a USB dongle from the host computer which communicates with the remote hub.

Using the 802.11g radio frequency the WiRanger can transfer data up to …well, Icron just says high speed. Speed will be determined by the peripheral product and radio frequency output of about 58Mbps - not the performance of the hub. The range is about 30 meters from base unit to hub unit.  The WiRanger is a 4 port hub and has a set MSRP of $395. Icron said the WUSB hub to be available this spring, which should be any day now. Icron also eludes to other high-end WUSB solutions coming to market for the military, pro-sumer and medical markets in the coming months. (more…)

The iPod Shuffle comes with the 2G Dock station which is a little large, relatively speaking, so replace it with this inexpensive iUSB dock connector. The Essential Tech iUSB connects directly to the iPod and directly to your USB port.

The iUSB dock station supports full USB 2.0 transfer speeds, is ridiculously small and eliminates any cables. At just 5.6 grams it’s truly the best mini iPod dock station available.

Mac and PC compatible for only $10. (more…)

ClearSky is the latest conference call VoIP solution from TRENDnet. The kit includes a base unit and USB Class 1 Bluetooth dongle. Together the system provides a range of over 300 feet so a grab-n-go meeting is no problem.

With a generous push-button nav area and large LCD display the ClearSky is breeze to use, even for the old lady working the front desk. LCD supports English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. (more…)

TRENDnet has a high powered wireless USB 2.0 adaptor at 108Mbps, the TEW-445UB. This means greater range for wireless devices from the main hub, about 300 feet indoors and up-to 900 feet outdoors! Not bad, but be sure to use either the WEP or WPA encryption technology otherwise your entire neighborhood will be piggy-backing. The TEW-445UB (more…)

The MasterView USB KVM switch is massive in connectivity at 16 ports but slim on size with rack-mount design. Now take control of 16 resources via one Keyboard/Video/Mouse console access point. Aten designed the switch for daisy-chain capability to include another 31 KVM MasterView switch boxes - that’s a total of 512 computers (more…)

Icron is the industry standard for extended range USB connectivity. The ExtremeUSB technology from Icron can span 1.2 miles from host to device. Now, Icron is putting their skills to work on WUSB. As with wired USB technology there is high latency in wireless too. Restrictions of bandwidth and variable error rates of wireless media, Icron and ExtremeUSB developed technology (more…)