The Y-Shaped USB hub from Apacer is a clever design, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen it.  RiDATA introduces a flash drive with combo two port hub on the back side, which I’m still wondering why it hasn’t gained more popularity, about a year ago.  The Apacer Y-shaped USB hub increases the port connectivity over the RiDATA by two fold, but doesn’t have flash memory storage.

The Apacer PH151 uses a miniUSB connection to the host computer [via cable] and then provides two vertical ports and two horizontal ports.  To me, once you’ve put a cable to the hub, it doesn’t matter what shape it’s in.  Just stick your device in and go.  The clear advantage with this design, is increasing (more…)

Microsoft developed a USB stick to pluck evidence out of computers at crime scenes.  The USB device is called COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) and has the power to blast through security settings to get the good stuff…and quick.

The COFEE USB devices is ideal for on-site investigation where law-enforcement needs to extract data quickly and accurately.  The Microsoft COFEE contains 150 commands which dramatically cuts down time to gather digital evidence.  It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer’s (more…)

Waterproofing your USB drive is a good preventative maintenance procedure as you never know when it’ll end up in the wash. Below is a video on how to use epoxy and little skill to waterproof your UFD. Enjoy this USB tutorial:

Gadget4All generally has some useful USB gear they sell, but today in my inbox was a USB flower fan that was nothing short of gadget crap. Sorry guys.

Powered by USB or AAA batteries you can clutter up your office space with a pink or green USB flower fan. Granted it’s only $12 to buy, but sometimes it’s just more fun taking random items from around your space and creating something yourself…example: this USB fan.

BUT, if you are looking for a colorful and playful looking fan to prop up on your PC for the kids during the hot summer months, than please reconsider the USB flower fan. Or if you’ve got a lady friend who’s totally into Disney trinkets and anything gay and colorful like that.

USB flower fan product page from Gadget4all. Good luck on this one guys!

Happy Earth Day.  Over the years, GetUSB has reported on a number of green friendly products.  Today we’ll take a quick look at what some of those are.

For example, how would you like to listen to music with a hand crank MP3 player while making your way through a jungle?  Not adventurous - well you can still do your part with the Go Green USB Earth Drive.  But even that might be a little extreme for you.  We do have a selection of wood flash drives which might not be the best “go green” decision, but it would cut down on plastic.

Probably one of the most useful things we could collectively do is stream line production and consumption and go with one standard for power connections.  This would reduce the number of useless cables and connectors made for all different types of electronics and we could just settle for one cable which does it all.

As a closing note, we could monitor our electricity consumption a little better with a USB temperature and humidity logger.  After all, keeping a closer eye on how often that air condition goes on would not only help the environment, but reduce your electric bill.

To read up on Earth Day please visit the official website for more details on how to clean up our mess.

GetUSB.info has been translating our posts into Spanish for quite some time now.  Our Spanish site isn’t an automated translation engine either - it’s the real deal.  Carlos is my Editor in Chief for GetUSB.info Espanol and is relentless in his punctual translations.  Located in Panama, Carlos not only does the edits for spanish.getusb.info but also runs Panama Live, an online travel and tourism magazine for Panama, and Adarte Studio, an online community for designers, webmasters and SEO professionals.

Carlos just reported some interesting statistics about his visitor base and I wanted to take some time to A) say “thanks” to Carlos for being a great editor and B) share the visitor statistics.  So here we are:

Our next step is changing over the old GetUSB design to the new, fresh look of the English site.  We feel the English version is easier to read, quick to navigate and less intrusive advertising.

So, if you like what you see at GetUSB but would rather read it in Spanish hop over to spanish.getusb.info.  You can also grab our Spanish RSS feed here.  (Need an RSS Filter for those keywords?)

Once again, Thanks Carlos for a wonderful job!

Greg
GetUSB.info Editor in Chief

With over 5,300 Diggs, I figure this would be a good article to report about on how to make a sawed-off USB key.  Nothing about this project is too technical, but the idea is clever enough it’s gained a lot of attention.

The sawed off UFD is a mod of using a slim Kingmax USB drive, USB cable and some glue + knife for a very cool looking storage device.

The intro line to this tutorial from the main page is:

“Holy crap– somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop!!!

No– wait– sorry. That’s just my USB drive. My bad. Never mind.”

Which I think is pretty funny.

So besides getting a slim Kingmax USB drive (here is a 4GB for $15), you will need the following:  USB cable, X-acto knife, glue, pliers, small screwdriver and some mad cutting skills.

First thing you will want to do is cut open the female end of the USB cable so you can insert the memory for storage.  It’s fairly straight forward in the process.  Some additional pictures are available (more…)