How to turn off autoplay Windows 7 for USB flash drives.

Some may want to turn off the USB auto play so that when a USB device is connected the auto pop-up window doesn’t appear.  I don’t mind the pop-up window as it usually defaults to the area or program I’m trying to get into anyway, but for some, I could see the frustration.  So on that note, here is a quick USB tutorial on how to turn off the USB auto run function.

First, click START > RUN and type in gpedit.msc  then click RUN.

Next you’ll want to navigate to the location shown below.  That would be:

Computer Configuration > Admin Templates > Windows Components  Once there you would double click Windows Components

That will take you to the following area where we can select the menu to edit the USB autorun functions.  Double click the AutoPlay Policies

Next select the Turn Off Autoplay by double clicking it.

Bradley Manning was able to download over a quarter million documents from the US government via USB slurping…where by, he downloaded the sensitive data directly to his flash drive, then sent the docs to Wikileaks.

Not a cool move Private Manning.

So as a result, the US Military is banning all USB flash drives with systems connected to, or have access to, the SIPRNET network.  The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, in simple terms, the internet used bye the DOD.  Of course it’s much more sophisticated then your office network with internet access.

The US Government has taken this breach of information so seriously that any military who do not comply with the data transfer ban “may be punished under Article 92 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.” The article covers failure to obey orders and dereliction of duty and makes clear that any persons in violation of such rules “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Like I said, not a cool move Manning.

If you haven’t noticed, Red Box Movie rental kiosks have popped up all over the place.  Most notably are the Red Box’ at the grocery store, which makes perfect sense, you’re going to the store anyway, why not put a movie rental at check-out.

Flix-on-Stix is looking to do the same thing, only difference is the Flix On Stix is renting your beloved movie on USB.  The concept is simple, yet peppered with problems.  Lets cover the concept first…the idea is having a user insert their USB drive into the Flix on Stix kiosk and download a movie.  Great idea…simple, convenient and assuming cheap.

Look just one step deeper and you start asking yourself about transfer times.  The Flix-on-Stix is USB 3.0 enabled, but SuperSpeed flash drives have just ‘barely’ come to market, most will have USB 2.0.  So to download a low quality video will take at least 10 minutes.  Next, what kind of DRM does Flix on Stix use?  We know our USB and their is no universal USB copy protection that will work on PCs, Macs and set-top boxes…so how & where will these movies play?  The last bit is the type of movies to be offered…we know studios wont sign off on DRM that isn’t proven by CDSA [http://www.cdsaonline.org/] so after all this, I’m not sure where Flix On Stix leaves us.  What do you think?

In a day when typing “cougar” into Google yields more pornography then the animal you would expect, it’s almost a shock to hear about Playboy content being available on USB hard drive.  Wouldn’t you think it had already been done?
It hasn’t, and that is why I’m here to tell you about the 250GB USB hard drive full of all Playboy magazine content.  All of it – back from 1953 when the first issue was published.

The USB Hard drive from Playboy holds 650 magazines and over 100,000 pages of fascinating articles, photographs and interviews.

The hard drive works on any computer, just like you’d expect a USB hard drive to work, but you do need to install

How many times have you registered for a service or product on the web, only to be required to enter a user name and password?  How many times has that website required some 6 or 8 character password which includes numbers, capital letter and lower case letters – basically some abstract combination of characters?  Or you enter a user name only to find it’s already been used or you’re required to enter your email address as your user name.  With most people having mulitple email address its difficult to remember which one, the password or combination there of.  You need a system.

That system could very well be the SplashID from SplashData.

Consider some of the following – would they help you?

• Never forget a username or password again – ever
• Secure and backup your passwords, credit card numbers, registration codes, PINs, and more
• Generate truly random passwords hackers cannot guess
• Protect yourself from identity theft, keyloggers, and phishing

The SplashID uses a autorun function which automatically opens up the SplashID user interface upon connection to a PC or Mac computer.  Pull the key out, and not a trace of SplashID stays on the system or any of your sensitive data you just gone done using.  So clearly a big value add for passwords, data base of private content and  password generator.

Currently you get the SplashID for $30 with free shipping…although the free shipping is for a limited time.  Here is the link for more info.

It’s standard for mobile phones to sync and connect with your computer with limited or no access to the memory for storage.  As with our Zune hack for making a Mass Storage Device, here is a tip for the Windows Phone 7 as well…

The caviet to this tutorial, is that you can only perform the tweak to your computer which you sync the Windows Phone 7 device with.

To get started, do the follwoing:

• Open the registry editor on your PC by typing regedit in your Start menu
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB; search for ZuneDriver

Now you will modify three entries (note, if you have multiple WP7 phones, you have to do it for each one)

• Change ShowInShell from 0 to 1
• Change PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell from 1 to 0
• Change EnableLegacySupport from 0 to 1

Note:  Perform registry entries at your own risk.  It’s best if you back up the Reg before starting.

If the benchmark claim rings true, LaCie has a new USB 3.0 flash drive which is living up to the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed promise.  Things might be coming to fruition with the most recent product from LaCie, the FastKey.

The FastKey has print on the box claiming a whopping 260MB/s transfer speed.  If it true, this puts a single flash drive at a faster transfer rate than your best hard drive.  As EveryThingUSB points out:

“To put that in its proper perspective a typical 3.5″ hard drive has a peak read speed of about HALF of that and has an average speed about one THIRD of this little bad boy’s performance numbers”

So dumping your buddies MP3 collection of a 1,000s songs will be much easier with this USB 3.0 flash drive, then your portable USB hard drive.  But don’t think this convenience, and some would say luxury, come without a price.  The LaCie FastKey comes in a variety of sizes, starting at