Administator for GetUSB.info
GetUSB.info started in 2004 with the concept of providing USB information for everything USB related. At the time, USB was gaining momentum and every day new products, articles and news became published. Today, the site is focused on bringing technical information, tricks and hacks to USB related products. The site does publish off topic information as well, to keep the variety up. Please visit the footer area of any page if you or your company is interested in article or product placement via purchased advertising.
In 2015 Intel introduced the Compute Stick or Computer Stick – the product has been around ever since. The idea is simple and eligant. Intel wanted to create an HDMI dongle computer which can run Windows 10.
There is no confirmation, but our suspicion is that Intel wanted a ultra-cheap and portable solution to run Windows for embedded applications like set-top boxes (DVRs) and other IoT (Internet of Things) products. If our assumption is correct, it’s a wonderful product and is a great solution for its intended purpose.
PCWorld did a fantastic review of the compute stick back in 2016, and a link to that article is at the footer of this post. The PC World review outlined the specifications and performance levels of the Intel based product. We will let that article do the heavy lifting for the tech people out there, but today we want to talk about the applications one might have for a computer stick.
For only $120 (ish) off Amazon, this is an excellent solution to run Windows 10 for a host of specific applications.
Several quick talking points before we move to examples of usage out in the field:
My neighbor has a Model 3 with a wireless charging station right in the console. I didn’t realize this was an after-market purchase, so wanted to review it here today. The brand my neighbor has is the Taptes generation 2 wireless charging station.
The Gen 2 has some improvements from the previous version. Starting with the basics, this version has a ridge line molded into the center of the charging platform. This allows a user to charge two phones vertically, independently getting their charge, at the same time. The center line ridge doesn’t go all the way to the bottom so if you need to charge your phone while in landscape mode, viewing say Google Maps, you have that capability.
The charging station does have USB-C in the event a passenger has a phone which doesn’t support the wireless charging mode. This would include both Android and Apple phones.
My neighbor has the Model 3, 2019 version, but this version does support the Tesla console for 2017, 18, 19 and 20 year models. The black is the same tone of black as the black interior of the Tesla. As I mentioned before, I didn’t realize this was an after-market product until my neighbor told me so. In my opinion, it didn’t look like an add-on.
The charging pad has anti-slip grip material so the phone doesn’t move around while driving. The wireless signal is strong enough to go through phone cases. However; if you have a magnetic disc or a pop-socket on the back, it might not charge as it’s either too far away from the wireless power signal, or the obstruction doesn’t allow your phone to take the wireless charge signal. The charging pad also has two LED to indicate the charging station is sending a signal to the device. Your device will also confirm it is receiving a charge. The wireless charging station comes with two USB splitters so you can power the charging station from the Tesla USB system and still have USB connections off to the dash for something like a dash-cam recorder or other device.
This topic is brought up today because we hear some Users have issues understanding this point. The partition size inside an image file does matter. The question we will answer today is why it matters.
Let us start off with two simplified overviews. First, all storage devices use a partition to define it’s characteristics. A storage device has a file system, like FAT32 or exFAT or NTFS and that file system has a defined size or digital capacity. These characteristics, and some others, are laid out in the partition.
Second, an image file is the above partition with all its detail, the file system, defined capacity along with all the actual files and folders on that partition and put into a single file or .img file.
For a non-technical person, let me use a puzzle as an example.
The puzzle box is equivalent to the physical device.
The plastic bag inside the puzzle box, holding all the pieces, is the image file.
Print on the puzzle box indicating the number of pieces, is the partition.
The puzzle pieces inside the box are equivalent to the data.
Okay, so at this point we know the image file (.img) is the bag which holds all the puzzle pieces and the data are all the bits inside the bag. So let’s address the question of this post, “Why does the partition size matter inside an image file?”
Back to the puzzle box. As with any puzzle, the outside of the box lists the number of pieces. In this example, we can use the number of pieces printed on the outside of the box as the partition table size. If the physical box size is, let us say, 8″ x 11″ then it’s totally logical that a 1,000 piece puzzle would fit inside. In fact, it is logical to say even a 20 piece puzzle will fit inside the box. But, could a 5,000 piece puzzle fit inside this box?
From the three scenarios above, one doesn’t work, right? The scenario where the box says there are 5,000 puzzle pieces in a box that is physically to small.
Partitions are the same.
The situation which doesn’t work, is when the print on the outside of the puzzle is telling you the number of pieces inside the box are clearly more than what the physical box can handle.
Said another way, you cannot use a partition table size of 4GBs and try to have the image file fit on a USB stick that has only 1GB of storage space. Even if the image file itself is only 1GB large of actual data. Just like the puzzle, no matter what is printed on the outside of the box, if the number of pieces are larger than what can fit inside the box… it just doesn’t work.
Here is a real-world example: You can download this IMG file which is only 40MB large. The IMG itself has a 4GB partition inside it. As long as you write out the IMG file to a flash drive that is 4GBs or larger, everything will work. If you try and write out the IMG file to something smaller, like a 2GB stick, it won’t work.
What happens?
Windows is very smart. All versions of Windows (from 7 and higher) will take a look at the total available memory and compare that to the partition table size. If Windows sees the partition table is larger than the available memory of the device, she won’t let you do anything with the device… other than format it. Once the drive is formatted, Windows will automatically rewrite the partition table to fit the amount of available memory. In this example, Windows would format the drive to become a 2GB stick… not a 4GB stick.
Why does Windows do this?
They want to eliminate fraud. Windows 7 was introduced in 2009 and before that, the only OS was WindowsXP. Well, Windows XP didn’t have the capability to compare partition tables to available memory. The result was fraud. Many would sell some larger GB capacity drive… like at the time 32GB, but only 4GB of real, usable, memory was there. The user would run out of memory space long before the “printed capacity” of the drive was reached.
If you found this article; maybe there is a situation where an image file is not working when written out to a USB flash drive? If this is the case, be sure to check your partition table compared to the amount of physical memory available. The easiest way to check, would be mounting the IMG file on your computer and check Properties for the partition size. Keep in mind, the default “Mount” command in Windows doesn’t work. You need something like this.
Today, like never before, individuals are working from the home office. Working in an favorable situation is decent and beneficial and I think this is why so many love the home office. As favorable as things may be; now and again the home office doesn’t have a computer gear to carry out the responsibilities required. With numerous business now practicing social distancing, one will discover certain things are still needed.
Consider the niche requirement to make USB duplicates at the home office. For instance, let us consider an IT director who needs to turn out bootable restore recover sticks, or a product engineer who is required to send programming updates to a group of remote office sales guys. These managers need a snappy, simple and econimical bit of gear to do the job.
The smaller USB flash drive duplicator by Nexcopy is an incredible solution for this definite issue. The unit measurings is 15cm long and 10cm wide. So it will fit into any computer bag, and light as a book.
The USB duplicator is a one-master to four-target copy station. The duplicator is a digital binary copier which duplicates any file system or structure provided by the master host flash drive. Using a USB cable the duplicator can power the five USB flash drives; however, is not recommended for using with USB hard drives.
With a duplicator like this, making duplicates at the home office is speedy and extremely simple. There are four menu buttons, enter, escape, up and down. The unit will work at the press of a single button, which makes this unit ideal for non technical people. The mini duplicator may be configured to perform a binary copy or a binary copy and compare. The copy and compare function gives the user piece of mind that each copy is exactly the same as the master. Having a verification option will insure every copy is the same as the master, giving the user piece of mind all the copies are 100% correct and exact.
Reviewing the features of the duplicator, we have note worthy features:
Asynchronous copy mode, all the time
Binary copier will copy any format; FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, HFS, Ext2,3,4, Proprietary
Binary CRC verification algorithm
Quick Erase and Full Erase for disk sanitization
Four language modes in LCD menu
USB speed benchmark utility
Firmware upgradeable
Is the cost of the mini sized USB duplicator worth the cost for a home office employee? The easiest way to determine this is asking ourselves how much time the duplicator will save. This mini copy station, called the Nexcopy USB104SA will copy one GB of data to each device in just over one minute. That is extremely fast. If an IT manager or software engineer had to data load a 12 GB worth of data on a PC, it would take about 12 minutes to make four copies. Windows could never copy that much data, that quickly. When using the copy and compare mode it takes a bit longer… about 1.5 minutes per GB. So still incredibly quick.
Several features are worth mentioning in a bit more detail. The Erase function is a technical term to remove all data from the USB flash drive. This is a robust feature which guarantees data is removed from the flash drive with no ability of the data being recovered. Formatting a drive doesn’t clean data from the drive, the format function only destroys the file allocation table (the directions to find data), but erase will actually overwrite random binary data over the data blocks. There are two erase settings available on this little USB104SA, and the quick erase will scrub certain portions of the drive so some data could remain, but most likely the files would be corrupted if trying to be recovered because the random write sequence skips around the drive and over writting just bits of memory. The full erase function will write binary randomly zeros and ones to all the NAND memory of the flash drive. By doing this randomization, it would be impossible for sophisticated forensics recovery software to restore any data.
The four language modes include English, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese.
The USB benchmark speed is a great a convenient tool for testing the read speeds and write speeds of a thumb drive. This is even more valuable when dealing with promotional quality media, as this low-end memory is very instable and can get frustrating to deal with. The easiest way to determine the quality of memory is looking at the write speed. With the benchmark utility one can test the read and write speed of a drive. The USB duplicator will write about 20MBs of random data to determine the average read and write speed. If the USB memory has a write speed of 4MB/second or lower, it’s not good quality. If the write speed is above 8MB/second for USB 2.0 media and above 20MB/second write speed for USB 3.0 media, it is of better quality memory.
The USB duplicator made by Nexcopy is a backward compatible product and will copy to USB 1.0, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 flash drives. The duplicator will write to the device as fast as it will allow. The best write times will result from the operator using USB 3.0 media.
When trying to format a flash drive in Windows (7 or 10) you will see the file system options best suited for the device. The proper file systems for a flash drive is: FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. Windows provides NTFS as an option for USB flash drives, but as mentioned before, NTFS is not the best file system for a USB drive. During the format process, only the best suited file systems will be displayed in Windows.
Why is UDF not listed as an option?
First, let me say it IS possible for Windows to format a USB flash drive as UDF (Universal Disk Format). Microsoft just doesn’t want you to do it; and with good reason.
Before you get too far: If you think formatting a flash drive as UDF will make the thumb drive appear as an optical drive in the computer – you are mistaken!
From the Wikipedia page about Universal Disk Format, UDF, the specification is governed by the Optical Storage Technology Association and because of that, many believe a UDF anything will work like a disc. It, UDF, is most widely used for DVDs and newer optical disc formats, can be used on flash drives, but does make it operate like one.
If we take out the hope of formatting a USB with a UDF file system, some may feel the Universal Disk Format means the flash drive will work in anything, such as from Windows, to Mac, to Linux, Symbian and/or to proprietary system. The truth here is exFAT will do just the same. Please keep that in mind.
So why not format a USB as UDF in Windows? Here is a list:
The lack of fully-functional filesystem check tools.
64GB limit with Windows & Linux, a bug, not a limit of UDF
SD and USB mass storage devices are exposed to quick wear-leveling failure
UDF is read-only for Windows XP
Without bogging down this post with ultra-technical information, from the above list, the most important to consider is the first, lack of filesystem check tools.
This means if the USB is pulled out while in operation and a bit is affected by the action, there are no tools to check the file system for errors. You are flying the dark as to why the USB no longer works and there are no tools available to help you figure it out. Given the flash drive was specifically designed to be portable and quick access, the above action is most certainly going to happen sooner or later, which makes UDF a high risk file system.
How to format a flash drive as UDF:
Connect the USB to your computer and note the assigned drive letter
Are you looking for an inexpensive iPhone cable? This is a common search on Google because those cables go missing, get taken by your kids or co-workers, or possible break. It is as-though we need an endless supply of them. I don’t recall the last cable I had which lasted more than four months. There is an article out there, somewhere, that claims for each iPhone made, the user will need at least three cables for charging it. The link to that article escapes me, but I do believe it speaks the truth. From personal experience there is one needed for the car to charge while driving. One needed at work to charge while working, need that TV back-ground noise {wink}, and one needed at home for charging overnight.
iPhone cables or lightening cables are expensive. Go to Amazon and you will find a decent six foot cable costing nearly $20. Couple that cost with our observation about needing three cables, we are now looking at a $60 dollar expense. No thanks! We want an inexpensive iPhone charging cable.
This cable problem actually gets worse, not better, here is why:
You need microUSB cables to charge your portable battery packs. Okay, so we have our three cables for charging an iPhone. The work one, the car one and the home one. Of course we all have portable batteries to charge our phone, when away from said places. How do you charge those portable batteries? With a microUSB cable. At least those are cheaper than an iPhone lightening cable. Never-the-less it’s still another corded cable.
We all need the portable battery for charging – don’t think otherwise! Kids baseball game could stretch to three hours. Girls softball games are usually 1.4 hours and a couple per day. A golf round with your friends, typically 4.5 hours. The point, many times we find ourselves away from the car, home and work place and have the need for charging.
How do we solve this problem of finding an inexpensive iPhone charging cable? The answer is with a combination of products. The combination will not only charge your iPhone, but also charge the portable battery packs.
Going to Amazon you can find a pack of five microUSB cables for under $10. Be sure to check the length you want. It is easy to make the mistake of buying a shorter cable because the price is a bit lower, only to find out the length is too short.
The other item you need is a microUSB to Lightening adapter. This are little adapters that sit at the end of your microUSB connector and transfor the connection to a Lightening connection for your iPhone. A pack of four can be found on Amazon for less than $10.
Its important to note, these adapters only supply power to your iPhone. The adapters do not allow data transmission to your iPhone. Which is fine, when is the last time you connected your iPhone to the computer anyway for sync’ing? It’s all done wirelessly.
So with our $20 you just spent at Amazone you have three Lightening cables to charge your iPhone and you have three microUSB cables to charge your portable power pack. This is a very inexpensive iPhone charge cable solution. It would amaze me on why anyone would purchase something different, don’t you?
Yes. Performing an Erase or “full format” shortens the life of the device. The erase function is also very slow.
Here are some additional questions based on the answer above which we will address in today’s post:
Is “erase” and “format” the same thing?
Erasing flash memory (a.k.a. Setting all bits to 0, also called a “full format” by Windows) does more damage. Flash memory has a limited number of times that it can be written, and the more you write to it, the more it degrades. With an erase function, you’re writing to the entire device.
With a format, all that’s happening is changing a few bits at the front of the device to say the rest of the memory space on the flash drive is available to be overwritten. This saves the life of the flash memory because the old data is not being overwritten, just flagged to do it at a later time.
Why would you need to erase a drive?
Since a format is changing just a few bits at the front of the device, it means all the data is still on the drive. The few bits we are talking about which are changed, is related to the file allocation table. The changed bits in the file allocation table, mean there are no longer instructions about the location of the digital files. Recovery software can scan the memory space and retrieve those files even though the file allocation table isn’t giving instructions on where they are located.
Think of the file allocation table as the table of contents of a book. If you tear out the table of contents of a book, but all the pages of the story are still there, it’s the same concept as formatting a device. Sure you can scan the pages to find chapter 12 with the part about Paul getting a bucket of water, it’s just hard. Same thing with formatting a drive, you can use recovery scanning software to find the files, but it’s hard.
Coming back to the original question, why would someone want to erase a USB flash drive? One possible reason could be a security risk of some kind and the operator wants to insure no data is on the drive. For example, you are donating a flash drive and you had financial or medical records on the drive. By performing an erase, that data cannot be recovered.
Given USB is everywhere, this guy gives you the ability to control the on and off power of a USB powered device.
I think for most people, there is no real difference between a WiFi outlet and the WiFi USB adapter. The only difference would be if you want to control the power of a USB gadget which is being powered from your computer. If it’s anything else, as for the power source, it will be a wall outlet.
Can you plug in your Alexa via USB? No. Can you plug in your Google Home via USB? No. Can you plug in your lamps in our family room or living room via USB? No. Can you plug in your bluetooth speaker to charge vai USB? Yes, but who cares about controlling the power of that? Can you plug in your phone via USB to charge it? Yes, but who cares, you want that thing to charge to it’s full capacity anyway. Oh wait, unless you are a super nerd, like these guys (read the comments section).
For the $6.50 that Sonoff is planning to charge you, I would put my money towards a more usable product, like the Smart Life WiFi outlets.
If you are an avid user of USB security dongles, you might know how challenging it may be to get remote access to these devices. To simplify this task, Electronic Team, Inc. has developed a dedicated software solution capable of sharing USB protection dongles over the network.
Donglify is a lightweight desktop application that allows connecting USB hardware keys to remote computers over the Internet and LAN. The software uses the 2048-bit SSL encryption to secure your connections, so you don’t need to worry that your sensitive data will be intercepted or lost.
One of the nicest things about Donglify is that it can redirect one USB dongle to several remote PCs simultaneously. In order to make a USB hardware key available for use on multiple computers, you can just connect the device to your local PC and share it over the network with nothing more than a couple of clicks. This option, currently, works with HASP HL Pro, Sentinel HL Pro, SafeNet eToken 5110, and CodeMeter CmStick security keys.
USB hardware keys of other types can also be shared over the Internet but you’ll be able to access them from one remote machine at a time.
Donglify is available by subscription and comes with a 30-day free trial. When the trial period is over, you can continue using the service for $19.99 a month.
We all spend so much time on our computer, its worth customizing sounds and events we experience while using the computer. Today, we will cover the topic of changing the USB sound when a USB device is connected. You can really have some fun with this, especially if you consider some of the USB jokes mention before, and how those jokes could apply when a USB is shoved into a USB port.
While your mind wonders, I’ll move along to the tutorial part of this post:
In the search field, type in Control Panel and select the Control Panel.
From with in the Control Panel click Hardware and Sound
From the Sounds category, select Change system sounds
The window will pop up on the “Sound” tab and you’ll need to scroll down through the list of “Program Events” to find Device Connect and you will click on that time to highlight it.
LAKE FOREST, CA, USA, November 20, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ — Lake Forest, CA – November 20, 2019 –
Nexcopy Inc., introduces all new mini size USB duplicator, the USB104SA, a 4 target standalone USB flash memory Duplicator specifically design to be light weight and portable.
The USB104SA USB Duplicator has a list of features which pivot from the larger, award winning, Nexcopy standalone duplicators. Features include:
Asynchronous copy mode, all the time
Binary copier will copy any format; FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, HFS, Ext2,3,4, Proprietary
Binary CRC verification algorithm
Quick Erase and Ful Erase for disk sanitization
Four language modes in LCD menu
USB speed benchmark utility
Firmware upgradeable
“With the lack of optical drives in computers and laptop, the USB stick continues to grow in popularity,” reports Greg Morris, President of Nexcopy. “What we have seen is a demand for both small configuration systems for those transitioning from optical media to USB media and large production systems which we’ve serviced for years. The USB104SA is a great stepping stone for those coming from the optical duplication industry.”
Stan McCrosky, head of Sales, comments, “What we have seen, are small organizations and business requesting something low cost and low volume for data duplication. Our main focus is still business-to-business, but the growing demand for low volume duplication equipment justified the development of a product like the USB104SA.”
The USB104SA is a portable solution and ideal for trade shows or spoken word events. The unit weighs less than one pound and with a foot print of about six inches by one inch tall. The unit can easily fit into your computer bag, which is ideal for carry-on luggage at the airport.
The USB duplicator is powered by a microUSB cable which can be connected to your computer laptop USB port. A USB block is also provided for powering from an outlet.
Nexcopy firmware is a code technology which has evolved since 2008. This system is backward compatible with USB 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 flash memory. The system will accept SD card reader adapters, microSD and CF card reader adapters. The firmware may be used to speed test flash memory which is a great tool for understanding the quality of flash memory a supplier has provided.
For most, the middle of November is when you start thinking about Christmas and the holiday season. With that in mind, if you have an office gift exchange, this USB vacuum could make your short list, if you draw the office IT person as your secret Santa.
What tipped my memory about seeing this USB vacuum several years ago, is a commercial during Sunday night football. Yup, someone actually worked this USB gadget into a prime time commercial. First image is from the commercial, second image is the link to get the USB vacuum from Amazon (or equivalent).
Before you get your hopes up the USB vacuum actually works, it doesn’t. The thing will make a vacuum noise, but doesn’t suck anything up.
