Kicking around in technology since 2002. I like to write about technology products and ideas, but at the consumer level understanding. Some tech, but not too techie.
The pathetic man’s disco laptop light from Brando is now available. Not much to this $10 USB laptop light other than a blinking light every second which toggles between green, red, blue, purple and yellow colors.
I guess you could home-brew a disco light show with a handful of these and a USB hub. Might be a good mood-setter for the traveling sales man and his recent “friend” from the hotel lounge. Thus; pathetic.
Continue Reading
SanDisk recently took the most kid familiar shape, a sippy-cup, and turned that into an MP3 player. The Sansa Shaker is a 512MB MP3 player with SD expansion slot to introduce your child into the world of music.
What’s fun about this product is the twist navigation features at top and bottom. A lot like LeapFrog products one might already be familiar with (if you have kids). In addition SanDisk built in a shake feature to aid in the little guy finding the beat (probably bead sound like maracas but no specifics given).
Continue Reading
GetUSB.info just closed our latest poll with the best participation ever, over 150 votes, thank you. This round we asked “How Devastating Would it be to Lose Your Flash Drive?”
By a slim margin the majority of people would be OK as they have original content on another computer. Which makes sense as most flash drives are used for file transfer, rather then file storage. However, for the 20% that said your life is over, you may want to consider some of the following solutions:
XnView is now available for U3 enabled flash drives. XnView is a powerful graphics tool for viewing and converting files from one format to another.
I would recommend this software if you’re a blogger, but have a job where there is no graphic editor software like Photoshop. Load up your U3 flash drive and edit anywhere, on any PC. I particularly like the slide show feature XnView offers.
The list of features is insane long so here’s the cut-n-paste:
Continue Reading
So here’s a guy who took geekness to the next level. After the enclosure broke off Russell’s 1GB UFD Voyager, he decided to up the durability factor by a Thousand.
Russell home brewed an aluminum UFD case to insure breakage never happened again. I’d probably do the same if I had access to this equipment.
Using 1/4″ aluminum stock and some hex head screws he created one master piece enclosure even the indestructible guys would be proud of.
Continue Reading
As I reported back in March about Kingston giving U3 the axe, they continue to charge forward with UFD platform software. Migo Software now comes bundled with Kingston flash drives and most recent entry is the Kingston Data Traveler Mini.
The following summary of Migo software will sound very familiar:
Continue Reading
So here is a simple project to groom your child into the geek parent you are. Over at Hacked Gadgets Alan pointed out a “how-to” on creating your own USB charger from Lego’s.
The charger uses a Lego motor to generate current which passes through a voltage regulator and off to the USB port. If you don’t already have the Lego motor you can pick them up at target and the voltage regulator at Radio Shack.
When all done, rather then sending your kid to time-out, have them hand-crank and recharge your favorite MP3 player.
Here is a picture of the hand crank with electronics already installed.
Continue Reading
More often then not design ideas never get past the prototype stage. Case in point, Greg Schramek created this concept of a disposable digital video camera where the simple shell is intuitive enough anyone could use.
Once the footage is recorded you connect the disposable video camera to a processing station via USB for conversion to DVD. Nice idea, but Greg calls for the conversion process to take place at grocery stores, and pharmacies. From personal experience, getting that distribution channel squared away is a much bigger task then creating the product.
Besides, the video quality and features of a cell phone are probably just as good. BUT, Greg, if you’re read this, don’t get me wrong – we all love dreamers. And nice graphic design skills.
Continue Reading
The Pinnacle PCTV DVB-T Flash Stick is one of the many TV receiver solutions out in the market these days. Dave Carter from Gadget Centre did a detailed review I’ll share with you. First off, the Pinnacle USB tuner is a step above the rest in that it’s true plug-n-play. There is no loading of software, simply plug in via USB and you’re set-up. This is a big bonus as taking the TV tuner from PC to PC is a snap.
Continue Reading
I’m on the fence about this one. Solid Alliance came out with a UFD which also incorporates a stamp. It’s called the USB Stamp. Use one end to store data and the other to graffiti up whatever is with-in arms reach. The problem I see with this is the time it takes to eject the USB drive from your OS you could easily have grabbed 3 stamps to do your business.
~~~
I’m sure this concept was the request of a customer, but kudos to SolidAlliance for thinking outside the sponge box.
Continue Reading
The latest addition to U3 is the Junior edition of MathOwns software. Yep, now it’s possible to drill your kids via USB in their math abilities.
For the competitive parent this is an ideal tool to sharpen skills based off pre-reselected criteria and math levels. Forget flash cards as the MathOwns software auto-generates exercises and provides email or PDF notification options upon completion of drills.
Sarcasm set aside, anything to make kids learn more and make it more interactive and fun is definitely a plus. I have first hand seen the interest kids have when working on computers and to have math lessons and exercises loaded on their Spongebob flash drive is a nice benefit.
Continue Reading
The buzz about Apple TV remains strong, especially with new hacks and plugins. The most recent is an RSS reader plugin which is fully functioning with RSS1.x and 2.x. You can grab this plugin from the folks who cranked it out, twenty08. Only downer is the lack of support from ATOM feeds, but that group is a minority these days.
Continue Reading
