IOCELL With U3 Like Launch Pad

Matt Laboff July 18, 2007 Flash Storage & Memory, Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB News & Press Releases

IOCELL introduced their version of the U3 launch pad – I like the name better – very direct with “USB Computer.” U3 might have gotten more traction with that name.

IOCELL created a launch pad to provide the user with an easy-to-use interface for launching portable applications. Really, the same thing as U3, the difference being IOCELL gives you the ability to make any application portable for storing and running off your UFD.

It appears IOCELL (like U3) uses a micro-controller (chip logic) to confirm the drive is a “USB Computer” version and thus launches the IOCELL interface without seeing the default Windows screen “What do you want Windows to do?” question. IOCELL is calling this COB Technology (Chip-On-Board). To get the IOCELL with COB Technology look for the Castella brand name. Available from 1GB to 4GB sizes. Looking to install U3 on a regular flash drive? It won’t happen and this is why… Source: IOCELL Continue Reading No Comments

U3 Software – Clean My Registry

Matt Laboff June 26, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides

A few days ago I posted 55 Portable Applications to Make a USB Super Stick, well this one should have been included. Clean My Registry by Smart PC is a free registry maintenance utility.

Clean My Registry is for Windows operating systems and ideal for loading on your U3 flash drive. A great house cleaning tool since the registry can get fragmented and cluttered with everyday use this is nice to have. Download the U3 Software Clean My Registry for free (2MB) Continue Reading No Comments

55 Portable Apps for Making a USB Super Stick

Matt Laboff June 21, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB News & Press Releases

Update: This post has been amazing and generated a lot of interest. To make things easier, I have compiled a USB Super Stick for you. If you are interested in a 1GB drive with all the apps [below] for $20 – shoot me an email: gmo<at>getusb.info and I’ll send you more details.

USB flash is not (yet) a portable PC whereby any USB KVM monitor is your workstation – but it will get there. In the meantime, making the most of your USB stick and creating a portable software suite isn’t hard – you just need a little guidance. So… for you road-warriors or super geeks, the following list of 55 portable applications is worth taking note of. With 2GB, 4GB and 8GB drives readily available at extremely cheap prices, making a portable software suite and creating a Super Stick is quite easy.

When building your Super Stick there are numerous programs designed to run specifically from a USB drive. Best of all, almost all these programs are free, so put that Amex back in your wallet and let’s start downloading. Here’s a list of 55 of the most useful USB programs around.

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U3 Software – Freeware Data Recovery

Matt Laboff June 18, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides

Smart PC Solutions certified their Smart Data Recovery Software (like there’s a dumb version) for the U3 portable UFD platform.

The data recovery U3 software supports FAT and NTFS drives and easily recovers data from any flash type for use with any USB powered gadget like; hard disk, digital camera, UFDs basically any flash memory. What you may like about this package is the ability to recover files of any type and even when the partiation table is lost!

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Jungo Releases USBTester Version 1.01

Matt Laboff May 21, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB News & Press Releases

Jungo’s Software Connectivity Business Unit, a market leading provider of USB software protocol stacks, driver development tools and testing tools, today announced the release of version 1.01 of its USBTester product line: a software USB testing tool that enables USB developers to quickly validate their USB devices for USB compatibility, Chapter 9 conformance and mass storage functionality and performance.

A thoughtful feature Jungo included with this release version is the ability to configure read and write tests to any block size. I’m especially pleased with this configuration option as I spoke with Matan Naor of Jungo to implement this ability. Thanks! It allows developers to test their code when optimizing for different packet sizes in their embedded firmware. Continue Reading No Comments

The Next Generation of U3; a Microsoft Version

Matt Laboff May 15, 2007 Flash Storage & Memory, Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB News & Press Releases

The announcement of Microsoft developing a UFD platform to replace U3 could turn into a similar battle we saw 25 years ago between VHS and Betamax.

Major suppliers have already dropped the U3 platform because of high royalty fees (around 5%) to bundle less expensive software which does the same thing. As these suppliers, like Kingston and Memorex, begin to choose the alternate like Migo Software, a heated war could surface between flash drive manufacturers. Originally SanDisk partnered with M-Systems to develop the U3 solution, but as time went on, SanDisk bought out M-Systems and the evolution of U3 continues with this most recent partnership. Microsoft is developing the software platform and SanDisk will continue offering their hardware for a total solution (yes, it’s a hardware/software thing). In addition, SanDisk and Microsoft will bundle in the TrustedFlash security technology developed by SanDisk.

“The U3 platform was established with the vision of giving customers a consistent and portable computing experience. The existing 20,000 U3 software developers that joined us show the potential for smart flash memory devices,â€ said Yoram Cedar, executive vice president of the mobile business unit and corporate engineering at SanDisk.

â€œWe expect this relationship with Microsoft will raise the overall experience for consumers given Microsoftâ€™s unique software expertise, and grow the momentum given the large community of 3rd party companies capable of utilizing Microsoftâ€™s technologies.â€

The migration process for the 20,000 U3 developers is a straight forward and simple one – Microsoft puts the pressure back on you to make the migration. Microsoft did say there will be tools to ad in the process, but the bottom line is U3 developers better get cracking if they want to see the light-of-day come mid 2008. Continue Reading No Comments

U3 Software: 2GB eMail Attachments – np

Matt Laboff May 9, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB News & Press Releases

With YouSendIt you can email attachments up to 2GBs. Forget FTP sites and the hassle of uploads, downloads, zip, unzip. The service lets you do everything via a simple email interface and anyone can receive the email with simple instructions on how to grab the attachment. With YouSendIt now portable on U3 flash drives it makes for a nice addition to your U3 arsenal of software. Continue Reading No Comments

U3 Software: Xion Audio Player with Advanced Skins

Matt Laboff April 30, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, USB Hardware & Gadgets, USB News & Press Releases

Xion Audio is now available for the U3 flash drives. This portable application is for the music enthusiast and is advanced enough for those wanting to fully customize their player. Xion is setting a new standard in skin players. Their approach is to read directly from a Photoshop .PSD file to be used as the skin. The support is advanced enough to tag different layers within your .PSD file and properly display graphics on your player.

What is especially nice about this player is that skin files (which can get very large) can be zipped and Xion will extract on-the-fly to create your skin. This approach decreases the amount of memory needed to run the mini-application. Continue Reading No Comments

U3 Software: ZACK U3 Game

Matt Laboff April 18, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB Hardware & Gadgets

So the makers who brought you Drops just released another fun and adictive game called ZACK.

Simple. Place the colored squares in the grid without getting stuck. The color of your stone must match the color to the left, right, top or bottom. You do have gray stones as jokers whereby you can place them anywhere there is a free slot. When you fill a complete row or column it’s removed from the grid. I guess one guy got so into this game, he emailed in and said:

I lost my wife because of this game. Thank you Derbrill

Not sure who to feel sorry for… Continue Reading No Comments

U3 Software: XnView a Free Graphics Editor and Viewer

Matt Laboff April 13, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides

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 No Comments

Kingston Charging Ahead Despite their Break Up with U3

Matt Laboff April 12, 2007 Flash Storage & Memory, Industrial Duplication & Media Management, USB News & Press Releases

Kingston DataTraveler Mini Migo Software

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 No Comments

U3 Software: Beef Up Your Kids IQ with USB Math Software

Matt Laboff April 9, 2007 Industrial Duplication & Media Management, Tutorials & How-To Guides

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 No Comments