I got an email from Apple this morning at 4 A.M.. Guess my Apple TV is on its way. And it looks like they gave me a discount. I only got charged $281. It’s listed for $299 on Apple.com. I pre-ordered my Apple TV the day it was announced. Maybe I got the discount because it got delayed a month?
So here’s a poor mans USB hack to secure your network from unscrupulous characters downloading company secrets via USB.
In Windows XP SP2 and Vista you can disable writing to USB devices altogether by implementing a simple registry hack.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\StorageDevicePolicies] “WriteProtectâ€=dword:00000001
**Note: I inserted a break after …Set\< br>Control… to fit into post page.
Once done, reboot and you’re set. Make sure others don’t have Administrative rights, otherwise they could easily set things back. Here is the Vista error message upon copy attempt:
There is an auto executable download available to disable writing to USB drives without searching for the registry area yourself. If interested in this USB hack, then jump over to How-To-Geek and snag it.
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We wrapped up another poll this week and it appears 64% of the GetUSB.info readers have U3 software loaded on their flash drives. Interestingly enough, today Kingston made the announcement they will drop the U3 platform do to high royalty costs and low demand for the product. I for one, think the platform and idea are a nice addition and if you haven’t tried U3 flash drives, you should – you may never go back.
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One year ago, almost to the day, IOCell introduced the self proclaimed “World’s largest capacity flash drive” at the CeBIT 2006 show. Today, you can find 16GB flash drives from Transcend, US Modular and Pretec, so why is the Buffalo 16GB announcement of interest? Well, it uses Silicon HDD Technology.
Silicon hard drives are different then normal hard drives in that no magnetic discs are present, rather the data is stored in silicon memory. How the silicon (HDD) hard drive works is by
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Often those USB novelty gadgets are quite lame, but put a little music to it and become very funny. Take, for example, the USB poll dancer.
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Yesterday GetUSB.info reported on Kingston giving U3 the axe and their decision to stop selling the portable application bundled into Kingston UFDs.
Interestingly enough, part of that announcement indicated sales for U3 devices are lack-luster and demand for U3 drives aren’t high enough to offset the royalty fee associated with platform.
However, as the story broke, GetUSB.info just finished their latest USB Poll on “Do You Own a Flash Drive With U3 Software?” The results concluded that 64% of GetUSB.info readers have U3 drives, where as the balance do not. Seems to us, there are some mixed numbers.
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Kingston Technology released a statement yesterday giving U3 the axe for pre-installation on USB flash drives. Kingston will stop selling the U3 product because the royalty fees are too great for the price sensitive flash memory market.
Kingston explained its decision in saying that extra bundled software means additional costs for consumers. The company already has its own similar platform to substitute for U3, according to company sources.
According to some IC controller design houses, SanDisk – the big player advocating U3 – charges about a 5% royalty fee for adopting the U3 platform.
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The CoSoSys Carry It Easy software we recently reported will now be found, pre-installed, on the ATP USB ToughDrive. The preloaded CoSoSys software will allow for quick and easy sync of email, contacts and personal bookmarks.
If not familiar with the ATP ToughDrive, it’s a ruggedized flash drive designed to withstand water, dust, static discharge and extreme temps.
Include the Secure It Easy software from CoSoSys and now you’re not only portable but iron-clad secure too.
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The iPod Shuffle comes with the 2G Dock station which is a little large, relatively speaking, so replace it with this inexpensive iUSB dock connector. The Essential Tech iUSB connects directly to the iPod and directly to your USB port.
The iUSB dock station supports full USB 2.0 transfer speeds, is ridiculously small and eliminates any cables. At just 5.6 grams it’s truly the best mini iPod dock station available.
Mac and PC compatible for only $10.
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Gadget Centre has once again pulled through with an excellent review. The Terratec USB Surround Sound Headmaster is one high-tech, well built, hard core headphone system.
…held together by a unsightly looping support which wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval dungeon, it’s a good job the Headset Master is for your PC: if you took it outside people would go out of their way to point and laugh at you.
Chris Russell points out that although they are a little heavy, they are well built and designed for the hard core gamer who’d appreciate every tweak of sound during an all intense Counter-Strike tourney.
By default, most use IE for their web browser and those wanting a little more switch to Firefox. You’ve also got a portion of that browser pie who love Opera. Recently Opera-USB become available for U3 flash drives. Opera is a portable browser, email system, contacts database and download client.
As with Mac/PC Opera there are a host of internet surfing tools available for this portable application. If you’re on the fence here are a couple safe harbor statements:
The original USB humping dog was out about 6 months ago and humped while plugged into a USB port. Now, there is a mod thats more of what you’d expect. He’ll hump only when copying data or accessing data. Unfortunately it’s just a mod so not for sale, but follow the tutorial and you too could have your own USB humping dog on command copy.
