The last two decades have ushered in an enormous number of electronics. Prices get lower, users upgrade, society reapes the benefits of these advancements. This explosive growth in electronics has led to an escalating burst for EOL (end-of-life) electronics and e-waste. When electronic devices are left in traditional landfills toxic materials can be released into the soil and environment.
With new cheap devices, society has reaped tremendous benefits. This explosive growth in the electronics industry, however, has led to a rapidly escalating issue of end-of-life (EOL) electronics or e-waste. In landfills or primitive recycling operations, toxic materials can be released from old electronic devices into the environment.
E-waste is growing, and with that surge comes the need for effective electronics recycling programs. As of 2018, e-waste is now the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, with an estimated waste stream of 48.5 million tonnes in 2018, valued at 62.5 billion US Dollars.
The amount of e-wast from USB flash drives is unknown from the above statistics, yet it’s not entirely necessary to make flash drives part of the e-waste equation. There are options for recycling USB flash drives.
Option One:
Run antivirus software from a USB flash drive.
If your computer is infected with malware, running an antivirus within Windows may not be enough to remove it. If your computer has a rootkit, the malware may be able to hide itself from the antivirus software. The only proven way to ride your system of a nasty virus would be starting your computer from outside the Windows environment and start the cleaning process from there.
This is where bootable antivirus solutions come in. They can clean malware from outside the infected Windows system, so the malware won’t be running and interfering with the clean-up process. The HowToGeek website did a nice write-up on this topic. If this is a tool you need, don’t e-waste your USB flash drive, rather make a bootable antivirus software stick.
Option Two:
Run Linux from a USB flash drive.
As of 2020 the percentage of Windows computer users is still an impressive 88%. Mac users are 10% and Linux users are the remaining 2%. Have you ever used Linux? It’s actually a fantastic operating system and at least something to play around with if you have spare USB media. Rather than e-cycling your USB stick, you can download a Linux operating system and give it a run. The process is not difficult and (nearly) any non-technical person can download and install Linux on a flash drive.
Slax is a well know Linux package. The instructions for download and installation are straight forward and simple. It is highly recommended to try this version of Linux as your first exposure to the operating system.
Several benefits of running Linux from a USB include trying the operating system without investing money in new hardware, or making changes to your current Windows operating system.
Learning to run Linux from a flash drive will give you an advantage in the event of a computer failure. For example, a computer gets bogged down with a nasty virus and you need to access some files quickly. There is no time for a lengthy cleaning process (scanning a hard drive can take hours). Booting into Linux from a USB stick will give you access to the memory of the hard drive to access the files you need.
Option Three:
Recycle USB drives for a good cause.
“One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.”
Isn’t that how the saying goes? Said another way, you can donate your USB drives to an organization who can re-purpose those drives and provide them to others in need. Pivoting from option number two, a non-profit organization called SugarLabs.org puts a Linux based operating system on a flash drive. The operating system is a special version of Linux and is designed to teach young kids how computers work. The not for profit organization sends these donated drives all over the world. SugarLabs is based in Boston Massachusetts and founded by Walter Bender a graduate of Harvard and technology researcher from MIT Media Labs.
Part of the SugarLabs process is insuring each USB drive is clean from any personal data or potentially harmful malware. RecycleUSB.com is a website and business which manages the sanitizing and cleaning of the donated USB flash drives before sending to Walter and his team at SugarLabs. The recycle USB website lists the “how to” steps on donating media, contact information for any questions someone might have and sanitizing steps used to clear data from the flash drives. The partnership between RecycleUSB and SugarLabs started back in December of 2009 when flash drives began having the storage capacity to hold a portable operating system (about 2GBs).
After reading the above options for recycling USB flash memory and you find yourself still wanting to e-waste the flash drives, be sure to check your community or city about e-waste programs. In nearly all cities and counties it is not recommended to throw away electronics into the standard garbage service. Be sure to enlist the use of recyclers who are certified through either of the voluntary certification programs that have been established to ensure responsible recycling, including R2/RIOS and e-stewards.
In 2015, Intel introduced the Compute Stick, or Computer Stick – a product that has been around ever since. The idea is simple and elegant: Intel wanted to create an HDMI dongle computer that could run Windows 10.
There is no confirmation, but our suspicion is that Intel aimed to provide an 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 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 PCWorld review outlined the specifications and performance levels of the Intel-based product. We’ll 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 around $120 on 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:
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.
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.
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.
I came across an interesting article today from Dr Gough, a tech nerd. and thought it good enough to summarize here:
The USB specifications for power from a port vary from 100mA to 1.5A and up to 100W of power for USB Type C, but the cables and connectors used in a cable might not align with the power specifications of the product being designed and used. Cables are typically rated for about 1.8A of current, which is most common for cables used for charging.
The 1.8A rating is based on safety limits for resistive heating of the cable and connectors. The rating is no guarantee your +5V at 1.5A setup will get you the maximum level of power. The important point here, the cable and connector combination is simply a rating to deal with heat, and ensures nothing melts. Going a step further, most specs ensure nothing gets noticeably warm to the human touch.
Every wire that’s not a superconductor has some finite resistance. Said another way, resistance is transferred into heat. Ohm’s law tells says that E = IR, where E is voltage, I is current, and R is resistance. So when you put power through a wire, the current X resistance gives me the voltage that will be “consumed” across that wire, power that turns into heat, and thus, never makes it to your phone.
I want to end this blog post with the above paragraph as that is the real takeaway here. The more inefficient (or cheap) a cable is, the warmer it will get. So if your iPhone cable is warm to the touch, it sucks. If your wire charging your power bank is warm, it sucks. Get a better cable. From what I can tell, there is no rating posted on all these cables you see on Amazon at cheap prices, so word to the wise using your tactile feel!
You’ve connected a USB flash drive, heard the familiar Windows sound of connection, yet no drive letter shows up. You then go into Disk Management for Windows and see the device and memory, but the USB flash drive doesn’t get assigned a drive letter.
What should you do?
Most of the time, Windows will automatically assign a drive letter to any connected storage device—whether it’s a USB stick, USB hard drive, or other mass storage device.
However, if a drive letter isn’t assigned, there’s a quick fix to get your computer working properly again:
Open Command Prompt as Administrator (search for CMD, then right-click and select “Run as Administrator”).
Type diskpart and press Enter.
Once in DISKPART, type automount enable and press Enter.
If the above steps don’t solve the problem, there could be conflicting registry entries from past USB devices that disabled or interfered with the automount function.
Nexcopy offers a registry cleaning tool specifically designed for USB devices connected to your computer. This utility is an executable file that requires no installation and contains no spyware or malware. Nexcopy is a reputable company that provides direct support via phone, email, or live chat, so you can trust their software is safe and reliable.
The link below is for a ZIP file that contains two batch files to either enable or how to disable USB write protection on a Windows 10 computer. These batch files also work on Windows 7 machines.
This solution is ultra-easy and very quick: one click to run the registry edit file and one click to confirm the task. That’s it.
Typically, a person will want to lock down the USB ports of a computer to ensure a virus doesn’t spread through a USB device, such as a flash drive. This batch file provides a fast and simple way to both lock down your USB ports and easily unlock them again.
Important: Do not have a USB flash drive connected to the system when you run either batch file.
For those seeking more technical details, here is the specific registry edit being applied. Changing the DWORD value to 00000001 sets the device policy for the computer to be write-protected. Changing that value back to 00000000 restores normal read/write access.
Note: This USB write protection method is specific to the PC on which it is applied. It is not device-specific and will not follow the USB drive to other machines.
If you require USB write protection that is permanent on the device itself and universal across all computers, contact
Nexcopy.com and ask about their
Lock License USB drives.
This hardware-level solution is embedded in the USB controller, ensuring the drive is always write-protected, preventing any possibility of a virus being written to the USB stick. This is the best universal solution for USB write protection.
Screenshots of the Batch File Process
Batch files included in the ZIP:
Windows confirmation prompt after running the batch file:
With USB gadgets like this, it’s hare to imagine companies like ADT stay in business for residential customers. This working USB charger includes a miniature camera which acts like a surveillance camera. You can plug any USB gadget into it for charging, all the while record or stream video for what is going on within it’s view.
Use your Android or iPhone you may stream directly to your connected app or stream to a group of people you’ve authorized within the app. The spy camera records 1080p HD footage and will also record that video to the 32GB microSD card (included). Bonus: You can set the surveillance camera to record only when it detects motion.
The camera view is anything directly in front of the plug, so no ability to turn the camera itself, but that is a simple enough problem to solve, just use an outlet that is in-line with the viewing area you want to record.
Here are some noteworthy bullet points about what you will get for the low price of $29USD:
Motion Detection – Can be set to initiate recording only when motion is detected and then send a notification directly to your phone.
Loop Recording – Can be set to automatically record over old footage, allowing for uninterrupted video recording.
Night Mode – Can be set for recording in dim and low light environments.
Multi-Use – Allows for multiple users to connect to the same device (Supports up to 8 users)
Multi-View – Allows for multiple cameras to be connected to the same APP / Software. (Supports up to 8 cameras)
Came across an article today, which I thought was a very good read. It’s a niche article, but for anyone who deals with flash drives, I would suggest checking it out.
From the article:
The optical drive is nearly dead – they are no longer found in laptops and rarely found in tower PCs. With that said, the trend for giving out data is shifting to USB flash, not CD or DVD media. Because of this shift, many companies are taking a closer look at buying a USB duplicator.
There are several factors one must consider before spending thousands of dollars on a USB duplicator. We have broken down the most important considerations into four categories. After reviewing these four categories, you should have an excellent idea of which type of duplicator is best for your organization.
USB Duplication Speed
Speed is the first area you should analyze to figure out which direction you should go. When considering speed, we are not simply talking about the copy speed of the USB duplicator, but other factors as well, such as number of USB sockets and the user interface required for feedback during operation. Questions you should ask, include:
# How many USB drives will you need to copy in a day or week?
# How large is the data load in MBs or GBs?
# What kind of turn-around time do you have between a duplication request and when that request should be completed?
# Is there printing, or branding required, on the outside of the USB?
# Do you need proof of performance via a log file?
Answering the above questions will give you an idea of what type of USB duplicator to consider. The type of duplicator will be size, how many USB sockets, copy speed of the duplicator and what type of software, if any, your organization will need.
Your Production Crew
Your next step is to consider the production crew who will be running the equipment. Will there be non-technical people running the equipment, or will a more hands-on approach be required? Is the IT department looking to restrict user access to the equipment or restrict access to the data content during the duplication process?
Much of the above depends on how the data is received before copied to the USB flash drive. For example, a duplication company might receive a physical master from a client; where-as a fulfillment house may get content delivered from a server from an on-line order submission process.
Will the organization require multiple USB duplicators located in different parts of the world? Said another way, many global companies standardize on one manufacturer so the user experience is the same across multiple locations. This also makes production easier as both support and experience can be shared between divisions to streamline processes on a global scale.
Knowing the production crew, their capabilities and responsibilities will help narrow the search for the right piece of equipment.
Read-Only or Read-Write
The third category worth investigating is asking the state of what the USB should be once sent delivered. Is the organization looking to ship out a read-only flash drive? By default all flash drives are read-write. Because of this, many organizations fear a virus could jump onto the drive and spreading to other computers. With that fear in mind, most companies are looking for a USB duplicator which creates a read-only drive product. This means the USB drive is locked, or write protected. The files cannot be deleted or formatted off the drive, and more importantly, files cannot jump onto the drive.
Nexcopy is world leader in read-only flash drive duplicators and therefore used as an example of a duplicator system worth considering.
The most common reason why only one USB drive can be used in Windows is due to multiple USBs connected with the same USB device signature, or disk signature collision.
If you are dealing with bootable devices and seeing this problem, we are confident a collision is the issue. If you are not dealing with a bootable device, then our information below will probably not help.
What is a USB signature collision?
A signature collision can happen on any bootable device, such as Compact Flash cards, SD cards, microSD cards, and USB flash drives. A disk signature is a unique identifier number (UID). It is a unique identifier stored as part of the MBR (Master Boot Record) for an operating system loaded on the device. The operating system uses the UID to identify and distinguish between storage devices. It is commonly made up of eight alphanumeric characters. A disk collision occurs when your operating system (Windows) detects that there are two disks with identical signatures.
For Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10, these versions of Windows will disable the second drive and will not allow that second volume to mount until the disk collision has been rectified. If you are reading this article, chances are, this is exactly what is happening to you.
The first thing to do is navigate to the Disk Management tool within Windows. To do this, use the search tool and type in Disk Management. This will take you to the utility that Windows offers. Here you can see your multiple devices connected. If you click or hover over the device not working you will see one of two messages:
“The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible” or “This disk is offline because it has a signature collision.”
What created the USB disk signature collision?
Making a bit-by-bit copy of one device to another, like using a USB duplicator, would create a disk signature collision. Because these binary duplicators copy the MBR information, that UID is also copied to the target device. Stepping forward, once those two devices are connected to the same computer, “boom” you get the collision.
Chances are, the situation you are in right now is due to a cloning process you have just completed. But don’t worry, we have the fix!
Fixing a USB disk signature collision
There are two methods for fixing the collision issue. The first solution is using DiskPart, which is a free command line tool provided by Microsoft and is found on all Windows 10 computers. This is a one-by-one process. If you have multiple devices with this problem and need to fix all of them, best to use option number two.
DiskPart Method
To launch DiskPart, simply go to the search function and type DiskPart
You now see the command prompt for DiskPart and type list disk
DiskPart will list all the storage devices connected to your computer. From this list, identify which USB is your problem device. The easiest way to determine this is to check the capacity for the drive listed by DiskPart.
Select the disk you want to change the signature ID for, for example Disk 1, which is the second disk listed (typically disk 0 is your C drive). Type select disk 1
Now that disk one is selected, type uniqueid disk and the utility will spit out the disk signature for disk 1.
Our final step is to change this value. Knowing a hexadecimal value we can use, such as A53AEBE9, type the following in DiskPart: unique disk ID=A53AEBE9 and click Enter.
With this change, you can now go into Disk Management and put the device Online. When the device is online, Windows Explorer will see the device and you can use it. There is no longer a USB disk signature collision.
If your hexadecimal value will not take, it means your MBR file doesn’t have a signature you can change. You will need to flash the device with your bootstrap code. More details on that from a previous article found here.
Another reason why option number two, below, is better is that the hexadecimal number assigned to the partition is automatic and works. There is no guessing on what hexadecimal to assign to the partition, a step you must do in DiskPart.
The second solution is downloading the freePartition Wizard and opening the software. The Partition Wizard software will automatically identify the USB disk signature collision and update the necessary MBR. Super simple!
There is more technical information about disk collision issues from Wikipedia. You can brush up on the details there if so inclined.
Legrand now offers the XSOLARCS USB charging station for public works, schools, parks and transportation centers.
With the Legrand solution, there is no construction required in order to install the charging station. The unit is a self contained solar panel tower, with six USB charging ports pulling from the solar panel. There are three shelves which can mount in adjustable locations to the panel tower poll. Each shelf containes two USB ports with up to 3.1A of shared power between them. There is no trenching required or other expensive construction projects in order to get the EXSOLARCS going.
USB sockets are protected from the eliments with a sliding door in front of the two port socket assembly. Not only is there protection, but LED illumination at each port for after-dark identification and ease-of-use. If the light is illuminating, the station can provide a charge. This implies there is some type of battery inside the station, which we’ve emailed Legrand to find out exactly what.
The XSOLARCS was designed with the elimints in mind. The USB charging station is designed to withstand hurricane-force winds and has the full RoHS certificate compliance.
Your Production Crew
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