Chad’s News

The recent Transformers movie rated about a 5.5 (out of 10) on the Chad’s News movie review list, but this USB hub modeled after the All Spark Cube is just way too cool to pass up. Unfortunately it won’t be available until late August.

Link: http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/…
(via Engadget)

PhotoRec is a free utility that recovers files from corrupted flash drives, memory cards, and CD-ROMs. It can be downloaded here.

Link: http://www.cgsecurity.org/…
(via Lifehacker)

No word on when we can expect to see it “in the wild,” but USB 3.0 is being developed. It will be 10 times faster than USB 2.0, and will also be backwards compatible with previous versions.

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/…
(via digg)

With the popularity of flash memory, it’s easy to forget that flash cells have a limited number of writes before they start failing—typically between 100,000 and 1 million. While this is probably more than enough for the casual user, it’s a good idea to remember that old flash memory may not be reliable.

Link: http://www.komando.com/…

This site has an autorun file that tells someone how to return your lost USB drive. When they plug in the drive, the AutoPlay window will display a “Help! I’m Lost” option, which gives ownership/contact information that you specify. I suggest skipping the technical stuff in the article and just downloading the zip file at the end.

http://www.dailycupoftech.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

It’s now possible to install a bootable version of Windows XP on a USB drive. Regular readers will recall how much I emphasize physical security, but this makes it even easier to compromise a system with just physical access to the computer. On the plus side, it does make it easier to quickly retrieve information from a damaged Windows installation. I had this occur once with Windows NT, and it took me a day of work to install a second bootable copy so I could access my data.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/…
(via digg)