Chad's News

For the geek in your life, Victorinox is releasing a Swiss Army Knife that includes a secure USB drive.

Link #1: http://www.realwire.com/…
(via engadget)

Link #2: http://www.swissarmy.com/…

The linked article explains the differences between the various USB standards and naming conventions, and also gives some general tips about USB. After reading it, you can amaze your friends with your new knowledge!

Link: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/…

Here’s a nice power outlet that includes two USB charging plugs in addition to the standard three-prong electrical outlets. It costs $9.95, fits in any existing wall outlet, and doesn’t drain any “vampire” power. The downside is that it’s only available for pre-order (but should be shipping fairly soon).

Link: http://store.fastmac.com/…
(via Engadget)

Looks like the first round of products for the new USB 3.0 standard won’t come close to the interface’s maximum speed. According to the linked article, first-generation devices will run at about 150MB/s versus the 625MB/s allowed by the standard. Note, however, that this is still twice as fast as USB 2.0.

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

At 4.8Gbps, it’s 10 times faster than USB 2.0. Expect to see it for sale in the second half of 2009. The official name is “Super-Speed USB 3.0”.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/…

Want to make people look twice? Then just use this USB drive in a public place—although it’s probably not something you’d want to show off in an airport.

Link: http://gizmodo.com/…
(via digg)

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)