There are some smartphone accessories that make you go “huh? Who would buy this?” And then sometimes there are ideas so smart you think, “Wow! Why didn’t anyone do this sooner?” Finally, there’s the “GREAT idea, poor execution” accessory. The Kingston Wi-Drive fits into one of these categories, but you will have to read to the end to find out which one!… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
Image Courtesy of Mimoco (yes, this wallpaper is included)
Everyone has a few flash drives lying around these days but unless you have a Han Solo mimobot with a Carbonite case key chain then you have no shot at defeating the Dark Side. One of my favorite stops at CES was the mimobot booth and certainly for good reason. If you are a fan of Star Wars or any comic book heroes then mimobot probably has something for you. Thomas an I had a nice conversation with Evan who was working the booth that day and he hooked us up with a review unit of the Han Solo 4GB flash drive. There were plenty… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
We had a chance to sit down with Seagate earlier this week, and we liked what we saw.
We were glad to see an update to the GoFlex Satellite we had reviewed some months ago, we saw a product that is not yet shipping (but we WANT NOW), and we took some time to see the speed boost that Seagate’s Momentus XT Hybrid Hard drive offers as compared to a traditional spinning platter. Here’s a look.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
When it comes to USB drives I tend to be fairly utilitarian – I want something fast, portable, durable, and reliable. The top brand drives all offer that stuff, so what makes you choose one $20 8GB drive over another?
Kingston is hoping that their urDrive software embedded in the DataTraveler 109 will offer users a differentiating factor that will be a deciding factor for a purchase. Let’s take a quick look!
The Hype:
Kingston’s DataTraveler® 109 is a fashionable USB Flash drive available in seven colors that make it fun to connect and share photos, music, videos and more with friends and family. Its small, capless design easily attaches to a… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
I’m old enough to remember the days when, unless you got a Mac (and even the early Macs!), you could get any color you liked, so long as it was beige plastic. Nowadays we’re seeing more colors and materials, but believe me, for a while there it was lots and lots of beige plastic, and man was it dull.
Brinell feels that they don’t want that dullness to extend to peripherals, either, so they’ve taken some time and expended some effort to makes stuff that looks–let’s face it–pretty! Now, I don’t have a generic thumb drive myself: I use a rather pricy one by Corsair called The Survivor, which has a case that looks like… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
Smartphone maker HTC has unveiled a plan with cloud storage company Dropbox to give 5GB of free cloud storage to new HTC Android phone owners. According to reports, the deal is tied to phones using HTC’s new ‘Sense 3.5′ UI overlay.
Drop Box gives users 2GB for free, so this is an extra 150% for free – plus HTC will pre-load the DropBox app on all new phones.
This appears to be yet another reaction to Apple’s iCloud service, which offers 5GB free storage to anyone using an iOS 5 device. Microsoft offers 25GB of SkyDrive storage to Windows Phone users.
As of right now the offer is limited to Android phones… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
Holy cow … we have been hearing about them eventually being available for some time, and now they are here! SanDisk has just sent notice that they have 64GB microSDXC and 64GB SDXC cards available for purchase now. Yes, you are going to pay an arm and a leg for them, but their prices don’t come anywhere near some of the ridiculous sums many of us have paid in the past! [Like the 5GB PCMCIA drive that I paid over $500 for back in 2002! Oy.]
If you are a photographer, then you’ll want to take a look at the 64GB SDXC; this card… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
While I do like iPods, I still love other MP3 players as well. One of my favorites is the Sansa Fuze+ after the latest firmware update. Sandisk also has made many other Sansas, and one of the Linux community’s favorite ones has been the Sansa Clip. Just when I didn’t think the Clip could get any better, Sandisk brings out the Clip Zip, which adds some nice things to the Clip’s form factor.
Stylish, Feature-Rich Player Delivers Affordable On-The-Go Music Experience· Packed with features, including a larger color screen, compatibility with all major music formats, a stopwatch, an FM radio, voice recording capability and a microSDHC™ card slot for extra storage·
I collect thumb drives. At least it seems that way, as I have a whole bag of them. One of these days I’d like to replace all of the smaller ones with one larger one or a few larger ones. This 8 GB SanDisk Ultra flash drive is my second 8 GB flash drive and one of my favorites. Let’s take a look at its features.
Image courtesy of StarTech
As a Systems Administrator, I’m always looking for new tools to help me get my job done faster and more efficiently. I spend a lot of time at work creating operating system builds and imaging in preparation for mass deployment. During the process I have to build an image, distribute it to a few machines, start and then test for any issues. I have some great hardware and software to help me with that, but the latest offering from StarTech could make my life all that much easier. The new SATDOCK4U2E Hard Drive Docking station from StarTech is an industry first — a 4 bay hard drive dock that allows for both SATA and IDE drives… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
My father-in-law still longs for the days of Pleasantville. Too bad for him that Pleasantville wasn’t even Pleasantville! Yes, the “good old days” were old, but they weren’t necessarily any better. And they sure didn’t offer the wide range of gadgets we have all come to rely upon!
So if you are looking for a gift for your father or father-in-law, you MIGHT get them the complete Father Knows Best series on DVD
For the iPod nano-loving dad
Now this is pretty neat. Not long ago Seagate rolled out the slimmest portable hard drive on the market, the GoFlex Slim. We reviewed it here and I’ve been using it daily since! Now they are offering a 564GB iPad 2! Okay, that’s not quite accurate but they DO make it possible for you to have up to 564GB of storage available to you on the go anywhere, any time! All you need is a 64GB iPad and Seagate’s brand new GoFlex Satellite.
The GoFlex Satellite is
the first battery-powered external hard drive to wirelessly extend the storage capacity of any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device. With 500GB and Wi-Fi access over
Death and Taxes – oh how we hear that phrase overused, and for my purposes here I plead guilty. Fortunately I am here to talk about the latter and not the former.
Our friends over at Verbatim, maker of digital data storage and backup products, want loyal US taxpayers (or at least tax filers) to remember to back up all your data.
Recent springtime storms across the center of the country bring that suggestion even more to light as this will be one less thing to worry about when Mother Nature turns nasty and you are faced with putting your life back in order.
Uncle Sam (ain’t it cute how we nickname all… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
Judie’s and my first meeting at CES 2011 was with Seagate. (We posted about it here.) Toward the end of the visit we came upon a hard drive that was as stylish as it was function. At the time all we were allowed to write about it was this:
Concept drive – We also saw a drive that is not yet named but will be out late spring (pictured above). The concept drive is super thin and will be $99.99 for 320. Black for PC. Silver for Mac. Also has premium backup for data security.
This is an image of it being held by me in Ls Vegas… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...
