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I've seen exactly one use of e-ink in the wild: ebooks.

Actually, a pretty cool use I've seen is a little capacity meter on USB thumb drives:
http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-echo-mx-backup-drive?category=207

My wife (of all people) has one of these things, I thought it was pretty neat.

Current microSDHC cards are already 16GB, so 20 GB in a square centimeter in 3 years isn't impressive at all.

I know a little bit about this because I am one of the developers for TurnKey Linux, a new opensource project which builds small installable live CDs (we're up to 9) optimized for various mostly server-related tasks. I've been investigating supporting live USB mode.

Your generic run-of-the-mill USB drive has about fourth-half the read/write performance of your hard drive nowadays (10-15MB/s). Since there are no moving parts (spinning platters), usually the seek times are very good.

There are several things you can do to optimize the performance of an operating system running live from a USB drive:

1) buy a faster USB drive: a good USB drive (e.g., Lexar JumpDrive) can have 2-3 times the performance of a generic.

2) Use a Linux distribution with a smaller footprint such as DSL (50MB) or Puppy Linux (standard edition is 68MB): the smaller the footprint, the less your drive has to read, the faster your system will load.

3) Try loading the operating system system into a ramdisk: many live USB distributions have the ability to load themselves into RAM. With some you have to add a cheatcode in the bootloader. Others do it by default if there is enough memory (usually not a problem with small distributions and modern computers).

4) Try turning on readahead: many distributions which are designed to run from a live CD or live USB have a feature that reads ahead various files important to the boot sequence sequentially. Whether or not this helps depends on the characteristics of the storage medium you are using, but you should investigate it.

The below is from http://blogs.lexar.com/mattbrandon/2006/08/tighter_securit.html . No longer online unfortunately.

In essence: guns must be checked into a special routine (a la registered mail), put under lock and key. IOW, handed over, inspected, locked into a case under lock and key, taken away from you, returned to you upon arrival. As it is a gun tracking system routine the utmost importance is placed on accountability. Stolen guns are unacceptable to the TSA system. The tricks are, a starter's pistol qualifies as a gun and a license is not needed in the USA for one, and two the case containing the gun can be large enough to hold your laptop, or camera, etc. too! :-) Read one of the 2006 0r 2007 cryptograms by Bruce Schneier for the original tip.

##################
[ QUOTE ]

One note on using TSA rules to your advantage.

Weapons that travel MUST be in a hard case, must be declared upon check-in, and MUST BE LOCKED by a TSA official.

A "weapons" is defined as a rifle, shotgun, pistol, airgun, and STARTER PISTOL. Yes, starter pistols - those little guns that fire blanks at track and swim meets - are considered weapons...and do NOT have to be registered in any state in the United States.

I have a starter pistol for all my cases. All I have to do upon check-in is tell the airline ticket agent that I have a weapon to declare...I'm given a little card to sign, the card is put in the case, the case is given to a TSA official who takes my key and locks the case, and gives my key back to me.

That's the procedure. The case is extra-tracked...TSA does not want to lose a weapons case. This reduces the chance of the case being lost to virtually zero.

It's a great way to travel with camera gear...I've been doing this since Dec 2001 and have had no problems whatsoever.

Hope it works for you...

John

Posted by: John Arnold | August 16, 2006 at 08:52 PM

[ END QUOTE ]

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I have been looking at booting a small embedded CPU with a CF card. Is there any particular type you would recommend? It's going on a R/C aircraft so it has to be able to handle lots of vibration and probably a few crashes. I was looking at these but are they overkill? Should I just go with the cheapest thing I can find? I will need to write to them as well. Probably a couple of times every hour. But when they are not in the air a standard HDD can be used.
http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/cf_udma.html
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1189)-SanDisk_Extreme_IV_CompactFlash.aspx
What distro of linux are you using?

Eric

I just ordered a Lexar 8GB compact flash with UDMA which will do 45MB/sec (300x), so there are other players out there besides SanDisk. I saw one from a no-name that claimed 350x speeds, but Lexar has a good name and offers recovery software. They also offer some high-speed readers supporting firewire (which, IMO, is much faster and more reliable than USB [at least on Linux]).

Of course I also have a camera on order which also supports UDMA which can take advantage of this card.

I looked at Sandisk, and I did not see UDMA support in their high-speed compact flash cards.

Pros:

• More reliable: No moving parts; no head crash; no wobble
• Low latency, high throughput (all seem to offer low latency, some don't do so good on throughput)
• Low power requirements
• Low heat production
• No noise

Cons:

• High price
• Small capacity

Samsung SSD
http://www.samsung.com/eu/Products/Semiconductor/p roducts/ssd.asp

Lexar SSD
http://www.lexar.com/ssd/expresscard.html

Sandisk SSD
http://www.sandisk.com/OEM/ProductCatalog(1274)-Sa nDisk_SSD_Solid_State_Drives.aspx

Transcend SSD
http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp ?ModNo=162

You can buy a 32GB Samsung from NewEgg for $534 incl shipping.

I agree durability is key(no pun intended).
Thats why I ended up purchasing a 2 gig ATP toughdrive.
http://flash.atpinc.com/products/view.php?product_ id=1178 (256 meg-4 gig drives)

The lexar jumpdrive sport you mentioned is now selling 2 gig versions.
http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=19 &productid=JDSP2GB-231

Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM)

I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.

I agree durability is key(no pun intended). Thats why I ended up purchasing a 2 gig ATP toughdrive. http://flash.atpinc.com/products/view.php?product_ id=1178 (256 meg-4 gig drives) The lexar jumpdrive sport you mentioned is now selling 2 gig versions. http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=19 &productid=JDSP2GB-231 Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM) I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.

Same, even though I randomly dust it from time to time. JumpDrive® Lightning http://www.lexar.com/jumpdrive/lightning.html Mostly backups of pictures I can not lose (have no other copies, of son, etc.) Will get another one sometime for other stuff (programs needed for book making, passwords, etc.) Pretty lazy now, and dont wanna fork over the $.

Get yourself a Lexar JumpDrive with TouchGuard

Well, here are three posibilities. None are perfect, but I'm guessing they are workable:

1. Desktop usage:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keywo rd=2105
And a 2 or 4 port PATA raid card,
or
http://www.topmicrousa.com/st-123cf.html
and a SATA capable motherboard or SATA raid card.

The second has the advantage of being easily hotswappable.

Disadvantage: Not as cheap as you might like. Probably $50-$100 investment required.

2. Notebook usage:
http://americanesuperstore.stores.yahoo.net/cfad-0 03.html
Get two. Assumes your notebook has 2 PCMCIA slots, and you don't mind wasting them both.

Advantage? Internal
Disadvantage? No open PCMCIA slots. Most modern notebooks (unlike my Inspiron 8200) only have 1. Notebook must support booting from PCMCIA IDE

3. Notebook usage:
http://www.lexar.com/readers/pro_reader.html
Lexar daisy chainnable USB/Fireware CF reader.

Advantage? Does exactly what you want.
Disadvantage? Probably pricey. (~$80) External. Notebook must support booting from USB/Firewire.

Other items of note:
http://www.sprysoft.com/card-reader-internal/p_288 29.html

This allows you to plug in a combination of flash devices. SD, CF, whatever else. You could probably get up to 10 or so GB. Requires a 5.25" bay.

http://www.lexar.com/ufc/index.html

If you are really handy with wiring inside your notebook, you could probably stack these tiny Lexar USB Flashcards. They are slightly larger than a USB port; pretty damn small, in other words.

I guess I misunderstood you the first time (in terms of price/convenience), but I know the tech is out there. A couple guys with some basic soldering capabilities could probably through your dream, 2.5" IDE/Flash adapter together in a matter of days, with either using the IDE connection, or slapping together something via internal USB. Either way, what you are asking for is probably only not avaliable because of lack of market demand.

Well, here are three posibilities. None are perfect, but I'm guessing they are workable:

1. Desktop usage:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keywo rd=2105
And a 2 or 4 port PATA raid card,
or
http://www.topmicrousa.com/st-123cf.html
and a SATA capable motherboard or SATA raid card.

The second has the advantage of being easily hotswappable.

Disadvantage: Not as cheap as you might like. Probably $50-$100 investment required.

2. Notebook usage:
http://americanesuperstore.stores.yahoo.net/cfad-0 03.html
Get two. Assumes your notebook has 2 PCMCIA slots, and you don't mind wasting them both.

Advantage? Internal
Disadvantage? No open PCMCIA slots. Most modern notebooks (unlike my Inspiron 8200) only have 1. Notebook must support booting from PCMCIA IDE

3. Notebook usage:
http://www.lexar.com/readers/pro_reader.html
Lexar daisy chainnable USB/Fireware CF reader.

Advantage? Does exactly what you want.
Disadvantage? Probably pricey. (~$80) External. Notebook must support booting from USB/Firewire.

Other items of note:
http://www.sprysoft.com/card-reader-internal/p_288 29.html

This allows you to plug in a combination of flash devices. SD, CF, whatever else. You could probably get up to 10 or so GB. Requires a 5.25" bay.

http://www.lexar.com/ufc/index.html

If you are really handy with wiring inside your notebook, you could probably stack these tiny Lexar USB Flashcards. They are slightly larger than a USB port; pretty damn small, in other words.

I guess I misunderstood you the first time (in terms of price/convenience), but I know the tech is out there. A couple guys with some basic soldering capabilities could probably through your dream, 2.5" IDE/Flash adapter together in a matter of days, with either using the IDE connection, or slapping together something via internal USB. Either way, what you are asking for is probably only not avaliable because of lack of market demand.

Yeah, this is the player I use. Nice, simple, and I don't have to use any iTunes or other crapware to load it up. It just looks like any normal USB drive when I connect it to my computer. If I need more room, I can always just get a bigger SD card.

The Lexar JumpDrive attaches to a keychain and slots into a protective rubber "sleeve".

I had something like this and the Shuffle for months.

Something like this? I wonder how picky it is about what's plugged in there.

I would really suggest some sort of media reader... I have a Lexar Mult-Card reader (the 7-in-1 I believe, a bit older than the current 12-in-1) and I insert my SD card whenever I need to transfer files around. It's not a huge expense, and doesn't take up a lot of time. A mountable Palm device would be nice, but I wouldn't expect to see one soon. (The Palm cradle is too conducive to removing the hardware, you would have to "eject" your PDA every time you picked it up.)

Have you considered pedit for text file editing?

um...WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN???

1GB (and even 2GB) keychain devices have been out for quite a while!)

Of course 8gb chips will take these devices even higher!

http://www.lexar.com/jumpdrive/index.html

This is exactly what I thought of first -- why encrypt the password when you can hash it? You store the hash, you don't store the password (and it's impossible to generate the password from a hash, which is basically a one-way encryption).

This is pretty standard procedure for storing passwords -- even if an attacker sees the hash you stored, the password is still safe. When the user logs in, you hash the pw they type, and compare it to the hash you have stored.

Even more secure (if an attacker might be able to edit the hash stored on the drive) is the parent post's suggestion; don't store the hash, use it as a basis for the key you encrypt the data with. Bingo, secure.

So why wouldn't they do this? Well, what options do they offer if you lose your password? I can't find much at all on their website, but my bet is that they are sacrificing security in the name of customer support. Maybe they're worried about customers who misremember their password (and didn't bother with the hint mechanism) who send back the drive and say "fix it"... and they can! That's just good customer support! Maybe it designed like that originally for debugging purposes, and then the ship date arrived.

My bet is that at least one of the developers knew full well about the security issue, and either didn't care enough about the company to insist it was fixed, was pressured by a boss, or had "that good, lucky feeling" that the curious techies of the world wouldn't notice the flaw and, say, get it onto the Slashdot front page.

By the way, feel free to ask Lexar about it: here's the page for talking to a real live customer service rep.

Both of them should cost about $100 with a 256MB stick.