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USB Thumb Drives as ... Fashion Statement?
The Fun Guy writes "The New York Times has discovered USB thumb drives: "In some cases, flash drives have suddenly become so commonplace that, as with cellphones, their owners are adding fashion touches [DNA must be on file to read] to lend them a personal identity." Apparently, the most important thing about thumb drives is not that they are cheap, fast, durable, easy to use or hold a lot of data, but that wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti, especially if you personalize it with stickers."
I'm talking about disk capacity of course.
Awesome!
Anyone know where I can find some really small VTEC stickers?
-erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
C|Net is carrying the same NYT story here.
Right is wrong when left is right.
Stickers as a ticket to elitism. Who knew?
Moo
Depending on where you live it could be like hanging a clove of garlic around your neck or a piece of rare meat.
Even though I'm a geek if I saw a blinged out geektoy I'd still point and laugh. Since when did we want to be mainstream?
you put a sticker of your thumbprint on it...
Hain't never seen nobody wear one around their neck. Generally on keychains, but even then, I've NEVER seen one with stickers. What, why, huh, WHO?
http://news.com.com/From+storage,+a+new+fashion/21 00-1041_3-5378415.html
Same article? i dont know, but sounds similar (and no reg required)
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
I made my ThumbDrive look like a Human Ear. That way, people know I am not voting for Kerry...
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
Didn't see any physical damage, so don't know what happened to them.
Anyone have a reliable one?
I bought mine since it reads on the machines I administer - and believe me, OS 8/9, Win 9x/2K/XP, and Knoppix can all read the little one I have, and the tools I keep on it keep my LAN running smoothly.
It's a matter of convenience, that's all, and it helps when I don't want to hook up to the LAN.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Yes, once I'm done with school and college geek becomes chic. Its like some bad dream. The stuff I used to get beatup for now gets you the hot cheerleader. This is some really evil irony.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
will adding NOS and neons mke my thumb drve fastarr????????????
I don't remember people thinking I was too cool when I was walking around with a floppy around my neck. I guess the secret is the stickers.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Im still kicking it old school with a grey 32 meg drive on my keychain
- I got my free iPod and a free Nintendo DS....why not
Why not wear a 4Meg thumb drive as a RETRO fashion statement? Perhaps there will even be a market for a 4K drive in the future. Of course, to be properly retro, the 4K drive might have to be as big as your arm....
One for each crowd I hang out with:
1) Thumbdrive with an Apple logo
2) Thumbdrive with a Type R logo
Set up a VNC server and put a client on a USB thumb drive, configured to display full screen. Then just plug your USB drive into your friends computer, double click and watch their faces as they see their windows machine instantly converted to a linux one...
No, it makes you look like a dick. The same way that you look when you walk around with your mobile-phone cord permanently wedged in your ear, whether you are on the phone or not.
Personally, I hate having anything hanging around my neck. My office just issued new ID swipe tags which they supplied with a rediculously short neck cord. (I find it really uncomfortable to have a plastic card banging against my nipples all day. Its really distracting.)
Those little retracting belt thingies are the best, even though they tend to die in the hands of a bored 3 year old.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Somehow this reminds me of elementary school, when all the girls you knew had these real popular pink stickers with horses and unicorns and stars and hearts all over them, and they would put them all over EVERYTHING they owned. Maybe some of these people are regressing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The articles don't tell me which devices will work if I need to use them on Mac, Windows, and Linux machines.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Recently covered these things in a class. Apparently after a few thousand writes they fail rather magnificently. The drive has to keep track of where it's written, and try to write uniformly over the less-used sectors. Learning that made me a little more cautious about how often I use mine (I know it won't make a real difference, but still). Guess that and the speed difference compared to a hard disk (which is MUCH faster) means we won't see these revolutionizing large (GB) data storage nor replacing hard drives.
What is it?
I use flash drive, like the NY Times article. The Fun Guy likes thumb drive. However, I think that is a trademark. Same for jump drive. A lot of people where I work call them a memory stick--that's very confusing and a Sony trademark. USB drive can refer to hard drives also. Hmmm.......
Let's settle this (or maybe not). What do you think they should be called?
I wear a ST-506 on a 3/4", chrome-plated chain around my neck! **BLING* *BLING**!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm not cool enough to have a thumb drive. I think I might have a broken USB dongle somewhere though. Would that make me cool? Or would I be better off wearing a parallel port dongle around my neck instead?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I've had a USB watch for a while now. It's inconspicuous enough that no one has noticed it's anything but a normal watch without me pointing it out to them, and extremely difficult to lose (unless you make a habit of losing your watch). That's the way I think technology should be: invisible, functional and highly usable.
Hey, great idea about old school gadgets. I know, you could carry around a hard drive enclosure, and wear a platter on your head kind of like a halo... oh... wait...
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Blogsafe version (get yer blogsafe NYT links at http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink -- why Slashdot doesn't know about this yet I don't know)
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Anything you wear around your neck becomes jewelry," said Ellen Lupton, director of the master of fine arts program in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.
And wear it around her neck is what she does. "A lanyard comes with them," Lupton said. "You're going to wear it, and if you're going wear it you want it to be cool. Why hide it?" To hers, she has added a wrap of decorative tape. "People really comment on it because they think it looks nice," she said.
People wear a lot of things around their neck, that doesn't make it jewelry, such as my phtoID badge. I wear my usb drive there for many reaons, 1 being I don't like sitting with things in my pocket 2 You notice real quick if it's gone. I'm getting tired of people trying to make comparisons where they don't belong. I oculd care less what color mine is or if it's shiney. The only thing I care about is the storage side. God I hate when things go mainstream, for just this reason.
Now I know how the the fans of back street boys felt when they went from underground to pop. Oh wait nevermind.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
My earing.
Makes it kinda difficult to get work done when I'm transferring data to it, my boss thinks I'm taking a nap when I'm using it.
But heck, it sure looks coolio daddio !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
I've found that mine needs drivers for Win9x, so I need to keep them right there in the root of the drive.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
Since Slashdot readers aren't known for having a fashion sense, I think some "techno-congniscenti" thinking that a USB flash drive is fashionable, doesn't really make it fashionable. Personally, I don't think wearing a USB thumb drives is very fashionable. Cords are pretty casual, but wearing cords with a USB thumb drive just doesn't work. I know a few models, and I assure you that they will never be caught with a tech device hung around their necks.
So New Yorkers are dim-witted shallow-minded pretentious posers?
This is NEWS?!
An MP3-player (DIVA) with 64 Mb builtin flash - can only write 32 Mb anymore - the other half is broke (though it is fun to hear music I put on 2 years ago again, from the broken part :)
My Pendrive (USB 2.0, Hi-Speed) of 256Mb. It originally had an emulated floppy drive plus harddrive aboard, now it only got a harddrive of a mere 128Mb. The other 128Mb is wrecked beyond repair.
Do I mistreat them? I don't think so - not if wearing them around in ones pockets is mistreating. They are so unbelieveably sensible to static (even when properly capped) that I decided to simply stick to the good-ol' compact-flash or [name your removeable memory card here] so I can exchange them when they're broke. That includes not buying an mp3-player with only built-in memory...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I have a "blueberry" cellphone that can browse the web on my belt. On the other side, I've got a RIM pager. Also on the belt is a Nite-Ize pouch with a Leatherman Wave and a mini-Maglite. On my wrist is a watch that not only tells time, it's got a compass an altimeter built in. My class ring says "Georgia Institute of Technology." I've got a SecurID token, a military surplus can opener, and the platter separator from an ST-225 hard disk on my keyring-- which itself was vendor swag from HP. ...and you're trying to tell me I need a USB flash widget so people can tell I'm a geek?
Is this the tech world's equivalent of the "chain and lock" around your neck made popular by the 80s?
Type-R? Bananco or Gorilla's Choice? Wackey Packs? Sounds quite techno-whatever.
Anybody else get sick of NYT saying "U.S.B." with the periods, instead of the commonly accepted USB?
USB Memory Watch
Technoli
It's a flash-memory chip on a USB plug, call it what it is.
...stupid idiots.
Stickers? Stickers! What were you thinking?
I, of course, did not use my iPod out of the house until 50 Cent was brave enough to wear his in a video.
I was getting tired of wearing my bling bling CD necklace ...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
1GB is the biggest I've seen and the best deal on that is at newegg. $84 is hard to beat for a 1GB stick.
Remarkable how much these have dropped in price, it wasn't very long ago that 1GB flash was up around 200-300 bucks! I remember thinking I got a deal when I bought a 64MB for $20 a year and a half ago.
R(k)
It'll be over in two weeks anyway. I don't put the damn thing around my neck or on my keychain anyway. It's in my laptop bag or in my pocket.
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
I wear my thumb drive around my neck also. With more pc's coming out with usb slots in the front it really is convenient.
Does anyone else have this problem? I plug in my thumb drive and my pc powers off.
I overclocked mine with some slick racing stripes.
does a mispelling of "cognoscente" mean that you're also a member of the techno-illiterati?:)
If you were really '133t, you'd invent some sort of toolbelt to carry all your gizmos in!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
pfft these silly plastic things...i'm waiting to pick one up until I can find a Gucci thumb drive.
So far my best idea has been to encrypt all the files with AES or something similar and keep the encryption tool as the only non-encrypted file. This way I can access all my files anywhere but at the same time I won't worry if it's lost since the data is protected.
After hunting around TrueCrypt seems like the best option.
So, does anyone have any suggestions or experiences to share?
Thanks
yeeaaaaaah boy!
Kicking it up with the cassette tape drive.
Go 16k!
Go 16k!
Is this gonna turn into another gizmo people are stupid enough to show off, and then are shocked when it's stolen by street thugs, ala the iPod?
Idiots.
Personally, I keep my flash drives hidden, so that my p0rn^H^H^H^Himportant files are kept safe and sound, and so my mom^H^H^Hgirlfriend doesn't find them. Yeah, that's it, my hot, sexy, 18-year-old girlfriend.
and yes, for the record, i purposefully misspelled 'misspelling'. i think it's cooler that way...
I think I would go with a big old wad of duct tape, since the microscopic piece of plastic that made my jump drive "key chainable" broke almost immediately.
Now my thumb drive is like so many other "conveniently small" items in my life, I'm forever looking around trying to figure out where I put it. Yep, sure glad I saved that data!
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
I keep my Lexar 512MB JumpDrive (in)secure safely tucked away in my pocket, rather than make a fashion statement from it. Silly me. I thought the only fashion statement they made was the ever popular "the wearer of this is a dork" statement.
Things have come a long way, though. A couple of years ago, I bought a mess o' them to use at my old company for DR documentation and remote access tools - they were DiskOnKey 128MB units that were fairly hefty and cost about $130 each. A bargain at the time. My 512MB JumpDrive cost me about $60 and is less than 1/4 the dimensions. And a couple of months ago, Microsoft sent me a free 128MB flash disk as some kind of suck-up to their partners.
The article mentions how some folks are using them as promotional items - at the rate the prices are plummeting I may even consider having a batch printed up next year.
What to keep on them? Well, my 512MB drive has a whole mess of Mac and PC troubleshooting tools on it, a copy of SP2, a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD, and installers for a few anti-spyware programs. And I still have a couple of hundred megs free. IF floppies weren't already dying, these would have killed them.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I always wondered when the très chic from Geek Chic would flaunt her USB bling. Since her last entry in 2000, I've been left wanting ...
i dont know (or care) about stilish thumb drives, but one advice >>
dont get near those crap iomega usb thumb drives. Our ti manager thought they looked cool, and bought about a dozen of them. 3 months later, all of them were broken and were replaced by cheaper and better ones made by kingston.
Wow, that seems really cool except... ...I don't actually have a desired for a flatscreen TV. Even a free one. Does that mean I'm ill?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yea. I am amazed that Webster's is not a trademark. I wonder when Frisbee (R) and Ethernet (R) will lose there status. Soon we'll hear "Jump Drive brand USB flash memory drive devices from Lexar Media, Inc. (R)". See this for more on lost trademarks.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 0CG81A/qid=1095967944/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl 23/002-4023038-8472009?v=glance&s=photo&n=5078 46
It is a small and simple digital camera with 64mb memory which can be also used to store files on. As big as a thumbdrive and allows you to take pictures anytime (as long as their is enough light) and move your personal files with you.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
...if the people with sticker covered USB flash drives around their neck know about how close USB is to being DRMed by MS? Maybe if they did they might care?
This means they're going mainstream. That'll drive down the price and make it that much easier to carry Smalltalk images in my pocket.
See, the whole great thing about mainstream computing is that it subsidizes my--er, our--cool projects. The more it becomes fashionable, the more people will buy them and the cheaper the basic units will get. So I say we should be encouraging this trend.
And investing in sticker companies.
How did they make them click incessantly, so you'd know the thumb drive was useless and that you'd probably damaged your USB port as well?
"Iomega: If you can't be good, be consistent." (TM)
cheap, fast, durable, easy to use Sounds like my last girlfriend... too bad she didn't hold much data!
In case you missed it.
Does this mean I can give USB thumb drives to my girlfriend as a gift?
You won't hate yourself in the morning if you don't get up before noon.
...folks, is why I do not participate in "fashion".
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
For keychain drives that truly are fashion statements, check out some of the finds over on shiny shiny, including one that looks like a cat, accompanied by the memorable headline "Store things in your pussy."
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Posers know how to drive.
I wear mine around my neck at the college I work for so I don't forget it one of the drives! It's great for collecting student assignments. I love when people ask me what it is and I can tell them it's 1000 floppies around my neck! It's the best piece of jewlery my husband has ever given me!
they should never be worn as a fasion accessory.
if you find yourself with a cellphone displayed on your hip or a flashdrive for a neck tie, you need to stop; take a step back; and analyze your social conciousness (or lack of).
I'm using a PenDragon (from torspoal). This thumbdrive also packs a 802.3b WLAN interface - and yes, you can keep the drivers on the stick :)
Anyways, if I wear it on a string around my neck does it make me one of the cool guys or just a lamer trying too hard?
Is it the b/w or the later color edition...
Sigh, I miss my "Trash 80" sometimes.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Must be a real hit with the "tag me a barcode in the neck" crowd... ;)
Trying to make them seem fasionable. I know a lot of people who have them, Myself included. But I just put them on my key chain so I can hide in my pocket when I am not using it. As well everyone else either keeps them in in their breafcase or with their laptop stuff. With necklace that comes with them I put my spare keys on them so if I need someone to look after the cats while I am gone I can give them that key and there is enough slack for them not to loose it easily. Noone I know actully wares it around their neck. If they do they are usually asking to get beat up. Or they read and beleave silly NYT articles. While I like technology I don't think it should be shown as a fassion statement with the only exception are watches. But in that case where I need to make fasion I have a nice analog watch with shiny metal. Having a plastic stick in not fassion.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Brand: JOGR ;)
Capacity: 1 GB
Interface: USB 2.0
Price: $105 shipped
I love this thing!
For the EE, wearing a static wristband...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
No, you're still dorks. Same as if the dorks of old would have worn their floppy disks around their necks.
Wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti.
Riiight. This fad is for those who think they're 'in the know' because they picked up some skillz by watched their admin right click my computer and click properties. The crowd that is just dangerous enough to delete their registry. And now they're cool because they keep their super leet document around their necks saying "Look at me, I'm important, I've got 'my documents' around my neck!". Nothing annoys me more than these people. Its like that ITT Tech commercial with the 40 year old PT Cruiser driving soccer mom got a degree as an "IT Professional" by "inventing a database" in Access and is expecting to make $80,000 a year!
Someone please meta-moderate the Slashdot RSS feed so I only see intelligent stories.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Dear God, what resplendant polychromatic cacaphony! Don't eat the brown acid!
It's a USB Thash-jumping-penchain memory drive, or USB TJPM for short.
What?
Nothing says "I have disposable income and little common sense" like flaunting a USB drive around your neck. This is up there with strapping your IPod to your arm, like the white headphones aren't a bad enough giveaway. Maybe it's the new yorker in me, but I prefer to keep my consumer electronics discreetly out of sight, thank you.
Ut Tensio, Sic Vis
I too call it a USB key. It goes on my keychain and is the size of a key.
Just back up one song from the album, and a text file that says "more shit like this". Think of the space you save -Mant
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I don't remember what kind of chip it was, but it looked really classy, with the gold trims and all. And believe it or not, but every girl I met was fascinated. Chips were fairly new and talked up in the media back then.
Just to say that fashion is very important to girls - as if you didn't knew that already - and being a geek doesn't automatically get you disqualified.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Imagenix has a thumbdrive that may be cool even among non-geeks.
Time to flaunt my Hello Kitty and Sponge Bob stickers
Vuarnet T-shirts... Ah, elementary school. Don't forget the Daniel Hechter sweatshirts; I had to buy a girl's one because I was so small. Little did I know that two slashes above the name go the other way on the girl's stuff, so everyone knew... *blush*
What does it mean that I still use a plastic pocket protector?
Slashdot also knows about HTML 1.0 but that doesn't stop it from not using it.
Link
I am amazed no one has mentioned that 40gb portable hard disk- the iPod. Screw files, I move computer images to the far flung and scattered computers at my work. Many have only 56k modems, which makes it nuts to do every damn patch over. At some places I need to make a custom image on the spot, I give the CD's to the staff and use my iPod to do image computers while I'm there.
Really USB thumb drives are already old. Cheap? Yes, but only until HD prices come down enough. Not cheap when compared to 1 and 2 Gig ones! For an iPod it is $399/40= $9.9, or ten bucks a gig. $10/Gig vs $100/Gig now that's kicking Flash drives ass! And if it's style you want 4Gig iPod Mini is $250 is still $62/Gig.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Whenever I whip out my Executive Pen Drive all other geeks bow down before my greatness.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
my dorm key, the key to the trunk in my room, and my 128mb lexar jump drive (the long thin red ones) are all on one key ring, which is attached to a red carabiner (it matches the drive, that makes me trendy... or its just a nice coincidence) that goes on my belt loop. when i go home i juts add a second ring which has house and car keys.
...and that's all there is to it.
This shows the screen capture and its caption without registration. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Why get a flash drive when you can do the same thing with your iPod? You can kill two birds with one stone.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I used to think that was why my polls were rejected. However, my poll submission for "Favorite Necco Wafer" made it without a CowboyNeal option. (Sorry, yes I submitted it.) Based on that poll being accepted, I think the "flash drive name" poll was rejected because it wasn't meaningless enough.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
They dot the acronym "U.S.B." but not "CD," "PC," pr "DVD."
Mark Twain (?)
Ha! I mock your attempt at trying to look like one of the techno-cognoscenti by wearing a thumb drive around your neck. I wear an EMC Symmetrix around my neck so I can store several terabytes of data. Admittedly this has made certain things (eating, going to the bathroom, leaving the data center) difficult but when my friends come over they're all impressed at how 133t I am!
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Your point about the placement or omission of the apostrophe is valid.
It's probably a different transliteration scheme. Like pinyin, Wade-Giles, or IPA for Chinese.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Seriously, what use is a thumb drive? Every computer I've used in the past four or five years has had an internet connection. I can download PuTTY onto a windows box in less than a minute and sftp into any one of half a dozen machines I use on a regular basis. What do people actually use these things for? I mean, I thought the sneaker net went out with 3.5" floppies.
nuke the moon
Here is an article from C|Net about people who are doing that very thing. The novelty factor of using a cell phone from 1985 is almost as long as the battery life would be for one of those phones. After that, you are just stuck with 10lbs of digital obscurity and some brain tumors to boot.
wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti ... either that or it pegs you for a hopeless dork. Take your pick.
Who are the stupid fuckers who have to make everything technology into a fashion statement?
This is like the case modding phase that started a few years ago. All of the sudden, tools invaded every LAN party i used to go to.
I think that if I saw someone walking down the street with their Pen Drive around their neck, it'd be hard to not beat their ass.
Read the only personal Runyon page out there.
nt
Come on ... geek fantasy ... your significant other meets you at the door after a tough day of admining/coding/db'ing wearing NOTHING but one of these ... hmmmmmmmmmmmm gotta go call the wife now!
Knightfall
Riiiiight, that's what makes guy significant and worth listening to. Because he's a vulture capitalist. Michel Marriott, the NYT correspondent who wrote this tripe, is a triple asshat for not being able to use google.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Neither. It identifies you as a good consumer. I guess that most people are into that...
I don't respond to AC's.
Actually, width matters more. That's bandwidth; get your minds out of the gutter.
What's next:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This is what the cool kids are wearing: http://www.kanguru.com/fireflash.html
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
Others who need pocket tools on their job may prefer a swiss army drive.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Around my wrist:p
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Remember those panties that had a pocket in the front for your ..ViBrAtInG.. pager?
USB thumbdrives that double as female pleasure devices!
Man, dont make it any harder on yourself!
While we're doing thumb drive reviews, I might offer my review:
I bought a 16MB Memory Bar for $20 a few years back. Since then, it's been through the wash twice (fully submerged), gets dropped often, kicked around, and still works. The only thing that's going to keep this thing from working is if I loose it (which, with my luck, is very likely).
Highly recommended.
I know - I'm going back to something reliable, like 3.5" floppies. Or maybe even 5.25'ers, those things were ROCK SOLID!
Guess I could hang my iDuck around my neck, not sure it'd make me look cool though...
Plus, the rubberduck tends to detach itself from the memory stick too easily.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
especially if you personalize it with stickers
You mean like the stickers I have on my Honda?
-chris
Maybe YOUR ASS is the problem... just how heavy are you?
I keep mine in my pocket. Why hang it around my neck? It's not jewelry!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I heard a story on NPR a couple of months ago, about how USB flash drives have become so commonplace in Japan that it's really hard to keep selling them. So (at least in Japan) they no longer market the USB drives based on the storage capacity or access speeds - it's about the packaging. A 256MB USB flash drive in the shape of Hello Kitty sells better than any regular 256MB USB flash drive in a boring "thumb drive" shape.
Personally, my favorite is the USB Devil Duckie Drive on ThinkGeek. I'm thinking about getting one as a Christmas present for my mom, who already has a USB flash drive ... but not in the shape of a little red duckie with light-up eyes! :-)
I'm not so sure they've got this one right. I work with many techno-congwhatevers and the first of us to walk around with a USB drive hung about his neck was quickly labeled a nerd. Since then, those of us that use them dare not do so publicly. We carry our technology in shame for fear of being a nerd among nerds.
I read this: "flash drives have suddenly become so commonplace that, as with cellphones" and it occured to me: has anyone integrated a USB flash drive into a cellphone yet? That'd make sharing contacts and address books and schedules and such pretty damn easy...
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Remember when preppy was "cool"? Everyone was running around in Polo and Vuarnet shirts? Then "urban" became cool and everyone started wearing their pants around their knees with their underpants showing?
Irony of ironies; as far as hip-hop, the ultimate "urban" music is concerned, the current fashionable look *is* "preppy".
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I've got an iriver H-120, and I tried using it as mass storage for a while, but it was just too much trouble to carry the cable around, it takes far too long to turn on, and I'd rather use the battery for listening to music. So, I got myself one of these -ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
I'm wearing a Cue Cat instead.
I want a camera cell phone with a usb drive. Throw in GPS and radio/mp3/voicememo also.
Oh and flip phones suck.
"wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti, especially if you personalize it with stickers" That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time. Flat out depressing.
But, ultimately I think this is good because once cheap small roll up displays become plentiful, popular, and cheap, these people will have helped pave the way for making it acceptable to wear computers.
So for all who are mocking these people, just remember, its these people who will make it cool for you to wear that wearable computer you've been dreaming about in public.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I call mine a flash drive. I've got three now. 2, 256 Sandisk cruzers, and 1 512 meg Sandisk Titanium. I got tired of loosing the $%^@#$ caps! I like the titanium. No cap! and just in case it gets run over by a taxi cab it should be safe LOL.
Hey, this is Deja Vu all over again! I remember when IBM introduced their AT computer (c. 1984?) it came with a little circular key that would let you lock it. For a short time tech people would try to display those keys (around their necks, on their car keychains) to show everyone that they had access to the latest and greatest technology and also that they were the ones who got to lock and unlock the computer.
Tom
Redondo Beach, CA
we learn that sticker glue causes bit rot.
Talking about the upgradeable version here that uses SD cards... does anyone have this? I'm wondering if this thing supports booting, it would be perfect if it did. The regular flash drive they have doesn't support booting and the upgradeable one has no such feature listed on its spec page either and my emails have gone unanswered. Can any owners shed some light on this? Thanks.
I somehow can't get that Christopher Walken cameo from Pulp Fiction out of my mind after reading this.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
I would not get caught dead wearing one around my neck to be identified as techno-congniscenti. I keep my old 256M on my pocket watch chain (big face, big black numbers on white, I am over 50yo) in my pocket. The only time anyone sees it is when I use it or check the time (AMFN).
... I would take it if I saw it. Mine is so old you can't see any logo/TM ... just scratches and a faded blue, sort of gray color with dull white showing through. It is about three years old and still keeps my files secure on the old sneakernet between work and home.
If I were a bashNrun mugger in NYC, Rome, Moscow, London, or Paris
GOOD-TEK, PAT=Practical Application Technology (no money wasted, +ROI). The Biz Sup/Mang and marketing folks still won't buy for folks at work. They still live in CDRW and floppy state.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Does anybody know of a company that makes METAL, waterproof thumbdrives.
I'd pay an extra $50, just to know that my data was basiaclly indestructible.
I figure a cast aluminum casing (lanyard hole cast-in) in which the PCB is potted in epoxy would do thee trick very nicely.
Life is too short to proofread.
And also for the record, you stink!
Gotta kill em all....!!
. . . but IZOD polo shirts, and Vuarnet sunglasses.
Topped off with sperry Top Siders and a pair of 501's.
wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti
WTF? The people aware of technology? MY MOTHER is among the "techno-cogniscenti". Shit, I prodded my cat with a tazer the other day - she is now among the "techno-cogniscenti".
If they meant something else, like you're "among the people who understand technology"... then, no. The instant you start giving half a shit about your appearance and whether you're 'cool' or not, you're officially out of THAT little club. Those people are more worried about how to partition their new SCSI hard drives than whether other people think they're cool.
...I wear it around my wrist?
Unix: Where
Don't you mean: Size doesn't matter, it's what you stick it in?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Everybody knows stickers increase horsepower! 5 HP just for a "Type R", for example. :)
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
..even "cool" people use them.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
Not only did you just misinform hundreds of thousands of people -- you were also given credit for being informative.
1GB means it'll be a LONG time before you run out.
.. ;)
hah hah! you haven't been around the computer industry long, have you sonny boy
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I got my girlfriend one of these. :)
That's real fashion