It’s finally arrived: the USB flash drive that thinks it’s a floppy disk. It was like this: For years stuff — data, programs — was moved around via a floppy disk. First they were big 5” things, then they shrank to 3”. Iomega tried to win people over with ZIP drives but they never really penetrated … Read more
Had my first USB thumb drive (sometimes called USB flash drives, or USB key drives) die on me today. They’re a great way to move stuff from A to B, and to keep an extra back-up in your pocket, but don’t rely on them too much. I’ve had several over the years (they first started … Read more
From the We Should Have Known This Dept comes news that CD-ROMs degrade in months, even at room temperature without sunlight. Dutch magazine PC Active tested data disks from 30 manufacturers that were recorded 20 months ago. Several data CDs developed serious errors, or became virtually unreadable, The Register reports. It’s perhaps too early … Read more
Loose Wire — How to Steal CIA Secrets: It’s as easy as USB; Universal Serial Bus drives are getting small enough to hide in coffee mugs, and you can attach them to most computers and all sorts of other gadgets By Jeremy Wagstaff from the 5 June 2003 of edition of the Far Eastern … Read more
Loose Wire — Just To Be on The Safe Side By Jeremy Wagstaff from the 30 May 2002 edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review, (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. A few weeks ago I wrote about how to back up your files in the case of disaster, theft, stupidity or a combination … Read more