the wonderful world of escalating technology

...so no one really needs a 16G USB Flash drive, right?

No. Of course not.

*sighs*

But

One one hand, progress is awesome. On the other--okay, how many of us need:

A.) A Bullet Proof Flash Drive (for all those international spies on my flist?)

B.) A Survivor Flash Drive (for all those survivalists with robust broadband connections in the wilderness?)

*squints at the first one* When I say "You will take my internet porn over my dead body", I am seriously not being literal.

Also, ordered a Passport External hard drive. I have no idea what to do with my other external if I can't get it to connect up. Theoretically, one can get the disc out for recovery, but that sounds disturbingly expensive.

OTOH--it will take me a really long time to replace what I have on there.

Comments

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Okay the bullet proof one is appealing, because it's a decent size, has a clippy thing and bullet proof means lots of OTHER things proof, which is the only way I'd clip it to my keys.

[ladydey.livejournal.com]

Well, I have to say that the Survivor flash drive seems pretty awesome, since a few months ago my go-to flash drive just died and since I can't seem to pull anything off it anymore, maybe the survivor one is more sturdy...

[vickita.livejournal.com]

...so no one really needs a 16G USB Flash drive, right?

First impulse: wave hands wildly, shouting, "I do! I do!"

Second impulse: what I *really* need is a 16 GB flash card for my camera.

Third impulse: realize that there's really nothing I could carry around on a 16 GB flash drive that I couldn't be carrying around on my 80GB iPod. (I *knew* I should have gotten the 160 gig one.)

Clearly, I need to be medicated.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

I've switched to a Creative Zen, it takes SD cards. I am biding my time till the 16 gig cards fall to a reasonable price. 2 of those plus my Zen and while it's not my ENTIRE collection, it's plenty of music and audiobooks and video. *G*

[fyrdrakken]

So wait, wait, I have a Creative Zen and I believe my desktop actually has an SD card slot -- are you saying it would be possible for me to do something like copy my entire fanvids collection onto a card and just plug it into the Zen when I have time to fill without having to go through the rigamarole of letting the Zen convert and save a small selection of favorite vids over the course of about six hours (and choke on a few favorites because it doesn't like their format or whatever)?

[amireal.livejournal.com]

No you'd still have to convert it, what you do is maybe do 3 at a time, and have it NOT automatically sync when it's done, but drop it in a folder. The only way to add files to an SD card for the Zen, is to put the card in the zen and then navigate the menu to the memory card and click on removable disk, plug the zen in and now you'll have a 'removable drive' in 'my computer'. Just move files to that the way you would any drive, use the 'eject USB drive' thingy for windows and voila, files. There's other ways, but that's the easiest for videos.

[fyrdrakken]

I'd probably be following the above better if I'd tried converting video files for the Zen more than twice and could actually remember how the process normally goes. (Just to complicate things, the desktop that I use the most and keep my fanvids on also refuses to recognize the Zen -- though one of the considerations on making the Zen purchase was the customer review claim that it worked just fine with Vista -- and I was really hoping I'd found a workaround that didn't involve copying all the vidfiles to my laptop and then hooking up the Zen and letting it convert for six hours. Doing it in wee batches isn't an improvement, since I have to keep remembering to drop what I'm doing and go back to the computer to set up another handful of files -- at least for six hours I can just set it up and go about my evening while it does its thing.)

[libitina]

Why wouldn't one need a 16G flash drive? Unless one already had a bigger one (or two). What better fannish birthday present is there than a 16G flash drive packed full of pimping and porn?

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

so no one really needs a 16G USB Flash drive, right?

FOOL. OF COURSE I DO. My 2GB is already too full all the time, and the 40GB gigabeat portable HD I keep forgetting to put in my purse.

I could actually fit all of SJA, new DW, and TW on one drive I could carry IN MY PURSE. With, like, room left over.

O_O

[madmaxmaddison.livejournal.com]

Strange as it may seem, a colleague of mine bought land in Colorado, built a tiny cabin, got a generator and some sort of satellite internet hookup, and surfs the web when she's not busy carrying water from the creek, because, yeah, they got internet before plumbing. Sign of the times, I suppose.

Still don't know why it has to be waterproof to 200 meters. Just make it squirrel-proof. With a homing beacon.

(Really, I think I'm onto something with the homing beacon. What's the point of being able to toss it into some whitewater if you can't find it afterwards?)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Okay, I cannot even *tell* you how awesome this is. I mean--I totally understand this. Bathroom you use, like, two, three times a day? But the internet is 24/7.

This completely explains that drive.

(I kind of want a homing beacon too. Or like, if you whistle, it beeps or something.)

[forestgreen.livejournal.com]

In Germany I saw a 26 GB USB flash drive and my reaction was similar to yours: "Who needs that? Progress is awesome. I really don't need that; it's too expensive. I really, really don't need it... but come on, 26 GB in a tiny, tiny place."

I did resist temptation, though. Of course, it helped that it was so bloody expensive. In a couple of years, maybe? I really don't need it. Then again 8 years ago I never a PC with 2 GB hard drive memory seemed so huge and unnecessary.

*wish look with the external hard drive*

[ilexa.livejournal.com]

so no one really needs a 16G USB Flash drive, right?

I'm pretty sure I do. Where "need" is defined by "wants shiny technology I don't have." That works, right?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I haven't dared go back to Amazon. Pretty sure that sucker will be in my hands before I even realize I have my credit card out.

[ilexa.livejournal.com]

Reason #467 why I shouldn't have my credit card info stored on Amazon. Dangerous, dangerous stuffs.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Removing the disk from the external enclosure is trivial, but I'm more worried about why it's not connecting? Hopefully it's just a file system error. If you have a friend with GHOST or something similar, that may be your best bet.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, how do I find out? It turns on normally, but it just doesn't get picked up by my laptop.

[fyrdrakken]

Try plugging it into another computer and see how that computer likes it.

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

Do you know how many times I've dropped cell phones into water? I think I wouldn't mind the water proof flash drive.

[The first time was the ocean, I was chasing my shoes. Don't ask. The second time was a huge rain storm, and a lot of wind and it actually came out of bag and into a freaking lakes worth of water. I'm a moron.]

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I kinda want your shoe story now.

[idiasm.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, one can get the disc out for recovery, but that sounds disturbingly expensive.

If there's something wrong with your actual disk, yeah, it could be expensive. But if it's the connection, something in the plug, etc that's wrong, and nothing with the disk itself, then it's way easy. You can get some tiny screwdrivers and open up your external and take out the important parts, and then you get a "make your own external" kit which costs under twenty dollars, and follow the directions to put the important parts in that instead and then hook it up, and voila, new external. I actually did it with my old laptop's hard drive because the hard drive itself wasn't broken, just everything else, and it works fine and I was able to recover everything.

[snarkyducky.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAdku9YhSCI (crossbow and hammer proof monitor..)

[jade-1459.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, one can get the disc out for recovery, but that sounds disturbingly expensive.

Depending on where you go, it can be expensive.

But if your only problem is getting it to connect to your laptop, you can always go out and buy an external hard drive case (if you live near a Best Buy, go in and pick up one of the Dynex kits, they're reasonably priced and if this doesn't work, completely returnable as long as everything comes back with the receipt).

All you have to do is open the current hard drive case and unplug the hard drive from it's internal connections. Put it into the new case and viola! You now have a new power source for your hard drive as well as a new connection line as well.

If that doesn't work - and again, you live near a best buy - go in and ask one of the techs to do a backup of the drive. It's fairly inexpensive here in Canada (about $50), and I don't think the prices vary too much in the US. Besides that, if they can't get the information off the drive for you, most typically they'll refund all or part of the labour fee you paid.

[fyrdrakken]

I second this advice, having been through both the laptop power failure some years ago (in which it took me enough time to track down a tech guy who actually understood what I was talking about regarding a friend's suggestion to get the data copied off the hard drive that the prospect of having far too much unbacked-up data lost for good really sank in) and the business last year where Mom and I learned about the magic of turning a now-defunct computer's hard drive into an external drive via a DIY enclosure kit.

[adannu.livejournal.com]

Flash drives are teh hawt.

I have a small one (512MB, it sez), but it's loaded with Portable FireFox, AbiPortable (open source word processor), PidginPortable (multi-platform IM client), and Trillian. If it were useful, I'd stuff VLC on there along with movies and music and multimedia stuff like that.

Oh baby.

Re the drives you pointed out, how abou tthe IronKey (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/99f1/) for the truly paranoid international spy? :D

[fyrdrakken]

The drive I have currently plugged into this computer is 4.3GB, and I've filled it up on more than one occasion. (Especially when transferring lots of MP3s between a desktop and a laptop.) And I agree to the above points about impact-resistance and waterproofity being highly desirable attributes for any electronic item you're going to be carrying around in your bag or pocket all the time.

Also this conversation reminds me that I need to do round #2 of tinkering with my newish external hard drive, since I slacked off last weekend on the whole USB key file transfer thing and with no changed files on the desktop didn't bother updating the backup. And still haven't worked out what hoops I have to jump through to be able to use it with my laptop as a method of portable easy-update access to all my desktop's files, as being the second reason for the purchase last month.

[rike-tikki-tavi.livejournal.com]

One can never have to big a Flash Drive. But what I really want is an affordable mp3 player with a 16 GB (or more) flash drive. God, please make it happen soon!