Only thirty days until the most restrictive smoking ban in the country
effect across Washington. I think there are a handful of reasons
to sort of dislike this development in particular but overall I’m
super excited to be able to go to a show or bowling and come home
drenched only in the natural odors of myself and my fellow revelers.
The weekend before last I was back in sweet home Minnesota and saw
most of my old friends while visiting for Michelle’s wedding and
visiting my mom who had knee surgery two months ago.
Friday night Tanya and I went to hang out at Cory’s and saw Rachel and
tom (who, incidentally, is ready to kickstart the revolution any day
now and designers of the oxo garlic press: you’ll be the first to
go). the topic came up of so called “jump drives” and I started into my
usual long-winded maximizer analysis of how to get the most for your
money. here’s my buying guide.
the device: what you’re buying is basically just a small piece of
nonvolatile, USB accessible ram. small means you can put it in your
pocket. USB means you can plug it into basically any computer and it
should just work with no special drivers or configuration (this is
probably because it supports the USB mass storage (UMS)
standard). nonvolatile ram means its a memory chip (ram) not a disk
(which is like a fancy digital LP) that does not lose its contents
when the power is disconnected (non-volatile - the cheaper ram in your
computer is mostly volatile and erases itself when you turn the PC
off). while most nonvolatile ram is basically created equal for the
needs in buying a jumpdrive, the small aspect and USB are not.
small: USB drives come in a few small designs. some are designed to
fit on your keychain, some to fit in your pocket, wallet, or on a
lanyard around your neck.
wallet design which I really liked. It bulked up your wallet but
is probably the smallest deign I have seen and the fact that you keep
it in your wallet makes it harder to lose. the lanyard design probably
makes sense for lab techs who want to be able to access their device
easy access to their device many times a day. of the somewhat larger
keychain designs my only advice is to look at *how* the device
connects to your keychain - they all come with caps but is the drive
or cap the part connected to the keychain? if the device is tethered
to the keychain that means when you plug it in you are leaving all
your keys dangling off the computer, too - this is a pain. also, look
at the size and shape of the device. there are jumpdrives available
now that look like hello kitty,
or are just sleek and rounded that may all look cool but when you go
to plug it in, you may find you need to unplug your USB scanner
because the devices wont fit next to each other with your huge, cute
wasabi dollop. USB extension cords mitigate this a little, though.
USB: the USB interface is very nice since it’s much easier to install
and configure than older interfaces but USB 1 vs. 2 has been a
nightmare for consumers wanting to understand what they’re buying. the
nuts and bolts are as follows: USB 1 always operates at a max of about
1mbps (this is pretty slow). USB 2 devices may operate at one of three
speeds: low speed USB 2 which is 1 mbps - this is what you get when
you plug a USB2 device into a USB1 port. full-speed USB2 which is
about 12mbps - this is a big improvement but not blazingly fast. and
high-speed USB2 - this is the 480mbps (fast!) USB you’ve heard
about. the key is you need to be careful when picking your USB2
devices. if you’re picking between two 1GB jumpdrives at $50 for a
full-speed USB2 device or $60 for a high speed USB2 device but you
didn’t look any further than “USB2″ you would save $10 but wind up
with a device thats 40 times slower. this might be the right thing for
you but you shouldn’t just make the decision on cost alone because
those aren’t apples to apples. A USB2 device which only supports
full-speed transimission rates cannot display this logo:
regarding capacity: there isn’t much to say here except to think beyond
your current needs a little. maybe today you want to copy a bunch of
pictures and bring them to a relative’s house so you think a 128MB
drive would do. based on current prices it looks like you can get a
128MB USB drive for as little as $13 but you could also get a 512MB
drive for as little as $30. if you want one of these drives today
there is a good chance you will want one in the future and then the day
will come when you want a bigger drive, so why not buy the higher
capacity device today?
lastly a thought on other formats: if you already have a digital
camera or similar device maybe you should consider just buying a
6-in-1 cardreader which supports different types of cards and use your
existing camera’s flash card as your backup device? the memory card in
your camera would work just as well for temporary backup *and* you can
use it in your camera. or maybe you should consider an mp3 player?
these tend to be quite a bit more expensive and frequently require
special drivers (but if the package says it supports UMS (see above)
then you’re rockin without that install CD). but the point is if you
think creatively, you might spend $150 on an mp3 player today and be
set for a couple years. or if you aren’t creative you might spend $30
on a full-speed USB2 jumpdrive today, $60 on a bigger high-speed USB2
jumpdrive in 6 months, and $150 on an mp3 player in a year and another
$150 on an mp3 player which is UMS compliant and renders your old
jumpdrives obsolete in another year. you might also buy a 128MB
jumpdrive today and it will meet all your current and future needs,
too - its just in my nature to look at consumer choices this way.
Courtesy of Cory, I have this not completely bleak life situation:
| This Is My Life, Rated | |
| Life: |  6.4 |
| Mind: |  6.6 |
| Body: |  8.2 |
| Spirit: | 6.5 |
| Friends/Family: |  5.4 |
| Love: |  1.8 |
| Finance: |  9.1 |
| Take the Rate My Life Quiz | |