Pixel Holic

The USB flash drives were first introduced in 1998. The popularity of USB drives has increased since then. The USB drive is actually a plug and play device used for storage purpose. USB drives use flash memory. The USB drives are so lightweight, that you can even attach it to a key chain. The popular names of USB drives are the keychain and flash drives. The USB drives are alternatives to the other storage devices like the compact disk, zip drive and floppy disks. These USB drives are easily compatible as the operating system of the computer recognizes the USB drive when it is plugged into the USB port. The operating system recognizes the USB drive by assigning a removable drive letter to it. The USB drives are compatible with both computers and digital cameras. These drives are very compact. To store data, the USB drive usually uses USB 1.1 or 2.0 interface.

The USB flash drives are the form of NAND type flash memory. This type of flash memory was developed for the purpose of transferring of data information. The NAND type memory has the new and latest technology to record huge amounts of data and also has fast writing/erasing speed. USB drive is composed of small circuit board which is sealed by a secure case made of metal or rubber. The purpose of the ssecure case is to protect the inner circuit board. It also has a serial bus connector.  Read more... (585 words, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)

Many of us older computer users remember the days when the only thing connected to a printer was the keyboard and a printer. In fact, those of us who are REAL old remember the days when the keyboard was part of the computer, as was the printer itself. More like a Telex machine than a modern-day computer, we typed on box-like keypads and it was printed out in dot-matrix.

At that time (well before USB or Firewire), we connected peripherals such as an external drive, a mouse, or a CD player by using an intricate procedure which involved turning everything off, connecting it, and turning it on again. And then we prayed.

In 1996, much of that changed for computer folks. Universal Serial Bus (USB) was developed to enable the ability to “plug and play”. This was a huge breakthrough in computers. By utilizing USB technology and internal USB drivers, users were able to switch devices simply by plugging them in. No more powering down, booting up, and waiting and hoping were involved.

For the next seven years, USB technology was phased in through the computer industry, with Apple adopting it fully in 1998. Once USB became standard, USB hubs began being produced. These USB hubs allowed users to connect more than one USB device (printer, mouse, keyboard, iPod, external drive, etc.) to a computer at a time, using only one USB driver and hub.

Universal Serial Bus was developed keeping in mind the usage of various peripherals through the same port. USB allows high-speed, easy connection of peripherals like printer, scanner, thumb drive etc. to a PC. Once you plug in USB, everything configures automatically however some times there are problems for which you might contact your tech support company. USB has gained popularity in recent times due to simple interface and multi peripheral support. There are many companies who provide online computer help and computer support on issues pertaining to USB and USB peripherals.

USB drives have an edge over all other storage devices which are considered portable particularly the floppy disk, some of the common traits of a USB drives are they have a more packed in shape, operate faster, hold much more data, have a more durable design, and operate more reliably due to their lack of moving parts. The influence and addiction to a USB devices can be imagined from a fact that now a day’s pc and laptops are being sold without a floppy disk drive, as there place is being taken by the USB ports. These devices use the USB mass storage standard and are also widely being accepted by modern operating systems such as Mac, Windows, Linux and others.

USB originally was known to be USB1.0 and was released in 1995 with 12 Mbps. Today, USB operates at 480 Mbps and is an integrated part of a PC. Unlike a Floppy drive issue or other storage device USB requires minimal computer help to configure. The computer support companies find it the best interconnect device till date.  Read more... (434 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)