portable

Beware The Ubiquitous Portable Hard Drive!

Here are some simple words of wisdom from one who has for decades made use of all sorts of portable magnetic media. Don’t trust it!

This simple message, a public service of sorts, was brought to mind when my wife recently came to me with a small portable USB hard drive in her hands. She had just plugged it into her PC which had responded by asking if she wanted the drive to be formatted? The implication being that it was not already formatted!

Of course, the unhappy little drive in question is a 320 GB 2.5″ USB drive that she had been using to shuttle all manner of valuable bytes from here-to-there.

Read More

Revisiting The Ipevo X1-N6 Internet Conference Station

Ipevo x1-n6 Internet Conference StationLate in 2009 my quest for a portable conference phone lead me to try the Ipevo X1-N6 Internet Conference Station. On the surface the X1-N6 has an attractive set of capabilities and a very attractive price point. Unfortunately, the unit that I purchased from  my local Fry’s Electronics did not meet my expectations, so after a few weeks I returned it for a refund.

When I posted my experience with that device it caught the attention of the manufacturer. They had some theories as to why the unit I had behaved as it did. They asked me to return to the unit to them for investigation, but by then I had already returned it to the retailer. Since they could not pursue that situation further the manufacturer promised to send me a sample unit when their next production batch arrived from the east.

Read More

USB Speakerphones: An Observation

Over a period of years I’ve used quite a number of these portable USB attached speakerphone devices. A while ago I summarized my experienced with them, but as a couple of new models have recently emerged so I find that they have my attention yet again. These new devices, if I should be lucky enough to try them, will be the focus on some future posts. For the moment I have another observation to share based upon a recent experience.

Six USB Speakerphones

All of these portable speakerphones I find well suited to individual use. That is, they work well enough for an individual who sitting at their PC and doesn’t like to wear a headset. They’re also sufficiently portable to please a road warrior. One of the nice things about this kind of device is that they often support HDVoice when paired with a suitable soft phone.

Read More
Back To Top