The Rise of the Memory Stick

Computer memory technology has advanced over past few years.
While I am writing this my wife is playing music on our new Sony HIFI system.
She is not playing Tapes or CD's all she has is a memory stick plugged into a USB port on the front of the HIFI. Her whole album collection is stored on this stick
The humble floppy disc has breathed it's last, now the CD is on the way out.
The memory chip is poised to take their place.
Even the DVD is under threat from this device.
These chips are shrinking in size and have become waffer thin.
The amount of memory once measured in Megabytes (Mb) now Gigabytes (Gb) and Terabytes (Tb). These measurements may not mean much to the non technically inclined but they represent how much data or information you can store on them. 4Gb is enough to store a whole movie. 1Tb is equal to 1000 Gb
That equates to about 250 movies.
How much space would 250 DVD's take up on your shelf?
Even DVDs purchased recently are offering downloaded copies of the purchased movie for transfer to PC or IPOD.
Times are changing and this humble little silicon chip is advancing the change.

What was once the far fetched ideas of science fiction writers has become reality. I'm waiting for the day when "Beam me up " is the phrase to use when you want to go anywhere.

Yes the memory stick has indeed risen but my own memory seems to have diminished with the advancement of age.
Soon I will be relying on these chips to remember the names of my children.
Already I use sat nav to find my way around the house .
Sat Nav is great you just type in where you are going for example "Fridge" and it guides you with narration and a little map.

I was noticing something similar on my iphone last night. I have this new little app by Everyday Food that makes shopping lists for me, and finds and gives directions to the nearest grocery stores. It was a bit out of date, so I decided to add the new market down the street from my house, and had a bit of trouble getting it entered. I was getting frustrated until I realized that I had been going there weekly since it opened, and already knew the way, so why bother.

Ann

If I forgot how to find my refirgerator, it would be funny. I 'd be thinner much faster.

Beyond all that, David. I use a memory stick as my portable office. There are programs that "fool" your USB stick into "thinking it's a computer" so you can run mail programs, browsers, etc off them.
Mine has browser with all my cookies and bookmarks, mail program, pdf viewer, FTP program, and music player on it and can function on any computer I plug it into.

I originally used a thing called "Ceedo", a $30 program out of Israel, of all places, but it was a pain in the butt. (One of those things that you have to relicense everytime you get new hardware, for one thing)

So now I use a free program called Portable Apps. Quick easy install and you can run a boggling array of programs off your USB gadget, from spreadsheets to games to video editors.


http://portableapps.com/

In Cuba, by the way, these things take on a revolutionary political role. Internet is essentially banned there, and the few places its available at exorbitant rates it's monitored and censored.
So dissident groups communicate by passing USB sticks through underground networks.

That's great Lin I'll give portable Apps a try and avoid Cuba.

I looked at that Portable Apps thing -it looks interesting but I don't get it -is this mostly so you can use the computers in an internet cafe? Because otherwise, isn't everything on it standard on any computer you plug it into? Bookmarks can be stored on any online bookmark service (like Yahoo's). Why wouldn't you just keep more exotic programs on a laptop?

I think the Idea LC is that you can carry your own set up version of a program like an email program for example mozilla thunderbird with all your settings on the stick so you just plug it into any computer and it will run with no fussing around with settings.
If you have to get a new computer for example it would save lots of time without having to install your programs and settings all over again. You just plug in the stick and its ready to use.

Quote :

Because otherwise, isn't everything on it standard on any computer you plug it into?

No, every computer around is very unlikely to have your email settings, for example. Or FTP account. Or browser cookies. Or guaranteed to have Firefox or Opera. Or any program that requires a system install.

Hadn't thought of the new computer angle, David, but it's a good one. The drawback, slower program load.

It's mostly for people who move around. You can use internet cafes, terminals in terminals, so to speak. Plug it in in somebody else's office, etc.

Another fun thing is that some of the apps available are better, in many ways, that the "full sized" ones.
Foxit reader, a tiny pdf program is superior to Adobe in many ways, such as being able to make notes on a pdf document...yet a sliver of the size of the Adobe bloatware.
Their Notepad++ is way better than the Windows Notepad. And most of these work on your desktop/laptop as well.

dmondeo wrote:

I think the Idea LC is that you can carry your own set up version of a program like an email program for example mozilla thunderbird with all your settings on the stick so you just plug it into any computer and it will run with no fussing around with settings.

Ok, I' guess I'm just so used to carrying around a laptop that I don't see the big advantage. Also, I lose my USB sticks a lot. That would be disastrous if all that stuff was on it.

Disastrous to lose of damage laptops, as well. Big reason I don't lug mine around everywhere.

And no big to lose cookies, accounts, etc. They are just copies of what you run on your main computer.

Good topic David.
I was told my refrigerator will soon be ordering the food for me. I hope it doesn't happen too soon...

I have just about everything on flash drives. Being very worried that I may lose one, I make two copies of everything. I carry one in my pocket, my wife carries one in her purse. I also have a 250G Passport portable HD that I carry with my notebook, and a Terabyte HD that I back up everything on all three computers.

A 4G flash drive can hold tons of data, and as someone said, they're getting smaller and smaller. I remember a time when I didn't think it would be possible to fill up a 40 MEG HD, and I also remember when I upgraded from a 40 MEG hard drive to a 500 MEG drive, and kicked my RAM up from 4 MEGS to 16 MEGS, which was all the computer would hold.

When I was a manager in the call center, doing computer troubleshooting over the phone for Best Buy, they said that computer technology is outdated every six months. I sometimes think it's even quicker than that.

Speaking of, is anyone using Windows 7, and how do you like it?

Memory cards containing 8Gb are now available which are no bigger than a mobile phone Sim card, these are the SD format used for digital Cameras which are now being used inside memory sticks. Some sticks are available that you can insert these SD cards into. The smaller they are the easier to loose I suppose.

The new Laptop style Net Books do not use conventional hard drives or CD players they rely on these chips to function.
This makes these Net Books lighter and more portable.
They consume less energy not running motor driven hard drives.
I will get one of these babies later on this year.

I will also be upgrading to Win 7 after all the bugs have been identified. I see no reason to rush yet.