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Ruminations on thumbdrives...
The recent job in Albuquerque really brought home the ubiquitousness of these convenient USB devices. Just about everyone had at least one of these things, and they were being used in about the same way diskettes were back in the day. In fact, there is now a market for "giveaway" thumbdrives, to be used as advertising gimmicks (the ideal - and cheaper - replacement to those cute little Victorinox nail-clipper/toothpick/tweezer/penknife combination keychain thingies that seem to have gone the way of the dodo since you can't carry such lethal hardware on your keychain any more, at least not on airplanes, which are still the preferred means of travel to and from trade shows, but I digress...).
The loop that goes around one's neck on a Lexar JumpDrive is attached to the part of the device that contains the electronics, which makes a kind of intuitive sense to me, as it would tend to keep that sucker around your neck should the cap covering the USB connector fall off.
The Memorex thumbdrive, on the other hand, is attached to the loop that goes around your neck by the force of the connection between it and the USB connector cap, because it is the cap that is attached to the loop around your neck. This basically means that if the cap should separate from the device, the device will obediently fall off your neck, leaving you with the cap. This would seem contrary enough to simple common sense, but there is one more point.
When I said the cap of the Memorex thumbdrive is attached to the loop around your neck, I left something out (as I wish Memorex had): there is a plastic clasp between the cap and the loop that, when squeezed, separates normally joined pieces of the plastic clasp, thus affording you the convenience of being able to lose your device - cap and all - without actually having to take the loop off your neck.
This, my friends, is progressive design!
I seem to recall thinking about this design "feature" briefly when first becoming acquainted with the Memorex unit ("Gee," I thought to myself, "I'll have to be careful."), but was only reminded of it yesterday, when I spent 15 minutes looking for my 256-MB Memorex thumbdrive after the plastic clasp had separated as a result of absent-mindedly bracing a box filled with mail against my chest as I loaded the car at the post office.
I will have to be more careful in the future.
Cheers...
The loop that goes around one's neck on a Lexar JumpDrive is attached to the part of the device that contains the electronics, which makes a kind of intuitive sense to me, as it would tend to keep that sucker around your neck should the cap covering the USB connector fall off.
The Memorex thumbdrive, on the other hand, is attached to the loop that goes around your neck by the force of the connection between it and the USB connector cap, because it is the cap that is attached to the loop around your neck. This basically means that if the cap should separate from the device, the device will obediently fall off your neck, leaving you with the cap. This would seem contrary enough to simple common sense, but there is one more point.
When I said the cap of the Memorex thumbdrive is attached to the loop around your neck, I left something out (as I wish Memorex had): there is a plastic clasp between the cap and the loop that, when squeezed, separates normally joined pieces of the plastic clasp, thus affording you the convenience of being able to lose your device - cap and all - without actually having to take the loop off your neck.
This, my friends, is progressive design!
I seem to recall thinking about this design "feature" briefly when first becoming acquainted with the Memorex unit ("Gee," I thought to myself, "I'll have to be careful."), but was only reminded of it yesterday, when I spent 15 minutes looking for my 256-MB Memorex thumbdrive after the plastic clasp had separated as a result of absent-mindedly bracing a box filled with mail against my chest as I loaded the car at the post office.
I will have to be more careful in the future.
Cheers...
*grumble mutter spit*