DigitMemo.com

Get SDHC work in your old card reader.

SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity, SD 2.0), allows capacities in excess of 2 GB and is designed to meet the fast-growing demand of the high-volume storage market. It uses the same form factor as SD, but the SD 2.0 standard in SDHC uses a different memory addressing method (sector addressing vs. byte addressing)  and were supposed to only work in SDHC compatible devices while standard SD cards work in both SD and SDHC devices. So in order to get SDHC work with your computer, you either have to get a SDHC supported card reader or use the card in the SDHC compatible device and connect the device to your computer to read/write from it.

Click for more on Adding SDHC support for Windows — with your old SD card reader »

Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires.

The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second.” This should make USB hard drives easier and faster to use.”

Click for more on USB 3 in 2008, 10 Times as Fast »

It works better for older system with less than 512MB ram than the newer ones.

PC Stats has an interesting six page review regarding Microsoft Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. ReadyBoost is supposed to allow the user to plug in a fast USB stick into their system to speed up work the OS needs to do and effectively improve the computer’s performance by storing non-essential information on the drive. The review concludes that this is not the case with current USB keys on the market. Although ReadyBoost does improve overall performance on the system, it is not enough to make a significant difference or to raise some eyebrows. It seems that on older computers with little memory (512MB), ReadyBoost can help out much more than on newer systems - probably the systems Vista would be installed on anyways. Surprisingly enough, however, ReadyBoost did make a slight mark even on video game performance and system startup time.

Click for more on Windows Vista & ReadyBoost: Does it Make a Difference? »

Innovation in the flash drive sphere seems to be limited to bringing the price down, and adding on new security features. Corsair’s new “Flash Padlock” flash drive seemingly does both. By retailing at $29.99 and $39.99 in 1GB and 2GB variants, and tacking on a PIN based security system that limits who can access the drive. The benefit to the Flash Padlock is that its security solution is entirely hardware based, so it’s supposedly working under all systems as well as impervious to hackers and crackers and other deviant folks.

Click for more on Corsair releases "Flash Padlock" PIN-based flash drive »