OT: The yearly gasp over technology improvements... (changed fromlow traffic)

[Kenneth Brody]

John Esak wrote:
[...]
> While we were at J&K Computer (State Of The Art) in Fairfield the other day
> picking up some new computers they just made for us, John P. pulled  little
> keychain thumb drive (the USB memory sticks) off the shelf. It was 256 Mb,
> 1.1 and 2.0 USB compliant... and so small it is barely larger than the IC
> itself... $50. I bought two of them on the spot. I mean prices of such
> things are getting ridiculous these days, but I would bet this same device
> in CompUSA would be in the $90 to $150 range.

It depends on the brand.  An online search:

    http://www.compusa.com/products/products.asp?N=200695&CusaNe=200454

shows a 256MB "Cruzer" at $34.99, but the 128MB "MyDrive" is $77.87

BTW, we bought several 128MB USB memory sticks for $19.99 after rebate
from OfficeMax a few months ago.

>  (Incidentally, 1Gb thumb
> drives are now available everywhere, with 2Gb's also available here and
> there for big $$$)

CompUSA's website shows a "2.2GB" "QuickDisk+" for $199.99

>  We all lovingly do this thread about once a year... but
> this one is going to be hard to beat... a 2Gb storage device the size of a
> peanut for 1/4 money than the same hard drive would have cost 10 years ago,
> and NO MOVING PARTS to ever wear out... forgetting the awesome benefit of
> being able to put the thing in your shirt pocket... regardless of how filled
> the pocket was with "other" stuff at the time.

Check out the xD memory cards.  Not much bigger than a penny (and thinner),
and they're going to have 8GB soon.

>  Amazing. I just put our
> entire Accounting, Order Entry, Inventory, etc., etc., I mean everything...
> along with filePro (both Unix and Windows) on this 256mb device. I can take
> it anywhere and run it "on-the-device". The only thing I'm missing are our
> archive files... big deal.  This technology is just getting more and more
> amazing and more and more useful every day.

Just don't drop it somewhere.  ;-)

[...]

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| Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |                             |
| kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com     | #include <std_disclaimer.h> |
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