KW1203 – Stick It

Dec 23

This week Knightwise dives back into a topic to help you make better use of hostile foreign computers. With the proliferation of high-speed high-capacity USB thumb drives it’s easier than ever before to carry your computing workload with you and run your life from a stick.

Links

Credits

Episode produced by Keith Murray
Home screen picture courtesy of MaxPixel

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Control auto-starting applications on your Android device (or Android media center)

Jan 04

The MK802 is just one example of Android “hopping over” to more different kinds of devices then the phones and tablets it was designed for. In essence the MK802 is a little computer that comes with a couple of USB ports and an HDMI port so you can hook it up to any TV/Monitor and instantly turn that machine into a ‘smartscreen’. With devices like the MK802, you can easily turn your television into a media center using applications like PLEX or Boxee who let your Android ‘stick’ become your media front end.

startup_manager_android_2

The only thing that is missing is that those applications should ‘start up’ automatically whenever your android device of choice boots. In order to make that work we found the free app called “Startup Manager” (how DO they come up with these original names). 

You can either tweak your Android device by removing applications that run on startup (nice way to clean out some branded cruft) OR add some auto starting applications of your own. (perfect for launching VLC, Boxee or Plex at bootup). 

Startup manager is free, does not require root and is available in the Android Marketplace.

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Whats the fastest Usb Disk ? Find out now !

May 21

Ever wondered which Usb flash drive you own is the fastest ? For copying your My Little Pony picture collection back and forth, speed might not be the biggest issue, but what if you want to do more. For example : Run a complete operating system from that USB stick ? As we mentioned in the last podcast episode it’s possible to run a complete (Linux) operating system from your stick. And since you are using your little portable friend as a hard drive ..Speed is essential.

So benchmark your own Usb drive with the USBFlashSpeed.com site to help you buy the hyperspeed on a stick .. from your keychain.

Links : UsbFlashspeed.com

(Thanx Listener Lloyd for the tip)

 

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Making bootable USB linux disks on your Mac the easy way.

Dec 16

As I mentioned in this weeks podcast, making bootable Live usb disks on a Mac is far from a joyous experience. It requires a bit of command line fu, and although thats pretty cool once you get it working its not always easy. So before you strangle a baby squirrel out of sheer frustration, lets give you an easy alternative.

With the Mac Usb loader from Seven Bits that is a thing of the past. A simple point and Click interface gives us the ease of use of its Linux and Pc cousin UnetBootin, but I am however not completely sure if it supports persistant disk images (So you can save the changes you did in the live OS) According to Ubuntu Vibes its still a little bit buggy .. but give it a go nonetheless. 

Link : Mac Linux Usb Loader.

Have you tried it out ?  Report your findings in the comment sections and share ! 

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Play your best cards : Portable apps on an SDcard.

Jun 01

The days we still had computers that did not have a usb port are long gone. Most computers these days come equipted with a variety of SD-card readers. Now we know we use those things in our camera’s and our phones , but we don’t always have to. One of the beautiful things of SD storage is that its cheaper (and sometimes faster ) then a usb stick AND they fit in your wallet ( Just like a condom does ) So instead of carrying around those chuncky usb drives on your keychain, why not go all “spy” on them and install your favorite apps (and your much needed data) on an sd card you carry in your wallet ? Its like the modern day microfilm .. for geek-spies.

You can of course run your favorite collection of portable apps on there , and THIS site is one of my all time favorites when it comes to having your own little launcher in the taskbar of any system to kick off your portable apps from. But Pendriveapps.com comes with an even bigger collection of applications stuffed inside different categories. So check them out and go get yourself that super fast 32 SDHC Flash card to geek out on. If push comes to shove you can always carry an SD to USB card reader to use when there is no compact flash reader in the pc you are using. The usb stick is sooo 90’s Upgrade to an SD card and carry your apps .. in your wallet.

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