One alternative, and this applies not just to the Dell Mini 9, but to any netbook that accepts Secure Digital Cards (SD cards), is to purchase a large capacity SD card and use that as an extra hard drive.

This is a lot simpler than you’d think, and provides far more benefits than simply increasing the storage capacity on the device.

Boost your storage

How simple? You need only purchase the card, and then slot it into the card reader. If you’re using Windows XP, you’re done and if you are using Ubuntu, you’re done! In both cases the Operating System will recognise the card as extra storage and use can simply use it as such from then on.

If your netbook supports SDHC cards. like the Dell Mini 9, you can purchase an 8GB SD card to give the device a serious storage boost, alternatively you can purchase a microSD card of a similar capacity. Your netbook may not support microSD cards, but all our microSD cards include an SD adaptor, which means that they can be used as if they were an SD card, as well as being used as a microSD card.

Security

So you have your nice, shiny and new Dell Mini 9 and you take it everywhere with you, and do everything on it; which of course will soon have you wondering – what if! What if you lose it? What if you some miscreant steals it? What information will they be able to get hold of? Sadly, the answer is everything that you have on there, unless you encrypt it.

The next version of Windows, Windows 7, will apparently offer to encrypt your flash memory cards and USB drives for you when you first connect them; giving the option of a password and/or a keyfile. Fortunately, you won’t have to wait for Windows 7, there are free programs that can do similar things. Truecrypt is one of the easiest to use and most versatile.

Simply install the program and then insert your SD flash card. You then have two options; if you are only ever going to use the drive inside your Dell Mini 9, or similar netbook, you can wipe the disk and encrypt the whole disk; if you are likely to take the disk out and use it in other PCs that won’t have Truecrypt installed, you can create a traveller disk.

The former means that you can use the drive like any other hard drive, but with everything that is written to the drive being encrypted ‘on-the-fly’, the latter means that you can use the SD card on any PC and will simply need to enter the password to access the encrypted section of the drive.

The best option is probably the Traveller Disk (Tools > Traveller Disk Setup) option as that means that the disk is usable if it is taken out of your netbook, but whatever option you choose, Truecrypt guides you through it. Like Windows 7 you have a choice of using a keyfile or keyfiles and/or a password.

Unbreakable

A keyfile can either be created or any file used on your PC. A word of warning however, a keyfile is exactly that, a key to open the drive/file if you forget which file you used, or that file is lost or altered in any way, you won’t be able to gain access to your drive/files.

There is no way to crack this type of encryption, it is said that even with all the computing power in the world it would take years, if not centuries to crack a decent keyfile(s) or passwords. Make sure you backup your keyfile(s), just in case.

With Windows XP you have a further option once the SD card has been encrypted. When inserted the card appears under removable storage devices in My Computer. However you can mount it as a new hard drive by simply entering the password and opening with Truecrypt, you can then use it as you would any normal hard drive.

Follow that car

According to a recent survey, Black Cab passengers in London have left more than 60,000 devices ranging from mobile phones, MP3 players, USB memory sticks, and even laptops in cabs in the past six months.

Quite a shocking statistic, particularly as many of those devices carry personal information and it would be extremely easy for a identity thief to extract the information. But what can be done to guard against such losses when we are all forced to carry around a plethora of devices such as mobile phones, laptops and USB memory sticks and flash cards?

After each one of the data slip ups mentioned earlier, a word was bandied about quite frequently – encryption.

Ciphers

Encryption works by scrambling the information stored on a device so that it can only be decrypted using a specific password. These days encryption is so advanced that unless the thief/discoverer has a couple of supercomputers lying around their home, they aren’t going to be able to access your encrypted information.

Encryption isn’t just reserved for spies and military types there are plenty of free, military grade encryption utilities out there that are simple enough for anyone to use.

For those who use USB memory sticks or even SD memory cards or microSD memory cards, I would even go as far as saying encryption is a necessity.

Misplaced information

People often underestimate the dangers of carrying around USB memory sticks (also known as Pen Drives) and flash cards, as this expert points out:

“If it gets into the wrong hands of a criminal, hacker or opportunist, losing your mobile device can have serious implications, so our advice is always encrypt it and password protect it to stop it ever being accessed by anyone other than yourself.”
BBC News | Michael Callahan – Credant Technologies

One of the easiest ways of encrypting your information is to use a piece of software like TrueCrypt. This free and open source software allows you to encrypt an entire hard drive, USB memory sticks or flash cards.

Simply download and install the software, insert your USB flash memory stick or flash memory card and open the software. When presented with a choice of what drives to encrypt, just select your chosen USB memory stick or flash memory card and then the type of encryption, ranging from the standard US NSA quality encryption to even tougher encryption.

The software has a Traveller Mode, which, once set up, allows you to then use the device in another PC. It also works on-the-fly so you can use the USB stick or memory as normal, the software will encrypt/decrypt as necessary.

The software is amazingly easy to use, a step by step tutorial can be found here. All this of course begs the question, if it were that easy, why doesn’t (or didn’t) the Government use encryption?

Tip of the tongue

There are downsides to using encryption. With most applications if you forget the password you can simply click the ‘Forgot Password’ link or reset it. If you encrypt a USB memory drive or flash card and forget the password, well, then you have just lost all the information on that drive, permanently. There is no way to get the information back without the password.

It isn’t the end of the world though, you can also re-format the drive or delete the container, and start again, this time using a password that is memorable. Avoid using something that seems memorable at the time, but when needed you can’t for the life of you recall it.

This could be where a site such as Password Chart comes in handy, it allows the creation of completely random and seemingly meaningless passwords from memorable words. For instance using Horizon and Memory we are able to create the password – jD_6jD4c8@n^P

Apart from the inconvenience of losing access to your own information, and feeling like a bit of an idiot for forgetting your own password, there is another reason why you may not want to forget your encryption password.

The long arm of the law

Since 1st October 2007 it became an offence to fail to hand over encryption passwords to the police, if they request them. Being unable to remember the password is not classed as a plausible defence.

Of course the average person is unlikely to have their USB memory stick or Flash memory card confiscated by the police, but the two year prison sentence mean that it is worth bearing in mind.

Better safe…

Most people will probably assume that they do not need to use encryption, or even that it is too much hassle. But like using car alarms and house alarms, a minor inconvenience can quickly become part of an everyday routine.

Your information and privacy are extremely important, once they are out there in the hands of criminals and hackers, there is no way to get that information back again. The safest bet is to make sure that the information that falls into their hands is unusable, and the only way to do that is encryption.

Nokia is King when it comes to mobile phones, accounting for a whopping 40% of the market worldwide. In the smartphone market Nokia are an even bigger player, with 52.9% of the market, and now being the sole owner of the Symbian Operating System means that 65% of smartphone owners worldwide use their OS

Apple iPhone accounts for just 6.5% of the smartphone market, meaning that they lag some way behind the likes of Nokia, and RIM (the makers of the Blackberry). Also surprising is that more smartphone users have Windows on their phones, than Apple’s software.

So what does all this mean?

Nokia’s N95

Well it means that Nokia know what they are doing, their N-Series of smartphones have been very popular. So popular in fact that their N95 was dubbed ‘iPhone Killer’, when it went up against the first iPhone.

A couple of months ago Apple launched their new iPhone and now Nokia is hitting back with the N96.

Nokia got it right with the N95 for many reasons, such as the GPS, 3G, and of course their microSD card expansion slot. The iPhone came with 4GB or the largest 5GB of storage space, and there was no way to expand that, a shocking omission in todays storage hungry world. The N95 was compatible with microSD cards up to 2GB, meaning that for less than £10 it was possible to even up and then better the iPhone’s storage.

Nokia’s N96

The N96 goes even further in this regard, as it had to in order to compete with the iPhone which has 16GB of internal storage. The N96 matches this, but of course has a microSD card slot and supports SDHC cards up to 16GB, giving a total storage capacity of 32GB! And that’s without swapping cards.

It’s amazing that Apple have missed this once again, the customers that this kind of phone is aimed at are going to need as much storage as possible for their MP3 and videos. Why buy a phone that stores 12,000 MP3s or 40 hours of video (iPhone) when you can have a phone that stores 24,000+ MP3s and 80+hours of video?

The iPhone, like most other Apple devices also has a built in battery, which was always going to be a problem and despite the complaints and criticism, the new iPhone has a built in battery too. Other complaints about the new iPhone are the 2 mega pixel camera, the same as the original iPhone – the N96 has a 5 mega pixel camera.

iPhone Style

The Apple of course has the edge when it comes to style, although the N96 doesn’t look half bad itself, and desirability, but this is all thanks to clever marketing. At the end of the day iPhone users are a niche market, Nokia are ahead of the game in almost all respects in the smartphone market.

Smartphone users want hot swappable expandable storage so that they can simply insert a flash memory card and access the documents, MP3s or videos on it on many different types of devices and unfortunately the Apple iPhone cannot deliver this.

Technorati Tags: Horizon Flash Memory, Memory, Storage, microSD, SDHC, Flash Card, Nokia, iPhone, N95, N96, Smartphone, Blackberry

MiniDiscs just didn’t take off, there were compatibility issues, the hardware was expensive, it wasn’t widely supported by the record labels and recordable CDs were launched around the same time.

SlotMusic

Despite this lesson from history, and the recent format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, Sandisk today launced their replacement for the CD, SlotMusic.

SlotMusic is in effect a microSD memory card loaded with an album of the buyers choice. These 1GB microSD cards will also include pictures and videos and the intro video on the SlotMusic website also implies  that owners will be able to add their own documents and information to the cards, just like any other microSD card.

Pricing

As usual with these new technologies, the price remains the same. Prices are expected to be about the same as a CD, about £8.99, when SlotMusic is launched in the UK later this year. Like the price of downloads, the logic behind this is unclear. MicroSD cards are pretty cheap, Horizon Flash Memory sell 1GB microSD memory cards for just £2.99.

With microSD cards this cheap, it is possible to buy two 2GB microSD memory cards for the price of one SlotMusic album, which means that even at MP3’s highest quality (320 kbps – what SlotMusic is stored at) an owner of a 2GB microSD memory card could fit almost 30 albums of their choice on their own card (and about 60 with their two cards).

Moreover they could fit six albums stored in the far superior FLAC format (equivalent to CD quality) on their card. This does seem to make the SlotMusic format appear to be something of a waste of space.

Recent events regarding DRM in downloaded music and its removal has shown that today’s music lovers do not wish to be tied to proprietary formats, they expect portability and choice. Having just one album per card means having to change the disc over when wanting to listen to another album or when all the tracks have been played; for those used to having thousands of tracks at their finger tips, this will be seen as a major inconvenience. No matter how small microSDs are, carrying around your entire music collection on these cards is just not an option.

So why on earth does SanDisk believe there are people willing to become tied to this new format?

Compatibility

If there is one thing that SlotMusic has going for it, it is compatibility. The music is encoded as MP3s with a 320 kbps bitrate. This ensures compatibility with almost all platforms, from PCs running Windows or Linux, through to Macs. Most mobile phones will also play MP3s and most also accept microSD cards. The USB cable that also comes with the SlotMusic card ensures it can be played on almost anything, with one notable exception. Apple’s iPod/iPhone.

Creating a new music format that isn’t compatible with the world’s No.1 selling portable music player was a bit of a gamble, and to be fair the problem is more of Apple’s making rather than that of SanDisk as Apple’s iPhone and iPod have neither card slots nor USB slots.

Whoever the blames lies with, SanDisk has lost a large chunk of its potential customer base because of it.

The lack of DRM in the music means that owners can transfer their songs to their PC and then to their iPod/iPhone’s internal storage, but then they can already do that using iTunes or CDs.

Over engineering

This is course is probably the biggest flaw in the SlotMusic format. The first thing most users are going to do is copy their music from the SlotMusic card onto their PC so that they have their music collection in one place, and either then use the 1GB microSD flash memory card as spare storage, or put it on a shelf somewhere, just like they would a CD.

As with CDs, sooner or later they are going to realise that they can save time, space and effort by just downloading the music directly to their computer at which point they will stop purchasing SlotMusic altogether.

While SanDisk’s new format is a noble idea, it is in many respects a step backward and has over complicated what is becoming a quick and straightforward process – getting music onto a portable device. 

MiniDisc or sliced bread

It’s unlikely that the SlotMusic format will be the next big thing and the reactions on the web seem to confirm this:

Engadget.com
“…we half-facetiously asked SanDisk’s reps if they expected us to carry around a stack of individual microSD albums, they didn’t laugh when they said yes, and even told us that slotMusic media binders would be available at launch…”

jupiterresearch.com
The success of the format depends upon consumers opting to walk into a participating store (which may well be an issue) chose from a probably limited catalogue (anyone remember the pitiful sight of MD album sections in music shops?) and then remove their existing memory card to slot the album in. Begs the question, why wouldn’t they just download it from an online store and sideload it?

In all likelihood the SlotMusic format will disappear in the same way that SanDisk’s last attempt did back in 2005, the Gruvi TrustedFlash, which was:

“…the first removable flash memory card of its type to be sold with premium music content…”

This format too died a quiet death.

Personally I keep far more on my mobile phone’s microSD card than just music and so taking it out to play an album, which annoyingly entails removing the battery, just isn’t an option. I’d be far more likely to copy the music to my PC and then copy the whole album to my phone’s 2GB microSD card, along with all my other albums.

Of course if I am going to do that, I’d rather stick with downloads or, if I have to have the physical disc, the better quality CDs.

Judging by the reactions to this launch, I am not alone and I wouldn’t be surprised if the launch is the last we hear of SlotMusic.

Technorati Tags: SlotMusic, SanDisk, Horizon Flash Memory, microSD, MicroSD Card, Music, MP3, Flash Memory, 1GB microSD, Music Storage, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Warner Music, Mobile Phone

“We’re not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games. The thing we’re thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games.”

I don’t think even he could have foreseen just how popular it would become and just what a difference the Nintendo Wii would make to the gaming world.

The machine is unbelievably popular, and as he noted, not just in the traditional market. We now see Nintendo Wii’s in the homes of the traditional gamers parents, their grandparents and even in nursing homes. Something that was inconceivable before the Wii came along.

Secure Digital Cards

The Wii isn’t much compared to the other next generation consoles, in fact it barely measures up specification wise to the XBox, let alone the XBox 360. It is also lacking in the storage department, only having 512MB of storage (the Xbox had about 10GB), but it does allow owners to add pictures and files from their own SD cards.

A smart move by Nintendo, the Xbox 360 uses it’s own propriety memory cards, but the SD card has become the de facto standard for flash memory cards in recent years, with most people having several cards from digital cameras, PDAs, mobile phones and now even sat-navs, lying around the home. Not to mention the fact that they can also use the newer miniSD and microSD cards as well with an adaptor. SD cards are a very cheap form of storage, allowing users to more than double the storage capacity of their Wii for less than £3.

Secure Digital High Capacity Cards

Sadly, despite coming to market several months after SDHC, the Nintendo Wii does not support SDHC cards and this has caused some issues for those looking to expand their Nintendo Wii’s storage capacity.

SDHC itself is something of a murky area, many manufacturers and retailers do not do enough to make customers aware of what SDHC is, why it is different from standard SD, or even that it is different.

SDHC is a completely different standard to standard SD and is not backwards compatible. There is more information on SDHC on the Horizon Web Blog – The Mystery Behind SDHC. But in a nutshell, unless your camera, mobile phone, sat-nav or PDA specifically says that it supports SDHC cards, it more than likely does not.

So although those new 4GB, 8GB and even 16GB and 32GB SD cards may seem like an excellent way of perhaps recording more video or taking thousands of photographs, rather than just hundreds, unfortunately for most people, particulary those with devices a year or two old, it just isn’t possible.

If you’re in any doubt as to whether your device is SDHC compatible, feel free to contact us at Horizon Flash Memory, or even comment here with the make and model of your device and we’d be happy to let you know.

Conflicting Advice

Nintendo Wii owners, like most people it seems, have difficulty finding out whether their device is SDHC compatible and then which cards to purchase. A simple search for ‘Nintendo Wii compatible SD cards‘, turns up all sorts of conflicting advice.

Even the Nintendo Wii website itself makes no mention of SDHC cards, simply stating that the Wii is only compatible with SD cards of 2GB or less.

At Horizon Flash Memory, we can give simple clear advice on this issue, SDHC cards are not compatible with the Nintendo Wii, no cards more than 2GB in capacity will work. Needless to say all of our SD cards of 2GB or less are 100% compatible with the Nintendo Wii – and this is guaranteed.

Cheap As Chips

There is an upside however to not being able to use the newer, higher capacity SD cards. As the capacities get higher and higher the prices at the bottom end of the capacity scale get cheaper and cheaper.

If you shop around you can find lower capacity SD cards at unbelievably low prices. Strangely, there are also places that sell 512MB SD cards for between £8-£10 each! So as always it is important to shop around to get the best deals.

And while our 1GB and 2GB SD cards are not quite as cheap as chips, at £2.99 and £4.49 respectively, they are both cheaper than cod and chips, and offer fantastic value.

Technorati Tags: Horizon Flash Memory, Nintendo, Wii, Nintendo Wii, SD cards, SDHC, Secure Digital Cards, microSD, Flash Memory, Memory Cards, Xbox