Over the years the media card formats have shrunk. I can remember when compact flash and smart media were once big (I had a FujiFilm cam that used smart media) and the new formats were expensive/non existent.

With devices shrinking in size there was a need for smaller cards…. but this brings up the question “When is small too small?

When i went to my Palm Treo 700p I had found that my old 512mb sd card was dying… it was cheaper for me to get 2gb MicroSD cards with their included adapters than to get the older SD format. The new cards i got inspired me to to do this photo set that places MicroSD next to many common objects.

Here are the pics

iPod USB Connector

On Finger

Apple Remote

AA Battery

iPod Dock connector

Dime

1gb flash drive

Thumb screw

Card Case

Card Reader

Card range

Headphone mic adapter for Treo

Tags: Battery, Card, case, Connector, Dime, Dock, Drive, flash, iPod, MicroSD, Remote, Small, too, usb

First let’s start with the history of the technology… Firewire came first in 1995 developed by Apple Inc. It was designed for high speed real-time data transfer and replaced firewire and scsi since it was lower cost to impliment and had a more flexible cable system.  USB was then created in 1996 as a new standard that was meant to replace serial,parallel,ps2, and many other port types. Part of the core  tech was the fact that the user is able to connect/disconnect devices without powering down or restarting the machine (with proper eject on the software end).

Both technologies have evolved over time and have gotten better. Firewire initially launched with the 400 spec that has the speed range of 100, 200, or 400 mbit/s and later on the 800 spec was released with the speed range of 786.432 mbit/s with higher speeds on the horizon. Usb launched with the 1.0 spec that had the transfer speed of 12 mbit/s, later on the 1.1 spec got with a 480mbit/s a vast improvement over the earlier spec… the 3.0 spec promises higher speeds with its release later on.

Now for the major advantages that favor firewire over usb.. Usb is host mode and relies on the host computers cpu and tends to suffer from overhead and Firewire is peer to peer based thus the controller on the drive, camera, etc talks back and forth with the device controller on the computer allowing for faster data transfer.

Now I have had the chance to personally use firewire when I got my WD My Passport Studio drive for my MacBook… it is capable of Usb 2.0, Firewire 400/800 and wow the transfer speed is majorly faster than usb2.

In the end always go for firewire whenever possible if you got the choice since you will have higher transfer speeds in most situations.

Enough of my ramblings… time for me to stop writing and post this

Sources

Firewire – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire
Usb – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb

Tags: Apple, Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, FireWire, Host, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Northern Telecom, Overhead, speed, usb

RSS Digest for Tuesday Augest 11th, 2009:

No, Really, I’m Studying… Textbooks on Your iPhone
Asimo costume: for best results, move robotically
Hotels That Tweet
La Petite URL
RFID-secured hard drive: sexy if it works
HP, Dr. Dre plan new ‘digital music ecosystem’
Netflix to hold second film recommendation contest
Carmack thinks Sony might release PS4 before new Xbox
Samsung, LG capture almost half of North American handset market?
The Verbatim Tough-N-Tiny is a tough, tiny 8GB USB drive
Safari 4.0.3
Think big: NASA pushed to fund 40 year research projects
‘Lost’ Star Elizabeth Mitchell Fights Aliens in ‘V’ Reboot
LG’s phone division cooking up netbook integration, ‘blooming’ keyboards, and a form factor you’ve never seen
Using Custom Icons in Windows Mobile 6.5
USAA Bank Will Let Customers Deposit Checks by iPhone
How Twitter Saved G.I. Joe
Sony finally admits NVIDIA chips are borking its laptops, offers free repair
How a Macworld Cover Is Made
Xbox 360 gets Netflix exclusively
Sinewave Modulated Adjustable Cannon
Is Sony Ericsson eyeing the netbook market?
Google provides peek into new search engine
Amazon also leaks Zune HD pricing
1 TB Hitachi 7200 Internal Drive – $64.99 AR
Hacker with Asperger’s Sentenced to 55 Months for Trucking Scheme
Apple Planning Some Super Secret Social App?
Google gets caffeine injection as search speeds up
Palm Pre soap brings webOS to the tub

- Matt A. Tobin of Binary Outcast

Tags: Aliens, amazon, American, Asimo, Asperger's, big, caffeine, Cannon, Digital, ecosystem, engine, Ericsson, G.I, Google, Hacker, handset, HD, Hitachi, HP, iPhone, keyboards, laptops, LG, MacWorld, Mobile, Music, Nasa, Netbook, Netflix, Nvidia, Palm, Phone, pre, PS4, RFID, Safari, Samsung, Sony, Textbooks, Tough-N-Tiny, Twitter, URL, USAA, usb, Verbatim, WebOS, WIndows, Xbox, Zune

RSS Digest for Saturday, Augest 8th, 2009:

Facebook jealousy sparks relationship woes: study
What Is The Real Reason Dell Is Discontinuing 12-inch Netbooks?
AP Mobile for iPhone still a dog for many
App Store Thaw? Apple Accepts A Gmail Push Application
Report: Apple, Google agreed not to poach each other’s workers
Panasonic adds Amazon VOD to Blu-ray players
Google: Unify the Phone Numbers and All Else Follows – NYTimes.com
LG Chocolate Touch and Samsung Omnia 2 slated for August 23rd, according to supposed Best Buy leak
Best Buy in 3D Needs to Go Back to the 2D Drawing Board [Augmented Reality]
Week in Apple: mystery Apple product, keyboard and SMS exploits, 10.5.8
Job bank for women in technology
Poor Passwords A Worse Problem Than Poor Antivirus
Blu-ray support coming with iTunes 9?
British military encouraged to get online
XP Mode vs. Med-V
Energy saving search engine
Downloaded Child Porn? Blame Your Kitty Cat [Wrongmodo]
The Web Cycle: The faster you pedal, the faster your porn downloads
Six-Month-Long Camera Exposure Shows Both Winter and Summer Solstices [Photography]
Some Basic Truths About Broadband (Economics)
Week in tech: USB 3.0, gay slurs, and Chrome syncing in the cloud
NSFW: Ice-T tears apart a Powerbook, wants to be in Gears of War 3
Plantronics Discover 925 Bluetooth Headset – $42.99
Week in Microsoft: Windows 7 RTM starts trickling out
LG GD900 Crystal submerged in a fish tank
Debian & Android Together on G1
Nintendo sells 600,000 copies of Wii Sports Resort in Europe
Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer?
Fixing XML
Planet Mozilla Interns: Aaron Train: Totally hip, totally rad Mozilla QA Companion 1.0

- Matt A. Tobin of Binary Outcast

Tags: amazon, Android, Antivirus, App, Apple, Application, Blu-ray, Bluetooth, broadband, buy, camera, Chocolate, Chrome, Cloud, Crystal, Debian, Dell, Drawing, Europe, Facebook, gay, Gmail, Google, Headset, hip, Ice-T, iPhone, iTunes, Job, keyboard, LG, Microsoft, Military, Mobile, Mozilla, mystery, netbooks, Nintendo, NSFW, Omnia, Online, Panasonic, Passwords, Phone, Photography, Poor, porn, PowerBook, real, Resort, RTM, Samsung, search, shows, slurs, SMS, starts, study, SUpport, Touch, Unify, usb, VOD, war, Web, Week, Wii, WIndows, Winter, Wrongmodo, XML, XP

RSS Digest for Wednesday, July 29th, 2009:

Video: ‘V for Vendetta’ Director Goes Ninja
Kodak Zi8 Wallops Flip With 1080p, Image Stabilizer and SD Slot [Camcorders]
Xbox Live dashboard update preview invites begin rolling out
Palm Pre headed to Verizon next year
LG has first THX-Certified LCD HDTV
Agency Mulls Curbs on Cybersquatters
Pascal Finette: Mozilla Labs Design Challenges – What we’ve learned so far…
AOL revenue slides 24 percent in 2nd quarter
Intuit and open source: Tastes great, less filling?
T-Mobile to sell HTC Touch Pro2 in August
Oops, @MarissaMayer Deletes Sensitive Tweet That Can Still Be Found
AP’s rights management DRM explained
Psystar hires Jammie’s lawyers in fight with Apple
Windows 7 activation already cracked with Lenovo’s OEM license key
Pirate Bay acquisition is likely dead
Car? Kids? Get a two-pack of headrest LCDs for $130
Online video keeps growing with help of broadband, mobile
Barnes and Noble to offer complimentary WiFi
Windows 7 vs. Windows XP On a Netbook
Brilliant but Doomed Technology
Intel: Windows 7 will deploy faster than Vista
Unboxing the $1,195 URC MX-5000 remote
Steam Achievements
Motorola Morrisson with T-Mobile 3G and UMA hits the FCC
I’m 90% sure the “Apple iTablet rumor” is an elaborate hoax by Apple to get Dell to waste money building a competing device
How Much Do You Think Twitter Is Worth? How about a Half-Billion Dollars

RSS Digest for Tuesday, July 28th, 2009:

The Matrix, but with money: the world of high-speed trading
Apple Rejects Official Google Voice iPhone App [Apple]
Labels hope Apple’s ‘Cocktail’ will boost album sales
MySpace Overtakes Evite On The Event Planning Totem Pole
LEGO Unboxing
Travel Back in Time
V-Screen turns PSP games 3D
ATI’s $1,800 2GB FirePro V8750 GPU introduced and reviewed
Microsoft sponsors Firefox!
Free Spirit: NASA Recreates Mars Surface to Liberate Rover
Movie studios sue The Pirate Bay
Unix Turns 40
Samsung’s debut e-book reader arrives
Verizon Uses Twitter To Trash Talk AT&T Too
AT&T dual USB and iPhone car charger – $15
Acer and ASUS reportedly freeze netbook releases until 2010
microsoft’s settlement proposal
Red Hat: ‘We spend over $100 million a year to advance Linux’
Like Chrome, Should Firefox Put Tabs on Top?
New Scientist: ‘Humans Prefer Cockiness to Expertise’
Electric-car maker Coda gains high-powered investors
Order Your DIY Flying Trike Today!
Robot gets an iPhone 3Gs for a brain
Landlord sues tenant after tweet about moldy apartment
Mozilla Security: URL bar spoofing vulnerability
Netgear and OpenDNS to block porn from the cloud
Viliv X70 preorders delayed, should ship out on August 11
New DoS Vulnerability In All Versions of BIND 9
Alternative to Bottled Water
Toshiba’s inaugural 3.5-inch external HDD is exactly what you think it is
EU Vista, XP users will also get to vote IE off the island
Yahoo and Microsoft to start ad partnership, says source

- Matt A. Tobin of Binary Outcast

Tags: Acer, activation, Apple, Asus, ATI, Barnes, Bay, BIND, Camcorders, car, Chrome, Cloud, Cockiness, Coda, Cracked, Cybersquatters, Dead, Dell, Design, DIY, DoS, DRM, e-book, Electric car, EU, FCC, Firefox, FirePro, Google, gpu, HDTV, hoax, HTC, Image, Intel, Intuit, iPhone, iTablet, Kodak, LCD, Lego, Lenovo, LG, Linux, Mars, Matrix, Microsoft, Mobile, Money, Motorola, Mozilla, MySpace, Nasa, Netbook, Netgear, OEM, OpenDNS, Palm, Pascal, Pirate, Pirate Bay, porn, pre, PSP, Psystar, RED, robot, Rover, Scientist, SD, Security, Source, Spirit, Steam, surface, T-Mobile, THX Certified, tweet, Twitter, UMA, UNIX, URC, URL, usb, V-Screen, Verizon, video, Viliv, Vista, vulnerability, Wallops, Wifi, WIndows, Worth, X70, Xbox, XP, yahoo