news cues

The Drive That Is No Flash-In-The-Pan

From mere novelties, thumb-size USB (Universal Serial Bus) flash drives have grown into a billion-dollar market. More than 54 million of them were sold worldwide last year (Gartner Dataquest) and sales are expected to top 100 million next year.

The flash drive - also known as a keychain drive, pen drive or memory key - is basically a flash memory card (the type used with digital cameras) that connects to any computer with a universal serial bus port. What sets flash drives apart from conventional hard drives is their lack of moving parts, which makes them durable and silent. Besides it consumes little power, which is especially important for mobile gadgets like cellphones and organizers. Hence this device can be found running in the background on devices ranging from video game consoles and set-top television boxes to digital cameras and inkjet printers.

In the near future, flash drives may become the preferred way of delivering new software. A drive could come preloaded with a photo-editing software suite and ample space to store photos. Likewise, a banking-oriented drive could contain all your monthly statements, bills and passwords.

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Engadget

http://www.engadget.com/
www.gizmodo.com/There is hardly any difference between these two competing blogs written by gearheads, for gearheads. Fanatics may want to bookmark both so they don't miss anything about tech culture.

tip dips

Word Tip - Changing Default Tab Stops

Normally when you press the Tab key in a paragraph, it moves the insertion point to the next half inch (assuming that no other tabshas been set for the current paragraph. If you want to change the default tab stops for a document :

1. Choose Tabs from the Format menu. Word displays the Tabs dialog box.
2. Change the value in the Default Tab Stops control. You can change it in .01-inch increments, from 0.01 inches to 22 inches.
3. Click on OK.

The change you make affects the current document.