Tag: usb

Surface Pro 4: Things we wish Microsoft did right

Microsoft Surface Pro 4, a high-end portable hybrid tablet has been recently launched by Microsoft. It is the upgraded version of their current Surface Pro 3 and is currently creating a lot of buzzes, but considering that it is launched with a very high price tag and is specifically targeted for the high-end users, we feel a bit disappointed. Though specification wise Surface Pro 4 is very well loaded but we found that there are 4 features that could have made it a lot better.

1 Windows Help/ Passport

Image Courtesy: Microsoft

Edit: Windows Hello is actually present in Surface Pro 4, which allow users to seamlessly and securely log into their PCs. Windows Hello supports three types of biometric entry, which includes fingerprint recognition, iris, and facial recognition. Sorry for the wrong information. Thank you! “Andy_Elvis” for this tip.

Windows 10 came out with some of the most magnificent features which are specifically designed to make operating easily. Microsoft has kept the marketing of Windows 10 around the proposition that Next Gen babies of today will grow in a password free world.

There are many PC around the world which has the capacity of utilising windows Hello facial recognition software but with surface Pro 4 this feature is missing. Even if they were not able to fit in the Intel RealSense 3D camera they could have at least installed the fingerprint sensor which could have let users utilize the biometric authentication with the help of Microsoft Passport.

2. USB Type-C

USB Type-C is now making inroads into most of the high-end device which are available in the market. It has now become a norm for all high spec devices to use it because of its amazing variety and features. The omission of the USB Type-C is a huge disappointment considering that other devices of the same category have it.

There are currently two USB ports in the Surface Pro 4, one of them could be easily devoted support the new tech if they were concerned about the legacy support and backward compatibility on the device. Maybe Microsoft would have thought that as there are not many devices currently in the market which have USB C types, but it would have made sense considering the future belongs to USB C and if not anything perception wise it would have given a good boost to the product.

3. 4G / LTE

Image Courtesy: Microsoft

In this day and age its very difficult to imagine that a premium ranged hybrid PC is not equipped with 4G connectivity. 4G connectivity is something which for this kind of device was an absolute necessity as it would have been essential getting a better coverage in the area which lack the facilities of WiFi.

4. Battery

Battery backup is something which would have been compromised with 4G but having it as a feature was highly necessary for Microsoft. There is one thing that Microsoft got correct this time which is that it can utilize the same docking station of Surface Pro 3. When rumours began to fly that Microsoft was planning a larger Surface Pro it was a big cause of worry for the fate of docking station but Microsoft has remained true to their word and has retained the same docking station as the Surface Pro 3.

But it must be said that even after considering all these flaws, the product line announced last week is very exciting. Microsoft is certainly making a valiant effort to rub shoulders against its age-old rival Apple with a good premium range Hybrid. They have certainly set a good platform for others to know the right way to build a premium Windows 10 device.

October 17, 2015
How to Create Windows 10 Bootable USB drive

The latest operating system from Microsoft is out and the company is offering updates for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. These existing versions can either directly be updated or users can download Windows 10 and create a bootable disk for a fresh installation. Let’s look at the process that helps easily create bootable device for Windows 10 installation.

The final release of the much awaited Windows 10 finally out and is available for download and installation. While Microsoft claims that this version of Windows is far ahead of anything that we have seen so far, it will be a while before any such claims by the company can be validated. In the meantime it isn’t a bad idea to install and use Windows 10 since the operating system looks indeed promising and so far has received good feedbacks.

If you didn’t receive the automated update from Micrsoft, head over to our post where we explained how you can force download the Windows 10 upgrade on your Windows 7 or 8.1 computer.

If you are using a licenced version of Windows 8.x and Windows 7, these ones can directly be upgraded to the latest version of Windows. However if you are unwilling to directly update your exiting version of Windows and want to have a separate installation on your computer of Windows 10 along with your existing OS, you can make a bootable USD drive of your copy of Windows 10.

Instructions

The process is very simple and involves few easy steps. For this purpose you need a USB drive free of any data on it. Even if there is any data stored on your drive, it will be formatted at the time of creating a bootable device. Windows 10 installation file and setup process requires you to have at least 3 GB of space on your drive, therefore use a USB drive of minimum 4 GB. For creating a bootable drive, download Windows 10 media creation tool. It can be downloaded from the website of Microsoft.

Before you download the media creation tool, first check if you have a 32-bit or a 64-bit version. To check it, follow the path Start> Control Panel> System and Security> System> System Type. You will get the information about the version from here.

Once these prerequisites are in place, run “Media creation tool” that you downloaded from Microsoft website and select “create installation media for another PC.”

Select Language, architecture, and Edition of Windows 10 you’d like to make the bootable USB and press next.

In the next window, you will be prompted to choose installation media which can either be a USB flash drive or iso file to make a bootable DVD.

Select USB flash drive and press next.

Once the computer boots from the USB drive, you will view the Install Windows page. Click Next on it and Install the Windows 10 OS. If your computer already has a licenced Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or a Windows 10 OS, you do not have to enter the product key. Select the option ‘Upgrade this PC now’ and then you may choose either to upgrade the current installation or select another drive and install Windows 10 in which case the selected drive will be formatted. Selection of the drive can be done when you will view the prompt ‘Where do you want to install Windows’.

Creating a bootable USB drive is a simple process and anyone can easily create a bootable device. The same process can be followed to make a bootable DVD but a USB is faster.

August 3, 2015
Gnome Multiwriter – Write iso image file to multiple USB drives simultaneously

Sometimes your usb won’t boot, sometimes it will but with grub errors, sometimes it freezes before finishing writing the image, sometimes it exits with no error feedback… It’s bit of a mess! — If you want to write same ISO image to multiple USB drives, than it is a real pain.

Yes, it’s true that code savvy folks would simply write a little bash script to automate the process, but large number of users would only be comfortable with a GUI tool. This is where ‘Gnome MultiWriter’ stepped right in.The developer, Richard Hughes faced a similar issue when he was looking for a way to create a number of USB rives pre-loaded with an OS. An idea popped into his mind to create a tool which is simple enough, so that even his dad could use it.

He developed ‘Gnome MultiWriter’ as a solution, which can write an ISO/IMG image file to 20 USB drives simultaneously, each being between 1GB and 32GB in size.

This simple and minimalist tool nixes the need to customize or create a command line script and relinquishes the need to waste an afternoon performing an identical set of action. All you need is this app, an ISO, some thumb-rives and lots of empty USB ports.

Seems so exciting? Although the developer wanted this app to be simple enough so that it could fulfill requirements of common Linux users but it is still at beta stage (unstable to use) and thus simple repository installation is missing – there are no pre-built binaries to install or a PPA to add to your software sources.

If you know your way around the usual configure/make process you can get it up and running in no time. On Ubuntu 14.10 you may also need to install the following packages first:

sudo apt-get install gnome-common yelp-tools libcanberra-gtk3-dev libudisks2-dev gobject-introspection

If you get it up and running, give it a whirl and let us know what you think!

Bugs and pull requests can be longed on the GitHub page for the project, which is where you’ll also found tarball downloads for manual installation.

January 5, 2015
Some Creative And Fantastic USB Designs![Images]

USB Drives have indeed revolutionized the manner we used to carry and share data. In the present world, USBs have become one of the fundamental gadgets that every computer user should have. Relatively, we have found that there is a huge competition in this much sought after gadget’s market. There are thousands of companies which employ new and crazy designs to manufacture USBs every month.

Here’s a list of some amazing and extremely creative USB designs that we’ve so far come across. Have a look! Do tell in comments which one is your favorite!

Shoe USB –>

Cat Paw USB –>

Buffalo USB –>

Transformers USB –>

Angry Birds USB –>

Crime Scene Finger USB –>

Design Finite USB –>

Creative USB –>

Elephant USB –>

Fish USB –>

Folder USB –>

Grenade USB –>

Yummy Hamburger USB –>

Cute Kitty USB –>

Key USB –>

Lego Brick USB –>

Light Bulb USB –>

Pod Drive USB –>

Pizza USB –>

Ninja USB –>

Lock USB –>

Pen USB –>

Funny Sperm USB –>

Robot USB –>

Rubber Man USB –>

Teddy USB –>

Lighter USB –>

Syringe USB –>

Coin USB –>

Sushi USB –>

Weapon USB –>

Sunglasses USB –>

Banana USB –>

December 28, 2013
Top 10 digital tech gifts you should consider on father’s day

Father’s day is here and we all are searching for something very unique. There are lots of gifts that can be wrapped up and handed over to your father, but some unique and tech gadgets can change the scenario.

Of course! most of the people across the world still finds traditional gifts as one of the best proven method to make your loved ones happy, but getting something unique and techy is something which can get you to the next level. Why not make this day more greener and tech friendly?

There are so many gadgets and technologies which can bring a new smile on someone’s face in a digital world. Picking a very few of the best gadgets available for the occasion is very difficult, but we succeeded to get it done.

Let’s have a look at the top 10 tech gadgets which can make this fathers day special.

1. Self Making Bed

With everyday passing by people need more comfort to their ageing body – why waste it on doing some work what you don’t like to do. You can gift a brand new “Self making bed” to your father and get a little burden off their sholder. Made by Spanish furniture maker OAGA, it can straighten up those sheets and pillows in a mere 50 seconds, using a mechanical arm with two rollers. You can even set it to automatic, where it starts making the bed if no one is in it for 3 seconds. That might be a bit dicey, in my estimation.

2. c1 Electrik Bike

Why not make this fathers day greener? You can get a brand new Green c1 Electric bike which can bring some comfort and greener world together. It’s a two-wheeler with a gyroscope holding it upright — reminiscent of the gyroscopically stabilized Segway. To me, the C-1 looks like the love child of a motorcycle and a pint-sized electric car.

3. iXoost iPhone dock

This has got to be one of the most outlandish iPhone/iPod docks I’ve ever seen. The iXoost Manifold Dock has a series of tubes with tweeters or woofers at the business end, and the whole thing is decked out in leather trim, carved out of a solid block of aluminum. Guess what? It’s all made up of spare car parts. Dad would love to have this.

4. NuForce Cube 3

You will be surprised to see how much such a tiny 2-inch (2.3″ x 2.3″ x 2.36″, to be exact) box could accomplish when it comes to the sound. Once I plugged in my iPhone, I was astonished at the sheer amount of sound emanating from this minuscule device. It is great tool for your Laptops and other portable devices.

5. LiquiGlide Super-Slippery Coating

Tired of waiting for that ketchup to finally come out of the bottle, or digging around for the last mini-dollop of mayonnaise? Thanks to the brain trust at MIT, now there’s LiquiGlide, a magic new coating that makes the inside of containers super-slippery. Made of proven-safe substances that are already used in foods, it’s completely non-toxic and can be applied to glass, metal, ceramics or plastic. This can definitely help out your dad while he’s eating.

6. Medisana VitaDock Scale
It would seem sinful to call this gorgeous electronic device a bathroom scale, but that’s just what it is. Step on this $200 TargetScale Body Analysis Scale with Target Function, and it precisely measures your weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat and a lot of other things you might not want to know. It transmits all that data via Bluetooth to a VitaDock app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

7. Nikon D800

We could write volumes about this magnificent Nikon D800 digital SLR camera — we’ve been testing it all week — but what you really want to know is, why is this better than a smartphone camera? The answer: spectacular low-light performance. It has an enormous image sensor (it’s full-frame, about the size of 35mm film) compared to that of smartphone cameras (slightly smaller than your pinky fingernail), giving it the ability to almost see in the dark.

8. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook

We’re keeping an eye on the pack of Ultrabooks currently in mid-explosion, and now Lenovo surprises us with its claim of the lightest Ultrabook ever: It’s the impressively named ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook, a 14-inch laptop touted as “amazingly thin and extremely powerful.” Packed with one of those prodigious new Intel Ivy Bridge processors, this one presses all the right buttons, with a backlit keyboard, high-definition display, a RapidCharge battery that reaches a “near-full” battery charge in a half an hour and an under-3-pound weight.

9. Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad

If your dad owns an iPad, here’s a lovely ultrathin keyboard from Logitech that perfectly matches your iPad 2 or new iPad. It magnetically attaches to the iPad just like Apple’s super-cool iPad covers, and when you’re ready to type, you just place the iPad in a slot and you have what looks like a tiny laptop.

10. Super-Convenient USB Reader for Android
One advantage Android phones have over their competitors is their ability to connect to USB devices, and this USB reader uses that advantage to give those already versatile phones even more capabilities. On board this $40 Sanwa USB reader is a plethora of slots, accommodating microSD, SD and miniSD cards, and it can even accommodate a mouse or a game pad. It works with a variety of Samsung, Sony and Toshiba Android devices.

June 17, 2012
How to make a bootable Windows USB anytime! [windows and ubuntu platforms]

The only way to do was through a bootable pen drive carrying windows. I thought that I knew the method to do that but when I tried it all failed. I even looked for the method online but all I could find were complicated ones and required a software or two. Another trouble added to the heap was that they were all from windows point of view but as a user of ubuntu I was stuck there.

Through this tutorial you can make a windows bootable pen drive anywhere anytime. It is so simple that now I think that I already knew it. yeah actually this was the method I kept forgetting and now when I remember it I can share it with you all.

steps you need to follow :-

1. Get a USB drive first but the drive must have space for the setup of windows you are intrested in making a bootable version of. For example if you wish to make a bootable USB for windows 7 then the USB must be of 4GB or above capacity as the setup size of windows 7 is about 3GB.

2. Format the particular USB drive into NTFS partition.If you don’t know how to do that the following steps will lead you to it in windows platform:-
– Go to “My Computer” and select the USB drive you have connected in the system.
– Right click on the USB drive and select “Format”.
– A window opens up where you can select the type of partition you wanna format that pen drive into. Select “NTFS” from the file system option.

– Click on “Format” and you are done.

If you are an ubuntu user then you need to follow the following steps:-
– Open your “disk utility” by searching it through the ubuntu dashboard.
– There select your USB drive from the left-hand side panel.
– Now in the right pane click on “Unmount Volume”
– Next click on the “format volume” button. A new window will come up where select the partition type as NTFS and format your drive through the wizard. If your formatting is done then you are also good to go to the next step.

Now your USB drive is formatted in NTFS partition type we can move towards the third and final step.

3. For the last and final step of this tutorial you need to have the setup of the respective windows version, or you can even have the disc of that version. Just copy the whole setup of the operating system from that folder or CD and paste it into the USB drive. Don’t put the setup inside any folder inside the USB stick, just it paste it openly into the drive.

If you wish to use the left over space in the drive for carrying something then you can make any folder inside the drive and put the content there.
So it is as simple as that. Your bootable pen drive for windows is ready. Just restart your pc and boot from the drive using boot menu and you can now install windows on that pc without any worries. And also for your information i would like to add that this method is not limited to those who don’t have DVD drives but should be used by everyone as the installation process speeds up and your disk is also not scratched much.

requirements:-

1. A USB drive that has enough capacity to hold the setup files of windows.

2. The installation disc or copied files of the same disc of windows.

Hope this tutorial solves all your troubles, as it clearly solved all of mine. If not then you can ask for any other help from us freaks here as Digitfreak is always here to help you out when you are in a digital puddle. Feel free to write your views below.

February 15, 2012