Dan, I was wondering what kind of thing Cringely was writing about when he said:
I have on my main system every word I have written since 1992, which is around three million words. I also have every e-mail worth keeping, a couple databases, and many spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Uncompressed, it adds up to less than 200 megabytes. Heck, that is small enough to fit on one of those USB flash drives that attaches to your key ring!
As an opinion leader, then, it is my intention to carry with me all my data all the time. Let the house burn down, I'll still have a career. For knowledge workers, data storage means everything, but it doesn't have to mean carrying with you an 80 gig FireWire drive.
So I see a very interesting niche developing for personal data storage devices, especially those that are password protected. Two products in this line I'll commend to you are Storcard and JMTek's USBdrive. Storcard, backed by the legendary Finis Connor, puts up to five gigabytes of encrypted data on a piece of plastic the size of a credit card. JMTek's USBdrive puts e-mail client software on the typical key fob flash drive so that you can plug your USBdrive into virtually any Windows computer and have your native e-mail application up and running in seconds, complete with all your stored mail.
Twenty years ago, I imagined having a special van filled with computers so I could take my data everywhere. Ten years ago I realized this could all be done with a notebook computer. Today, thanks to both advances in data storage and the ubiquity of Windows PCs, my entire computing environment can fit in my wallet or on my keychain. Take that, UC Berkeley!
Didn't investigate.
thanks.
See also:
computers.cnet.com
And this on the StorCard which is spinning magnetic technology.
storcard.com
-tgp |
