Crave

(Credit: Forbes)

One of the great things about working at a creative firm is that there's so much creativity around that it sometimes takes non-client-related work to fully channel it. From time to time, my colleagues at frog design embark on concept work for magazines to explore new territory and flex their skills.

The latest piece is a special project for Forbes' Special Report on Identity: The Troika card, a concept for a smarter Social Security card with a multifunctional screen that turns your identity card into a gadget. "Of the three forms of identification we have in the States--the other two being the passport and driver's license--the Social Security card is the one that unlocks your life," says my colleague Laura Richardson.

Made of lightweight aluminum, the Troika card is durable but also flexible. A multifunctional screen allows users to switch between driver's license, passport, and Social Security card. Thumbprint identification serves as protection against identity theft. "By combining the familiarity and proportions of a standard ID card with the durability of a water-resistant, flexible screen and the security of biometrics, [a card like this] could revolutionize the future of identification," Richardson says.

Here are the features in detail:

1. Thanks to the thumbprint reader, only the owner of the card is able to activate it.
2. The material of the Color E Ink display scanner is thin film used in electronic displays.
3. Buttons allow the user to select between Social Security, driver's license, and passport information.
4. The sturdy yet light aluminum body will last much longer than a typical plastic card.
5. The water-resistant cover keeps the card shiny and protects it from the elements.

(Credit: Scosche)

So, you just bought a new car that came with a built-in iPod cable. Great, right? Well, maybe not. Unfortunately, the cable is only compatible with the previous generation of iPod products and not your brand new iPhone 3G, Nano 4G, or Touch 2G.

A bummer? Yes. However, Scosche is on this like an Apple fanboy is on Steve Jobs' every word. Or close to that, at least.

On Thursday, Scosche announced the Passport, which is now on sale at Apple stores, although I was unable to find it at Apple's online store at press time.

The Passport utilizes a female pass-through connector, which--purportedly--will attach to any in-car iPod-integration system to charge all iPhone and iPod models, including the iPhone 3G and the recently introduced Nano 4G and Touch 2G.

According to Scosche, prior to the Passport, many car owners could not get these integrated systems to work with the new products; now they don't have to buy a new car to do so.

I've found a few people who have experienced this problem with their built-in car adapters. My guess is that these are adapters hard-wired into the car that cannot be replaced and there is some kind of voltage incompatibility that prevents them from working. If that is the case, the Passport could be a fix.

Update: The guys are Scosche let me in on exactly why connecting your new iPhone or iPod to a car system might be a problem: "The reason that the iPhone is compatible with your computer cable is because it plugs into a USB port that operates on 5V. When you directly connect one of the newer iPod or iPhone models (iPhone 3G, iPod nano 4th Gen, iPod touch 2nd Gen) to an existing car system they will play but not charge. This is because most car integration units operate on the older "Firewire" voltage (12V). The Passport converts the 12V to the new 5V "USB" standard. It does not have to do with switching the pins, just converting the voltage"

The Passport retails for $29.99.

On Monday, Western Digital introduced its new 500GB capacity portable USB drive for its My Passport Elite and Essential lines.

Features for both of the USB-powered Elite and Essential lines include synchronization software that lets users sync their changes and protect their information with 128-bit encryption, as well as plug-and-play capability with gaming consoles to make it easy to play music and view photos and video files on a TV.

My Passport Elite portable drives are available in bronze, titanium, westminster blue and cherry red. Additional features include:

• Capacity gauge that enables users to know at-a-glance how much space is available.


• Powerful automatic backup software lets users designate files and folders for automatic and continuous backup.


• The ability to retrieve forgotten files from the road from any MioNet-enabled PC (compatible with Windows only) and copy them to My Passport portable drive using the unique MioNet Key software.


• Google software.

The Passport Elite comes in Westminster Blue..

(Credit: Western Digital)

and in Cherry Red.

(Credit: Western Digital)

Weighing in at less than 7 ounces, My Passport Elite 500 GB USB portable drive will be available for $219.99. My Passport Essential 500 GB USB portable drives are available in 11 colors and is being sold for $199.99. Both are currently on Western Digital's site.

There was only one product at CES 2008 that I couldn't wait to get--a new model of safe from the Sentry Safe company. I even tried to buy one from Sentry's website one evening while I was still in Las Vegas, but that turned out to be impossible; it has to be shipped by truck freight, so I had to place the order with Sentry over the phone to make those arrangements.

The Sentry QE5541 Fire-Safe offers commercial-grade protection for computer media at a price low enough for home computer users.

(Credit: Sentry Safe)

I ordered the safe when I got back home, and it arrived here last week--a good bit sooner than the company predicted. I've got it all set up and it's all working. I'm very happy with it.

I got the QE5541, the largest model in a new line of six fire- and water-resistant safes designed to protect CDs, DVDs, flash drives, iPods, etc. from fires lasting up to two hours at temperatures up to 1,850° F.

And the really cool thing is that it'll also protect a 2.5" USB hard drive...while the drive is operating and connected to a computer outside the safe via a USB passthrough in the safe door. So for the first time, your backups can be continuously protected, even if you're not around.

If you're like most people, you don't even make regular backups of your personal computer. Most people who lose digital family photos, electronic book manuscripts, and disk files containing critical financial records to house fires don't make backups, either. But the worst thing must be to have a full set of backups get burned up along with your computer.

It's never happened to me, but I try to learn from my own mistakes before I make them. During 2007, I nearly placed an order for the Phoenix Datacare 2025 Media Safe, which is available from the Keystone Safe Company and other Internet vendors. The 2025 is another fire- and water-resistant safe designed to protect computer media. It has an internal volume of 1.22 cubic feet and costs $1,579 from Keystone. Compared with other safes I considered, the Phoenix was a pretty good deal.

Sentry's QE5541, by comparison, has an internal volume of 2.0 cubic feet and costs $519.99. Freight costs for both safes are similar, around $75 for basic delivery. So the Sentry safe is a really great deal.

And then there's that USB connection. That's unique. It makes the Sentry safe useful in a way the Phoenix safe could never be. I can stick a USB-powered hard disk inside--there's a pocket for it on the door--and run my nightly backups, or Apple's Time Machine software, without having to remember to move the disk drive into the safe after the backup finishes.

There are some limitations. The disk drive has to be a 2.5" USB-powered model because there's no separate power pass-through on the safe, just the USB connection. In my testing, a new Western Digital Passport 320GB drive worked fine but some older USB-powered drives didn't. Even the Passport didn't work unless I hooked up the second power connector on the USB cable Sentry provides to hook up the safe to a computer.

The problem is that USB ports provide +5V DC power and USB-powered hard drives require +5V DC power. That may sound more like a solution than a problem, but the USB specification also requires that power-hungry USB peripherals such as hard drives be connected to a USB port through just one cable. On the Sentry safe, there are effectively three cables: one outside the safe, one inside the safe, and one buried in the door of the safe to bring the USB connection through.

The resistance of all that extra wire and the extra connectors causes a voltage drop that could interfere with proper operation of the hard drive. I tested the power inside the safe with the hard drive running using a special USB cable I built for testing purposes some years ago. The final voltage was only barely in spec with the Passport and significantly lower with those older drives. But Sentry provides high-quality cables and connectors, and I think it should be reliable as long as you're using the provided cables and a good hard drive.

There's another consequence of this issue: there isn't enough power coming into the safe to run more than one hard drive. You'd need a hub in the safe, but bus-powered USB hubs don't provide enough power for USB hard drives anyway. I was able to use a bus-powered hub to hook up several flash drives just for testing purposes, but there's little practical value to that. I'd like to see Sentry offer a model that can support one or more full-size (3.5") drives, but in that situation, heating could be a problem; a fire safe has to be well-insulated, so even the ten watts or so produced by a 3.5" hard drive might be too much.

(I have my own solution to that problem, which I hope to discuss with Sentry at some point.)

I said earlier that the QE5541 is one of six new safes from Sentry, but that's an oversimplification. Two of these models, the QA0002 and QA0004, are actually just hard drives permanently sealed in a protective safe-like case. They're like big, heavy, virtually indestructible external USB-powered hard drives. Unfortunately, they're also just 80GB and 160GB drives based on Maxtor mechanisms, well behind today's state of the art in USB-powered drives. And at $339.99 for the 160GB model, they're expensive, too.

Sentry provides an interesting service for these two models. From the Web page: "If your Sentry Safe hard drive experiences fire or water damage, we will attempt to recover your data free of charge and send you a new unit." That's a good deal.

Sentry's $99.99 QA0110 is designed to protect up to 100 CDs or DVDs, but doesn't have a USB pass-through, so I don't find this model particularly attractive.

The QE5541 I bought has a smaller sibling, the QE4531, with 1.2 cubic feet of interior space plus the USB passthrough. If I bought the Papa Bear model, the QE4531 is for Mama Bear.

The remaining model, then, would be Baby Bear's--the QA0121, which can hold 60 optical disks plus a standard 2.5" USB-powered hard drive like the Passport. I think this one will be "just right" for most people, and at a price of $169.99, it's a lot more affordable than the big models. The one downside to the QA0121 is that the fire protection is only good for 30 minutes at 1,550° F. That's probably adequate for most residential fires, but you should think about how long it's likely to take for your local fire department to respond, how soon they can get to your home office, and what the construction of your house is like.

I wanted the extra protection and security of the QE5541, however, so that's what I bought. Sentry said it would take 3 to 5 weeks to arrive, but it got here in just ten days. It was delivered to my driveway in a big cardboard box with a small forklift-type wood pallet on the bottom; it was up to me to get it up the front steps and into the house. I was prepared for that, but if you need inside delivery, be sure to ask for it. (Sentry didn't mention that service when I placed my order, but it's a routine add-on from most shipping companies.)

Once I had the safe inside and located where I wanted it, I drilled a couple of holes through the bottom of the safe as directed in Sentry's documentation so I could use the provided lag screws to secure the safe to the floor. This procedure is easy enough, but if you want to do the same you'll need a drill with the right bit, plus a suitable tool for driving in the lag screws.

Then it was just a matter of installing the batteries for the electronic lock, testing the combination a few times (the safe comes with one predefined combination; you can set more), and hooking up the hard drive.

I've moved in all my backup media, some old external hard drives I'm not using, original install disks for my commercial software, and three complete older laptops. (The product page mentions "protects up to 72 CDs and DVDs" but this refers only to the capacity of a removable shelf provided with the safe. The safe will actually hold hundreds of DVDs on spindles or in the Maxell Double Slimline jewel cases I use.) I feel a lot better knowing that these items are now much more likely to survive a house fire.

If I have a fire, I'll post here about how well the safe works. But I hope I never have to make good on that promise!

(Credit: Western Digital)

LaCie may be one of the more flamboyant players in the market, but it's not the only one producing hard drives that are making fashion statements.

Western Digital is adding some vibrant splashes of color to its already-stylish "Passport" line of portable hard discs. Realizing that there's more to the spectrum than basic black, the company is introducing models in green, red and white, according to Chip Chick. We fully anticipate cables by Prada and Armani next.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

We've seen this compact portable hard drive listed at up to twice the price. Today Dell Home offers it for 88 bucks, shipping included, when you pay with PayPal. Easy setup, light weight, compact size and great speed make this a convenient solution for non-Mac users.

To quote CNET Reviews:

The bad: Sync software works with only Windows XP and 2000; phone support may eventually become expensive.

The bottom line: Western Digital's Passport Portable External Hard Drive lets you take a lot of data on the road for a low price.

What: Western Digital Passport 160GB external hard drive
How much: $83.39 if you pay with PayPal
Shipping: $5
Where: Dell Home (via Logic Buy)
When: Through unknown date
Click here for CNET's product review.

(Credit: Magellan's Travel Supplies)

Here's the latest indication that RFID passports--and concerns about the security of the scannable information embedded in them--are going mainstream.

Until recently, passport pouches and wallets designed to block RFID signals from hackers have ranged from industrial-strength versions that resemble burlap sacks to Italian leather goods that go for $50 to $180. But now there's a reasonable compromise from Magellan's Travel Supplies, whose "RFID Blocking Passport Wallet" lists for $19.85. It may not be hand-crafted by European artisans, but it does claim to be top-quality leather.

Now if we can just find a way to secure the RFID signals in our "Nabaztag," we might be able to get a decent night's sleep.