Category: Hardware

Category that maps onto DM-Hardware Signal group as well

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Protecting a USB stick

The subject of protecting a USB stick came up – I’d forgotten to provide the solution! As I suggested, in an earlier post, the answer is to create a Folder on the USB stick and protect the folder, not the stick.

Two articles here I think provide the solution. The first one proposes encrypting the contents and is probably the easiest, you must remember the encryption key though!!

A number of other alternatives are also provided in the second article …

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/password-protect-folder-windows/

… for me. I’d prefer to put stuff I’m worried about on a USB Disk (not a stick) and use the security software provided by the drive manufacturer, eg Western Digital.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-3114794/password-protect-folder-windows.html

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Which External USB drive would I recommend?

Which External USB drive would I recommend?

That was a question from the last meeting that I promised to answer. Well, I read a number of reviews and I was pleased to see that my favoured choice is still amongst the highest rated.

I would recommend any of the Western Digital My Passport drives. They are supplied with security software so that you can password them as well. I would also recommend buying a carrying-case for any that you intend to carry around. The one I use is from a company called Case4Life. Both can be obtained from Amazon – which is where I bought mine from – the disk itself is c.£55 for 1Tb, but you can get 2Tb, 3Tb and 4Tb versions.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/1405456/best-external-hard-drive-the-best-portable-and-desktop-drives

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Quantum computing and the Internet??

I don’t begin to understand much of this, but what I do pick up from it is that Marie Christen’s question yesterday posed as a hypothetical “how does the digital internet handle quantum computers, or computing”, is being addressed.

As I read it, the transport of data between computers, around the world, could continue to be digital – ie the internet as we know it – but that users would communicate with distant quantum computers through Application Program Interfaces (APIs), using scripting languages (such as Python).

This is not dissimilar from the way current super-computers (such as the one in Cardiff Uni that I hope to set up a visit to see) connect to the current university network, and then on to the Internet.

The speed of data transmission will always be limited to three things. Firstly, the speed of light – the ultimate ceiling for the speed of data transmission on optical fibres; secondly, the speed at which the switches and routers can pump the bits and bytes through their electronics, and thirdly the speed at which the electronics in the interface between the computer and the network edge device can operate.

So, in practice the Quantum Computer is no different from any other computing device – it will be limited in its capability to communicate with the outside world by the electronics that it uses.

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/03/quantum-computer-programming/?lnk=hmhmhmhmhmhmhm