At work today, I had to move a 980MB file from one computer to another. Actually, let's just call it a gig of data. Anyhow; moving it across the network wasn't my first option. Burning it to a CD was out, and it wasn't something that needed to be burned to a DVD.

Enter the USB (2.0) Hard Drive.

The machine that contained the data was an XP box, my laptop. I inserted the HD into the XP box, and XP immediately complained that I was using a USB2 device in a USB slot. Which is fine, I knew this, and the USB2 device should downgrade itself to USB speed.

Not happening. For whatever reason, XP just does not want to let me use the drive. After digging through options and properties, clicking and cursing, I must have clicked the magic box that says "Let me use this USB2 device in the USB slot because that's the logical thing, dumbass computer", because it started working.

The target machine was a Linux box, my workstation, the place where the magic happens. Using a USB device on linux a couple years back would have involved recompiling the kernel, setting up scsi nodes, creating a mount point, and all sorts of stuff that I can do, but it's not exactly quick and easy when you just want to copy a file. A year ago, you'd have to do mostly the same stuff, minus the recompiling.

Today, I plugged the drive in. An icon appeared on the desktop. I clicked it, dragged the file out, and waited for it to finish. I then unplugged the drive, and the icon went away.

I think the Linux folks are after the mac market now. Because windows ain't half as easy as that.

Note: It also worked with a USB CF reader, webcam, and floppy drive. If I had a printer, I'd try that too.