Newsletter Archives

• There are no USB cables any more

  Posted on March 8, 2021 at 01:04 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  It used to be that you could run any old USB cable between just about any two USB ports, and the devices on each end would simply work. But that hasn’t been true for a long, long time.

  As more and more manufacturers wanted to bring different devices with different needs to market, the standard USB-A cable was lost in the shuffle. Instead, we got a gaggle of novel USB connectors named Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro-B, Apple’s similar-but-different Lightning, and more.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.9.0 (2021-03-08).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender, Thunderbolt, USB, USB standards

• Free tools help prevent Universal Serial Bus slowdowns

  Posted on October 21, 2019 at 01:10 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  Unintentionally mixing devices from USB’s four different generations can be a performance killer.

  Trouble is, you can’t always trust the labels and color coding on USB devices; the standards are voluntary, and some manufacturers do things their own way! So it’s not surprising that I’ve received several letters from readers asking for some illumination on this topic.

  Here’s how to fully and completely identify every element in your PC’s USB setup — and to see whether your USB devices’ labels and colors really mean what you think they do!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.38.0 (2019-10-21).

  LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Universal Serial Bus, USB discovery, USB slowdowns, USB standards