Tuesday, December 13, 2011

When is a USB Key Not a Flash Drive?

When it's a webkey.

It's a dirty little trick!  I picked up what I thought was a standard USB key from a vendor (COMMVAULT) at VMworld 2010.  I recently had a need to have a few small documents on hand and thought I would re-use this device as a flash drive to store these docs.

I inserted the USB key into the USB port and waited while the familiar "Windows is installing the driver for this device" message popped-up.  About 1 second after that, I saw the Start | Run window pop-up and it almost looked like someone was typing a URL in the text box and hit enter.  Next thing I know I'm looking at Commvault's VMworld 2010 website.

You can learn more by Googling "webkey".  This is basically a stick that when you plug it in, opens a URL.  That's it.  There's no flash memory on it.

Boo Commvault and whomever else is using these things.  I mean really?  Text or email me the URL, that will be much more handy.  The Commvault webkey that opens a 2 year-old web site now sits in the trashcan. I give webkeys a big thumbs-down!  Just a bad idea.

No comments:

Post a Comment