Mobile storage solutions are coming out like crazy and here is another one from Samsung. In a move that is obviously aimed to give Western Digital’s My Book a run for their money, the Story hard drive is something that serves as a great back up device.

The brushed aluminum slab with “passionate red lines” plays host to your choice of 500GB, 1TB, or 1.5TB 3.5-inch disks. The Story Station can backup your data in “real-time” or be setup to backup on a set schedule of your choosing. Data is secured via password with an optional SecretZone virtual drive setup for encrypting all your swine-flu conspiracy data. This device is single-port, USB 2.0 only so you’ll have to take your dreams of network attached storage, eSATA, or FireWire 800 elsewhere.

Use it either for audio, video or pictures, the Story Station will surely come in handy for people who want to make sure that all their data and files are safe and secure. With an easy plug n play interface via the USB, expect this mobile hard drive to be a hit for people who value their backup and storage needs.

Available in Europe first sometime in May for an undisclosed price.

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If you are agog over the USB drives, here is a new one from Kingston which is also compatible with the MAC OS. Normally, there are a select number of USB flash drives that can be read by MACs and now Kingston has put all those conflicts to rest with the DataTraveler Vault USB Flash Drive.

“Our DataTraveler Vault – Privacy Edition has been popular with enterprise and government customers who use Windows-based systems and are looking for a safe and secure way to transport portable data,” said Mark Akoubian, Flash memory business manager, Kingston. “We are happy to add Mac support to this 100-percent secured drive so the Apple community can be assured they have an on-the-go storage solution that is the best on the market at safeguarding data.”

Data onboard the DTVP is secured by hardware-based, on-the-fly, 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The drive has fast data transfer rates and is protected from brute-force attacks by locking down after 10 unsuccessful login attempts. After lockdown, a reformat is necessary to make the Flash drive operable again.

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1. Click the Start button, type gpedit.msc in the run command or search box, and press Enter.
2. When the Group Policy editor has loaded
   • Navigate through Computer Configuration
   • Administrative Templates
   • Windows Components
   • BitLocker Drive Encryption
   • Right-click Control Panel Setup: Enable advanced startup options and select Properties.
3. Select the Enabled option and click OK.

Normally, monitors are plugged via the standard graphics card but today, we can see them even being plugged via the USB. Most of them are used as a sidelight, perhaps the reason for the name, and possessing a 7-inch monitor that is intended to be a secretary monitor to display instant messages and other widgets that might get lost behind all the open windows on a desktop or laptop computer is certainly something many techie geeks would seriously consider.

For some it is additional cost. If you already have the standard monitors in computers, why bother to get a secondary one? The reason may be more understandable if it is geared towards the business side. It is no secret that in cases of making presentations, a dual screen to help people appreciate slides or videos via another route of visual representation is normal.

Hence, it may be more of a professional thing. But basing it on observations, you may be surprised to note at how people want to get their hands on techie gadgets today. Though there is no price yet set for this SideStage monitor, you can bet it will not come cheap.

According to Dan Kelley, D-Link’s senior director of marketing, the monitor is expected to be available in stores during the first quarter of 2009. The “photo” router also has not been priced, but is expected to launch later this year.

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According to Microsoft, pre-Beta development milestones of Windows 7 fail to play nice with USB network adapters that rely on pre-Windows Vista drivers. The symptoms involve NDIS 5.x USB network adapters not being displayed in the Windows 7 Performance Monitor. NDIS refers to the Network Driver Interface Specification library, which, following the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista, evolved to version 6.0. Version 5 of NDIS was used by Windows operating systems before Vista.

“Perfmon only shows adapters that indicate that they have a physical, hardware connector. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduced a new Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) known as NDIS version 6. Network driver developers are encouraged to move their drivers to this new specification,” Microsoft revealed.

The Redmond company does not have an update to resolve the issue, nor does it indicate that it plans a resolve. With not even a workaround made available for Windows 7, Microsoft is only advising users to make sure that the network adapter comes with drivers updated for NDIS version 6. The Redmond company explained that Windows 7 would be aware of all physical connectors as long as they were plugged in via NDIS miniports built especially for NDIS 6. Only in this context would Perfmon be able to display all physical connectors. Fact is that NDIS in Windows 7 comes with limited support for legacy USB Network Adapters, but only limited.

“While NDIS supports NDIS 5 drivers, it does so in a legacy, compatibility layer and does best-effort to determine if the adapter has a physical connector. If the adapter does not have any hardware resources assigned to it, which is the case for USB NICs, NDIS assumes that the NIC does not have a connector. Perfmon, as a result, will not list the NIC as an available network interface,” Microsoft added.