While living my nomadic MBA existence here in New York, I am running on a limited feature set of technology. No ADSL connection. No 2nd PC. No CD Burner. And no subwoofer ;-( In fact, all I have is my trusty IBM Thinkpad with DVD drive and my old Palm III (which I'm not actually using).
Realising that I would need a backup solution while 'on-the-road' I brought a few blank ZIP disks with me from Melbourne, and planned to buy a new external ZIP drive when I arrived in New York. (I still have one of the original 100Mb parallel port ZIP drives from around 1996 - it's really really slow, and the transformer is almost as big as the drive itself) So, during the first week or so I ventured into Staples (U.S. equivalent of Officeworks) looking for a ZIP drive that I could plug into my USB port.
The sales assistant convinced me to try the new 750Mb external ZIP drive which available for a promotional price of US$179 (included 3 blank 750Mb disks). (Technology is so cheap these days. I remember when it used to cost.....)
Alas, this device came with an American power adapter (not good for a nomadic Aussie) and could not write to 100Mb Zip disks (important for me as I have about 20 of them back home).
Back at Staples again the following week, I decided to read the fine print on the box, rather than trust the word of the sales assistent, and I picked up the Iomega ZIP 250 USB Powered drive for $129 (no free disks this time).
I have to tell you - if this product were an employee at a consulting firm, it would receive a rating of 'exceeded expectations'. No installation required. Plugged it into the USB port and XP recognised it straight away. No need to reboot my PC for it to work. Complete plug and play. It's sleek, yet funky at the same time. Powered via the USB port. It even works when the laptop itself is running on battery. And it came with some very handy backup/syncing software that runs quietly in the background.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
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