2014-06-04

New penknife

I got myself a new penknife.


A penknife is always useful, whether opening parcels, or cutting my nails. I use almost everything on it one time or another, and, of course, being geeky it has a USB memory stick on it. This one also has a pen and tweezers!

I got a new one as the old one had a knackered blade. The old one had extra gadgets including a laser pointer and blue-tooth buttons for doing presentations. Sadly the small batteries fell out and the battery cover bit got lost meaning new batteries did not stay put, and so it got used once for a presentation. When it worked it was very cool. I went for the simpler model this time.

I am quite impressed with the way things like USB memory sticks have moved on. The old one had a 16GB stick. It was complicated with some sort of controller one side, a big flash memory the other, as well as some small active and passive components...


The new one is way simpler. One "chip" with contacts on it on one side that are the USB contacts, and that it it. It is thinner (half shell on USB). Even so the chip only takes half the stick. It is also 32GB.


But even that is clearly 3 years old from the date on the chip! It looks like the previous one is 2009 so 2 years difference between these two solutions.

When I think back to the computer we had at school, we were lucky to have 16K of RAM, and that was probably slower than this :-)

There is, of course, still one invaluable tool I carry which Victorinox do not do in their penknives...

8 comments:

  1. I used to carry the invaluable tool on my keys and I was forever getting stabbed in the leg when it poked through the lining of my trouser pocket.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've got one of these instead, from a Nexus 5, a bit shorter than the Apple ones but doesn't stab me in the leg the way the Apple ones do.

      https://flic.kr/p/nDLyns

      Delete
  2. Have you considered their larger model?
    http://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Swiss-Knife-Giant/dp/B001DZTJRQ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL, but I still don't see a thing for getting SIMs out of iPhones on that one!

      Delete
    2. I'm seriously lol'ing at some of the Q&A's on that amazon link.

      Delete
  3. A bent paper clip will get your SIM tray open. More useful might be a pentalobe screwdriver for those occasions when you need to disconnect the battery, for example when someone has submerged their iPhone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have the Apple-thingy on my key ring. Not there for getting SIMs out of iPhones (why would I want one of those :-) ) but great for concealed reset buttons on networking kit etc.

      Delete
  4. How fine is your 3D printer?
    Could you get something like a sewing needle, chop the ends off and smooth and then 3D print a piece it can be glued into so that it matches the end of the tooth pick in your pen knife?
    You will then have your own custom tool :)

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated purely to filter out obvious spam, but it means they may not show immediately.

Hot tubbing...

I have a hot tub, it came with the house over 3 years ago. Managing a hot tub is complicated, and expensive. The expensive part is the power...