Letters from NYC

USB hub and USB cable extender

A multiple port USB hub and a USB cable extender have made my life easier and my back happier since I bought and installed these two items on my pc 2 years ago. I'm still surprised that a lot of people don't know about the USB hub and instead have to do the pc crawl under their desk every time they need to plug in their digital camera, camcorder, phone, PDA, MP3 player, etc.

My new coworker was so jelous when she saw my USB extender cable (she's 6ft tall & always gets under the desk) that she ordered one the same day. Now she doesn't have to go under the desk to plug in her microdevice.

The USB hub also works between 2 or more pc stations who need to share one or more peripherals, capacity depends, on the number of ports in the USB, the number of peripherals to be shared and and the pc stations being linked. If one hub is going to be shared between several pc's then a number of USB extender cables should be bought.

Tip: while you're at it, buy some velcro cable holders so you can tame all the cables behind the pc's so as to make them invisible. You can then take a piece of velcro stick it to the underside of the hub and the other to top of the desk or PC to keep the small hub attached securely so it won't move around as you connect your device to the hub.

Tip: write on masking tape or a label and place this on top of the hub, so you'll automatically know which port belongs to which device, should you need to trouble shoot or move cables around.

Posted by Michele at June 13, 2005 08:04 PM | TrackBack