Do you have a pill to increase my USB drive?

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not as tech-support specific as some things, but one of my lab monitor duties involves dealing with the lab lost and found.

Most commonly lost item? USB drives. The lost and found box currently contains 24.

You would be amazed how many people can't describe their USB drive in any detail. "It's a thumb drive" is really inadequate in the face of "So are the rest of these." Also, people don't seem to realize these things are mass produced. If they bought one because it was cheap at a nearby store, odds are good so did many of their fellow students.

No, I'm not going to plug all 20 in so you can examine the files to find yours, that's like unprotected penetrative internet sex with 20 strangers, and this is a family-friendly lab, except for the kids in the porno seat.

Comments

[fluffydragon.livejournal.com]

*makes a mental note to use their brand spanking new label-maker and LABEL all three of her thumbdrives*

[azurelunatic]

This is one of the reasons why I tend to keep an "if found, return to" text file on the root level of all of mine.

[ashonaut.livejournal.com]

Same here. Although it helps that the one I use most often is quite specific, with the Mustang logo on it. (It came free with the car! And I'm a sucker for free shit.)

[azurelunatic]

I can describe all of mine in at least vague detail. One is silvery plastic around all the edges, with a metallic orange panel on the front and back, and I believe says that it is 2g on the outside. It probably has a dangly thing attached to it. The second one is attached to my keychain, and looks like Darth Vader's USB drive would look if he had one -- black plastic with a wavy silver stripe (peeling) around the middle where the lid comes off. The third is in a black rubber bracelet.

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

oooh.. I want black rubber bracelet usb!!! but does it come in pink??

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

it isn't in the corner exactly, but it is the last on its row, it is out of sight of the hallway facing windows, there is a pillar behind it which blocks the view from the rest of the lab, and it is directly across from the lab monitor's window so if the student puts a backpack or something on the table, they can block the monitor's line of sight.

Even when I get up to walk around the lab, I can only see the screen on this machine if I go out of my way, which gives the person plenty of time to hit windows-d or something. It is sort of amusing/horrifying when every time I look, the machine's desktop is blank.

[ucnu112.livejournal.com]

I'm blanking on the term; sheep... lamb... ?

It's from long ago before virus scanners got good, and malware didn't really exist. It's a standalone computer, disconnected from the network that only has an OS and Virus scanning software installed. It was used to check floppy disks for malicious software before that disk was used in a connected machine.

Maybe a machine like that would be useful here?

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

I miss getting free thumb drives by working in the labs. I used to go to great lengths to get someone their drive if I could identify and contact them, but if that sucker's in the desk two weeks into summer break, it's mine now.

[pisceandreamer.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[brotherflounder]

I'm adding one of those to mine right now.

[brotherflounder]

I haven't seen the bracelet, but I used to have a watch with a 32mb flash drive. I thought it was the KEWLEST THING EVAR. Of course, I was 12 at time.

[netdef.livejournal.com]

Tried that once, the labels kept peeling off.

I use an etching pen to inscribe my initials onto the surface of the thumb drive . . .

[netdef.livejournal.com]

I think the accepted technical term is "sacrificial computer" . . .

We used to call such machines "sacrificial lambs" . . . so yes. :)

Today we generally place such systems on a separate VLAN - thus granting it access to the Internet to gain virus defs, but isolating it away from the rest of the LAN.

[netdef.livejournal.com]

That works nicely if the finder actually plugs in that drive and looks at the files . . .

Where I work, lost USB drives are either claimed by the owners quickly or destroyed/wiped securely and re-tasked.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

One year for Christmas my siblings and I pooled our money and got Dad a Swiss Army knife with a little USB drive in it.

[nem0.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of situation where a USB stick with a keychain on it can be useful. Attach something relatively unique, and then remember how to describe it, and the chances of losing it for good are greatly reduced.

Or, you know, don't be irresponsible.

[2percentright.livejournal.com]

"porno seat"?

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

There is a seat that is difficult for the lab monitor to see, and is even obscured from much of the rest of the lab. Considering the lengths that some students using this machine will go to to prevent me form seeing what they're doing, I can only guess I'd rather not see.

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

You'd be amazed what can be found on the random lost USB key.

[tregare.livejournal.com]

just about every computer lab has one.

[japester.livejournal.com]

I use vendor supplied thumb drives :)

Nothing says 'geek!' like having the only one in the building with the word 'Juniper' on it.

[japester.livejournal.com]

rdp is your friend. or would that be called spying?

[japester.livejournal.com]

sacrificial virtual machine. one with a persistent drive (all changes get flushed on reboot).

[jecook]

+1.

Sharpie rubs off, label tape (eventually) comes off).

I have one of my thumb drives (the one with the port bent at an angle, and eventaully cracked open the plastic shell to try and fix it) wrapped up in reflective tape. it's crude n ugly, but it works.

the rest don't generally leave my sight.

[jecook]

Nice idea.

I'd use a BartPE disc for it, if they've gotten the USB hot plug code operating on it.

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

I don't have admin rights to the machines in the lab, the lab monitor computer doesn't even have any different software from the standard lab image that I can use. Most students refuse to believe this, though.

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

Heh, mine is generic outside (though I can describe it well anyway). But if you pop it in, you can see I named the volume TITAN. ;)

[armaphine.livejournal.com]

RDP wouldn't really do much. Now VNC on the other hand, would be perfect for that sort of situation.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I have mine attached to my keys I'm not going anywhere with out it :)

[meow-tuna.livejournal.com]

or some application to snap the screen every 5 seconds and upload it to a webserver or something :P

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Wrap a strip of paper around/along the drive with your name on, then cover it in a spiral of transparent sticky tape?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

How about a sign above the monitor saying "Everything you do on this computer is being recorded against your userID."

[hotclaws.livejournal.com]

I nailvarnished mine.

[alejandradd.livejournal.com]

Since this turned out to be a "describe your USB drive" post: mine has a strap to hang it around the neck (even though I use it as a fish-it-out-of-my-backpack-string) and glow-in-the-dark stickers of smiley faces.

Also, I was looking for the model in Amazon so I could post a link in here, and it turns out it now costs 30% of what I paid for it six months ago (http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Traveler-Flash-DT100-8GB/dp/B000TXEE14/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1228399585&sr=8-1). Crap.

[licon.livejournal.com]

I used to have the same problem with floppies. There was a place to buy them inside the lab, along with recommendations to *label them*, and yet every student said "Well, it was blue, and I left it in the computer". I took great delight in showing them the overflowing shoe-box where we kept all the lost disls, and telling them I didn't have time to check all the disks and all the files each time for each person who lost an unlabeled disk.

[benatwork.livejournal.com]

Mine is distinguished by the fact that I'm the only one who even knows what it is.