Technology as commodity...or Stupid Human Tricks

I was leaving work this morning, and as I approached my car, I stepped on something that crunched loudly (no it wasn't a Cicada). I looked down at the item and gasped, it was a mangle of orange plastic, something that looked like my flash drive mangled:
(sans the silver cover)


Needless to say I panicked, I had just recently lost a very candy looking 2 gig flash drive from Micro Center
and had taken steps to prevent my loosing another one (I attached the short lanyard loop to the drive, and use the rappel type clip to clip it to my PDA/phone pouch). But at the end of a busy night, with my middle aged eyes looking down at the ground through bifocals, it was near impossible to tell that I had not crushed my flash drive instead of this:



I instinctively reached down to my PDA case with a sinking feeling, to surprisingly find my flash drive firmly attached via the lanyard and in its pouch sleeve (*whew*).


Part of me was relieved....the other part was irked.
When flash drives first came out a couple years ago, I was wanting, but the price was too high. When I finally did pop for one on sale (a 128meg Memorex), I was disappointed by its clunky size (It looked like a scarab beetle with a USB connector). It was very fat at the connector, and did not fit in many front mounted USB ports on many of my computers at home or work.
I took it back. A few months later at Aldi, I picked up an iStick:



The iStick is just about perfect, it's in a nice little clear techie looking case which is clearly a flash drive. If you have a very narrow USB port, it comes out of its case and is no wider than a USB port and can fit in ANY USB port on ANY computer (no matter how poorly designed). After a year, I outgrew the 256 meg iStick v.1 and popped for a 1 gig model, which was wonderful, until it got trashed by a Dell box at work with a flaky power supply (PQI did honor the warranty, but it took 10 weeks to process). In the meantime, I needed flash...so I went to Micro Center and got their shiny candy colored 2 gig drive. Weird looking, but the right width, and very reliable.....until it popped out of my PDA case. I replaced it first a Verbatim (red candy colored), and finally the above PNY drive. While I am happy that flash drives have reached the disposable commodity level in the marketplace (price-wise), I'm not so sure they should be made so that they can be so easily confused with a 99 cent disposable lighter. Yes it's cool to have colors... as long as you're not paying extra for the color (remember the first colored zip disks that iomega thought they could charge more for?....or the extra 50 bucks for the first Pink Razr's?). There is a down size to "personalizing" flash drives; it's not the drive, it's the data that is on it that truly makes it valuable. I wouldn't buy a pink, blue or orange safe deposit box for my valuables, but with a flash drive, you now have a hard time finding one that is not some very lurid shade of brightness. This kind of tech accessory has a very specific function, that should be first and form should follow function. I don't want my flash drive to EVER be confused with a gas station checkout item.

...So maybe we should keep the tech gadgets just a tad geekier looking O.K.!!!