Saturday, May 12, 2007

Ever seen one of these in a store?



I can now bid goodbye to burning CD-RW's for podcast listening in the car. For some strange reason I thought the USB input on my new car's stereo was for some special connection to a dedicated mp3 player (a la iPod). Turns out you can plug any USB key into it and play the mp3 files that it contains! Kia supplies a short black cord for this connection. I've tried it and it works flawlessly with the 1GB key I keep in my briefcase.

The stereo's face has a female 'mini' usb jack on it, and the supplied cord has a male mini-usb on one end and a female usb type-A connector on the other end. The type-A connector is the 'normal' thin and wide jack type that is used on virtually all usb keys and devices. So you can plug the usb key right into the female end of the cable.

And while the cable is not too unsightly, the geek in me is now in search of a direct 'female type A to male mini-usb' adapter to eliminate the cord completely. Effectively I want to plug the USB key right into the face of the stereo, eliminating the cord.

I've done some online searches at BestBuy and TheSource (aka RadioShack up here), but the best I can seem to find is a female to female version.

This is exactly what I want. Anybody seen it available in good old brick and mortar electronic shops?

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Saw just what you are looking for last week at linuxfest nw. Peanutb had a little kit that had every type of connector imaginable for connecting cameras, phones, pdas and whatever via usb cable with adapter. Kind of like this link only it looked like the kind of thing that would sell for $4.29 in a bargain bin at Office Depot.

http://plutusse.en.alibaba.com/product/50123852/50565322/Retractable_Cables_Cable_Kits/Retractable_USB_Cable_Kits.html