I bought a usb stick 6 months ago. I was skeptical, as I didn't think I would really need it, and it turns out it was only useful for about 2 weeks. Now it's just lying on a shelf waiting to be used for something again. I bought the cheapest one they had at Media Markt, I believe it was about €22 for 256mb. The brand was Trekstor, a company I had never heard of before, but on the box they print that the stick is compatible with Linux, how unusual. So I bought it, and it was. After all, it's just a usb mass storage device, of course it's compatible, it's the most common type of usb device. But it's refreshing to get a break from the "requires Windows" mantra, for a company to have the guts to print "Windows/Mac/Linux" on the box.

So the other day I was looking for an external usb drive, cause my laptop drive isn't that big, and lo and behold, there's Trekstor again. Again they're the cheapest and they even have a penguin on the box. So I went Trekstor again, a nice quiet 200gb external drive is now the latest addition to my [very short] list of gadgets. The little printed manual doesn't mention Linux at all, but the instructions for Windows are exceedingly simple, and Linux users don't need that hand holding anyway, if there's a driver for the device somewhere on the internet, they will find it and figure out how to use it.

It turns out Trekstor also manufactures mp3 players. If and when my iRiver dies, I will seriously consider going with Trekstor. They may not have the strong audio focus of iRiver, but they support ogg (which so few companies do) and their players are based on... usb mass storage, just like the usb stick and the external hard drive. And since iRiver seem to have gone completely native with DRM, it's time to look for another vendor anyway.