Program Tracks USB Ports on Your PC
I HAVE LOOKED FOR YEARS for a program that does what Zentimo does. What it does is let me see what’s connected to–let me count ’em–34 USB ports on my desktop PC. And that’s plus four slots for reading camera memory cards that my computer treats as USBs. I also have at any given time up to five thumb drives and five external hard drives. If I need to disconnect anything, most of the time it’s a guessing game which of the devices to click.
On a good day, the screenshot on the right is the typical Windows list of external drives and flash drives, and other computer toys attached to my USB ports. On a bad day, I don’t even try to figure it out. I just pull whatever it is I want out of its USB slot and hope I’m not destroying all the data on it.
With Zentimo, I now can get a reading on my USB components with a simple click on a taskbar tray icon, as shown in the screenshot below. And notice I can get a short list that hides peripherals you aren’t likely to need permission to disconnect. One more click gives me a long list that includes anything attached to my USBs. (Some of them twice, it appears.)
Zentimo is what we in the computer trade call an OTP, the acronym for a one-trick pony. It doesn’t do much more than what I’ve shown you. There are times when that one trick can be terribly helpful.
And oh, we in the computer trade don’t say “OTP.” Just joking.
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Igor
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the nice review! You are actually a hard core USB user :)
One more thing I’d like to mention – Zentimo perhaps is a pony but not only of one trick. It does much more for the external devices: it shows what’s preventing your device from being stopped, can hide drives of empty card reader slotes from the system, lets you work with devices using hotkeys, integrates with TrueCrypt, lets you return a stopped device and more: http://zentimo.com/features.htm
Regards,
Igor Tkachenko,
CEO of Crystal Rich
Ron white
Igor’s right. I was rushing to post while the giveaway was still in effect, and didn’t give Zentimo the workout it deserves. I really love the fact it hides card reader slot that don’t have cards in them.