Hi Fletcher Kasmer,

I'm a tech guy. I'm not a marketing or sales guy. I just post when there's questions or something that I feel needs to be clarified. Hopefully my posts are to the point and helpful. I'm happy to not post if it's not wanted or if it seen as spam. Hopefully, it saves someone a click and maybe adds to the story. That being said, these aren't 'official' posts - I do this in my free time (sad but true). I figured it would be disingenuous if I posted a bunch of comments and failed to mention that I worked for Keyspan.

Regarding the price... this is one of the topics I don't typically respond to since this is a subjective issue. I will tell you that the cable has Keyspan developed hardware in the cable itself. This is allows you connect and control certain iPods to the Sync system. Other iPods don't need our cable on Sync system.

Hope this helps!

mattsx,

The audio connector is _necessary_ for 4G iPods, minis, and 4G iPods with color display. The nice thing about the cable is that our dock connector separates the USB connector (for data and charging) and audio connector. This way, you only need one connection to the bottom of the iPod.

Dave - The cable works with any SYNC enabled car. Sync is available on Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles.

Spike - The head unit is very unique. You may want to check out videos at the SyncMyRide website.

Regarding the cable...Our cable allows you to connect iPods (4G iPods, minis, 4G iPods w/ color display) AND latest the iPods to the Sync system. If you have a newer iPod, you can use your iPods cable to connect to the Sync system. Our cable just makes it so you can use your both the new iPods and the iPods with one cable.

Hi Ashraf,

We're a different Keyspan =) You're thinking of Keyspan Energy (which is a utility company). Some boring history here...We were Keyspan before Brooklyn Union Gas became Keyspan Energy.

Keyspan, makers of the iPod Sync Cable, makes all kinds of USB devices. We make USB to serial adapters, USB Servers, TuneView products (LCD remotes for iPod and iTunes). Click on the 'keyspan' tag in this story and you'll see other 'Keyspan' stories that Engadget has posted. You can also visit our webpage by going to www.keyspan.com

Hi Rususeruru,

The picture isn't clear but there's 4 pins in the USB cable.

The USB part of the cable is used to control and charge the iPod via Sync system. The stereo connector is just audio.

Generally speaking, you only need two pins to charge USB devices - the other 2 pins need to be there if you need to send/receive data (which is what our cable does).

Yes but the NSLU2 only works with USB drives. You can run unsupported firmware to get other features but it's not an apple to apple comparison.

The Keyspan USB 2.0 Server works with more than USB drivers. You can use printers, hard drives, scanners, thumb drives, etc. We support _USB_. You can't turn our server into a web server but you can use to connect virtually any USB device over a long distance.

Hi Todd,

By default, our server product allows you 'virtually' connect and disconnect USB devices as needed. The usage analogy is that using devices via Keyspan servers is like checking out a book. You check it out when you need it and put it back when you don't. We automate this process for printers today so you don't need to do anything else. There are other settings that you set (see your user manual for details) but I will outline a few here

If you have a printer, check out the AutoConnect feature. It automates the use of printers so you don't have to do anything but select print.

If you only have one computer, you can make the server act like a USB hub by putting it into 'single-user mode'. In this mode, everything is connected when your computer comes on the network.

If you want to assign a one device to a computer, you can also do that and have other devices be shared with multiple computers (ie Bob has a thumbdrive assigned only to him but Bob and other users can access other devices).

All of these settings are available today in our software. If there's a feature request you have, please contact support and state exactly what you want. We're happy to work with you.

There's also some cool new features coming our next software release. I can't talk about them yet but the new features are free to all Keyspan Server customers (either our US4A (aka the 4 port USB 1.1 server) or the U2S2A (the 2 port USB 2.0 server))

Hi Bad Beaver!

Our first shipment is on its way to Europe. I expect it arrive at distributors next week. You can get a list of our distributors at:

http://www.keyspan.com/wheretobuy/international/homepage.spml

Yes but as Bad Beaver pointed out, you wouldn't get the range and power consumption on the remote would be an issue. Salling Clicker is cool but what it is does is very specific (as is TuneView). If it meets your needs, great.

TuneView is different - we have designed a remote control specifically to control media from iTunes and iPods. It's optimized for this specifically. A cell phone is not optimized for being a remote control. It's a phone first.

Hope this helps!

Ignacio...

We went with F5 for historical reasons. You're right about other icons on Fkeys. This is very common on laptops but icons change from machine to machine. On my MacBookPro, F5 shows volume up and F5. On my Vista laptop, I believe it's F5 and external monitor icon.

It's not readily obvious why you have F5 on the remote by just looking at the picture if you don't know all the shortcuts in PowerPoint for Windows. We explain the use of F5 (and the other buttons on the remote) in the printed quickstart sheet that comes with the unit.

Regarding F5 on a Mac PowerPoint (or Keynote), you're right. F5 isn't used in either. However, there are ways, and more than one, to enable the F5 key on the remote start a slideshow in PowerPoint or Keynote. I'm actually in the process of writing a FAQ about this topic and it should be posted on our website soon.

Hope this helps!