I don’t know about you but my family and I now seem to have collected a vast array of gadgets and computer equipment that all require some sort of USB connection. USB drives, external hard drives, printers, MP3 players, mobile phones, digital cameras etc. The list seems almost endless and there never seems to be enough USB ports available, so some members of the family always end up annoying other members when trying to borrow access time to USB ports on people’s laptops.

I have been looking at actually organising and designing the computer system at home, rather than continue with the rather organic and haphazard growth pattern that presently exists. One idea that I am looking at it to centralise a number of the key aspects, such as storage, and access to printing. One other aspect that may well be worth applying this approach  to is the provision of centralised access to USB ports. This would enable anyone who wanted access to MP3 files to transfer to their player or mobile phone could just use a USB hub that was somewhere publicly available and did not require entering the forbidden zone of someone else’s bedroom!

The Belkin Network USB Hub looks like just the sort of thing that could do the job on my WiFi network, allowing 5 USB devices to be connected at one time.

How do you solve your USB port access problem?