Day 25 – USB Man to the Rescue

Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet

4/05/2013 

Welcome to Day 25 of working with a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet for educators. Today I will share one of the solutions I have found for the lonely USB port on the Surface Pro.

There are many times when I wished the Surface Pro had more than one USB port. At least this tablet gives you the option to use USB peripherals, unlike some other tablets on the market. Just having access to expandable USB storage is a HUGE benefit over other tablets.

The Surface Pro has one high-speed USB 3.0 port.  There are many USB devices that come in handy in my daily workflow that I would like to use when needed. If something is already plugged into the USB port I have to remove it and plug in something else, inconvenient.

A couple of days ago I found myself in one of those situations. I recorded the “Surface Pro and Worldwide Telescope” screencast on the Surface Pro but I also had it connected to a Xbox wireless controller. This controller took up the only USB port and I wanted to load something else from a USB flash drive.

My cheap solution, USB Man. You can get USB Man or something similar for around $5 US. USB Man will take your existing USB Port and turn it into 4 USB ports! It is basically a splitter that expands the one USB port into four ports. The one I have is USB 2.0 so I do not get the benefit of the higher-speed USB 3.0. Sometimes I am willing to trade the speed for the convenience of more ports.

It may not work for USB devices that draw a lot of power but so far it has worked for me. Be careful not to overload the USB bus on the Surface Pro.

Below is a picture of the Surface Pro with my USB Man setup.

Here is a description of what is in the picture. The cable coming out of the head of USB man is connected to the Surface Pro’s only USB port. I have a Logitech USB headset plugged into the right foot of USB Man. The Surface Pro’s audio jack is only for playing audio out to headphones so you cannot plug a 3.5mm jack in for recording (I wish I could, it would allow me to take my line out of my mixer into the audio jack of the Surface Pro but audio-in is not supported). A workaround is to get a USB mixer, there goes another USB port.

I also have a Microsoft wireless mouse transceiver plugged into USB Man’s right hand that allows me to use the Arc mouse with the Surface Pro. This is very useful for Desktop applications where I need precise control. You will also notice in the picture that the digital Pen never strays far from my Surface Pro :)

This leaves two open USB ports possibly for a USB flash drive or my ScreenBeam video transmitter to wirelessly project the Surface Pro’s screen to the big screen.

Granted, with all these things plugged-in the Surface Pro is not very portable, but sometimes you need the “extras” to get some work done.

Not bad for a $5 solution, but there are other more expensive solutions as well. Docking stations are available to plug the Surface Pro in to and we have a couple working with the Surface Pro here at EIU. The price ranges from $80 on the lower end up to $200 for docking stations that support high-resolution dual-screen monitors, USB 3.0 ports, and 1GB RJ-45 LAN jack.

A docking solution can basically turn your Surface Pro into a traditional PC by connecting it to a large monitor via a USB cable to use in your office. When you want to be mobile again just unplug the USB cable and you can take the Surface Pro with you to meetings.

Until next time...
Keep on Learning,

Please subscribe and listen to the TechTalk4Teachers Podcast:
http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/

Tom Grissom, PhD

 Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom

Interested in Teaching and Learning with Technology?
http://www.eiu.edu/itc/