Technology What's this magic stick thing?

[Tha_Wood]

http://magicstick.net/

Can someone explain this shit to me? Is it good? What's it do?

 

[masta247]

It's a tiny computer that you can stick into a TV or monitor like a Chromecast or Roku Stick, except it's a tiny PC instead. It's basically a small and rather slow computer that fits in your pocket and that you can connect to any display.

Such devices have been around for a long time, and I was initially surprised that they didn't become more popular. Then I realized that the portability gets offset by the fact you'd also need to carry your mouse and keyboard with you, together with their cables and dongles, and connect them whenever switching locations.
It becomes quite a hassle, and you might as well just get a tablet or 2-in-1 instead that has everything included and ready to go anytime.
If you don't need portability, you might as well get a larger, much faster and more reliable device. These sticks use old netbook quality chips and super-slow memory card system for storage. You wouldn't find such slow components in any other devices, not even mid-range phones.

 

[Tha_Wood]

Cheers man. I seen ad for one and thought it sounded cool but yeah after your explanation doesn't sound so great

 

[JadeStorm]

I tend to do some incident response work generally I just use a USB stick with Linux I will be honest you can build your own "fix me stick" there are AV's that boot as not to load malware of course unless we are talking a "semi" advanced rootkit or something like that which say is in the bios/hardware. These are not common I have seen just a handful which are like this. I have used bootable USB's for fixing machines be it professionally or personally for years, they are a great way to go.

 

[masta247]

I tend to do some incident response work generally I just use a USB stick with Linux I will be honest you can build your own "fix me stick" there are AV's that boot as not to load malware of course unless we are talking a "semi" advanced rootkit or something like that which say is in the bios/hardware. These are not common I have seen just a handful which are like this. I have used bootable USB's for fixing machines be it professionally or personally for years, they are a great way to go.

Sure, what Woody linked though was a Stick PC kind of thing, an Intel Atom-running PC with a form factor of a pocket-friendly stick with an HDMI plug. Basically a tiny, single-board computer with tiny, ultra-low power components. Sort of like a Chromecast running Windows.

 

[Jokerman]

I got the magic stick
I know if I can hit once, I can hit twice
I hit the baddest chicks

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Not a stick, but I'm going to be selling my Acer Revo R3700. It came with one of the Linux distro's that wasn't too great, so I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS back then. Just updated it to a fresh install of 18.04 LTS and ready to sell.

I think it's Quad Core Intel Atom, 500GB, 4GB RAM - pretty decent for a basic PC and media centre with lots of USB ports. Can hook up a controller and play games too.

 

[JadeStorm]

Sure, what Woody linked though was a Stick PC kind of thing, an Intel Atom-running PC with a form factor of a pocket-friendly stick with an HDMI plug. Basically a tiny, single-board computer with tiny, ultra-low power components. Sort of like a Chromecast running Windows.

That's kinda an interesting way of doing I really can't think of any reason that they would have a usb atom computer, like absolute worst case a rootkit is say in BIOS firmware or another device's firmware, but that really would be are pain in the butt to clean basically reflashing the firmware. I didn't know that they were basically an entire computer interesting though.