The device has a swivel on the male USB plug. This allows you to utilize in a variety of positions and situations. For example, on my 17″ MBP, you would use the configuration as shown, when using the primary USB port on the right side of the laptop. However if you wish to use one of the ports on the left side, the swivel allow you to rotate 180 degrees and stay away from the power plug.

Another unique feature is that the center port (of the three on the side) is articulated. This would allow you to plug in a create more space in case a larger device (such as a ‘monster’ flash drive was occupying one of the adjacent ports. This feature, along with the 180 degree swivel was very well thought out.

The only complaint, on my device I was able to swivel the male USB connector 180 degrees and try it on the left and right sides of my MBP. However, I was unable to swivel it back. At that point, I could only move it approximately 90 degrees, which in my case would not allow use on the right side (primary) USB port on the MBP.

I noticed a small Phillips head screw, near the swivel, and visible in the photo. I loosened it slightly, and whatever was preventing the connector from moving, was freed. Now the plug rotates freely, without binding.

This hub looks to be the answer to connecting several devices, portable hard drives, iPhone/iPod, etc. It does this in a nice, compact, streamlined package. I would recommend, especially after testing on my MacBook Pro.

Downsides, if any… Well, the device is not “powered” if that makes a difference in your application. For me, I don’t seem to have a problem with flash drives, the iPhone, etc. I did notice my Canon TX1 was not recognized, but I don’t believe this to be a problem of the hub. (It was not recognized when plugged in to a direct port on the left side of the machine, either.)

iHome offers a limited lifetime warranty. There is a web site, and 877 number for technical support. It works with Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Windows XP and Vista. (I would be surprised if it doesn’t work with Windows 7, as well.)

iHome IH-U550FB 4-Port Hub

I almost had success with the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin (WPAU).  Everything seemed to work, right up to the point of putting the site in maintenance mode.  But try as I might, even with a manual “.maintenance” file it would always fail.  Searched high and low, and came across several folks having similar (and different) upgrade woes.  Some posts indicated the WPAU plugin was ‘outdated’ and no longer necessary since WordPress offers the functionality built-in.  But, previously that hadn’t worked for me.

I tried most of the solutions, which had varying levels of success for the folks posting to forums and blogs.  Finally came across one solution, which looked so simple, I couldn’t hurt by trying.  Check out Fred Palma’s easy solution. It simply entails changing the owner and group to be ‘owned’ by the web server itself.  On my server, I made one small change, that being that the owner and group are “www” instead of Fred’s “www-data” since I was familiar with that owner/group on installation.

Next, I had to figure out the correct settings for the WordPress routine.  There were only a few things to configure, but try as I might, using the server name (or variations) would always fail.  Searching for those failure messages landed me on a support forum post that indicated the individual had entered “localhost” as the server name.  Something obscure indicated the server couldn’t connect to itself and this might be a possible solution.  Sure enough, it worked, with the proper username/password credentials.

The update to 2.8.1 was painless, once everything was configured properly.  Now I have to go back and clean up file permissions and other messes I made. I’ll delete the WPAU plugin and perform a general review to make sure we’re all up and running properly, as well.

But in searching Google (thanks to folks that really know SEO) I was able to figure out a few little snippets that will hopefully help.  The first is an optimization that totally corrects the (what I will call a blatant) deficiency in the default setup of WordPress.  It’s unfortunate they choose the Permalink format they do.  But, I wonder if this is at the request of the search giants?  Huh, could it be…?  To lessen the traffic, or some other nonsense which I certainly don’t understand?

Anyway, I really mucked things up.  Links to every page were broken.  I don’t know if I “fixed” them, but it does appear I have Permalinks working now.  This was totally due to searching (again, SEO ‘wonderful’ links.  I was finally able to figure out why my .htaccess files on my self hosted Mac OS X (Leopard) Server were not working.  Check out this link to properly change your permalinks on OS X Server.

I think with Dean Lee’s highly touted Dean’s Permalinks Migration Plugin Version 1.0 finally working, and a good understanding of how to “manipulate” the Apache config with .htaccess files, I might be a step closer.

Time will tell…