Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Personal

The Amazing Google

24 Sep 2002

The power of Google continues to amaze me. I was at a garage sale months ago and came across an old 320x280 digital camera with an AOL logo on it. It’s a cheap piece of junk with no features, but for $1 it’s a perfect camera to keep in the glove box of my car. It connects via a serial cable, but attached to the end of the serial cable was a USB-Serial converter and a three foot USB cable. Not having the drivers for the converter or even knowing who makes it, I stuck it in the closet.

Today I had a need for just such a converter, so I dug the device out of the closet and looked it over. It’s about three inches long and around an inch wide. The only markings on it are a sticker with a serial number, some certification symbols, and two lines of text: "USB Serial Adapter" and "Made in Taiwan." Not much to go on when searching for a driver. But it has a distinctive look, so I figured if I came across a picture of it I’d recognize it.

I opened up Google and searched for USB "Serial Adapter" Taiwan. The third search result was a product page for a cable maker in Taiwan. And what’s in the photo? That’s my USB adapter.

The site doesn’t have any drivers though. Not to worry, from the caption for the photo, I now am armed with a product ID number: BF-810. Again I turn to the mighty Google. A search for BF-810 driver turns up the driver page for BAFO Technologies as result number one. I downloaded and install the driver and it works.

Thanks, Google!

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