WD

WD may refer to:

WD-40

WD-40 is the trademark name of a penetrating oil and water-displacing spray. The spray is manufactured by the San Diego, California based WD-40 Company.

History

WD-40 was developed in 1953 by Norman Larsen, founder of the Rocket Chemical Company, in San Diego, California. 'WD-40' is abbreviated from the term 'Water Displacement, 40th formula', suggesting it was the result of Larsen's 40th attempt to create the product. The spray, composed of various hydrocarbons, was originally designed to be used by Convair to protect the outer skin and, more importantly, the paper-thin balloon tanks of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion. These stainless steel fuel tanks were so fragile that when empty they had to be kept inflated with nitrogen to prevent them from collapsing. WD-40 was later found to have many household uses and was made available to consumers in San Diego in 1958.

Function

The long-term active ingredient is a non-volatile viscous oil which remains on the surface to which it is applied, giving lubrication and protection from moisture. This oil is diluted with a volatile hydrocarbon to make a low viscosity fluid which can be aerosolized to penetrate crevices. The volatile hydrocarbon then evaporates, leaving behind the oil. A propellant (originally a low-molecular-weight hydrocarbon, now carbon dioxide) creates pressure in the can to force the liquid through the can's nozzle before evaporating.

My Passport

My Passport is a series of portable external hard drives produced by Western Digital. There are currently six series of My Passport drives; Essential Edition, Essential SE Edition, Elite Edition, Essential for Mac, Studio Edition and the Essential SE for Mac.

My Passport drives are designed to look like and be the size of a passport, none of the drives in the passport series require a power socket although the "elite editions" feature a docking system.

Standard Editions

Essential Edition

Essential Editions include USB 2.0 though new models also include USB 3.0 ports, the Essential Editions are currently only available in a 500 GB variation. This model comes in five different colours and has a single white LED Indicator.

Essential SE Edition

Essential SE Editions have both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports and come in 750 GB and 1 TB variations, the Essential Editions have the same physical appearance as the Essential Editions.

Elite Edition

Elite Editions has a USB 2.0 port and come in 320 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB variations. Elite Editions come with a desktop dock and have a LED capacity gauge on the front and a lock indicator. This edition comes in Red, Blue and Black.

USB 3.0

USB 3.0 (renamed to USB 3.1 Gen 1 in 2015) is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer mode SuperSpeed (SS) that can transfer data at up to 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s), which is about ten times faster than the USB 2.0 standard. USB 3.0 connectors are usually distinguished from their USB 2.0 counterparts by blue color-coding of the receptacles and plugs, and the initials SS.

A successor standard, USB 3.1 (renamed to USB 3.1 Gen 2 in 2015), was released in July 2013 with the new transfer mode SuperSpeed+ that can transfer data at up to 10 Gbit/s (1.25 GB/s, twice the rate of USB 3.0), bringing its theoretical maximum speed on par with the first version of the Thunderbolt interface.

Overview

The USB 3.0 specification is similar to USB 2.0 but with many improvements and an alternative implementation. Earlier USB concepts like endpoints and four transfer types (bulk, control, isochronous and interrupt) are preserved but the protocol and electrical interface are different. The specification defines a physically separate channel to carry USB 3.0 traffic. The changes in this specification make improvements in the following areas:

Michael Joyce

Michael or Mike Joyce may refer to: