The RS232 money changer
Ran into strange cable adapters on ebay.
Here’s a nice Male-Female RS232 adapter that will only change the money you spent for this stuff into a loss.
If you don’t see the problem, just think of what results when plugging this adapter to a cable: Plugging it to a male plug, ends with a male plug. Plugging it to a female plug ends with a female. From description, it’s even not a cross (null-modem) converter. It changes absolutely nothing and only Male/Male and Female/Female adapters makes sense. Someone suggested me that junk could be used 5mm RS232 port riser 🙂
Here’s another suspicious one: USB 2.0 to mini Firewire.
Different protocols, different voltages… you could just end up burning your device. Anyway, there could be a mini protocol converter chip hidden in one plug, so this one needs more investigation.