[pauljohn]

The USB connection is problematic because it requires special drivers to work. I'm basically using a hack where I leverage Android development tools to allow raw data to be sent over USB. Otherwise Android doesn't normally allow this (it's considered a security risk). So you have to have the same kind of drivers on your machine that an Android developer like myself would use to interface with the device. If you have a Samsung device, the kies 3 installation takes care of installing the right drivers, so it's not as big of a deal in that case. If you have a different kind of device, there is no guarantee that you will have an easy time finding drivers that will work, or that they will be configured correctly for development use.  For those kinds of devices, I usually recommend people try this: http://adb.clockworkmod.com/

The universal ADB driver has worked for me with devices that didn't have a driver from the manufacturer.  That's why I usually recommend people stick with WiFi - it's just simpler to use and works for most people.

Mike

Thanks for your replies. I use wifi at home but when I was away recently I needed to load backup files but could not use wifi. It sounds a bit too complicated to use USB.