Q:

Can I update the Beaglebone Black without a micro SD adapter?

I lost my micro SD card adapter, and the stores around here don't sell them (except in a package with a micro SD card). Hence, my question:
Can I update the Beaglebone Black (i.e., program the on-board eMMC) without a micro SD adapter? Perhaps it is possible to dd the flasher image from usb storage to the microSD using the BBB? Detailed instructions would be appreciated, as I am far from a Linux pro. My main computer runs OSX 10.9 (macbook pro retina 15).

A:

If your BBB is functioning, and you want to write an image to a microSD card, then yes, you can do it with the BBB.
You can place your image, as a file, on any USB storage device (formatted as MSDOS / FAT32 / VFAT / whatever you call it).  Then mount that device, and use DD to write the image to the SD card:
$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
$ sudo dd if=/mnt/myimage.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=32k

Of course, make sure you use the right device names for your USB storage and the SD card - you don't want to accidentally DD over the eMMC...

