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USB-Powered Linux Server Fits in Your Pocket
McSpew writes "A small company from Utah (no, not that one) has announced the BlackDog USB-powered Linux server. It includes a fingerprint reader, a 400MHz PowerPC, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB or 512MB of flash and it runs Debian. The host PC sees it as a CD-ROM drive."
Will it run FreeBSD?
It's seen as a CD ROM drive? Why? How does that even make sense? It's USB; shouldn't it mount through the OS's USB subsystems as a removable USB storage device?
Gotta keep up that Microsoft FUD, you know....
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Is that a BlackDog 400Mhz USB-powered Linux server with 64Mb DRAM and 512Mb of flash in your pocket or are you just really really really happy to see me...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Is that a server in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
I'd buy one in a second if it had an ipod-style 30/40GB hard drive. With 512MB it doesn't offer me enough storage to be useful.
The article mentions that it was developed with the hopes that some can find a use for it. How about a portable asterisk server so when you travel your voicemail and pbx go with you?
I'm surprised they managed to put so much power in such a small package, I wonder how much heat this thing disipates, as my IBook2 dual usb (500 mhz) PPC can get quite hot. Seems like a cool gadget, but I doubt it has a use in the "real" world besides chick-magnet because it is easier to find a better suited machine for the job, unless carrying around your webserver is your new fethish.
Freedom is strength, Ignorance is peace, War is slavery.
Seems like a pack of gum in your pocket has more uses than that, and costs far less.
It does co-star Darl's old IKON buddy and "Haloween memo" author Mike Anderer. There must be SCO IP in that, burn it. Oh, nevermind their "server" (you call THAT a server) just melted down anyway.
Why would anyone really need a pocket-sized server in their pocket anyways? People are just throwing new, pointless, mini-sized devices out everyday these days....
Seems like they run their server on one of these BlackDog puppies.
Rediculous is ridiculous!
Here's the product website: Project Blackdog
Seems there's a nice, hefty prize for the person who comes up with a good use for it.
And don't forget the movie starring John Lovitz of SNL fame: Spy Another Day
It feels like the late 90's again ...
Does it have have a screen?
It's only $199 ($239 for upgraded version) and with a PowerPC chip and 256Mb flash memory (512 with upgrade), if it had a screen, it might be a decent pda.
Otherwise I don't see the value of having a handheld linux server that has to plug into a computer usb slot (over a usb memory chip with linux on it)
Really, how useful is this? If you need something really secure, why not make a Live CD or memory stick linux that require authentication from a the USB dongle in the form of a password or biometrics? Most PCs are much more powerful then this is, and can provide much more function.
Welcome to the Entropy Bar, may I take your order?
I run my web server from my pocket.
"It includes a fingerprint reader, a 400MHz PowerPC, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB or 512MB of flash and it runs Debian..."
Umm.. server.. what the hell can you serve up running with these specs? Seriously, what practical applications could be run with this now-a-days, or more the relavent question, in the coming future?
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
At first, the fact that this device shows up as a CD-ROM despite having a USB connection seemed odd, but its possible this is some kind of step around the need for an administrator account to install mass storage devices on the windows platform. The suggestion by the company that this could be used as a portable VPN client seems strange, due to the need to carry the hardware around. Modern ultraportable laptops would seem to meet the needs of those travelling with remote access issues more than this device, which obviously requires a host to piggyback on.
Business Voyeur
There's always the Linksys NSLU-2 with ethernet for $80, just add a usb drive.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Because the tiny Linux client has biometric authentication and can be plugged into just about any PC, Cunningham believes it will be a useful and secure way for travelers to logon to their corporate VPNs.
I agree - bloody useful! I've been trying to find a device like this for extactly this purpose. I've come across a few like this one but I need to boot Windows, not Linux. Our VPN client and user software only runs on Windows.
Does anyone know of a similar device that can run Windows?
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
From their website: "To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer's USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state."
It sounds amazing until I wonder if all they are doing is putting an autoplay file on there that launches VNC or something.
A larger amount of memory/hard drive would also make this a better possibility, but I would imagine it will be relatively easy to hack.
How did I miss the introduction of computer hardware that comes with a built-in version of "Windows" (from later in the article, it seems to define Windows as Linux, Windows 2000 or Windows XP)? I hope the hardware manufacturer has proper licenses for their MS Windows version and has made the source of the Linux version of their BIOS available as required by the GPL.
I must confess, however, to be puzzled as to why Realm did not just make their device work with regular, unmodified Intel/AMD compatible PCs.
"We're so proud of our new server design, we even use one to run the company website!"
"Uh...why's it smoking?"
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
If the device is able to automaticaly detect and mount disks (until it get designed with a harddrive) and work with other USB peripherals
(sound card) then it would be very attractive
as a 'quick office'.
This may even kick-start a 'PC market' where
the PC itself is quite a low powered unit,
and processing power and IO is added via
these types of removable peripherals.
I can see a suite of Low-end PC's which do the barest minimum, but which can be temporarily
'upgraded' to the users needs.
This may even extend to 'handheld displays'
(eg. Nokia Internet Table if it had a USB
host port) also providing the user interface.
Will a PC of the future just be a 'smart USB hub'?
It pulls up a window on the machine you're on, and shows your X session (browser, word processor) and you use the keyboard, mouse, internet connetion, and monitor of the host machine. You work on your document for awhile, unplug.... go to a different machine, and your word processor is right where you left it. You keep working on your document, all powered by the USB port. There's no evidence on the host machine of what you were running or what you did.
Fingerprint readers and other biometric sensors are almost always a misguided idea, often an evil one, and generally not implemented well. You could get much more useful capabilities by including a small keypad on it, which could be used for passwords if you need them (which you sometimes do, depending on your application), and maybe a little 1-or-2-line LCD display for status.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Everyone TOTALLY got it backwards. You are supposed to go to www.sco.com, NOT realm systems!!!
Wonder what the public key field is for?
http://www.projectblackdog.com/site/index.html
You
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I just saw this at LinuxWorld San Francisco. To quote the staff at the BlackDog booth: "the BlackDog unit first presents itself as a CDRom image to the windows host to load the Cygwin X-Server as well as a tunneling network application to make use of the Windows network. It then establishes a network connection which looks like a USB network connection back to the Debian 2.6.10 kernel running on the BlackDog unit. The BlackDog can then present a UI to the X-Server running on the Windows host it is plugged into. It started with a biometric authentication running on the device. It then had other applications present themselves like Quake 2, Descent 2, Firefox, etc. This is when I became really impressed. I want one! I want to use it to take my mobile stuff with me and be able to plug into any computer anywhere even if its compromised and access the data on my other servers on the internet. Very Cool!!
I played with this device at LinuxWorld. They were using a Windows XP demo machine.
/proc/cpuinfo" at LinuxWorld it was clocked at 384mhz. :)
The host PC sees it as a CD-ROM drive.
When I played with this thing, XP did not see it as a CD-ROM drive, but as some kind of usb networked device. It runs a samba server so you can "\\192.168.0.x" to get to your root file system. Also, it installs an X server in XP so you can run X apps right off of it, which I thought was pretty geeky cool.
It includes a fingerprint reader, a 400MHz PowerPC, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB or 512MB of flash and it runs Debian.
Actually, when i did a "cat
I couldn't really find the benefits of this device over Linux on my iPaq, except for maybe the fingerprint reader.
-Joe
So, it's like a computer that utilitizes the KVM, along with networking and other peripherals, of the host? So, it's like a computer and KVM switch packed into one? Like a parasitic little computer that has no input/output devices of its own, but depends on the host to provide these? Why would I want to carry around a computer that depends on finding another computer to use? Does it allow access to the HD or other internals of the host...for security, recovery, or hacking? Cuz unless it allows me to interact with the host in some way that's meaningful, or lets me leverage some of the host's resources beyond its peripherals, why would one carry around a computer that is useless without another computer?
If the device is able to automaticaly detect and mount disks (until it get designed with a harddrive) and work with other USB peripherals (sound card) then it would be very attractive as a 'quick office'.
Ever heard of a laptop?
Okay, I must admit. This device looks and seems cool. I even informed my wife that I might break down and buy one. I just have absolutely no idea what I'd use it for.
Having my development environment wherever I'm at would be great, but that's only a tarball away in any case. Being Oliver Stone paranoid is a nice bonus. I guess I just wouldn't want to work this way exclusively.
Ethernet would have made this an instant sale for me. I could develop and demo network appliance products on the road without virtual machines. Without Ethernet, this is just a really portable terminal to me.
How did the PhoenixNet BIOS, that had spyware or adware or whatever that it installed when you booted windows, pull it off without appearing as a drive to windows?
Seriously, it would be nice if there was a way you could hook these up to a USB hub and have each one running a different program. I'm imaging this to be a cheap and easy way to solve "embarassingly parallel" computational problems. Of course, it would be really sweet if these things could then also share their memory so you could use them to solve not-so-embarassingly parallel computational problems.
I realize these things are low end processors, but depending on the problem your solving they might be a good solution - if they could be hooked up in parallel.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Many websites are text based, and can be served by just about anything with a high-speed connection. By text based I mean light on the multimedia, i.e. no flash, etc., and not necessarily no images. This site for example would be the perfect example of a low-cost/power application for the device.
Now all they have to do is Xen on the host machine (after being ported to Windows of course) with a OpenMosix kernel running in it, so this little puppy can harness the CPU power on the Windows host too. Not just its peripherals.
Yes! This is exactly the type of technology that I have been waiting for someone to release to prove a point that I have had since the invention of usb. Any rogue device plugged into the usb hub can comprimise your whole system! Wow, to think I can use the linux (and Debian!) tools I have been used to "hacking" with to snoop net traffic and watch devices like usb hard drives etc. I love you guys! Now its practically easy as pie to take over government computers with usb ports lol ;) j/k
:)
Anyways, nice device, I look forward to trying one out and replacing my 50lbs. dell poweredge 4200 with about 400 of these babies in half the space
a beowulf cluster of blackdogs attached to your computer, could I create a mini super computer using a bunch of these devices hooked up to my computer using MPI or some other message passing protocol?
It pulls up a window on the machine you're on, and shows your X session ... There's no evidence on the host machine of what you were running or what you did.
And this beats keyloggers how? If they want this to be a serious corporate VNC tool, that's a major question that will have to be answered.
Cool I'm getting one right away so I can be the first to port Linux to it! Oh, wait...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Imagine if this thing had 1 gig or more of memory. Plug it up and take it to your local university or gaming cafe and have a portable warez dump, even better you could probably get it to run in stealth mode. Imagine having one on the back of a EDU computer, you could have multiple warez dumps and be able to retrieve the files instead of downloading them :d
Stop whoring your site, you clown.
Its a neat idea I wish it was a Lan powered divice though and cheaper so i could buy one and stash it inside one of the walls or cielings at college.
http://www.uwarfare.com the Best Seattle Counterstirke Community
Realm Systems has secured an additional $9 million dollars in funding on July 7, 2005.
The paper SEC filing, describing the new funding has been secured by penguinistas, and is available at : Debt and bridge financing
$7.5 MM came from a single unnamed individual.
Frank Artale, an ex-M$FT VP for NT, was appointed chairman of the board of Realm in January, 2005 , when Realm had secured a previous $8 million dollar investment.
Frank Artale and Michael Anderer's stories first become entertwined over Entirenet. Entirenet is a Redmond and Bellevue, Washington based Windows documentation company. Anderer served as nominal CEO of Entirenet in the 2001- 2003 timeframe. Artale, then serving as Veritas VP for Windows had purchased Entirenet for Veritas in March 2001 for an undisclosed ammount.
Anderer, acting as CEO of Entirenet, announced the acquisition of the South Carolina M$FT training firm, HunterStone, in November, 2002.
Artale had left Veritas by March 2003 when his next venture "Consera Software" was announced. Consera had venture funding provided by Ignition Partners, a Seattle venture outfit staffed with a prominent group of ex-M$FT VP's, including Cameron Myhrvold. Myhrvold has especially close ties to Artale.
Anderer left Entirenet about this time.
Frank Artale has continued to work with Ignition Partners. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Rendition Networks in Sept 2004, as part of a $6 million dollar Ignition investment. Rendition was quickly sold in Dec, 2004.
Other Artale ventures include Therion, sold in May 2005. He has recently added to the Kenai Software board in July 2005 Kenai's executives, e.g. David Mock and Byrren Yates (CFO) overlap Realm's executives and public investors. Artale is considered an expert on the profitable exit sale of start ups. Other Frank Artale endeavors include advisory roles at Zenprise, Centrify, Accel Partners, and formerly a board position at Level 8.
Michael Anderer's continuing relationship with the Seattle-area venture capital organized by highly placed ex-M$FT VP's indicates his reputation has survived the Halloween memo release.
That wasn't flamebait. It was supposed to be funny. (I *am* a geek--I'm not making fun of them!)
http://www.projectblackdog.com/site/index.html
Everyone TOTALLY got it backwards. You are supposed to go to www.sco.com, NOT realm systems!!!
Interestingly enough, there is a SCO connection to this story.
You may remember the famous Halloween 10 memo from Mike Anderer to two SCO execs where Anderer indicates that SCO's big $50M dollar investment came via backchannels thanks to Microsoft and that SCO should go to MS for more money?
Well, it seems that the very same Mike Anderer is is CTO of Realm Systems makers of this device.
Are there other devices on the market such as this?
see those launch party pictures? that's why most startups fail so miserably.. posturances for the ceo and management team that, in the end, amount to nothing more than a night of fun for those involved.
then again i'm sure a good deal was had on the procurement of gary coleman, less willis, of course.
-k0ward
Why would anyone really need a pocket-sized server in their pocket anyways? People are just throwing new, pointless, mini-sized devices out everyday these days....
...) / Mac / whatever for a screen, keyboard, and network connection.
The idea is that you carry your computer around with you, session and all. You can use any PC (with Windows, Linux, BSD,
Be in the middle of a session at work. Unplug it, go home, plug it in. You're right back in your session. Unplug, go to class, plug in, ditto. Unplug, go to library, plug in. Unplug, go to iternet cafe, plug in. Unplug, go to China, plug in...
If you were editing a document it's ready for the next keystroke. If you were reading mail you're still in the mail reader, still looking at the same letter at the same point in the scroll buffer. If you were browsing the web you are still on the same page with the same brower history. And so on. Your files came with you. Your state came with you. Your whole computer came with you - or at least the parts of it that are important for preserving your state. Screen, keyboard, mouse, video card, internet connection - use whatever is handy. They're heavy. They'll work just fine for this service for several generations after the machine they are attached to went obsolete. Why buy new ones? Why tie yourself to a particular one at a particular site?
Pull it out, it senses the loss of connection and saves anything still in RAM to a non-volatile memory (flash or disk if they can get it) before it runs out of the power in the onboard capacitor. Plug it in and it boots up, recovers state, and sweet-talks the new machine into giving it a full-screen window and the use of keyboard, mouse, and comm stack.
The designers brought this out for licensing to manufacturers (using a slightly-hacked BSD onboard) over a year ago. I saw their booth at Supercom in Las Vegas back then. (Target was to make the small config for under $100 in bulk for schoolkids, maybe $200 in a big one with postage-stamp hard drive for the rest of us.) It's nice to see a version finally on the market - and with Linux yet.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Target was to make the small config for under $100 in bulk for schoolkids, maybe $200 in a big one with postage-stamp hard drive for the rest of us.
And I wouldn't sweat the price miss - this is the early adopter version. I expect that, if it catches on, it will become the next key-fob flash drive, be everywhere, and cost next to nothing.
(And why not? It does what you REALLY wanted to do with the flash drive fob, doesn't it?)
Anyone want to see if they can look at the way this thing boots and come up with software to load on a bare flash drive an do something similar? B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
See, this is why everyone else in the world sees Linux supporters as freaks. Even Apple is turning their back on PowerPC architecture. Why in the world would you use this sort of a chip when there are so many other more supportable, faster and more power-friendly devices?
And appropriately enough:
Will a PC of the future just be a 'smart USB hub'? no, it has no advantages and is just clumsy.
"Thin Clients" - A technology before its time, so right, but also so wrong.
I totally agree with the parent post.
Why not a USB type device? How about just a "smart" card? I saw the Sun demo at a government conference, all Java, all just a hub. Totally transient, anywhere you go, there you are.
Does it have have a screen?
The entire POINT is that it doesn't have, or need, a screen. It uses the massive and standardized infrastructure of whatever it's plugged into.
I don't see the value of having a handheld linux server that has to plug into a computer usb slot (over a usb memory chip with linux on it)
A) What if you can't get the machine to boot from your pluggable USB meory?
B) Becuse you carry your CPU around you have no archetecture limits on what you plug it into. Power PC, Alpha, X86, ARM, MIPS, whatever. Your binaries always work. And your performance is always the same, even if you plugged it into something ancient and pokey.
C) Unplugging saves the entire state - window position, cursor position, open documents, applications in progress... Plugging in picks up exactly where you left off. Be editing a document. Stop with some keystroke at the office/school/library, make your next keystroke at home two hours later and fifty miles away. Try THAT with a memory stick.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
1) The test host machine seemed to be running cygwin.
;)
2) `uname` told us it was running an x86 kernel but when we stepped aside and spoke with an engineer, he kept saying it was built on PowerPC.
3) This engineer was pointing to what looked like the IC chip for the finger reader and called it a 'PowerPC chip'.
4) The dog and pony show for this device was actually a mechanical bull ride where they gave away prizes. It just screamed "look at the bull, don't look too close at our product!" If a bucking bronco didn't float your boat, there were also 2 fine booth babes convincing guys to ride the bull.
Call me paranoid, but I know I won't be the first in line to buy one of these
I can think of better ways to market this thing,
a movie is not one of them.
Give me specs, not a cheezy, 'z' grade movie.
Damn, I watched the whole thing and cant get those
minutes back.
Crap Crap, Now i go away.
Please don't download any of the somewhat large files from here, and most definitely don't go and find any 500+ MB files anywhere on sco.com to download (and if you do, be sure not to sure them with us). I seem to recall a large video file maybe, or perhaps there were some iso's...
I don't think I'd give any money to these folks. http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050808123259231&title=Anderer's+Realm+raises+a +fresh+%249+million&type=article&order=&hideanonym ous=0&pid=347656#c347665
http://www.groklaw.net/search.php?query=Mike+Ander er&keyType=phrase&datestart=&dateend=&topic=0&type =all&author=0&mode=search
Nice. Do they also make minime monitors I can put in my other pocket?
Simpy
Mod up parent please.
Or i'll do one better, repeat the whole post here:
Cut from an AC post:
Michael E. Anderer, of the SCOX "Halloween" memo fame is the CTO of Realm Systems. His old homepage "S2 consulting" hosted the developer forum for Realm. A number of other M$FT links raise the disturbing question if this product is real or elaborate "opposition" research on the part of Redmond.
Realm Systems has secured an additional $9 million dollars in funding on July 7, 2005.
The paper SEC filing, describing the new funding has been secured by penguinistas, and is available at : Debt and bridge financing
$7.5 MM came from a single unnamed individual.
Frank Artale, an ex-M$FT VP for NT, was appointed chairman of the board of Realm in January, 2005 , when Realm had secured a previous $8 million dollar investment.
Frank Artale and Michael Anderer's stories first become entertwined over Entirenet. Entirenet is a Redmond and Bellevue, Washington based Windows documentation company. Anderer served as nominal CEO of Entirenet in the 2001- 2003 timeframe. Artale, then serving as Veritas VP for Windows had purchased Entirenet for Veritas in March 2001 for an undisclosed ammount.
Anderer, acting as CEO of Entirenet, announced the acquisition of the South Carolina M$FT training firm, HunterStone, in November, 2002.
Artale had left Veritas by March 2003 when his next venture "Consera Software" was announced. Consera had venture funding provided by Ignition Partners, a Seattle venture outfit staffed with a prominent group of ex-M$FT VP's, including Cameron Myhrvold. Myhrvold has especially close ties to Artale.
Anderer left Entirenet about this time.
Frank Artale has continued to work with Ignition Partners. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Rendition Networks in Sept 2004, as part of a $6 million dollar Ignition investment. Rendition was quickly sold in Dec, 2004.
Other Artale ventures include Therion, sold in May 2005. He has recently added to the Kenai Software board in July 2005 Kenai's executives, e.g. David Mock and Byrren Yates (CFO) overlap Realm's executives and public investors. Artale is considered an expert on the profitable exit sale of start ups. Other Frank Artale endeavors include advisory roles at Zenprise, Centrify, Accel Partners, and formerly a board position at Level 8.
Michael Anderer's continuing relationship with the Seattle-area venture capital organized by highly placed ex-M$FT VP's indicates his reputation has survived the Halloween memo release.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
They never mean it. It's equivalent to saying "I support the war, but don't want to fight in it." In case you think I'm lying, test out their "commitment" by engaging in a conversation about, for example, the importance of data typing in a weak static typed environment. Explain how it allows the compiler to catch errors! Then watch as she walks away... ... And don't ask how I know I'm right.
Well, hows that for small? Don't even need a power cable! Booya!
And to eliminate the Slashdot effect jokes now... does their webserver run on one of these?
Mod parent and grandparent up please
I think a lot of people are assuming that it shows up as a single USB device. A far more likely scenario is that it has an internal USB hub and several separate USB devices that all communicate with the PC over the same connection. That would allow it to appear to be both a network connection and a storage device at the same time. The site says that it can be configured to automatically install software on the host computer, so autorun is probably involved. It would have to emulate a CD-Rom as Windows does not support autorun on RAM devices.
First of all the website says: BlackDog offers open source developers an exciting new platform for mobilizing software applications. and then at the bottom of the website it says: © 2005 Realm Systems, Inc. The BlackDog Mobile Personal Server is proprietary technology developed by Realm Systems, Inc. and is patent pending. All Rights Reserved. As a open source developer I don't like software patents, that's why demonstrated in Strassbourg. What exactly is it that is patented here? I would buy such device if I don't have a answer like "no software is being patented". As a open source user I want to compile stuff and install a linux I prefer on that box. So how fast would a PowerPC 400Mhz compile while installing linux from source? Not that fast. It has the same power of a PDA and so it its performance is not comparable to an average pc. The price is very attractive, most PDA's are more expensive. Though it would be nice if it had a screen and a battery, some usb ports for mouse and keyboard so I could also use it standalone. Than it would be very portable. I see also there is officially support for linux and Window.. But how does the device work on MacOSX or FreeBSD?
i wonder if Mac OSX will install on it, very minimal install. someone want to write kernel extensions/drivers for it? or maybe just use Mac-on-Linux?
Punk good! Fire bad!
Marquise
-- I need a new sig.
if I would connect a whole bunch of Blackdogs to my computer? Would it result in a dogfight? Would it be called a 'Blackdog kennel'? Can I build a cluster of Blackdogs like that? And most importantly: do they bark, if an unauthorized person tries to use it?
I want a thin client - i.e., ethernet (wireless?) to keyboard, mouse and video ports - not a thin server. My session runs on an always-on machine in a warehouse somewhere, and I access it using VNC / remote X / ssh / whatever. I'd like to be able to do so without using a noisey / bulky PC.
Having looked at several possible solutions it looks like the video output is the difficult bit; little short of a real PC can do 1600x1200 DVI.
I can see these being used to make cold sites hot in a matter of seconds. If I had the little guy programmed to run my Firewall, another to run my DNS, etc... etc... I can plug these guys in boot from cdrom in the event that something goes bad on my hard-disks. This way the company stays live until I can take things down to fix them. Sounds like it could be an easy way to make you look like you have everything under control. Although yes it would be nice if they put Microdrives in them so that you could install a complete os on it and just walk around plugging it in to do dirty little tricks. Point of Sales system password brute forcing all via the little handheld usb. Or anything along those lines. I can see future application of people using these things as super covert hacking tools. Just get a mini blackberry sized keyboard dropped on it and a small hard-drive to hold all my friends and a simple lcd I could run terminal commands from the little bugger. Now all I need is a wireless card installed and the possibilities are endless.
It is like a million of tight ass system/security Administrators are yelling in anguish!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I know the cluster joke is an open door, but seriously. USBhub == cluster Does it run pvm? Look at me mom, no racks!
64 MBs of DRAM might be just a slight bit on the low end, but I really don't see a problem running a LAMP server on it. Or a mail server, for that matter. I actually don't really see what kind of a server you could not run on it (except possibly Tomcat ;).
Looks like its nothing more then just some storage space.. Big deal..
Now if you can actuall run applications on it, now that would be something to look at.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've shown the woman I work with (she's blind, I'm her reader) how to use the ATM here, and she's as good as anyone who's sighted. For this one, which is one of the insert kind, it's just remembering the keystrokes. Swipe one's would be harder. The first question it asks is, do you want a receipt or not.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Hey, I've been doing a lot of embedded design with PowerPC 440 from IBM. They really are quick little things. They support this neat APU (aux processor unit) that lets you create custom logic with custom instruction sets (think DSP/Co-processor etc). Just wondering...
isn't "that one" actually this one?
http://www.novell.com/
Hmm, not sure about that. My wife is impressed with all my computer skillz because she isn't into computers that much. All I need is a wife who knows how to compile a kernel taunting me because she is running a newer version that I am.
The perfect "barbie" filter if you will.
I am pretty sure being a geek is a barbie filter in and of itself.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
So, yeah, I must be really happy.
the ability to have post-coital conversations about kernel optimisations is somewhat overrated.
:-)
I married a chemistry geek rather than a code geek, but I think the basic point carries over into all forms of geekdom.
Trust me on this: there's nothing hotter than spooning with a naked blonde while she discusses inductively coupled plasma. Schwing!!!
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
So basically, it's a pocket sized device that can act as a server which plugs into any usb port and takes control of everything from screen to nic, and everything inbetween....in other words, it's more than likely utilizing the same mac and ip that it's host had, and certainly opens up some interesting questions about what you could do with the device API (assuming there is one). Then again, it runs on debian, so I guess you could just recompile whatever toolset you wanted on the thing, have all jobs run on cron, and tape it to the underside of a desk.
As far as being limited storage-wise, you could have it own up boxes and nfs stuff back out to itself I guess...
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
I wonder if anybody would give a damn about this thing if they didn't have a mechanical bull at Linux World?
I saw this posting and couldn't help to comment. I just got the fingergear cos on a stick and it's helping me in all kinds of emergency situations in my datacenter. (http://fingergear.com/ I no longer have to install a cd rom to boot to trouble shoot DNS problems or other config problems and I also have the USB BIO FLASH DRIVE from fingergear so that if I leave my computer on a stick in the datacenter it's protected by a biometric finger scan. It's much smaller than anything out there (fits in my shirt pocket or the palm of my hand (no it doesn't melt in your hand.) It's just a great product that's helped me out of a lot of tuff messes. I'm even experimenting with running some dumbservers and firewalls using only the COS and bio flash drives. I also use it when my friends call me up to fix their computers that are crashed. I just stick it in and have loaded some diagonostics tools so I can find their problems quickly. It holds up to 8GB so I don't have any worry about what apps I run so imo its the best out there for portable computing. The BIO flash drive even has a LCD screen. http://fingergear.com/ --- more info for you guys: The FingerGear Bio USB Flash Drive with LCD is the most portable and secure USB data storage device on the market today. With its own LCD to guide you through fingerprint setup and operation, the FingerGear device requires no software to run on a host PC. The FingerGear Bio USB Flash Drive is both PC, Linux, & Mac interoperable and truly Plug-n-Play. Using Bionopoly's highly accurate onboard fingerprint engine, a single swipe of the finger confirms a user's identity and grants the access to their secured data. Using the latest USB 2.0 silicon, the FingerGear Flash Drive family are capable of blazingly fast read speeds up to 18 Megabytes per second and write speeds of up to 13 Megabytes per second. Features Simple LCD Setup & Operation Built-in One-Time Passcode (OTP) Generator No Software Required Fingerprint Authentication in http://fingergear.com/bio_usb_flash_drive.php --- The Computer-On-a-Stick (COS) is a USB Flash Drive featuring its own Onboard Operating System together with a full suite of Microsoft Office-compatible applications. The Computer-On-a-Stick also boasts the powerful Mozilla Firefox Web Browser, Evolution email, and Yahoo & MSN compatible Instant Messenger for superior Internet connectivity Plug the Computer-On-a-Stick into your PC or Laptop and instantly transform your old environment into a new and powerful secure workstation - without a hard disk! The combination of low cost and a powerful Onboard Operating System opens up a whole new paradigm of computing. Users get all the benefits of a thin client solution without changing their existing PC hardware or software. Use the Computer-On-a-Stick when your PC or Laptop's existing OS slows to a crawl or even fails. Use the Computer-On-a-Stick to continue working on Windows-compatible documents. The Computer-On-a-Stick is compatible with files created in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Paint, and more... No need to pay for expensive new software releases or upgrades $$$ ! View and create Adobe PDF files Share a pool of office PCs or work from home without changing your own desktop each time you use the device. Reduce your exposure to viruses, worms and spyware by running applications from a read-only partition on the device. Connect to remote servers with secure connectivity tools, including VNC, SSH and RDP. High Speed (USB 2.0) Ultra Fast System Startup with USB 2.0 Shutdown within seconds Web, email and remote server or PC access Non-volatile Flash memory for all stored data. Capacities: 256MB, 512MB, 1G, 2G, 4G, up to 8 Gigabytes! Compression utility with password protection No hard disk required Linux 2.6.x Series Kernel Gnome GUI Desktop Latest Mozilla Firefox Web Browser OpenOffice Productivity Suite, including the following applications: 1. Word Processing 2. Spreadsheets 3. Vector Drawings 4. Slide Presenta
Was that in Seattle? She's an Envrionmental Scientist.
While it was jolly considerate of you to cut-n-paste your brochure for us, Mr. FingerGear, I do wonder what made you think that was appropriate in this context. It seems the FingerGear is in fact a simple USB thumb drive with a Linux distro preinstalled, which is rather a long way from the true standalone system the BlackDog is. For instance, I'd be interested in the CPU the device uses; the web site is strangely silent on the issue.
Dude, if you're looking forward to inheriting that, just post your UPS able receiving address and the phrase "please donate anything x86 20mz or better" and you'll have no end of raw material "inherited" your way. Lot's of us have old boxen looking for a home.
hanzie.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Heh -- so the Linux-USB Gadget folks *do* have an Ethernet-over-USB driver already available and working... yall's hardware does work with the Gadget interface, right?
Like Lisa2.com, it might make a great tribute to older technology having a 386 up and running, but it serves no practical purpose for me. I could care less if I get it or not.
:-)
Those of us with old boxes might consider setting up a compile farm for distcc to use. That's what I'm doing with my various old boxes (two Power Mac 8500's, a PowerCenter Pro, the 386, a box of Socket 3 and Socket 7 motherboards, an overclocked Pentium II, and the spare clock cycles of a Pentium 4 home server). Xcode lets me use distcc for compilations, and so does Gentoo.
Though, replace "20 MHz 386" with "Power Mac G4 or G5" and I might just post my address...
The current Realm Systems page shows someone else is CTO. Was this just recently changed, or was the deck just reshuffled?
http://realmsys.com/about.htm
Gary Barbour, PhD, CTO
* 30 years experience in networking and distributed computing
* Professor computer science and electrical engineering
* Co-founder Phobos Corporation, developing leading security SSL technology
---------------
What about the CEO and COO, what are their connections with SCOX and/or M$FT if any?
The change occured between Thursday 8/11 and Saturday (8/13) at 3:52:41 GMT (Friday night Utah time) when Google cached the new page.
MSN Search still maintains the old page in its cache from a 8/10 spider.
The change in web page occured subsequent to the grandparent Slashdot post (by myself as AC) describing relationships of Michael Anderer and investors in the Realm Systems startup. It is not known if Anderer's apparent demotion was the result of sensitivity to this information, or a long overdue change by a young company seeking its place in the open-source universe.
It is not known if Anderer's apparent demotion was the result of sensitivity to this information, or a long overdue change by a young company seeking its place in the open-source universe.
Very interesting. I'm pretty sure that the RealmSys page still showed Anderer Friday morning because I remember looking at it.
I can also say that the AC link to the SEC filing saw some hits from Utah and Seattle broadband providers on Friday. I believe there was an Off Topic thread on Groklaw earlier this week.
My guess would be for the change being a result of this increased scrutiny. My question is whether it is a cosmetic change or if he is really out of a job.
Well, it seems that the very same Mike Anderer is is CTO of Realm Systems makers of this device.
Rather, it seems that until very, very recently, Anderer was the CTO. On Friday morning (12 Aug), Anderer was still listed. As of Saturday evening he was not.
no western new york, she's a rebelious conservative