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Microsoft & SanDisk To Provide Desktop on Thumb Drive
Jesus Christ writes "An Information Week article reports that Microsoft is teaming up with SanDisk to provide users a complete image of their desktops in their pockets, allowing them access not only to their data...but also their applications and user interface setup while on the go. 'The companies plan to add a security layer to the offering using SanDisk's TrustedFlash security and digital rights management technology. The effort will elevate "simple flash storage to a whole new level of customer benefit," said Will Poole, corporate VP for Microsoft's Market Expansion Group. Microsoft also plans to seek out third party-hardware developers to support the initiative, the company said. As part of the plan, SanDisk will phase out its U3 technology, which adds some smart features to USB devices. Independent software developers that have created U3-compatible applications will be offered help migrating their products to the new technology, which has yet to be named.'"
It will only run on Vista.
Anybody ?
Funny, nowadays anything that has "trusted" in it seems to me like something I have to distrust...
...when a program was a single executable file?
And by "file" I mean made of manila paper, and by "executable" I mean with holes punched in it.
Seriously though, why aren't most modern desktop applications portable by design?
Read my Very Short "Stories"
We've done this on Linux, including supporting checkpointing the state (very quick, its under a second ignoring writeback time, which is a function of the device one wants to use) so one can migrate to a different machine where one can restart it.
a c2006_fordist.pdf
http://www.ncl.cs.columbia.edu/publications/comps
It looks to me like MS finally caught on to Portable Applications and BartPE bootable CDs or USB sticks.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Or is that oxymoronic?
Or just moronic?
I give up.
Is it just the BIOS that gets in the way? I've been running OSX from external drives for years now, and it makes a whole lot of recovery and imaging tasks unbelievably easier, and I keep wondering, why the hell does Microsoft have to make it so difficult?
Even with Linux, you can't just run your normal Linux install and point it towards an external drive and have that work. You have to do extra tricks that are... tricky.
So really, is it a problem with the BIOS? Can't we just fix whatever it is and be done with this problem?
Consumers don't want DRM. It doesn't matter what the industry decides to call it The consumer will eventually realize they are restricted by it.
The idea of carrying your "desktop" on a USB key is a solid one, and as the size of flash drives goes up and cost goes down it starts to make practical sense. If the U3 technology is any indication however, the idea still has a long way to go. U3 is clunky and invasive, and Microsoft and Sandisk will have to do a lot better than Sandisk has been able to do thus far to see the product become viable. Microsoft's forays into this area have been unimpressive as well. Briefcase anyone?
As technology improves, it will be interesting to see if someone one-ups this idea and provides the entire operating system in something closer to an Ubuntu Live CD.
Windows on a stick? Yes, sounds familiar.... oh, sorry, that was 'shit on a stick'
Seriously though, I wonder what nick names will be found for this product?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
A full a VoIP PBX implementation on a USB memory stick... http://www.voipteleport.com/
I don't know whether to cheer that the U3 flash drives are going away, or to tremble in fear of what these new ones will do.
I manage college computer labs, and those damn U3 drives have been a recurring hassle. They try to auto-install software on every Windows machine they come into contact with, and require two drive letters (which doesn't work so well in an environment where several key letters are already in use). When used on a Mac, they mount an extra pseudo CD on the desktop, loaded with software that's obviously (but not to many students) utterly useless. If this is in any way an extension or "improvement" upon that, then my job is about to get even harder.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
and no one thinks it's interesting that the rapture is apparently imminent, and all that's relevant is Windows and thumb drives?
Microsoft has also announced they will start producing a revolutionary new device, enabling for much more efficient transport of goods. They are calling it the Microsoft Wheel.
So apparently it's a whole new, totally different thing that's just like how some current things work. Now that's innovation at work.
As a side note, and as someone already mentioned, I love how these innovative "whole new level" technologies rely on a "trusted" product. It may be trusted by MS, but I don't trust it, and my Damn Small Linux and Portable Apps don't need it!
Phase out industry standards and implement more proprietary ( and restricted ) 'standards'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If there will be enough room on the thumb drive for all the trojans, viruses, adware, and spambots too.
I had visions of hitting a button on my thumb drive and getting a huge desktop folded out that I can rest things on. You know, my notebook, my feet, that 5th cup of coffee...
More Twoson than Cupertino
digital rights management technology
Ooooh, so close to not being crap!
It'll be interesting to see how application licensing works for something like this...
I'm pretty sure this is already possible. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
-Xoltri
Jesus Christ writes
"An Information Week article reports...
Does Zonk have a direct line to God?
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Am I the only one who thought it odd that sandisk is going to give users "a complete image of their desktops in their pockets" I can't vouch for everyone else, but most assuredly there is no desktop in my pocket, and if there was I especially would not want an image of it.
Hey, is that a desktop in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
I read Usenet for the articles.
I fail to see how this is one iota different than Mojo. While I don't use Mojo, I've seen an online demo and it looks interesting - exactly, to my mind, what MS & Sandisk are promising in mid-2008.
It could be interesting, but at the same time, as pointed out, I don't see how it's really anything new. If they can manage to make it a bit easier for the user, though, by all means, give it a shot. *shrug*
So, they're pretty much trying to create a copy of MojoPac (wikipedia entry) and call it their own? MojoPac does the same thing for Windows, but it's not tied to a single physical device. The good part about this is that when I upgraded from an iPod to an external HD, I was able to take the entire setup with me without a problem. Unfortunately for MS, they are teaming up with a flash disk manufacturer rather than an HD maker. I found that trying to run any real app such as Office off a flash drive was impossibly slow. The reason I upgraded from my iPod to an custom external 7200rpm drive was for the sake of speed. The iPod was faster than running off a flash disk, but was still too slow for most things. Now, I can run all the important applications (e.g. GIMP, and WoW) without any noticeable performance hit off my external drive via MojoPac. It will be interesting to see how MS/Sandisk compare in terms of performance speed to MojoPac. Given how bad U3 was, I would be surprised if they can get it fast enough to run any games off of the device. Unless they can get enough performance off the flash disk to run Office, I don't see them as being a real competitor to MojoPac.
mandriva has a 4gb flash that is this. http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/node_3827 once again "someone" has taken a great linux product and claims it is new technology
Just let me have "My Briefcase" so I can synchronize my files with my floppy disk. There's no way this would be more successful a feature than that!
Am I the only person out there who finds "U3 technology" to be complete crap? I actually paid double the price to get a PNY 1G flash drive instead of SanDisk, because it was just a hard drive and didn't have unremovable bundled software like SanDisk's drives do.
I don't want an undeletable application layer between me and my data, thankyouverymuch. I'm paying for the storage space, not their software.
Been there, done that. Ever use a Sunray terminal?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Since they plan on doing something from scratch (from what I understand), how about defining open standards that could be used on any platform?
.xml files and keep it simple.
I know some things can't be cross-platforms (executables, etc), others can (wallpaper, keyboard, mouse, language, international, email and IM settings, etc).
Put everything in pure (i.e., non-"Microsoft-enhanced")
Seeing as Microsoft is part of this initiative, however, I predict that "cross-platform" will mean "Windows Vista and future versions of Windows".
If I'm used a thumb drive for my desk top, where would I put my coffee cup?
It will not be a portable run-anywhere-on-x86-liveUSB like Knoppix or DSL. It will be another useless piece of shit.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Anyone remember losing or damaging a floppy disk? There's a reason why technologies have become "network centered." I'm betting it will be implemented in some stupid way like roaming profiles on a flash card. I can just see it now, you save your stuff, pull out your flash disk, and walk away... "Crap I forgot to 'eject' it." So now, All your data are belong to Xenu.
So, they figured out a way to save their "Roaming Profiles" technology (which is horrendously unreliable) to a flash disk instead of just storing on the network. Big deal. The only "innovation" is the addition of DRM, which itself is predictable, and also a feature nobody wants.
Microsoft: providing you with Innovative Innovations (tm) to Microsoft SneakerNet (tm) at a time when everyone else is moving towards the "always-on" web profile.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Suppose you have some DRM protected content which you can listen to or watch on your Windows computer. But if you do manage to copy that content over to your USB Flash drive and access it on another computer, like at work, you can't (if DRM is doing what the content owners expect of it). I suspect what the DRM in this new technology will be doing is allowing you to do just that ... listen to or watch your content on the computer you take your USB flash drive to. But it will most likely only let you listen/watch in just one place at a time. And that means to be able to listen/watch on your home computer again, you have to bring the USB flash drive back, and either leave the content on it, or "move" it back to the computer spin drive.
So maybe the existance of DRM in this isn't really making it any more evil ... unless you lose the USB flash drive.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... I could see some solid imaginative and practical uses for this. A portable "disk" with mass storage available through mapping the likes of a gmail account, and license info for access to web-based applications that don't need to be stored on the disk itself. Reminds me of the memory card for a PlayStation that stores settings for a game and if you take the settings to another location where the game is also available, you're right back at home; with the web, the "game" (or application) should be available anywhere, so I'd buy that for a dollar. Unfortunately, my Microsoft senses are tingling and my guess would be that it's only going to support the MIcrosoft suite of offerings and that I am not willing to buy.
I'd like to have VMware on a stick. I cant see wanting to carry around a portable version of my computer with all my emails and stuff, I'm sure others might, but to me its too big a security risk.
Didn't someone already patent: /dev/sda /home ?
Sudo mount
From the description of this latest MS innovation, it sounds like they should name it MojoPac [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MojoPac], but looks like someone beat them to it.
How about "Virus in a Box"?
That is all.
Just use PortableApps.com today. It has better compatibility, working with most Windows OSes (95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista) as well as Wine under *nix. It's open so you can add any software that's already portable to it. And it's much more popular than U3 ever was, with over 20,000,000 apps downloaded. Plus it works from any drive you'd like: USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, network share, etc... so you're never tied down.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
No. Pirates failed it. Anyone who didn't believe in cause and effect, soon will.
I've been doing this for years, going clear back to toting a Zip disk around with me that had Eudora on it, executing the program from the disk along with carrying the files I'm working with at the time.
I'm doing this now with my sandisk titanium Cruzer 2 Gig. I've got my email client, Eudora, that runs just fine executing from the flash drive. My FTP client, leapftp is similar. Effectively, my "My Documents" resides on the flash drive, too. Then there's the suite of portable applications from http://portableapps.com/ I use portable Firefox, OO and Putty and have lots of room left over on the 2 Gig drive.
Since all that good stuff is on that little flash drive, I back it up automatically every night so if I lose it, it's no biggie. Encryption is a good idea..
I'm with the other comments about being nervous if MS is running the show. It's going to be more about restrictions than enabling.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Everyone is doing this already. Ok... everyone except Microsoft. You've been able to run a complete version of Linux or OSX off of a USB drive for a while now."
You can't run Dolphin Smalltalk off a USB Flash drive.
And after you have dropped a large stack of punch cards, you will realize that the good old days SUCKed. In addition, the card reader was monster. ppl like to remenese about the GOOD OLD DAYS, with out realizing that it is all relative. I like today. Just because MS and other companies are issues, does not mean that things are that bad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mepis used flash for your home directory, with optional encryption, in 2005. Here's the announcement. You booted off the CD and logged in as the "onthego" user. This is not as quick sounding as yours, but it's easy.
I'm not sure if they had it set up to install applications to the flash drive, but that should not be hard. It would also not be hard to make a custom boot CD with Debian.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Seriously though, why aren't most modern desktop applications portable by design?
Because your Desktop PC is not portable.
On a second thought, it's probably a more profitable situation not being portable by design. Take, for example, MS Office. Take my hypothetic situation:
I am busy working on Presentation X in my little cubicle. I decide to take my work back to the house. I did the project on MS PowerPoint and don't have a copy at home. Oh, no! Granted, the typical Slashdot user knows there are open source alternatives available to help with the problem, but computer-illiterate Joe does not. To him, the only way of getting a PowerPoint presentation running on his computer at home is to actually buy a copy of PowerPoint/Office. Joe has become another potential customer and, therefore, more money for the parent company can flow in -- in this case, it's Microsoft. And if he enjoys his Microsoft product, he might buy more products from the company leading to bigger profits.
"As part of the plan, SanDisk will phase out its U3 technology, which adds some smart features to USB devices."
Translation.
'Our U3 technology was crap, especially when compared to what was already out there' (see the other posts on this topic).
"Independent software developers that have created U3-compatible applications will be offered help migrating their products to the new technology, which has yet to be named..."
Translation.
'We're getting into bed with MS, who have a solid history of fucking-over third-party sw developers, and end-users, (the Zune episode springs to mind). So, eh, kiss your investment goodbye, suckers!
Meanwhile, go download the stand-alone versions of Firefox and Thunderbird if you want portability.
But if you're serious about your data, DO NOT mix the OS & application environment with user data on that key. My main PC has a separate partition for data on the disk. If the OS, (any one of them), gets screwed, no problem - reinstall. Data not affected...
and all of the other IT guys out there trying to secure workstations and networks...
Thanks SanDisk and Microsoft!
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
"Funny, nowadays anything that has "trusted" in it seems to me like something I have to distrust..."
Can't image why. You all are trustworthy, right?
A package called Portable Office 2007 showed up recently on Usenet. Used some product called "thinstaller" that wrappered/VMed an Office 2007 install into some standalone exes. The archive was 200 meg. It extracted to 520 Meg. It offered word, excel, access, and powerpoint. Access didn't run in my brief testing and it wasn't integrated into explorer, but it required no registry access and I suspect it wouldn't be exploitable like a fully-integrated install would be. All other elements seemed to work fine for my office needs sans outlook which is perfectly fine in it's 2003 edition.
MS should buy thinstaller or put office inside wow instances or something similar. I love the idea of single exe standalone apps that install with simple directory copies. I've taken to installing some app sets into VMware as many installs (MS is the worse) dump tons of crap/startups into my nice clean systems. A thinstaller type approach would make things easier.
Is it just the BIOS that gets in the way? I've been running OSX from external drives for years now ...
BIOS makes it hard to boot from external media and PCs have all sorts of M$ damaged hardware attached to them. M$ has played the same sorts of games with BIOS that they have played with Winmodems and word docs. Their specs are usually over complex "extensible" non standards that encourage wasteful customizations that no one but M$ can deal with. The success of Linux on such hardware is a miracle that proves the power of free software development. You can make linux system images that are 60MB and smaller, but you are hard pressed to make the average PC boot off anything but a CD or hard drive.
The workaround is to cart a "liveCD" and a USB flash home drive. Live CDs pack in 2 Gigs worth of system files, which is enough to haul around a complete and auto configuring system. A DVD can contain an insane quantity of software. Flash drives are now large enough to carry lots of files, but it's still easier to sftp to your home box.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
wow because linux hasn't been doing this for the last 3 years!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Just go there
No DRM inside, only Freedom.
> Funny, nowadays anything that has "trusted" in it seems to me like something I have to distrust...
When they call it "trusted" they mean that it can be trusted to do what they want in spite of whatever you want. That is, they trust it because it doesn't trust you.
Naturally, that mistrust should go both ways. I don't trust those devices one bit.
This isn't anything new. I've been able to do it for linux since i've started. Heck, i carry two around - one with DSL installed, and another with all of my pref/files for ubuntu
Mandriva (then Mandrake) did this years ago, teaming up with LaCie to provide 40GB USB desktops, complete with boot CDs for systems that couldn't boot from USB.
I did not know what U3 was when I got my 512 MB SanDisk, which I got simply because it was the cheapest per MB available at the time. When I plugged it in I noticed that it wanted to install a bunch of garbage. So I unplugged it, held shift down, plugged it back in, and watched it install itself as a normal flash drive. I deleted all the pre-existing crap on the drive, and never had another problem with it.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Um, mounting a portable drive over a default home directory is nothing new.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
XXX#######
Really? Has the BIOS spec changed at all since the mid-90s? Because you can still download the APM BIOS spec from them, among other things.
Or are you referring to EFI? AFAIK Phoenix was offering a DRM BIOS as early as 2004-2005 but apparently no one bought into it, or at least I've yet to see a standard white box PC with a BIOS like that.
So what "games" are you referring to? And what does "M$ damaged hardware" mean?
I wouldn't go as far as comparing them to the power of a Linux Live CD, but there are certainly ways to create stripped-down but usable bootable Windows XP images with lots of tools and whatnot. For example, BartPE. Even Microsoft will give you one, though I think you need to be an OEM for that one, which obviously makes it far less useful.
I'll be sure to ask my employer to open up the firewall to I can "sftp" into my home box. That sounds a lot easier than an automated ~/ mount from a four-inch thumbdrive I can carry around in my pocket.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
... MS with is proprietary mindset and evidence of consumer abuse via countless anti-trust cases can't possibly do better than what open source can do here. And lets not forget that USB ram sticks are getting cheaper and larger in storage ability.. and faster access.
With the ability of hardware today to boot from a USB, what is the point of doing only half the job (what MS is proposing) when you can have the the whole system on the stick, OS included.
MS is so far behind on this that their ball and chain methodologies won't very well move forward anywhere near as fast as open source already has.
So what is the point of taking your desktop with you when you can take your whole software system with you on a stick?
Well my current "Desktops" worth of data is (approx) 170 Gb (lots of audio files in "full fat" WAV format)
;)
So if they can provide a USB drive of that size for a few (UK) pounds then I'm all in favour (obviously I'll reformat the fecker first
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Guys... we need some perspectives here. Forget Microsoft and VMware. The important thing here, that most of us missed, is that Jesus Christ is back and submitting articles to Slashdot.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
U3+DRM = Apocallypse! seriously, I wouldn't expect such horrible thing to happen but MS (not surprised) just did. We are going to have them combined and the worst is that almost every flash disk will come with it and most users won't get to be able to remove it. This is terrible news.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"The companies plan to add a security layer to the offering using SanDisk's TrustedFlash security and digital rights management technology. The effort will elevate "simple flash storage to a whole new level of customer benefit"
The first thing Microsoft cares about in this endeaver is DRM?
And this is going to provide "a whole new level of customer benefit"?
I don't think so.
If Microsoft wants to make USB useful, let Windows XP and Vista be booted off it...(Yes, I know somebody has finally made this possible but success seems to be limited.)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'll be sure to ask my employer to open up the firewall to I can "sftp" into my home box. That sounds a lot easier than an automated ~/ mount from a four-inch thumbdrive I can carry around in my pocket.
You can run sftp on any port you want, so you don't have to ask anyone for anything.
If your boss shares the extreme ignorance and paranoia expressed in the first sentence, nothing you want will work. Your employer epoxied the USB ports years ago and will never purchase or turn on whatever will allow your marvelous automounting security hole.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I could see it being useful to a homeless person.* Public PCs are common, and USB drives come in many forms (even a bracelet, or a watch).
*Their data using open standards. Also USB drives are a perfect pairing with web apps.
I'm not sure why it has taken this long, since we've had roaming profile support for awhile. Add a quick option at the login or welcome screen to load your profile from external storage (allow/disallow if using Vista). On the Mac, application portability should be even easier since applications are typically enclosed completely in a single file.
... linux could do th- oh wait.
I wonder what nick names will be found for this product?
Plain "M$tick", pronounced "shit stick" springs to mind. Let's parse out some M$ suggestions and tortured language to see what we can do with what we know:
What will they wow us with now that can possibly match and combine all of the above?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
the idea of this project was to put the laptop metaphor into something you could store in your pocket.
Hmmm, I really love my laptop's power management and having everything I want where I left it as I walk around .... and it's only got some 4 GB of system files and swap to make it happen ....
So how does it actually work? What do you have to run on each machine to have it work? From your paper I get the hazy idea that some kind of virtual machine software is running and loads an image off the USB stick. The closest thing I can think of is qemu with a saved state that loads up and fullscreens on login.
If the host is using it, Onthego does not require you to boot the machine and KDE's session management should bring up everything where you left it. That's not as nifty as what I'm starting to see in your project.
In any scheme, all the other applications have to be installed somewhere too and this is where M$'s little project will fall on it's face. They are way too paranoid to just let you walk around with precious "IP" like Word on a stick that could be shared.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
One would do well to actually read 1984 (as opposed to just scream its title every time the Right does something you don't like).
... with a life penalty?) and University speech codes (University "Free Speech Zones" are a wonderful example of NewSpeak, DoubleThink, and ThoughtCrime wrapped into one)
1984 was an comment by Orwell on the Communists. Orwell, himself a socialist, learned to hate and fear the Communists after the Spanish Civil War.
Big Brother was an obvious stand-in for "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
In 1984 you will see:
* The Ministry of Truth, the media manipulation of news and history (ala the recent Reugter's Photoshopping of pictures from the Israel/Lebanon war; Dan Rather's falsification of documents)
* NewSpeak, the changing of language to make certain thoughts impossible (ala the politically correct language redefinition we experienced in the 70s/80s e.g. "differently abled" for "handicapped", in Sweden "husmor" replaced by "hemmafru" or their English cognates "housewife" with "stay-at-home-mom")
* DoubleThink, the simultaneous holding of two or more mutually exclusive ideas (e.g. "homosexuality is something you are born with" and "homosexuality is a personal and private decision"; or "racism is always wrong" and "affirmative action is the right thing to do")
* ThoughtCrime, making the mere ability of thinking something a crime. You see this all the time in Hate Crime legislation (what murder wasn't already a crime
* also the breakdown of the family and sexual relationships (which has less obvious parallels but "PolPot & the child turns their parents in" (like Winston's neighbor) would be an example)
* furthermore the mild anti-semitism, the hatred of Goldsteinism, today you see this all the time however this is mostly thinly veiled as an attack on "Zionism"
We really shouldn't be surprised by the EU and The Left's fascination with this kind of behaviour. Orwell saw and predicted it nearly 50 years ago.
The article is lacking important details. I can't see this as anything other than a roaming profile despite the claim to have apps be portable as well as windows settings and user data.
From TFA: "Under the plan, Microsoft will develop software that will let users store their applications and data on small, Flash memory-based devices that connect to their computers' Universal Serial Bus."
C'mon...you're going to fit the MS Office suite and maybe Visio, Acrobat, QuickTime, iTunes, and Firefox, just to name a few of the obvious, as well as your favorite/current files and the custom settings that are used in those apps on a thumb drive? I call bullshit. This is a pipe dream at this point. Show me a thumb drive with a couple of hundred gigs and I might...might, see this as being possible in the near future.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Irrelevant to my question, unless you're pretending you're not twitter and just want to avoid my points.
I'm sorry you were abused by a corporation when you got out of highschool. Most companies aren't nearly as bad as you like to preach.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Problem: USB drives are widespread, standardized, and allow users of many competing platforms such as Mac and Linux to exchange data freely with Windows boxes.
Solution: this thing.
Viper is the preferred editor of the Emacs operating system.
QEMU-Puppy
A bootable USB memory stick has some disadvantages as well. First of all, not every PC is able to boot from USB. Second, if the machine does boot from USB, not all hardware is detected or configured properly, since the hardware "changes" every day. Third, booting from USB "locks" the machine: It's either the already installed OS or your OS, not both at the same time.
To get rid of these disadvantages, you can carry your own machine as well, not just your OS and your applications and your settings and your user data. You can do this by buying a laptop. But it's expensive, a physical burden and risky. The USB memory stick is cheap, light and easier to protect. A virtual machine , like QEMU, is cheap, light and easy to protect as well. With such a virtual machine, we are able to boot our OS on top of the already installed OS. Now we have two OS's running concurrently on one machine! ALT-TAB is enough to hide your machine and get back to work...
The tricky part is trying to have the OS on your USB memory stick to be able to boot both natively and in a virtual machine. But it can be done. And that's what makes QEMU-Puppy unique.
I wonder if portableapps or one of the other groups could sue them for patent or copyright infringement...probably not but it's a nice thought.
Since portableapps was previously mentioned, I won't go into more detail. I didn't see a link in the above posts so here it is: http://portableapps.com/
Install this on your USB key drive and you will have an on the go system that has email, browser, word processor, etc.
It will work in linux as well.
Wav is stupid. Use FLAC and recoup half of your drive and get tags for free.
Just don't forget to buy another Windows license, if you plan to use this on another computer.
What I'm trying to figure out: how the hell is this different than say putting Knoppix on a USB and having a large persistent home directory for all your data? If you really want to get fancy (putting standard Knoppix on the USB key is itself fairly easy) you can remaster Knoppix and add/remove applications at will. In fact, does not this solution completely blow the proposed MS/Sandisk one away?
It seems again that there is a huge hype storm because of neophytes being amazed at a nominal use of some standard functionalities.
The easy way to use .app-bundled apps from the CLI is with Apple's open utility. Your Preview.app example would be:
open -a Preview [list of files]
If you don't specify an app via -a, the files' default "Open with" app will be used. /Applications doesn't need to be in your $PATH, and I believe it will intelligently find apps placed anywhere you have read access to in the filesystem.
The idea of roaming applications and user data is certainly not new, but it's not widely used, and nor is there an easy way for the average application developer to explicitly take advantage of it. If Microsoft manage to change those two things (they've tried previously in corporate environments with, for example, roaming user profiles), they'll have achieved something important.
I predicted that in the future we'd carry our OS, programs, and files all on a portable device (like a thumb drive or iPod). That way we could bring our 'identity' along with us where ever we go. The connection, between the computer to the device, would be standardized so we could just hook up to any computer and always have our familiar OS, desktop, setting, etc. This just brings us one step closer to my prediction.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
I've used the latter; running Firefox and Thunderbird off of flash is usable, but kind of pokey so now I mostly just use PortaPutty to ssh to my home network and RDP to my actual desktop.
Wait 'til Uri Geller hears about this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJSxsbToLeE&mode=re lated&search=
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
First with VMware virtual machines encapsulated in a single VMDK file on my mobile 8 GB microdrive. You can run them anywhere with the free VMware Player (Windows or Linux).
As of last week, with the new Pocket ACE it gets even easier and I can add encryption, expiration time, etc. Awesome technology if you haven't tried it. http://www.vmware.com/products/ace/features.html
IMHO, unless you are a gamer or you need very specific hardware, there is no reason any more to run anything outside a VM.
The Stones could probably dream up something
What?
I can still hear Gates beloved line from his anti-trust trial about his freedom to innovate. This kind of thing was innovative a few years ago when I installed Puppy Linux on my thumb drive now its old hat.
$5629 for a 64GB thumb drive???
I'm glad to see that Jesus is staying tech-savvy to appeal to a wider audience!