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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.'"
Hax-fu?
That was previously the case on the Macintosh where the executable typically had everything it needed in the resource fork of the file, but these days the executable file is buried in a folder with a .app filename extension and the folder also contains graphics and other resources that normally would have been in the resource fork or as separate files somewhere else. It's a nice solution, but the default shell Apple provides isn't as smart as the Finder when dealing with these, so running graphical applications from the command line isn't nearly as nice as it should be (you can't just add /Applications to $PATH and say, Preview list_of_files). Still, that's much nicer than the application being an executable file, a few dozen DLLs scattered throughout the system, and a couple hundred registry entries. (On a related note, why do I think I've heard about this already being done with Linux without the DRM?)
Remember RFC 873!
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:[.]