Mike Levin

Member since: Feb 19th, 2007

Mike Levin's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
Engadget	2 Comments
Download Squad	1 Comment

Recent Comments:

Lockheed Martin introduces 'PC on a stick' flash drive -- yes, Lockheed Martin (Engadget)

Jan 20th 2010 12:12PM @ExtinctDoughnut The answer is QEMU. It's not the fastest VM solution out there, but it actually doesn't need an install, unlike Virtual Box and VMWare, which both of which do require installs. But even with this approach, the code is still running on the host machine. And not relying on the accelerator (KQEMU) is the trick. So, performance drops off pretty dramatically, but the result is something you can pull up on EITHER a PC or OS X. It's pretty remarkable when you think about it. But I'd only recommend it for text-based access to the VM. Running Gnome, KDE or Windows would probably be disappointing. Lockheed may be using different install-less virtualization software that doens't have the performance limits of QEMU.

Lockheed Martin introduces 'PC on a stick' flash drive -- yes, Lockheed Martin (Engadget)

Jan 20th 2010 9:43AM These are just Flash RAM drives with encryption. To accomplish a virtual machine bootable on any PC or OS X without an install, use QEMU without acceleration.

What you do is set up one startup script for a PC, and a different one for the Q version of QEMU on OS X, set up as a self-contained "package". In this way, you don't even need admin access to do an install on the host system. All you need is a USB port, and execution privileges (a normal login).

The result is a complete environment you can pull up on any x86 system. It's state persists from one session to the next, meaning you can do installs and customizations of your environment. When you're done using it, just shutdown and eject the drive. Nothing is left on the host machine.

Using an encrypted drive like IronKey just adds a nice security measure so that if you lose your USB thumb-drive, the person who picks it up can't get to your system.

If anyone is interested in knowing how to set one of these things up, post your response here. I've been thinking about documenting the process. It has totally changed my work-flow.

HitTail blog topic suggestion engine (Download Squad)

Feb 19th 2007 1:43PM No worries. Every site generates its own unque suggestions, completely tied to the activity of that particular site. There would be no Britney Spears suggestions issued on a site that didn't somehow already mention it. So, how does it work? Come and see.