Portable USB Keychains - The Future?

on 11.06.05, 01:46pm in embedded • Comments (8)

Lots of ideas have been swirling around my head regarding USB keychain devices, especially since 1GB drives can routinely found for $50-$60, and the 2GB versions are pretty close to breaking the $100 barrier.

One idea involves running a virtual machine directly off of the keychain, which brings up some really neat possibilities. I can totally grok the idea of bringing your entire "OS" and applications with you - similar to the way that Portable CE works, but imagine that for a full Windows installation. Since I don’t want to deal with breaking any EULA’s, I won’t post instructions, but it’s pretty straightforward to use a Virtual Machine, such as QEMU, load it up with Windows XP and run XP-Lite on it to get your OS image down to around 500mb. Other VM’s, such as Virtual PC or VMWare Player are a bit more complicated to run from a keychain, since they have device drivers that need to be installed, etc.

Another thought I had was to either create a dhtml/browser based application or some sort of rich client app (that was standalone, no installation required obviously) that was some sort of pop-up ’shell’ for the portable applications I have on my keychain, such as Portable WinAmp, etc.

One one hand, I really like the concept of portable VM’s. With them, you can pretty much use any application you want in the VM and not have to worry about machine configuration (it’ll always be the same), and you can handle "non-portable" applications easily (i.e., its like it’s own real machine). On the other hand, I’d rather have the ability to have ‘richer’ experiences from the USB drive - imagine having a small portable MP4 enabled video player (no codec hell) stored on your iPod Video. Plug it into any PC and you could watch your videos on it through the mass storage interface.

8 Comments

    Jeff Atwood (November 7, 2005 @ 12:09 am)

    The “everything is a VM” concept is the future, unquestionably.

    However, I worry that USB 2.0 keychains won’t have enough disk I/O performance to make the VM performance worthwhile. I’ve emailed the Virtual PC Guy on perf issues before, and he said unequivocally that the #1 performance bottleneck in VPC is hard drive speed.

    Given that USB 2.0 keychains, even the best ones, deliver a tiny fraction of the throughput of a HDD, I think the perf would be unbearable.

    Now if you copied the VM to the local HDD and ran it from there, you’d be fine. Or if the undo (temp) disks were stored on the hard drive, perhaps, while the main read-only image stayed on the USB stick.

    nullstream weblog (November 7, 2005 @ 10:19 am)

    Furrygoat and USB Keychains

    Furrygoat muses on the future of USB keychains. He mentions some strategies for running XP from USB via VM images. This could be done with various VM products including VM Player, which we have mentioned previously. He has also championed…

    Dan Philpott (November 9, 2005 @ 8:32 pm)

    The VM on a USB stick is a shipping product already. However, predictably, it is running a linux distro. Read more here:

    http://www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml

    I spent the today putting together an ‘Office on a Stick’ implementation with software recommended here:

    http://nedwolf.com/Freeware-Portable.htm

    And I have to say, it’s pretty slick being able to take most of my favorite apps with me and have my normal working environment available on most any computer I want to use. Due to the fact that most commercial EULA’s would require the practice of seppuku by users prior to allowing transport of their product between machines you can only reasonably expect FOSS products to be used for this kind of implementation. So the real problem with putting a VM on a USB key isn’t the bandwidth of the media (actually loading even large apps is surprisingly snappy), it’s the licenses.

    But the real reason I am commenting is I don’t know how to email the master of this realm and I wanted to alert him to the fact that his link to PocketFeed is busticated. I was able to get the file from GotDotNet.com but only by linking through here:

    http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=92935cfd-f97d-4fb8-8dcf-64561c33b69b

    PS. If I were to implement a VM on a USB the first thing done would be to create a RAM Disk for swap space. RAM sizes are increasing quickly enough that you can expect to have access to at least a 128m chunk you could use for this. Of course, this would accomplish two design goals, fast swap space AND zero residual data on the physical disks of the workstation used.

    Steve (November 10, 2005 @ 8:42 am)

    Thanks! I updated the link.. Right on the EULA - it’s a killer.

    Richard Edwards (November 17, 2005 @ 5:31 am)

    Softricity put a very interestin spin on the idea of virtual applications, and Citrix appears to have caught the bug with its “Tarpon” project.

    Brian (December 7, 2005 @ 5:41 am)

    I think the virtual machine on the USB key will be a problem due to its speed. I have used AutoRun Pro to launch PStart (both freeware). It automatically launches a window with my portable programs and all of my folders when I click on the icon (not on pluging it in. It works great with XP. It is very easy to configure and customize. I’m currently runnuing it on a portable hard drive that is usb powdered with great results.

    Cool Or What Links (February 6, 2006 @ 10:54 am)

    Portable USB Keychains

    Eileen Jia (July 25, 2007 @ 7:50 pm)

    Dear sir/madam

    we produce all kinds of metal pin products in China,
    including,lapel pins , Synthetic Enamel,Hard
    Enamel,Die struck/soft Enamel,photo etched/soft
    Enamel with epoxy ,zinc alloy,key chains,medallion,
    tieclip,opener bottle and PVC products, silicon
    bracelet(wristband), embroidered patches,bookmark
    etc.

    Offering customers competitive prices, reliable
    quality, timely delivery and good service, our
    customers are satisfied by 100percent with our job.

    If you are interested in our products, Please Give
    us an e-mail and we will quote you immediately.
    E-mail prices list is available under your request.
    We hope we have great cooperation with you !

    With best regards.
    Eileen Jia

    ÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπå

    Contact information:
    Lifeng Gifts Factory
    Tel:+86 512 57010195
    Fax:+86 512 57010195
    E-mail:eileen@lifeng-gifts.com
    Website:http://www.lifeng-gifts.com
    Address:13#104 Hongyang Garden,Chengbei
    Western Road,Kunshan,Jiangsu 215300,China

    ÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπåÔπå

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.