And I don't mean your laptop, either. While I've long extolled the virtues of Portable Apps (I'm currently running portable Firefox), most of the programs contained therein are not 100% compatible with what I forced to use on a daily basis. However, now you can take any and all of your applications wherever you go, simply by taking your portable USB device with you (external HD, large thumb drive) by installing MojoPac. Excerpt:

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.

Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.
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Your experience using Mojopac is exactly as if you are using an ultra portable PC (your MojoPac device) and docking it to a computer (the Host PC you are plugged into).

Your MojoPac PC is running from your portable device, but it is borrowing the resources (screen, processor, CD/DVD drives, internet connection, printers, etc.) of the Host PC. In other words, MojoPac is your real PC (your applications, settings, data), and any computer it is connected to is being used as a utility to run MojoPac.

Creating a MojoPac PC: Creating a brand new MojoPac PC takes less than 3 minutes.

• Plug your portable storage device (such as an iPod or a USB Flash or Hard Drive) into any Windows XP PC. Download MojoPac from our website and install it onto the device.
  
• Once you have installed MojoPac, you can log into this MojoPac PC you created (which is running from your portable device), and bring up your newly created MojoPac desktop (MojoView). What you see is similar to a brand new Windows XP PC, and behaves exactly the same.
  
• You can now install your applications from MojoView. The applications installed in the MojoView will be available for you on any PC you would connect and run MojoPac.
  

Using a MojoPac PC: You can plug your MojoPac enabled device to any Windows XP computer (Host PC), and you will immediately be presented with your personal applications, files and environment - and it looks exactly like a standard PC experience. In your MojoPac PC view (MojoView), installing applications is similar to installing applications on any PC - simply load the application installer CD/DVD, or download the application installer from the web and proceed as you would on any normal PC. In fact, in your MojoView, your "C" drive represents your MojoPac device, NOT the Host PC. So applications install in the right place automatically, no extra steps required.

MojoPac lives side-by-side with the Host PC: When you bring up your MojoPac PC after plugging your device into a Host PC, the Host PC will keep running as it was before the connection. You don't need to change the Host PC's settings, install anything on it, or close any of the applications that were running on it. Even more importantly, you can go back and forth between your MojoPac PC view and your Host PC view - you can work on both PCs at the same time, and operate both environments simultaneously. Using your MojoPac toolbar (MojoBar) you can easily toggle back and forth between the host PC view and your MojoPac view. Each presents you with whatever personal preferences and environments you have chosen for that system and MojoPac will never alter the settings or status of the host PC.

No, it's not free. It costs $49.99. However, that's a pretty small price to pay for something that will allow you to carry your entire suite of desired applications with you.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A little bit of beauty to make the day go a little better.

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Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:51 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Pournelle's latest Chaos Manor review details the recent dustup between the SWFA and the EFF. What do I think of the whole thing? This:

• Writers make their living from, duh, selling their writing.
  
• If someone wants to read their stuff, they should have to pay for it so that the authors will be properly compensated for their effort.
  
• Illegally uploading someone else's work to your site just to drive up your traffic numbers is immoral and, being redundant here to make a point, illegal.
  
• If some authors want to allow their works to be given away for free, that is, of course, their right. They don't have to right to inflict that opinion on others.
  

Now the not-a-pirate-site Scribd often uploads material to which they neither own the copyright nor been given permission to do so. And their response is that they will only response to a legally crafted letter demanding that they remove such material? I'm usually in favor of big brass balls, but not in this case. I consider theft, intellectual or monetary, to be wrong. I never jumped on the music sharing theft bandwagon because, well, you're benefitting from someone's labor without properly compensating them. It seems like an easy call. But too many people these days think that there is such a thing as a free lunch and that laws don't apply to them. In the immortal words of Kos, Screw Them.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:41 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So Weekly World News has gone the way of the dodo. Bummer. It was perfect bathroom reading material. My favorite supermarket checkout headline from WWN? Famous Psychic's Head Explodes! Probably a little less famous than the Bat Boy cover, but still entertaining.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:19 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Mike is back posting at Cold Fury after, in his words, "the unimaginable horror of this summer's mutiple personal catastrophes".

I can't begin to imagine what he's been through, but it's good to have him back. And I really like the Chris Muir created image of Christiana at the top of the blog.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:47 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So I stumbled onto another Linux distro, NimbleX, which is a Slackware based distribution. It looks pretty cool, is fairly compact and uses the KDE interface. What really piqued my interest though was this: the Custom Nimblex Live CD generator. It allows you to select what applications and default settings you want on your Live CD and then massages all of your choices into an ISO which you can download and burn. Voila! Your very own personalized Linux Live CD. Pretty cool stuff.

Note: You should probably hit the site via Firefox instead of IE. I tried it using both browsers and IE kind of failed at the last step; I'm not sure why. Probably something to do with the differences between the Python and Gecko engines. In any event, consider yourself forewarned.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Worried about migrating to Linux because you don't think that there's enough Linux software to replace your current Windows versions? Think again. Excerot:

For each Linux application, we have compiled a portal page providing an overview of the software, a screenshot of the application in action, a comprehensive list of its features, and links to sites offering information and support on the software such as forums, tutorials, and reviews.

Unlike their Window counterparts, the vast majority of the listed Linux applications are available to download without cost. Popular Linux distributions conveniently come supplied with much of the software listed below (see our Linux Distribution Guide if you are unsure what is meant by the term distribution, or if you would like more information on what they offer).

The list below is far from exhaustive.

Actually, the list is freakishly long, so I won't bother to post any of the links. Have at it.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via VW Bug comes this quiz, which gave me the following result:

My heart is still pretty strong, so it's gonna take some serious getting my freak on to kill me. Either that or some seriously advanced age.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Harvey, in an alternate reality, has Bush practice diplomacy the way it should be practiced.

In a Tehran news conference, Iran's President scoffed at the threat of military action against his regime, saying that "even if they were to decide to do so, they would be unable to carry it out."

Bush responded calmly to the defiance. "I suppose Amedinejad - or 'Amy' as I like to call him - is right. Americans certainly don't seem to have the cojones for a decent war these days. That's why I intend to start with diplomatic pressure. Specifically, economic sanctions. More specifically, a declaration of economic sanctions duct-taped to a 10-megaton warhead."

I giggle every time that I read it. Go check it out.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Harvey, some time ago, introduced me to Yahoo!POPs, a piece of software that allows you to circumvent the problem created when Yahoo! decided to remove POP3 access to their email. Pretty cool stuff. However, there are a lot of other email systems out there - Hotmail, Netzero- that also preclude their use, although in Netzero's case, they simply want you to pay a yearly fee to allow you to use a 3rd party email client to access your FREE email account. Well, I figured that someone smart would create a tool that would give you POP3 access to your webmail accounts. I give you FreePOPs. In the extended entries I've included all of the different email system plugins which FreePOPs uses.
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Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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