Re: I want to go geek .. and VPC?

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Harry Binswanger  on
Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:26:14 -0400


> Robert wrote:
>
> >If everybody was already portable, it would be
> >a piece of cake. And EVERYBODY *should* already be portable!
>
> Here's a wild idea. Put an *active* portable Xy up on
> the web. That is, ... from any computer, he
> launches a browser, goes to some site, and by doing
> something or other ... he runs XyWrite remotely.

Nice idea. Here's what's wrong with it. If the core need for
this is rescue + portability, then you need to assume that you
can't access the local hard drive (at least until XyWrite is up
and running), because it may not be available (may be broken).
Support files (KBD, DFL, PRN, etc) need to be stored somewhere
locally. Yes, you could run EDITOR.EXE remotely, but it would
be running within the RAM _on your machine_, and therefore it
would look for its support files on your machine (or your LAN).
Even if you stored those files remotely, you would need to
retrieve and write them locally, so that EDITOR could then read
them. Thus, you require one of three things: a RAMdrive;
removable storage (e.g. a USB memory key or a CD); and/or a way
of remapping a remote resource to a local drive.

BartPE has a RAMdrive.

CD or USB key works well -- we've been doing that for years.

It is possible to map an FTP or WebDAV resource to a local
drive. Problem is, that requires very special software, like
South River Tech's WebDrive (OEMed as Novell's NetDrive),
installed on your machine -- not to mention an FTP server at the
other end. I don't see how that offers any benefit over
installing XyWrite on your machine. What is achieved?

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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