These days, the price of USB memory has plummeted so quickly and deeply that everybody has a few tiny memory devices somewhere in the pocket. Larger-sized ones, say, 1GB or more, could work as an emergency rescue tool when your Windows machine crashes hopelessly with that dreaded "Blue Hell" panel bright on the display.

BIOS set to USB HD boot, the USB memory can revive the soundly dead Windows from its graveyard. Not only Windows, but also Linux can be kicked up from the USB device. In this case, Linux would totally hijack the Windows PC.

CramWorks' BOOTPLUG-S1. This tiny (58 x 16 x 8mm, 8g) plug is mighty enough to hijack any computer.

Installing Windows system (or recovery image) into USB memory device is easy. Everybody can do it without any trouble and special know-how. Installing Linux would be a little more problematic. Sometimes, some distributions don't work with USB HD boot, and some tampering would be needed. Oh, no, any Linux freak can do it easily. But not for your next-door auntie who just has been initiated to her first computer.

In this case, a ready-installed full-turnkey Linux hijacker is waiting for you. A Yokohama-based software/peripheral developer, CramWorks Inc., has been selling BOOTPLUG-S1 quietly.

BOOTPLUG, basically, is a USB flash memory (1GB) with USB-HD bootable Linux (kernel 2.4) installed. Insert the BOOTPLUG into USB slot and boot up, and any PC will be totally hijacked by BOOTPLUG and turned into a Linux client machine. PC's harddisk won't be read/written at all. All OS, applications and user data are stored entirely in BOOTPLUG. Besides, USB-HD boot from silicon memory is lightning quick, compared with the booting from original slow-and-noisy harddisk.

Installed applications are: Web browser and mailer, OpenOffice.org 2., remote desktop client, PDF viewer, etc. If you want somemore, installation would be no problem with your Linux skills. Around 730MB of user area is left for you anyway.

As you can imagine, BOOTPLUG is not totally dummy-proof. For example, if you are faced with a new PC (at Internet cafe or somebody's office), you have to define the network environment. LAN/wireless/PPP? You know the WEP key? DHCP or fixed IP? Those things are inevitable anyway.

After a successful hijacking, X-Windows pops up.

All in all, BOOTPLUG is a very convenient device to take on your trip. Well, some people don't mind carrying around a heavy laptop or two in their suitcase. Even for these heavy loaders, a mere 8g attached to your keyring would be useful sometimes.

BOOTPLUG-S1 is available at Akiba shops and at CramWorks' online shop. Price: 12,600 yen (US$105).

 

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