Ooh, found some neat stuff on [/.][1] today. I was reading a [book review article][2] today and while the book review itself didn’t appeal to me that much, the commentary was kinda interesting to I kept reading. And I found some gems after digging a while.

#### Ultimate Boot CD

First is the [Ultimate Boot CD][3]. This thing looks like an awesome diagnostic tool for working with PC hardware, and Windows and Linux OS’s.

With this tool, you can:

• Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives
• Free yourself from the slow loading speed of the floppy drive
• Consolidate as many diagnostic tools as possible into one bootable CD

When you boot up from the CD, a text-based menu will be displayed, and you will be able to select the tool you want to run. The selected tool actually boots off a virtual floppy disk created in memory.

And it also includes [INSERT][4], which is a Linux distro based on [Knoppix][5] (well known for booting to ANY hardware without installing the OS to the hard drive). INSERT has stuff like samba, ssh, [Nessus][6], [Snort][7], [Rdesktop][8], [VNC][9] and all kinds of other stuff. I’m getting excited thinking about it. I haven’t booted to the CD yet, just finished the download.

#### Metropipe Virtual Privacy Machine

This is interesting too. Metropipe’s [Virtual Privacy Machine][10] is a small distribution of Linux with some handy Internet applications like [Firefox][11] and [Thunderbird][12]. But the cool part here is that you copy the distribution to a portable USB or Firewire device, like a keydrive or an iPod. Mount the device in any Windows or Linux computer, and then when you run the executable, your little Linux is booted inside a virtual machine that does not interfere with the currently running OS.

So what’s the big deal, why is this useful? I am not sure if its something I would use often, but I can see how it would be nice to have a private set of bookmarks, access to my email, a private web browser history, and basically a custom environment in my pocket. Definitely interesting enough to check out.

#### Last Thoughts

Last but not least, well yes, least is the right word, I do want to mention [Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE)][13]. Now I commend Bart for the work he’s done, but I went through the arduous process of creating one of these live bootable Windows CDs and the end result was half-broken and slow as molasses. I’m not blaming him, I just think its a lost cause. Microsoft didn’t make it easy, and you are shoehorning the OS where it doesn’t want to be and it just did not work out for me.

[1]: http://slashdot.org
[2]: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/16/1835224
[3]: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
[4]: http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html
[5]: http://www.knoppix.org/
[6]: http://www.nessus.org/
[7]: http://www.snort.org/
[8]: http://www.rdesktop.org/
[9]: http://www.realvnc.com/
[10]: http://www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml
[11]: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
[12]: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
[13]: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/