U3 apps and rev

[Richard Gaskin]

Andre Garzia wrote:

> they could always hire us to build the mac side of U3. It's just an  
> app that loads on mount, inspect it's own volume and make a nice UI.  
> If, and only if, that Launcher app is a normal computer application,  
> meaning, something that windows could load by double clicking and not  
> some rom based assembler black magic, we could just create with Rev  
> such launcher and offer to them to include in the U3 rom.

U3 is a new application of a very old Windows-specific technology:  the 
autorun.inf file.

On any locked volume, Windows will look for an autorun.inf file and, if 
found, will launch whatever executable is specified in the file.

A "U3" drive is essentially a flash drive partitioned into two parts: 
one read-only with the autorun.inf file and the Launchpad app, and the 
other partition the user writes to.  Windows sees the locked partition, 
finds the autorun.inf, opens Launchpad, and for anyone who's never seen 
a CD do this in Windows it looks like magic. :)

The U3 folks set up their "U3-compliant" flash drives to use their own
branded Launchpad app, but you can find a good many vendors online who
can make custom partitioned flash drives for you, which means you can
create your own U3-like experience but fully branded however you - or
your client - wants, with whatever launcher app you want to auto-run --
but only on Windows:

As others have noted when USB drives have come up here before (Aug 04, 
Jan 06, and maybe a few times in between), there are security risks with 
autorun.inf, which is why the full U3 experience is not available for OS 
X or Linux.

Many years ago Apple experimented with a form of auto-run for QuickTime,
and about 15 minutes after it was released it was used to spread
viruses, so about 20 minutes after that Apple replaced it with a more 
secure version of QT and vowed never to do an auto-run again.

Microsoft has an arguably more casual approach to security by design, 
and have evidenced this many other times when cutting back a feature 
would have increased security; so it is again with autorun, of which 
much has been written from a security standpoint but which Microsoft 
doesn't classify as a problem the way the other OS vendors do.

For this reason, the central differentiation of the U3 customer
experience -- the automatic launch of LaunchPad -- may never find its
way into implementations for non-Microsoft operating systems.


Stephen Barncard wrote:
> I think it's the 'hot plugging shutdown' feature that's special about 
> what they do. I agree it's already possible to make 'portable apps' 
> on any thumb drive without U3.

That one's the only thing I've seen that requires firmware in U3, and 
should be relatively straightforward to make for all platforms.

But I've been unable to figure out a practical use for it:  since the 
app is in memory and the drive it might otherwise save to has been 
removed, what meaningful action can the application take?

If the app merely warns the user that the device it was going to save to 
has been removed, how is that substantially different from simply doing 
good error-checking in your save routines?

I look forward to learning how to apply that notification to practical ends.


All that said, I think Andre is onto to something.  Certainly there's 
great benefit to lending the Revolution technology to helping out the U3 
initiative, and the cross-marketing benefits definitely make that 
worthwhile on all sides.

But as Rev developers of course we needn't stop there, and can run our 
apps on any portable device, U3 or not.  Many have been doing this for 
quite some time.  Unlike so many other development systems which rely on 
an army of DLLs strewn all over the hard drive just to run, Rev has been 
a small self-contained executable for more than a decade, making it 
perfectly suited for portability.

Thinking about this a couple months ago I came up with the notion of 
"U4", an initiative to deploy truly open, custom-brandable launchers 
with a set of known directories to make it dirt simple to deploy even 
complex apps on ALL portable devices.  It wouldn't have the auto-run 
benefit of U3, but that's Windows-specific and a potential security 
issue anyway.  But it would have a simple, consistent user interface for 
all platforms, and would offer a simple set of data and program 
directories for developers.

Andre, should we make a "U4" group at Yahoo Groups to get this going? 
Or should we just get back to paying client work with proprietary custom 
installs?  :)

I'm deploying to flash drives either way, U3 and beyond, but if there's 
interest in establishing conventions for data storage directories on the 
drive I'm happy to contribute what I can.  If the U3 folks are 
open-minded they may even be willing to endorse something as simple as 
parallel directory structures as the "little brother" of the U3 "smart" 
experience....

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com