We had a great day at VMWorld yesterday. So many people stopped by our booth and they were impressed with our LivePC technologies. Here are some quotes:

• "This is the best thing I see in this show."
• "When I signed up for VMWorld, I did not expect to see something this cool."
• "This is such a great idea, how come I didn't think of it first."
• "How much is it? When can I buy it? Free?!? No way!!"
• "Can I buy that USB Hamster?"

If you have not stopped by, please do so. If you have already stopped by, stop by again. We still have a lot of USB Hamster Wheels to give away.

Just in time for VMWorld 2006, we are releasing Beta 6 of the moka5 LivePC Engine (build 1.0.7183).

What's new in Beta 6? It contains over 200 changes and bug fixes, here are the highlights.

• Big improvement to download performance when buffering.
• Import system proxy settings from Windows automatically.
• Support for running on International versions of Windows.
• Simple LivePC creation dialog.
• Backup settings for portable device can be modified after install.
• Distinguish between local LivePCs and network LivePCs in UI.
• Many performance and stability fixes.

Beta 6 is available for download now. Existing users will be prompted to autoupdate the next time you run an earlier beta of the LivePC Engine.

Here at moka5, we've seen all kinds of USB devices. Big ones, small ones, noisy ones, ones with red or green or blue or yellow or white lights, waterproof ones, fragile ones, flat ones, round ones, cubic ones, rubber ones, plastic ones, silicone ones, aluminium ones, leather ones, bronze ones; with integrated cables, detachable cables, no cables, twist caps, sliding caps, no caps, lost caps; inside pens, cell phones, media players, swiss army knives, laser pointers, bracelets, good luck charms, surfboards, barbie dolls, teddy bears, ducks, tempura, sushi, sake bottles, dimsum, body parts... Well, you get the idea.

I wanted to know what are the best USB drives to use with the moka5 LivePC Engine. So I decided to benchmark a bunch of USB drives that we had sitting around the office. 26 of them, to be precise. And I found some clear winners and clear losers. Read my USB review to find out more.

I've been using the Fearless Browser LivePC to keep my private web browsing profile with me at all times. It's been pretty useful for managing my bank accounts online from PCs at work and at my friends apartments. I just leave all my passwords stored in it so that I don't have to go through so much hassle everytime I want to use one of the premium services I subscribe to on the net.

You guys had some great ideas on the forums and I've incorporated them into the newest revision, which you probably already have! :-) The system uses OpenDNS servers which automatically identifies phishing sites that rely on mistyped domain names. And...the beta of Flash 9 is installed so that you can use all the fun interactive sites out there. I love this classic microwave fun and this puzzling oddity, but all the new snazzy stuff should work too!

For the more *nix-inclined, there is now an ssh client so that you can use remote shell accounts from the LivePC. It is accessible by right clicking the background and bringing up a terminal window.

Many of you have been asking "where can I host my LivePCs"? Today we have an answer — we are looking for a few pilot users to try out our own LivePC hosting service. If you have a LivePC that you'd like to share and are interested in joining this pilot, let us know by e-mailing [email protected]. Space in the pilot program is limited and will be first come, first serve. All hosting and bandwidth during the pilot is free!

VMworld, the annual conference on virtualization, will be held in Los Angeles, California, next week. A few of us will be there, including our CEO, Monica Lam. We will be at booth 827, so stop by and say hi.

Another BIG reason for you to stop by is we are going to have drawings to give out USB Hamsters. Connect this hamster to your computer and the faster you type, the faster it runs. If you want one of these, write down an idea of a LivePC on your business card and we will pick the lucky winners at the end of each day. This is a video of our little pet at the office.

By the way, we have been very busy preparing for the VMworld and another beta refresh release. We will try to get to all the new forum postings as soon as we can.

I would like thank all the people who participated in our LivePC creation webinar. I hope you get all the information you need to create your LivePC. If you still have any questions, please feel free to post it on our forum. For the people who missed it, we will post the webinar soon.

By the way, we can now post video on our blog (Thanks Andy).
Here is a short clip of Ardi, John and Gerald getting ready for the webinar.

You wish to build your own Windows LivePC, yet you don't want to go through the lengthy installation and configuration process. The 'xpfromcd' tool will help you easily create Windows LivePCs!

The 'xpfromcd' tool will be demonstrated in the live web seminar on Thursday, 10/26/2006, at 10am PDT. This tool asks you to insert a Windows CD, enter a few items, and the tool automatically creates your Windows LivePC for you -- it even installs firefox for you.

Download the tool now.

For more details about how to use this 'xpfromcd' tool, please refer to the web seminar or this quick steps page. The tool currently has some limitations, please give us feedback about this tool by commenting on the quick start page or posting to the forum.

Enjoy carrying and sharing...

We are going to have an online seminar to show you how to create a LivePC. Couple of our engineers will be there to answer all your questions. It's on this Thursday, 10/26/2006, at 10am PDT. You can sign up from here. Sign up now as space is limited.

The moka5 team would like to thank you for trying out our software and sending us feedbacks. Many of you have helped us found a few hard bugs that we would not be able to find ourselves. We are working really hard to get another release ready to address some of those issues. Our goal is to provide you the best quality software that you can trust. Keep those feedbacks and suggestions coming, we love to learn from you.

Thank you!