LinuxPlanet: Tale of a Black Dog

“During last August’s LinuxWorld Expo, there was one bit of
technology which managed to captivate me: a small innocuous box
called a Black Dog. I thought to myself, “I’ve got to get a chance
to play with one of these.” Now, you might think that a house with
four dogs, six cats, and five ferrets would have no room for
another dog, but adding the Black Dog to the mix is a small affair.
Unlike its four-footed counterparts, this Black Dog takes very
little room and very little care.

“What is a Black Dog? It’s a complete USB-powered Linux server
which fits easily in the palm of your hand. Powered by a 400-MHz
PowerPC processor, 64 MB of RAM, and either 256 MB or 512 MB of
flash, this pint-sized pet packs quite a bite (or is that ‘byte’?).
Add to that the built-in biometric scanner, MMC expansion slot, and
USB V2.0 interface that acts as both its power source and conduit
to the network, and you have quite a set of teeth on this little
computing animal. And, perhaps most surprising of all, the device’s
price tag comes close to its size: just US$199 for the 256-MB unit
or US$239 for the 512-MB version…”

Complete
Story