Ubuntu 8.10 – Create USB Startup Disk

Ubuntu 8.10 – has a feature call “Create USB Startup Disk”. It creates bootable USB drive for install.

But the best part of it is, it has an addition feature named “reserved extra space”. It allows user to save set file, document, perference or even application, just like you’re working on normal harddisk.

It is amazing, for example, I can install application (let say the gnome-do) on the desktop computer. Plug the USB drive into my notebook and write blog about it.

Of course, it has a downside, since it consider you’re running as livecd. It takes rather long time to startup. In my notebook, it take ~3-4 mins.

From ubuntu forum, someone mentioned that he tried to do the full installation on a USB drive and it only take ~30 secs to startup. I will give it a try if I can find an extra USB drive.

Gnome Do – Smart Launcher – Launchy on Linux

I am a great fan on Launchy, a smart launcher on MS window. It is lightweight and very smart. Launchy can guess the file/application while you’re typing the filename or command. Also, it is highly customizable. You can include or exclude certain directory or file type.

It is really a MUST HAVE tool for MS window.

In linux, the similar tool is called “Gnome Do”. By press <win>+<space>, new window is popup and you can type the file/application name at once. just like launchy. Highly recommend for any linux user.

About the installation, it is rather simple in ubuntu 8.10. Just type following command

$ sudo aptitude install gnome-do

Links:

Gnome Do Home – http://do.davebsd.com/

Ubuntu’s Gnome Do Wiki – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GnomeDo

VMWare problems on Vista

I need to run VMware on my notebook (which is installed with Vista).

I installed VMWare Server 1.0.6 (which is running perfectly on my desktop – window XP). The installation on vista is OK but Once start it, it turns out blue screen. It is really get me mad.

After some “googlging”, the answer is the avasts – a virus scan software (Arr…??).

Seems It has some conflict with the vmware,(but I don’t observed in my PC which is XP??)
The solution is unstall it.  OK…..

And then, vmware can start. But everytime it startup, the vista is hang up from 30 sec to 2 mins. It is really troublesome. Especially, I’m frequently need to up and down vm for different testing.

And the vista getting longer to startup (seems it is vm authroizatoin module doing some
stupid thing at startup)

After another “goolging”, people said version 2.0 better support on vista. But interesting, it never mentioned in their website.

So, I unstall the 1.0.6 and reinstall 2.0. This time, it run better.

But I really don’t like the new web interface in vmware 2.0

the new web interface requires install a plugin to start the vmware console but it is not support my favourte browser – firefox 3.0. No solution, only thing I can do is giveup and using IE.

finally, I can get my vmware working.

Great Papervision 2 tutorial

Papervision 2 is the best tutorial site on papervision 3d.

http://papervision2.com/tutorial-list/

Tutorial is straight forward and easy to follow.  Especially it helps you to setup development environment using open-source ide flashdevelop, which is a great tool if you don’t want to pay any money to adobe.

Flash 3D links

I am trying to learn 3d effect on Flash/Flex. I find following links is useful for beginner link me.

InsideRIA – lot latest news on RIA( include Flash/Flex)
http://www.insideria.com/

Great blog, especially the Papervision Turial Part I to III
http://fhvisual.wordpress.com/

Video on lot of flash/flex tutorials
http://gotoandlearn.com/

Five3D is a interesting Vector base 3d toolkit, recently port to AS3.0
http://five3d.mathieu-badimon.com/

Running Vista on X61s (Part 1)

Running on vista is scary journey. UI is not very responsible for some time, annoying UAC, and I don’t feel any reason why they design the UI like this.

So my first step is create the backup disk, just in case if I fail when restore to XP and install ubuntu.

And then I spent 1/2 hour to find out how to create the recovery disk. It has not clear described in help. As usual, find the answer using google.

> Go to “All Programs > ThinkVantage > Create Rescue and Recovery Media. Then select your desirable type of rescue media. To create recovery CD, check the “Create a set of Product Recovery Discs now” and then click “OK” to start the creation process.

(copied from :http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/01/18/ibm-lenovo-thinkpad-recovery-cd )

After created the recovery disk, I feed I have a great safely net around why don’t give vista sometime (in worst case, just restore to XP as my originally plan)

What I do is:

> install Office 2003 ( Office 2007 is just a joke, I’ve absolutely no clue why MS build the office suite like this, even Open Office is better )

> install firefox 2.0

> install jZip (the build in decompress is very very ….. slow, it takes hours for few minutes task)

> install Scite (my second favorite editor, the 1st is UltraEditor)

> turn off Indexing

> turn off UAC

> install Avast

Now, at least, I can do some document or drafting work on this.

My next steps is install “vmware server”, hope it won’t let my down.

( heard some rumor on very bad experience on Vista SP1, I’m not dare to try it)

Lenovo X61s notebook

Finally, my long journey for a new notebook is ended and the winner is lenovo X61s (B67).

It has one 160G hard disk, 3G physical memory, finger print, L7700 (1.8GHz). And it costs $12,000 HKD (and bundled with free USB DVD writer as well). I am very satisfy with the hardware.

The only downside, it is pre-installed with Vista business. Frankly speaking, the Vista is not that difficult to use. However, it is quite slow in compare with XP. You cannot feel you’re using the latest CPU with 3G of memory.

Obvious solution is install another OS. I’ve two options:

a) downgrade to window XP – or -

b) install ubuntu (8.04 is coming soon)

But before that, I must backup the Hidden partition and every first.

Free Icons site

Find some interesting free, looking good.
http://fasticon.com/freeware/

Newton Virus – the only virus you want to have

Mac is a great place for innovation. Take a look at the new “Newton Virus”. Just plug your the “virus” USB into you victim computer. It caues the desktop icons to fall down as if subject to the gravitational pull from the real world.

Some say it should not be called “virus”, cause it cannot self replicate and spread-out.

Here is the company (troika) web-site

codepad – pastebin to run code

Nowadays, there are many languages available for us. Also, a lot of discussion on which one is better. Frankly speaking, do you ever try out all of them? I tried python (and I like it) but not those LISP akin Scheme, Haskell.

In planetpython.org, I spot a new site named codepad. It allows you to select the programming language, type in your code and click “run” button. Your code will be run and display the result in next page, in pretty format, cool.

Author aware the potential security issues. He has firewall and using VM to restore periodically. It is really well done.
One more thing, this site is written by python.