How to install Windows XP from a USB memory stick

Note to self after having to do this a couple of times. If I need to install WinXP from a USB memory stick, the absolute no-brainer way to do it is WinToFlash. The keyword here is no-brainer, because there are tons of tutorials out there that require you to have a rocket science degree and a PhD to follow. Not so for WinToFlash. Run the program, point the source path to the WinXP install files, point the target path to the USB memory stick and click a button. Then go for a cup of coffee and you are done.

Here is how it looks during bootup:

Option 1 is for the first bootup where you get into the text mode setup, configure and format your partition and copy essential files.

Option 2 is for the second bootup where you actually see the Windows XP splash screen and then it starts to configure devices and settings.

I have no affiliation with the company that produces the software. It has a free, ad-supported version if you are a casual user. There is also a personal, professional and business license if you do this all the time.

Thankfully for Vista and Win7 installation from a USB drive, it is actually quite straightforward and you don't need a PhD for that. You do need to drop to the command prompt for a moment, but that's not as scary as it sounds.

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Dealextreme Aggregator

Just stumbled across this website called GadgetzFinder that aggregates products from a couple of DealExtreme-like sites (including DealExtreme itself). For those of you who are not familiar with DealExtreme, it is the granddaddy of Hong Kong-based B2C websites that list all kinds of Made-in-China gadgets and offer free shipping for all purchases. Almost all the items are a fraction of the price of similar items sold in western developed countries. For example, I bought this laptop security cable recently for under $4, where it would have cost me $20 in local stores.

The downside to that cheap price is the long waiting time for the purchased item to arrive. On average I have to wait about 3 weeks for an item, but surprisingly I have received every single item I have purchased so far, and believe me, I have bought a lot of items from DealExtreme and others. Kudos to the global postal system! Also be prepared for some hits and misses in terms of product quality. But the novelty, convenience and pricing more than offset the occasional misses for me.

Anyway, a site like GadgetzFinder should come in handy in searching for products and comparing prices. I have bought stuff from DealExtreme and FocalPrice, but haven't tried DinoDirect and LighTake yet, so the site should help in product discovery. Plus the RSS feed seems to be quite useful as not all sites (eg. FocalPrice) provide a feed for new products. Note to self: the RSS feed even works for searches, so I can search for eg. "bluetooth stereo headset" and be informed of new products by subscribing to that feed.

Another nice feature is the grouping of similar products that reduces the search space somewhat, though the result is far from perfect and seems to be based on some kind of heuristic matching of the product names. I understand this is a difficult problem, but it would be nice that they can take product description and images into account and produce even more accurate clustering, since there tends to be a lot of similar products even from the same site.

One final notable mention: the website scales down quite nicely to the small screen on my Nexus One. So now I can do all that product research on impulse from my smartphone!

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Export to PDF on Firefox

Looked around for a way to export web pages to PDF on Firefix. Most of the existing addons for exporting to PDF involve doing so via a web service, which has security implications, especially when the web page to be exported contains sensitive information.

The Firefox addon that I finally settled on is PDFIt, which as far as I can tell does not involve any web service but does everything on the client web browser. Once installed, the PDFIt menu appears in the "Tools" menu as well as the context menu.

The PDFIt addon not only lets you convert web pages to PDF, it lets you convert to PNG or JPG as well. In addition, you can add a custom title to the output with full control over the font color, size and position. You can also apply a filter (from a total of 16) to the output, including rotation, flipping, sepia, reflection etc.

The only downside I can find is that the output PDF is an image of the web page i.e. even text on the web page are converted to bitmap. If you need text output in the PDF, then this addon is not for you. However, if text output is not a strict requirement, then PDFIt has a lot to offer.

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viva la xsnow!

In the late 1990's, my friend Doug introduced me to `xsnow`, its a simple little program that makes it snow on your desktop.  Ever since, around Christmas time, I have waxed nostalgic and run `xsnow` in honor of the on-set of winter and Advent.  I was surprised this year when I ran `apt-get install xsnow` and was bluntly told that there was no installation candidate for xsnow! 

I did a little digging and discovered that `xsnow` is still in the source repository!  w00t!  Unfortunately, it's VERY infrequent that I actually build a package from source, so I had to  do a bit of reading to help me do it.  I figured, if I had to look it up, it might be of value to others if I provided the synopsis of how to build the package.

First, make sure your /etc/apt/sources.list file includes the following:

cjs@hp8540w:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list | grep deb-src
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

Next, run `apt-get update` followed by `apt-cache showsrc xsnow | grep Build-Depends`, which will reveal:

Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7), dpatch (>= 2), libx11-dev, libxext-dev, libxpm-dev, libxt-dev, xutils-dev

Now you'll need to make sure these dependencies are installed, with `apt-get install debhelper dpatch libx11-dev libxext-dev libxpm-dev libxt-dev xutils-dev`. 

Now you should be ready to build from source.  You build the source via `apt-get -b source xsnow`.  This will build a .deb and dump it in /var/cache/apt/archives.

You can install the .deb via `dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/xsnow*.deb`. 

Note: I had to build from source because in Sid there's only an i386 binary for xsnow.  If you're running Sid on a 32-bit x86 box, you should just be able to do an `apt-get install xsnow`, provided you have the non-free repositories in your apt sources.list. 

You can run xsnow from an `xterm` OR, whatever means of launching you prefer (e.g. synapse or gnome-do, etc.)

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Gingerbread 2.3.6 on Nexus One and Link2SD

Just got an OTA update on my Nexus One for Gingerbread 2.3.6. Reboot to install. Oops, what's that? Lost my root. No problem. Reboot into recovery and reinstalled su.zip.

Oops, what's that again? Link2SD gave a mount warning and requested a quick reboot. After the quick reboot, the warning was gone and all linked apps were working well, but I don't relish having to reboot twice every time from now on!

After some mucking around, here's how to fix it. I had to uninstall Link2SD, reinstall it, run and select the filesystem type of the second partition, then reboot. This reinstalls the mount script correctly in the new ROM and everything works fine after that.

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Freeing up phone storage with Link2SD

Another more powerful way of freeing up phone storage is with Link2SD. Using this method requires you to have a rooted phone. If you don't, either root your phone or there isn't really much else you can do.

The idea behind Link2SD is simple. Remember Android is basically a modified version of Linux and the application files resides in /data (where '/' , or the root directory, is your phone storage). When more and more files are created in /data, your phone storage is slowly eaten up and very soon you will see the "Phone storage low" warning.

Link2SD lets you move some of the files in /data to the SD storage but retain a pointer or symbolic link in /data. This is a legitimate filesystem sleight-of-hand that retains the directory structure that Android expects, but with the bulk of the data moved to the SD card.

For example, after moving Angry Bird using Link2SD, the affected files are:

/data/app/com.rovio.angrybirds-1.apk -> /data/sdext2/com.rovio.angrybirds-1.apk
 
/data/data/com.rovio.angrybirds/lib/libangrybirds.so -> /data/sdext2/data/com.rovio.angrybirds/lib/libangrybirds.so
 
/data/dalvik-cache/data@app@com.rovio.angrybirds-1.apk@classes.dex -> /data/sdext2/dalvik-cache/data@app@com.rovio.angrybirds-1.apk@classes.dex

As you can see, the symbolic links point to a special partition on the SD card that is mounted as /data/sdext2.

Installing Link2SD is very simple. Before installing, create a second partition on your SD card. You can use a non-destructive partition manipulation tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard to create the second partition. Depending on your needs, a partition size of 512MB to 1024MB should be sufficient. You can always increase the partition size later if necessary.

Now find Link2SD on the market and install it. After installation, reboot your phone. This will allow Link2SD to mount the partition. Now you are ready to use Link2SD. Launching Link2SD will bring you to a list of all the applications on your phone:

From there, you can choose which apps to link to the SD card. Apps which are already moved using Froyo's native A2SD method cannot be moved. You need to move them back to phone storage before you can run Link2SD on them.

I find a couple of menu functions rather useful. Under "Filter", you can choose to see only those apps that have not been linked ("Not Linked User"). Sorting that list in decreasing order of "Apk+Dex+Lib Size" using the "Sort" function will give you the top candidates for linking to the SD card (i.e. those apps that are using the most phone storage).

I also like to use Link2SD exclusively, so by using Move2SD Enabler to set the default installation location to "Internal", I don't have to deal with Froyo's A2SD mechanism again. You can also enable the "Auto link" function under Link2SD's "Settings", which will automatically link any newly installed app to the SD card. However, I did not enable this because I like to have more control over which apps I link to the SD card. Also remember that you should not link widgets, input methods, live wallpapers etc. to the SD card.

The limitation with Link2SD is that you cannot link system apps to the SD card. However, the author is working on this and this should be possible in a future release. Also, a future version may allow you to disable A2SD directly without using another app.

In summary, Link2SD is a pretty powerful tool for freeing up phone storage by linking application files to the SD card. You get a nice GUI for linking/unlinking application files, fine-grained control over which files to link (apk, dalvik cache, library files) if you wish, a set-and-forget option to automatically link applications to the SD card. All you need is a rooted phone, a few minutes to create a second partition on your SD card, and a few more minutes to install Link2SD, reboot and do a bit of linking. With minimal effort, you should never have to see the "Phone storage low" warning again.

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Something to be aware of when booking with Jetstar

This is my personal experience with Jetstar, but it might apply to other low budget airlines as well.

During the checkout process, after you enter your PayPal or credit card details and enter "Submit", if you encounter a timeout error or any other error, DO NOT TRY AGAIN! Call the airline to confirm if the order has been placed or not, or you may be left with a duplicate booking.

Now if you end up with a duplicate booking, you can always call up the airline and get them to refund one of them. But the refund can take a looooonnnnng time. In my case, it took 1 month for them to approve the refund, and another week for the money to be refunded.

I guess I was lucky to get my money back. Some people weren't so lucky.

And did you know that 50% of Jetstar profit comes from people who buy a ticket and don't fly? I wonder what percentage of that is non-refunded duplicate booking?

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