Install Linux Mint 14 on USB Drive

I had tried to install Ubuntu on USB drive before, but it failed. I don't know why. Today, I installed Linux Mint on USB drive again and it success unbelievably. I don't know why either. And I found out that we could install on USB driver through Virtualbox. Virtualbox makes it more convenience to install because we can do another thing with computer while installing at the same time.

First of all, download Virtualbox, and a Virtualbox extension package is also needed to make USB work. Download the latest Linux Mint iso file. After those files are downloaded and installed completely, toggle enable USB 2.0 in Virtualbox >settings >USB and mount the iso file in the Virtualbox. Then we are ready to begin.

Boot the virtual machine with CD of Linux Mint, mount USB drive and click install.

The most important thing is here, choose your USB driver instead of hard drive to install, and remember to install the MBR on the USB drive as well.

The rest of steps are the same with installing linux on hard drive. After the installation finished, it's time to test the USB drive.

Notably, there is no way to boot virtual machine with USB devices directly, but we can make the USB device as a virtual hard drive, then we can boot from the USB drive. So here is what we going to do next. Go to Virtualbox installed folder in Command mode, and type the command:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename D:\VirtualBox\usb.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive4

Where "D:\VirtualBox\usb.vmdk" stands for your virtual disk location, and "PhysicalDrive4" stands for your USB drive (The number might be different in different computer).

Then, create another virtual machine with usb.vmdk, and it's done!

Here is the screenshot of my desktop after tuned:

NOTE:
The most worst thing of Linux Mint is that it doesn't install input method in default so we need to install it by ourself if we need one. Go to command line and install ibus.

sudo apt-get install ibus

Synchronizing Firefox

I love Firefox. I have been using it since Firefox 2.0. However, I haven't use synchronization because what I don't really need to synchronize all. What I need is synchronizing bookmarks only, and Xmarks do a very good job on that, plus, Xmarks synchronizes bookmarks between browsers. That's what I exactly need.

Months ago, I bought my first smart phone, Xperia pro. I start to use phone surfing websites. The biggest problem is the bookmarks on desktop were not available when I'm using phone. I did a little search on Google and it showed nothing about it until Chrome and Firefox for Android launched. I love these two browsers. I use Firefox the most, but I still use chrome a lot. These two browsers can both help me get my bookmarks on my phone because the bookmarks are exactly the same between Firefox and Chrome thanks to Xmarks. I tried Chrome at first because I'm a huge Google fan, but Chrome is too large. The phone kept showing "low space" which is really annoying. That's why I turn to Firefox.

Synchronization of Firefox is not the same with Chrome. Chrome synchronizes with Google account, but Firefox uses "pair devices" instead of account. The next following is showing how to synchronize Firefox between phone and desktop.

1. Launch Firefox on Android and press the menu bottom, choose "Settings" and "Snyc". Then, you'll see three code.

2. Launch Firefox on your computer and go to "Option" and "Sync". Select "Pair a device" and then you'll see three input boxes.

3. Entering the code on phone and press Next, and your Firefox is synchronizing.

4. Finally, you can see the successful connection on both phone and desktop.

A trip to Lie Ying Jian at Mei Ling

Lie Ying Jian means a tip of falcon, which is located in Mei Ling of Nansi, Tainan, Taiwan. It is named so because it looks like an eagle standing on the top of the mountain, and it is one of the most amazing scenes that I’ve ever seen in my life. I had heard so many people recommending this place as a best site in Tainan so I went there in a lovely afternoon.

We just want a bottle of wine

Finally, we have tasted the wine. Even so, it was miserable because no one know how to open the wine even we had two openers.

The story started from the day before yesterday. We planned to enjoy the white wine with cakes but no one brought any opener so we tried to borrow from others. We had asked every one we know that if they had an opener, but the answers were always "no". We discussed for a while and found that every one of us have openers and decided to bring them and taste the wine in the next day. However, in the next day, no one brought one because we thought that others might bring one. What a coincident! Not even one person had the different thought. Anyway, today, some of us did bring an opener in case things happened just like yesterday but no one knew that it was just the beginning.

At first, the opener was stuck in the cork successfully, and then we came to a problem which is nobody could pull out the cork. We have tried one by one until the cork mashed into pieces, which means the opener was useless after that,. That was really a tragedy. We had been looking forward this wine for two days because we didn't have opener but now we had many and they were useless. So, we had to use another way.

The most senior man came to an idea that we could stick a chopstick through the cork and make a little hole. A hammer was used to stick the chopstick into the cork and a pliers was used to pull out the chopstick. Suddenly, the chopstick broke into two fragments. One of them stock in the cork. There was nothing could be done unless we pushed the fragments into the bottle. We used another chopstick and stuck it into the cork again. The fragments in the cork was pushed down into the bottle, and, this time, the chopstick was removed smoothly.

At this moment, every one was screaming out load to celebrate the success of the "wine-opening" and getting ready for tasting the wine. We pooled the wine in the cups, and found that the wine was coming out drop by drop. Yes, it was drop. Even we had to wait for the wine pooled into the cups, we were satisfied with every single drop of the wine because every drops were our hard work. The wine was so sweat by the way, and I almost felt that I was drinking juice.

While every one was trying open the wine, I was searching the easier way to open a bottle of wine. Here is what I found:

I haven't tried it yet. I don't know if it works well. Maybe I will try it next time. lol

Using "I'm feeling lucky" as default search engine in Firefox

Firefox is an open source web browser. According to StatCounter Global Stats, the global usage share of Firefox was 26.39% in October 2011. I think most people feel familiar about this software. For me, I am a fan of Firefox, and I have been using it as my default browser since Firefox 2. The most important advantage of Firefox is the variability. Firefox contains a lot of add-ons that improve the using experience, and many settings are variable for users.

The location bar is also a search bar. It can search for history, bookmark, even on web. However, a search box is next to the location bar. I think that the function of search bar is too similar with the location bar so I make a little change of the location bar. The default search engine of the location bar is google, and I changed it to "I'm feeling lucky", and I strongly suggest you to change.

Why should you change the search engine to "I'm feeling lucky"?

"I'm feeling lucky" is a service of google, it suggest one most possible website that you may want to visit when you search a keyword. It makes lots of convenience on searching websites. For example, if I want to visit "www.facebook.com", what I need to do is search "facebook" in the location bar, and then, it will automatically connect to facebook website. Mostly, "I'm feeling lucky" can direct us to the right website. This can save us a lot of time.

How do I change the default search engine to "I'm feeling lucky"?

1. Launch Firefox, first.

2. Type "about:config" in the location bar. Then the browser will ask your permission to change the settings. Click "I'll be careful, I promise!", of course.

3.  Then, search "keyword.url" in the filter, and double click the "keyword.url" in below.

4. After that, enter this URL, and click OK.

http://www.google.com/search?btnI&q=

5. Finally, you have the smartest location bar in Firefox.