Installing Firefox 4 on Ubuntu...

1) Adding ppa to repositories

    $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

2) Update repository

    $ sudo apt-get update

3) Reinstall package to latest version

    $ sudo apt-get --reinstall install firefox

Note:
Tested on Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit and Linux Mint 10 64-bit.

Changing default Blogger icon...

The solution is quite simple.

1) Login to dashboard.

2) Go to Design -> Edit html (please backup your template before you make any changes).

3) Search for </head> tag.

4) Paste the code below on top of </head> tag.

    <link href='your icon url' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/x-icon'/>

5) Save Template.

It'll be great if you could find a good hosting for your icon. Picasa Web won't allow us to upload .ico file. ImageBoo does provide free hosting for icon however it's been blocked by proxy at my office (plus I've read some negative feedback somewhere about the service, then decided to use other alternative). Icon generated by IconJ was kind of ugly (probably to encourage people opting for the premium service).

Alternatively you could use .png image as your icon (which can be hosted on Picasa). However, it'll only work with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. No luck for IE.

Update (02/05/2011)
Icon file can be hosted at Google Sites.

USB startup disk creator for Linux and Windows...

Info: If you're searching for "how to create Windows USB installer", click here.

When started playing with Linux distro, I realized that I need to have a lot of blank CDs / DVDs so that I can burn the downloaded iso image and test the LiveCD on my machine (to make sure all the devices working as expected before installing). End up with a lot of cd / dvd installers that been used once and forgotten. Then, saw an option to use USB pendrive as an installer. At initial stage the process was quite tedious, but now since the technology has matured there's a lot of tools available that can do the process easily. I'll list down a few of it for reference. Some history about Live USB.

Prerequisites:

• Fat32 Formatted Flash Drive
• PC that can boot from USB

---

Name: UNetbootin
Platform: Linux / Windows

Summary:
"UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions without burning a CD. It runs on both Windows and Linux. You can either let UNetbootin download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list."

My comment:
The most famous one.

---

Name: MultiSystem
Platform: Linux

Summary:
"Multisystem enables a LiveUSB to do everything, ideal for exploring different Linux distributions without installing on your PC, and it seamlessly; or to install the Linux distribution of your choice on your PC much faster than via a LiveCD with fast USB 2.0 ports Essential throughout the current range of netbooks that have no CD drive."

My comment:
My favorite one. Love the ability to bundle multiple distros and had a GRUB menu as a selection to which distro to be use.

---

Name: Ubuntu Live USB creator
Platform: Linux

Summary:
"Ubuntu Live USB creator (usb-creator) is an official tool to create Live USBs of Ubuntu from the Live CD or from an iso image. The tool is by default included in all releases after Ubuntu 8.04, and can be installed on Ubuntu 8.04. A KDE frontend was released for Ubuntu 8.10, and is currently included by default in Kubuntu installations. To run the current version on Ubuntu or other distributions, enter either usb-creator-gtk or usb-creator-kde at the command line."

My comment:
First tool that I've used for the task.

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Name: SARDU
Platform: Windows

Summary:
"Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility (Sardu) is software that can produce an ISO or an IMA anti-virus bootable CD, a comprehensive collections of utilities, the most popular distributions of Linux Lite, and the best known Windows PE. It is freeware (it is licensed as an individual ISO / IMA). Once the files are extracted Sardu creates a CD / DVD or USB bootable device with a handy menu divided into four categories: Antivirus, Utilities, Linux, and PE."

My comment:
Seems to me this is the best tool available on Windows platform. You can also have the recovery disk for XP, Vista, Seven or XP (64bit, Professional or Home) in a practical multi-boot menu. Definitely going to try with this one.

---

Name: Universal USB Installer
Platform: Windows

Summary:
"Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. The Universal USB Installer is easy to use. Simply choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install."

My comment:
An option for Windows user. One Distribution can be installed at any given point in time.

---

Name: MultiBoot USB
Platform: Windows

Summary:
"MultiBootISOs enables each user to create their own custom Multiboot UFD containing only the Distributions they want. New Distributions can be added to your UFD each time the tool is run."

My comment:
Same feature as MultiSystem but for Windows user. One thing that attract me to this tool was the ability to put Windows Vista / 7 installation disk into the USB. I haven't try this one yet.

Update (02/04/2011)
Tested the tools for Windows platform. Personally I would say SARDU is the best tool available for Windows.

PowerShell cmdlet aliases similar to Bash...

CmdLet	Alias	Bash
Get-ChildItem	gci, dir, ls	ls
Get-Content	gc, type, cat	cat
Get-Command	gcm	which
Get-Help	help, man	man
Clear-Host	cls, clear	clear
Copy-Item	cpi, copy, cp	cp
Move-Item	mi, move, mv	mv
Remove-Item	ri, del, erase, rmdir, rd, rm	rm, rmdir
Rename-Item	rni, ren, mv	mv
Get-Location	gl, pwd	pwd
Pop-Location	popd	popd
Push-Location	pushd	pushd
Set-Location	sl, cd, chdir	cd
Tee-Object	tee	tee
Write-Output	echo, write	echo
Get-Process	gps, ps	ps
Stop-Process	spps, kill	kill
Select-String	n/a	grep
Set-Variable	sv, set	set

Copied from Wikipedia.

Compacting/Shrinking virtual disk image...

Working on virtual machine with dynamic virtual disk gives an advantage to those with limited disk space. But after using it for a while (install/uninstall/copy/paste/delete), the actual size of your virtual disk image may have grown to nearly defined size, guest system reported that the disk usage was less than the size reported on host system. It should be fine provided if you have larger disk space. However, if that's not the case, than the best option would be to compact (known as shrink in VMWare) the virtual disk image.

In general, 3 steps are required to achieve this task
1) Disk cleanup / Defrag the hard drive on guest system

2) Execute "sdelete -c" to zero the free disk space before compressing the virtual disk image (sdelete tool was provided by Microsoft) on guest system

> sdelete -c [drive letter]

3) Compact the virtual disk image

VirtualBox user
Execute VBoxManage command on host system

$ VBoxManage modifyhd [filename] --compact

VMWare user
Shrinking needs to be done on guest system. Complete the first two steps above then:
1) Open VMWare tools by right click VM icon in system tray

2) Go to Shrink tab, under supported partitions, check the mount point checkbox

VMWare Tools Properties

3) Click "Prepare to shrink" and once ready, click "Yes" to proceed

Preparing shrink process

Ready to go

Shrinking in progress

If everything working as expected, virtual disk usage on both guest and host should be ~same

Note:
Test environment
Host: Linux Mint 10 64-bit
VirtualBox guest: Windows Server 2003 32-bit
VMWare guest: Windows 7 Profesional 64-bit