In rare cases, the FX-5800P calculator may experience firmware corruption, displaying ROM!!!!! on startup. Here's a comprehensive guide to recover your calculator:
Remove all batteries from the calculator
Leave the calculator without batteries for at least 1 hour (some users report success with this simple step)
Reinstall the batteries and turn on the calculator
If the calculator still displays ROM!!!!!, proceed to the firmware recovery method.
Firmware Recovery Process
You'll need:
Another properly functioning FX-5800P calculator
A 3-pin data cable to connect both calculators
WARNING: The malfunctioning calculator must ALWAYS be set to OS UP Recv and the working calculator to OS UP Send. Reversing these roles will damage your working calculator.
WARNING: This will erase all data in the WORKING calculator, so back up any important information before proceeding.
On the Working FX-5800P (SENDER):
Simultaneously press AC/ON + MODE + 7 keys. The screen will display DIAGNOSTIC MODE, Factory use only.
Press the ← key, then press 9.
Press 2 to select OS UP Send.
On the Malfunctioning FX-5800P (RECEIVER):
1. Press the FILE key.
2. Select OS UP Recv.
After the transfer completes, the malfunctioning calculator should be working fine again.
To enable slow query monitoring in MySQL or MariaDB, run these commands in your client:
SET GLOBAL slow_query_log = 1; SET GLOBAL long_query_time = 0.5;
This activates the slow query log and sets it to capture any queries taking longer than 0.5 seconds. You can adjust this threshold based on your performance requirements.
Slow queries will be logged to some file like:
/var/lib/mysql/*-slow.log
You can check or change that with:
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'slow_query_log_file'; SET GLOBAL slow_query_log_file = '/custom/path/slow-queries.log';
To make these changes permanent, add these lines to your my.cnf/my.ini file:
Or without an integrity layer: (you probably want this for most usecases)
cryptsetup luksFormat --type=luks2 /dev/sda1
To open the encrypted partition:
cryptsetup open /dev/sda1 sda1_crypt
Alternative was to open it while permanently marking the LUKS device to accept discard (TRIM) operations:
cryptsetup open /dev/sda1 sda1_crypt --allow-discards --persistent
This will create a decrypted device for the same partition which you can format like so: (-i 4M for storing files around 4MiB each, -m 0 to avoid reserving space for the root user, change the Label to whatever you like)
If Linux Mint refuses to mount an encrypted external drive that was abruptly disconnected and gives you a message like "file already exists" or something like that, instead of rebooting the system you can try unmounting it from the command line:
to your ~/.bashrc (or manually running it after LXDE has started will allow toggling between German and US English keyboard layouts using the Alt-Shift keys on the Raspbian. I've also used this same method in other situations where there was no graphical way to add and/or switch keyboard layouts. The scroll lock light will indicate the active layout when including "grp_led:scroll". "alt_shift_toggle" can be replaced with another key combination. Running
setxkbmap -option
will reset your layout settings.
(This post is based on an old pastebin with notes I got form who knows where. I don't know if more recent versions of Raspbian have a better way to achieve this but the command is still useful anyhow)
The following commands, will mount a VirtualBox VDI file on Linux. First make the directory where you'll mount the virtual partition files inside the VDI (that's the best description I can give you of this, you'll know what I mean when you later see the contents of the directory):
will show sorted by modification date all the files under the working directory. You can replace the %T parts with %A for access time sorting or with %C for creation time sorting.
The command may partially fail if you have filenames with weird unprintable characters.
It seems that the most popular article on this blog is "How to make portable applications" written back in 2007. Reading it again, I believe it is somewhat outdated and it covers mostly how to reduce the size of an app and not how to make it actually portable (meaning leaving no traces and carrying the registry settings along to other computers).
In this article I will include some more methods to make portable apps and I will also introduce PAL, the Portable Application Launcher: a small program I made to wrap applications and turn them into portable ones. Obviously everything here is for Windows users. Also do not forget that it's almost impossible to make an app portable if it uses its own drivers.
Legal stuff
Do not forget that it might be against the license terms of a program to fiddle with its installation. And keep in mind that redistributing some apps in portable form could be infringing copyrights and thus illegal. Blah blah blah you know this stuff... In order to be safe you either have to respect the law, or to make sure they won't get you...
Method 1: Plain old UPXing and manual file removal
This is the method I described in the older article. It will work with some programs, specifically those that don't use the registry to store settings or any directories like %appdata%. If you want to try this method, then the first thing you should do is install the program you want to make portable using the authors instructions and run/exit it at least once. Don't forget that if you install the 64bit version of an application, it will only work on 64bit Windows.
Now we should see whether your app stores anything in %appdata% (%appdata% is a directory in your hard drive where applications store files like save-games or settings files). My %appdata%is at C:\Users\Tritonio\AppData\Roaming. To see where is yours, press Win+R (Win is the Windows key on your keyboard) to bring up the Run dialog. Then type %appdata% and press enter. A folder should pop up. There you can find subfolders made by different programs that you have installed or ran in the past on your computer. If the program you are trying to make portable has a subfolder here, then you should probably skip this method. Don't forget that the program doesn't necessarily use its name for the subfolder, it could be its company's name for example, so look thoroughly!
After you've made sure that there is no subfolder there you should also take a look in the %localappdata% and %userprofile% folders, just like you did for %appdata%. Fewer applications store data there usually, but you shouldn't risk it, so please check those places thoroughly. Again, if you find a subfolder there, then this method is not for you.
Now you have to make sure that the app doesn't store anything in the registry. Again bring up the Run dialog by pressing Win+R and then type regedit and press enter to open the registry editor. There, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software and then to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE and look for any subfolder that could belong to the program. If you find one, then your program stores settings in the registry and this method won't work.
Now that you've made sure there are no stray settings you can start packing your application. Go to program files (I guess that's where you installed it) and find the folder that contains it. If you are on a 64bit OS, then you should probably look at c:\Program Files (x86). After you find that directory, copy it somewhere (like a flash drive) and take that copy to a different computer (it could be a virtual machine) with the same OS as you computer.
On the second computer run the main executable. It could complain about dll's missing. If that's the case, then search for them in your first computer (Where could help) and copy them right next to the main executable of the program. You might need to do this many times (bringing the flash drive back and forth) so using Dropbox to sync those files easily would be a good idea.
After the program stop complaining about missing files you are pretty much finished. Now you will just have to compress every executable in it. I suggest you use ArcThemAll for that. Install it, run it, go to settings, UPX tab, select LZMA and click OK. Then drag and drop the whole copied folder on ArcThemAll main window. After it adds all files in the list, select UPX from the bottom left drop-down list, click Extract and then START. This will decompress all executables in case they were already compressed so when it finishes, click Compress and then START again to recompress everything using LZMA (which usually compresses better).
That's it. Your copy should contain a portable version of the app you wanted. If you fell lucky and want to further reduce the size of it, you can start erasing files from the copy. For example many apps keep different language files while you only need one. Still feeling lucky? Why don't you try removing unecessary resources form the executable files using Resource Hacker? You can even replace image resources with lower resolution ones to save a few more KB.Just remember that Resource Hacker will not work on compressed executables so use ArcThemAll to extract everything first.
Method 2: Portable Application Launcher
If you are reading my blog you might have noticed some portable versions of some apps that I have made. I am using a "homemade" wrapper for them called PAL. I originally made it to pack Angry IP Scanner for personal usage (I haven't published it anywhere, yet) but it should work for many apps that use the registry to store settings or in some folder like %appdata%.
PAL uses an INI file, which you will have to manually edit. A typical file will look like this:
The second line is the main executable of your portable app. This is what PAL will execute. In this case it is called ares.exe and should be in a folder named App next to PAL's executable.
The third line is the registry path where the portable application is storing it's settings. When you exit the portable application, PAL will copy the settings in that registry path to a file called PortableRegistry.dat (placed right next to PAL's executable). When you start the portable app again (by launching PAL of course as it will act as a wrapper for it), PAL will copy the settings in PortableRegistry.dat back to the registry, so that the program won't know that they were even missing.
The fourth line is a path in the filesystem where the portable app stores any kind of files (for example savegames). Just like before PAL will move these files into a folder named \PortableData when you exit the portable app and back to the filesystem when you rerun it.
So just like in the first method, install the program you want to make portable. Then download PAL from here, unzip it somewhere and copy the program's directory from the place it was installed right next to PAL.exe. You may rename that directory to App if you want (just like in the sample INI file above).
Then run and exit it once and start searching as described in the first method for places in the registry or in the filesystem where the installed program might be storing settings. Currently PAL can only handle one registry path and one filesystem path. This is adequate for most apps I've seen. If you app uses, for example, two folders in the filesystem to store settings, PAL will not be able to completely handle that app, meaning it will leave traces or not even work.
After finding where this app stores its settings, open and edit PAL.ini. Edit the Executable= line so that it points to the main executable of your application. The RegistryPath= line should point to the registry path where you application stores its settings. If your app doesn't use the registry just delete this line completelly. The FilesPath= should point to the place in the filesystem where your app stores files or settings. As you can see in the sample INI above, you may use enviroment variables like %appdata% etc. If your app doesn't use a directory in the filesystem to store data, then just delete this line completelly. When you are done editing it, save PAL.ini. You may also rename PAL.exe to whatever you want but do not rename PAL.ini.
Now take that portable version to another computer (again, it can be just a virtual machine) to test it by running PAL.exe.
In case you wondered what happens if you try to run the portable version of an app on a computer that already has that app installed, PAL can handle that just fine. It will first backup the local version settings to appropriate files, copy the portable settings to the registry and/or the filesystem (replacing the local settings), run the program and when the program exits it will save the settings back to the portable files and then bring back the old local settings that it has backed up.
The only thing that PAL might not be able to handle is a shutdown before closing the portable app. In cases like these it might not have time to cleanup the portable settings or bring back the local settings (if any) from the backup. If this happens to you just rerun PAL on the same computer and it will probably fix everything.
Keep in mind that PAL is still in beta so there might be bugs. So if you find any, leave a comment! Oh and since many people asked, you can change PAL's icon either by recompiling it with a different icon (AutoIt3 source code is included in the zipfile) or you could use ResHacker to change the icon.
Method 3: Using ThinApp
First of all ThinApp is proprietary software and is really, I mean REAAAAAAAALY, expensive. Like $5000-expensive... It wasn't made just for making portable apps but I bet more than 80% of the people that use it, have torrented a cracked version and are using it to make portable apps. There is a trial version too which you can get from their site. The general procedure is this:
Create a new virtual machine and install a copy of Windows on it. Prefer the same version as the one you are running. For more detailed instruction look here.
Transfer the installer of the app you want to make portable to the virtual machine.
Start ThinApp Setup Capture inside the virtual machine (it's somewhere in the start menu).
Following the instructions there, ThinApp will create a snapshot of your OS inside the VM.
When the snapshot is ready, ThinApp will tell you to install the application. Don't worry if the installation requires restarts.
Complete the installation of the app
At this point you may also customize the app if you want. Just run it and change any settings you want.
When the installation is finished open ThinApp's window and click next until you get to screen where it tells you to select the main data container. You should select the main executable of the application. For example if you were making VLC portable you will have to select vlc.exe. All captured data will be packed inside that executable. If you have checked any other applications in the list they will merelly be shortcuts to the main data container. For the inventory name use something containing the name and version of the app.
When you are asked for a Sandbox Location select USB Flash.
When you are asked for compression choose Fast Compression.
Leave other options to their defaults.
Finally build the project by clicking Build Now.
Click Browser Project and navigate to the bin folder where you will find the portable executable(s). Transfer them back to your computer and run them there to test them.
Shutdown the virtual machine.
To make another application portable restore the saved snapshot of the virtual machine (which contained a clean state where only ThinApp was installed on the VM) and continue from step 8.
ThinApp creates very compact portable apps that will leave no traces in the registry or the filesystem. But it will have problems creating portable apps that will work on different versions of Windows. If you only need to run your portable apps in Windows 7, then that's what you should install inside the virtual machine. If you want them to run on XP and 7, then your best bet is to install windows XP inside the virtual machine but it's possible that your application will only run on XP.
Oh and one more thing: Do not compress executables with UPX before packing them with ThinApp, that will break some apps (like 7zip).
Method 4: Using Mojopack
I recently found out Mojopac. It's an app that will allow you to carry around a virtual machine in your flash drive. You can install any application on your flash drive and it will run portably without affecting the host operating system. The major drawback is that it requires XP and doesn't yet support Vista or 7 so I won't write more about it because I currently use Windows 7. In addition to that, Mojopack doesn't actually create portable applications that can be distributed to other users, it just allows you to carry applications in a virtual container, essentially sandboxing them from the host OS.
Method 5: Using Cameyo
Ialso recently discovered Cameyo. It's a program that works like ThinApp. You'll have to install it on a virtual machine and then it will capture the installation of a program and turn it into a portable executable. It differs from Thinapp in some ways though.
First of all its free of charge!
Secondly you don't necessarily need to setup a virtual machine as they provide an online service (called Cameyo Cloud Packager) where you upload an installer and it automatically creates a virtual image for it. That online service has some limitations though. The installer of the program should be silent or at least have a command line option to make the installation silent. For many installers that option is -silent. Another limitation is that it will only allow you to use the online service for 6 portable apps every month.
Finally Cameyo first creates the portable executable and then you can customize its options while Thinapp required you to decide for all options before building the project to create the portable executables.
When you use the Cameyo Cloud Packager I suggest that you select a 32bit baseline environment and don't use the default which is a 64bit OS.
I tried the online with the setup of Image Analyzer and it recognized that the installer wasn't silent so it prompted me for command line options that would make it silent. I tried -silent and it worked. After some minutes an email arrived at my inbox with a link for the online image. For some reason the image was named image without having any extension at all. I renamed it to image.virtual.exe and ran it. It worked just fine. Then I edited with Cameyo and at the first tab of the package editor I selected Under the executable's directory in the Data storage setting so that the application actually stores the settings next to it. So if can't or don't want to use the online service then you'll have to use a virtual machine just like with Thinapp.
Create a new virtual machine and install a copy of Windows on it. Prefer the same version as the one you are running. For more detailed instruction look here.
Transfer the installer of the application you want to make portable in the virtual machine.
Follow the steps shown in this video:
To make another application portable restore the save snapshot of the virtual machine (which contained a clean state where only Thinapp was installed on the VM) and continue from step 7.
Conclusion
Method 1, the one I had already described in the past, will only work for a few programs. In fact I just rewrote about it because I didn't want this article to include anything less than the older one. Method 2 is something newand I've used it for quite a few apps. For example BOINC Portable and Bitcoin Portable (defunct) both use modified versions of PAL. Method 3, using ThinApp, is the most expensive and I really don't see how someone could follow it without downloading a cracked ThinApp version. Method 4, using Mojopac, will not work on Windows 7 and looks more like a portable virtual machine rather than a way to make portable applications. Method 5, using Cameyo is a probably a very good bet for most applications and their online service will free you from the burden of setting up and running a virtual machine.
Still not satisfied? Take a look at this list in wikipedia.
Yeap I bought it. I though that since it had an NVidia card and it was Centrino based etc it wouldn't have any incompatibilities with Linux. (aaaargh if I only knew...) Anyway.
The laptop came with Vista. I was going to keep them for a week or so just to make sure I don't miss any of the Sony specific programs that was preinstalled. Well I couldn't bare them for more than 24 hours. I made some factory restore CDs and repartitioned the whole drive which now only has Ubuntu installed in it. What worked out of the box:
The SD/MS reader (104c:803b). It works out of the box with SD cards but the MS PRO slot doesn't work for me and I have found no way to make it work.
Graphics Card (10de:0426): The NVidia GeForce 8400 GT worked perfectly with the closed source drivers that Ubuntu installed. The temperature sensor works OK too. Nevertheless I recreated the xorg.conf (for no specific reason). Here is the new one.
DVD-Drive (PIONEER DVD-RW DVRKD08): It works OK. I recorded a data DVD with Brasero (for some reason it couldn't verify the burned disk afterwards but it worked perfectly). I also installed Diablo 2 through Wine. The CD protection of Diablo 2 works OK and recognizes the original CD.
CPU (Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz): Both cores are recognized and the temperature sensors work OK. The same goes for frequency scaling.
Wireless and LAN (8086:4229 and 11ab:4351): They both work perfectly right out of the box.
What didn't work out of the box but works with some tricks. Before trying the tricks enable the extra repositories (universe, multiverse etc) from System->Administration->Software sources).
Camera (05ca:183b): HAL loads a wrong module for the camera that in addition to not working, makes the laptop crash when you try to suspend it. So you must remove the misbehaving module from the kernel and prohibit reloading it.
Type the following in a console (you can find the console in Applications->Accessories->Terminal): sudo gedit /etc/pm/config.d/unload_modules
Give your password and then copy and paste the following line at the end of the file:
SUSPEND_MODULES=uvcvideo
Save the file and close the text editor.
To download the r5u870 drive you will need svn, so in a console type:
sudo apt-get install subversion
(answer yes to any questions you may encounter)
To download the source of the driver, type in the console:
svn co http://svn.mediati.org/svn/r5u870/trunk r5u870
Now that all files are downloaded go into their directory by typing:
cd r5u870
Install the build-essential package before trying to compile the drivers by typing:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Compile the driver by typing:
make
and then install the driver by typing:
sudo make install
Now instead of restarting you may just load the module into the kernel by typing:
sudo modprobe r5u870
When you reach this point the camera will only work with some applications like Skype.
If you open Cheese (a very nice application for capturing video and still pictures from your camera, install it by typing sudo apt-get install cheese) you will notice that it doesn't recognize your camera. That's because the system doesn't recognize it as a Video4Linux camera.
To fix this you will have to download this file and copy it to /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty . If you don't know how to do this just type the following two lines in the console:
cd /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty sudo wget https://bittit.info/publicDro/10-r5u870-webcam.fdi
Now either restart you computer or execute this in the console: sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart
Now you should have a perfectly working camera! Oh, you may now delete the sources by typing:
sudo rm -r ~/r5u870
Sleep and Hibernate: They don't work initially. The computers go to sleep but when awaken it stays in a black screen. Fixing the camera will fix this problem too. :-) Sound Card (8086:284b): Well, playback worked out of the box but when opening the sound options there were no recording controls and the sound was coming out only through the builtin speakers, plugging in headphones changed nothing. To fix all these problems follow these simple steps:
Optional step. I suggest that you don't use Pulseaudio because I found it a bit buggy. To switch back to ALSA go to System->Preferences->Sound and change everything to ALSA.
Type the following in a console:
echo "options snd-hda-intel model=vaio" sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel
Restart you computer.
Open the sound controls by clicking the sound icon next to the clock.
Then goto Edit->Preferences and select everything.
Play around with the controls. Don't forget to look at all three tabs (in the third tab you will find the record selection switches: Internal Mic, PCM, Mic Jack)
Bluetooth (044e:3010): It is properly recognized by the system but it will not work. Here is a way to fix it:
In a console type:
sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
Now append the following line before the exit command (if there is one) near the end of the file:
hciconfig hci0 reset
Now save the file and close gedit.
This way the bluetooth will work correctly but if you switch it off and again on (using the hardware switch in the front side of the laptop) it will stop working so you also have to do the following:
Right click on an empty space on your panel and select "Add to panel..."
Then create a new custom launcher and in the command textfield copy and paste this:
gksudo hciconfig hci0 reset
This way when your bluetooth stops working, just click on the new launcher that you made and it will ask for your password and then reset the bluetooth device so that it will start working again
VGA-out:
Open a console and type:
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf ~/xorg.conf.back
This will back up your xorg.conf file just in case you mess it up. Now you will have to install the NVIDIA settings manager. To do this just type:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings
And then run it by typing:
sudo nvidia-settings
The NVIDIA settings manager will open. (you might need to resize this window because for some strange reason it initializes too small)
Now select X Server Display Configuration and then click on Detect Displays to detect the connected display. Now you will be able to configure the two screens using the options in the Display and the X Screen tabs.
From ere you may also set the resolution to for your laptop's monitor to the correct one (1280x800). If you select a resolution from the Resolution drop-down-list (it's visible in the above picture) the drop-down-list on its right will be enabled and you can then select the desired refresh rate.
Afterwords don't forget to click on Save to X Configuration File.
If you mess up then type this in a console to restore your backup:
sudo cp ~/xorg.conf.back /etc/X11/xorg.conf
To delete your backup type:
rm ~/xorg.conf.back
Tip: To get rid of the annoying NVIDIA splash screen type this a a terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Then find all the Device sections and add this line inside them:
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Then save and exit.
What doesn't work and still I have found no solution:
The Fn buttons don't work. In fact the sound controls work, the next track, previous track, play, stop buttons work too. The S1 (customizable button), the AV MODE and the brightness control buttons doesn't work. I am still looking for a solution. The MS PRO slot doesn't work and I still haven't found any solution.
What I haven't fully tried yet:
S-Video out, HDMI output. I'll try them some time... (Shawe in the comments says that HDMI works OK but without any sound.)
PS: If I fix more problems I will update this post so you might want to check back later. If you find any problems or omissions please leave a comment.
PS2: It seems like someone did a partial translation of this article into Catalan. Here is a link to it. :-)
PS3: Thank you for your comments and the info you provided!
[The script has been updated on 12 Apr 2008]
I just adapted the SuperStealmore script to work with Emesene. As with the aMSN version you will have to change the first two lines of the script to fit you system. I also added the #!/user/bin/lua line at the top the two scripts so that they can be run just by clicking on them if you have Lua installed on your Linux system. You can download the script from here.
aMSN is a nice, alternative MSN client for Windows and Linux. I use it on my computer and it works quite nice. It has most of the features of the official client and additionally it supports plugins (list), skins (list), etc.
One nice feature of aMSN is that it archives your contacts' photos for viewing. To view the archived photos of a contact right click on it, select properties and go to the User display pictures tab (it might take some time to load). These photos are stored (on Linux) in the directory: /home/USERNAME/.amsn/msnname_hotmail_com/displaypic/cache/ where USERNAME is your username in Linux and msnname_hotmail_com is your msn login after converting "@" and "." to underscores (_).
I made a small Lua script (it will work only on Linux) to copy all the archived photos, organized in folders named after the contact's email, to any folder, effectively creating a nice photo collection. :-) You can download the script from here butyou will have to edit it (just the first two lines) to fit to your system. Replace the path in the first line with an existing path where the photos are to be organized. Then replace the path in the second line with the aMSN cache directory (in the form that I previously described). If you want to steal photos from all MSN accounts that you've used with aMSN you might simply enter /home/USERNAME/.amsn/ and hopefully it will traverse through all accounts searching for pictures. It's not that hard but leave a comment if you need help. After editing the script you may use the included Lua interpreter (or install one from your repositories) to run it. Whenever you run it the script, it will add the new photos to the existing archive.
Linux Tip: You can turn any Lua script into an executable by appending the following line to its beginning (assuming that you have a Lua interpreter installed):
#!/usr/bin/lua
Compiz is composite window manager for Linux. It's a program that manages the placement and drawing of windows on your screen. At the same time it uses hardware accelerated 3D graphics to draw effects for certain events (minimization, maximization, closing, changing desktop etc). Last March, Compiz and Beryl (a fork of Compiz featuring more 3D effects) were merged again and now there are two software packages available: Compiz-core and Compiz Fusion.
The good thing is that Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon comes with Compiz pre-installed. The bad thing is that they did not include the settings manager, leaving you with only three preset configurations (found in System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects).
If you want more control over compiz (compiz is capable for much more things than those found in the "Extra" preset) will have to install compizconfig-settings-manager. To do this, use a console (Applications->Accessories->Terminal) to execute this command: sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager (or use System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager to find and install the package)
Now go to System->Preferences->Appearance. It should contain one more option named "Custom":
Select it and then click preferences and start configuring the plugins you need.
If you have no idea how to configure them you can download my settings by clicking here. I use mostly the fire effect (because it matches with Ubuntu SE). If you move the pointer to the upper left corner of the screen you will get thumbnails of all open windows in all desktops. There are 4 desktops which form a cube that you are inside it. By touching the left or the right screen edge you can move to the next or previous desktop. Moving the pointer to the upper right corner will show you the four desktops. Take a look at this post as it contains two videos demonstrating the above.
To import my settings follow these steps:
System->Preferences->Appearance
Click the Preferences button on the Visual Effects tab.
In CompizConfig Settings Manager click on Preferences.
If you just switched from Windows to Ubuntu Linux you might have missed some application like Google Earth or Skype. For easy installation of these applications, some non-free or possibly patent-violating codecs and other programs you could simply add the Medibunturepository to your system. To do this simply follow these steps (instructions for Ubuntu Hardy Heron):
Run Synaptic (System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager).
Click Reload to get the packages from the newly installed repository.
Click on Origin (it's one of the buttons at the bottom left part of the window).
Select the first Medibuntu repository, then the second etc to view the packages they include. And install whatever you need.
What I suggest that you install:
hot-babe: Read the description and don't forget to add it to the Startup programs (System->Preferences->Sessions). Just make sure that you use the following command to run it or the babe will suck on your CPU: hot-babe -i -n 10 (But even if you use this command the babe uses the CPU a lot and it's a bit buggy especially if used with Compiz, but I suggest that you try her ;-) ... ) Here is a photo of the babe (fully dressed) :-P
libdvdcss2: Allows you to play encrypted DVDs. Also search for and install libdvdread3 using Synaptic.
Google Earth
Skype
non-free-codecs: To play some video files that no open source decoder exists for them.
Don't read this article. I've written a much better one which you can find here.
The purpose of this (late-night) post is to show the the possibility of creating portable applications and to encourage you into doing so. I can't teach you how to make one exactly because this depends on which application you choose. I will try, though, to write some headlines for you. Note that many applications cannot be turned into portable ones. Also different people understand the meaning of the word portable differently. When I say portable I only mean small in size, without unnecessary files and without the need to be installed. I also avoided using any commercial tools such as Thinstall.
Download and decompress UPX. This is a great open source executable packer. I though I had previeusly written about it but I haven't. UPX (which stands for Universal Packer for eXecutables) is probably one of the best executable packers. It will compress any exe, dll or other executable (even Playstation executables!) If you didn't already know executable packers create compressed applications that can still be run just like the uncompressed ones.
Download the program that you want to make portable. There might be an already portable version but usually it can get even smaller so download it and continue to the next step. If you can only find a version with an installer then download it, install it and continue to the next step.
You may follow either one of this steps. The first one describes how to do the compression manually. The second one makes use of a small Lua script I made that automates the whole process.
(Manual compression) The author of the program might have already compressed his executables so you'll need to decompress them (and hope he/she did compress them with UPX).
Open a DOS prompt (Start Menu->Run->"cmd.exe"->Enter).
Open the directory where UPX.exe is stored.
Finally open the directory where you installed the application (could be: "C:\Program Files\application name").
Now drag'n'drop UPX.exe into the DOS prompts window (or equivalently type the full path to UPX.exe).
Select the DOS prompt window and type: " -d ".
Next drag'n'drop the Directory of the installed program into the DOS prompt window (or equivalently type the full path to the directory) and also append a "*.*" (whithout the " of course) after the last "\".
Finally select the DOS Prompt window (which should contain a line like this: "c:\whatever\UPX.exe" -d "c:\Program Files\application name\*.*") Now press Enter.
UPX will decompress any executables inside the directory of the installed program. If there are subdirectories inside the directory of the installed program then you will have to repeat this process for them: Drag'n'drop UPX.exe, type -d, drag the subdirectory, press Enter.
Now compress everything. Repeat the above process but instead of typing "-d" you should type "--ultra-brute". This will instruct UPX to try all possible compression algorithms and then use the best for each executable. It will take lots of time but it will always produce the best results. If you cannot wait that long you should use instead "--lzma".
(Automatic compression) Download UPXALL. Then follow the instructions in the information.txt. When you are prompted for a directory you should use the application directory (could be: "C:\Program Files\application name"). Please note that UPXALL is still beta but will probably do the job.
Now the hardest part. Copy the installation directory of the program somewhere else and start removing unnecessary files. It's hard to do it right and might not be possible to remove any files at all (it might even be illegal if you want to distribute the portable version). Remove skins, language files or whatever you consider not worthy its size. In some cases you might also have to update some configuration files about the removed skins for example. If you overdo it with the removals you might end up with menu items in the program that do not work. It has never happened to me but in this case you should probably remove these menu items. Don't worry, you don't have to recompile the source code... Just use Resource Hacker on the uncompressed executable, remove the unneeded menu items and then recompress it with UPX. Finally some applications might require other changes in their configuration files. For example you might need to change any references to directories with relative ones. Here is an example. If you make a portable version of Emule and you want to work from your flash drive you should consider that the drive letter of your flash drive won't be the same on every PC. That will make Emule lose the shared directory settings every time the drive letter changes. To avoid this you should open the configuration file of Emule, find the shared directory and the incoming directory settings and then change them with relative naming. For example if the shared directory is inside the directory of Emule you could put a path like this in the shared directory setting: ".\shared". If you don't understand something in this step then please leave a comment and I'll try to explain.
If you just want to keep the portable version for yourself then you are finished. The directory now contains a portable version of the application (or at least that's how I call it). If you want to publish your application then you should first check if it legal to do so. Read the license of the application. If you are not sure for something, ask the authors.
