The power of blog

This title is unveiled by a discussion in one of mailing list(?) I join. I didn't share my opinion there, though. I just waited and seen what kind of conclusion would emerge. Although there was, unfortunately, no one concise conjunctive conclusion, I realized that there were some interesting findings.

One said that blog can resemble what kind of dreams owned by youth generation of a nation. On it, youth can unload honestly their personal mindset, emotion, and even their most private dreams. Hence these mindset and dream honesty portrays the real potential of a nation. Additionally, while blog is personal in nature, mailing list and forum are social system discoursing collective motive and interest. Therefore, on the mailing list and forum a general collective propensity to where a nation will head can be judged.

Here, even though these opinions seem to be over optimistic and I think it over simplifies the connection between blog and a nation's characteristics, I don't want to oppose it. One I will underscore is that blog has both positive and negative impact. As we know, blog (perhaps mailing list and forum too) gains more and more popularity in parallel to the wide spread of internet use (Don't miss it: these reason encourages a prominent novelist to share his masterpieces freely). Many blog types then arise focusing on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, niche blogs, legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs), dreamlogs, or spamming blog (known as a Splog), -what the definition of each term, you can refer it to Aunt Wiki-. Along its evolution, cyber community as well as common people can value what kind of creature blog is. Again, I don't want to elaborate this here as it surely requires hundreds or even thousands pages. Please, check out this and this cool links to warm up our understanding about the good and bad of this so called blog.

Finally, whatever the conclusion you deduce, perhaps one undeniable reason why we are actively blogging is to be known (in a particular aspect). Whichever the aspect is, as long as you blog with heart, go blogging! In the next post I'll try to post some related sources of:

• How blog changes the world
• What you should be aware before blogging
• Small tips to create a blog
• What blog engines easily used (good for me as beginner as well)
• More complicated blog
• Image and video blog

Hopefully these upcoming posts would trigger you to be an expert (and good, of course) blogger.
Happy waiting!

Ebook: Another trend of simplicity

The need for more information and the conservation of schoolbag space will motivate students and researchers to make increasing use of electronic textbooks. True, it will still be hard to read information off a screen, so ebooks which allow easy printing (i.e., PDF files and html compiled versions) will be the favorites. An e-book (for electronic book: also eBook, ebook) is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. Such documents are either read on personal computers, or on dedicated hardware devices known as e-book devices or e-book readers.

Text can be searched automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks. This makes e-books an excellent choice of format for works that benefit from search and cross-reference capabilities, such as dictionaries, reference works, certain kinds of textbooks. Less physical space is required to store e-books. Hundreds (or thousands) may be carried together on one device. Approximately 500 average e-books can be stored on one CD (equivalent to several shelves' worth of print books) Because they take up little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no 'out of print' date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely (copyright law permitting), and allowing readers to find older works by favorite authors.

Do you gift others with a book and write a dedication on the title page?

How to create a portable app? (2)

So far, I think you are already adept to deal with building portable app stuffs. Just to refresh your mind, don't hesitate to check this demo.

How to create Thinstalled app:

More demos with variety software can be found at the official Thinstall website.

Hence, it's about time to improve your skills. Thinstall is a very amazing program. It needs a clean computer to obtain optimal result, though. Since it is a bit worried for home user, I think it is better to refresh our first tutorial. In addition, here another cool portable app demo I found (again, I forget the address. Credit to the author).

File 1
File 2
File 3
File 4

Obviously although it comprises big files, this manual is worth to learn. It contains all related required software too, and the most interesting is it also contains some important notes and demos about Thinstall.

How to create a portable app? (1)

In my limited knowledge, creating a portable app conceivably comprises of a simple concept. It's about transplanting Windows registries (let's talk about Windows only) to portable hard drive instead of building them in the host computer. Surely, these registries are which are associated with such a software we want to portablized. In a bit detailed, applying the concept we have to:

1. Notice all registry, file, and directory changes if a given software is installed
2. Copy and apply the changes in and from our portable drive

Simple, isn't it?
Yes, I had similar presumption after coming across some references about this thing. But, I got a big headache then as it isn't so simple as its concepts. Registry associated to a software is not always simple, it can consists of hundreds or even thousands registries. Additionally, as a non programmer, acknowledge which registries are important is difficult, like wise copying and applying (or coding?) it so that it can be run from our portable drive. How come?

Fortunately, there are some cool stuffs I found on the Net. If you are a novice, as I am, a good guy provides a clear tutorial about how to make a simple portable app. It covers all steps required, provides all software necessitated. Although I don't remember what the link where I could find this manual, here the file. Enjoy.

Still confusing with the tutorial and wanna get easier tool to make a portable app? Just be a bit patient, please!

What is a portable app? (2)

I know that probably the concept of carrying one's favored applications, utilities, and files on a portable drive for use on any computer is one which has evolved considerably since years ago. What I'll share then probably you are already very familiar..

According to, again, Aunt Wiki to be considered truly portable, a software program must:

1. Not require any form of formal installation to be carried out on any computer before it can be used, with the release package only needing to be decompressed directly to removable media before use. If it has to be installed first, and requires its files to be manually copied to removable media, it is not designed to be portable. For example, software which is supplied as an InstallShield package should not be considered portable, though a ZIP archive containing an executable would be.
2. Settings are stored with, and can be carried around with, the software (i.e., they are written to the USB drive). If the registry is used to store settings, the application's configuration isn't portable, and must be set up on every PC it is used on
3. Leaves a zero (or near-zero) "footprint" on any PC it's run on after being used. i.e., All temporary files/registry settings should be removed once the program has exited, and files created by the user can be saved directly to the same removable media as the application is stored on.

In regard to this, while so many applications have been built portably and easily gotten in the Net, people should be aware when choosing this kind of application. Unfortunately unsafe portables prevails the portable world at this time. They are working good, one can use them exactly the same way as they were safe ones. But if there's any local installation of the software, these portables would modify or destroy them so they won't work after you've run them. I think creating unsafe portables instead of safe ones is the biggest mistake the creator can make. If you create a portable app and share them with others, you'll come across angry users who are complaining that your portables destroyed the locally installed softwares on their computer. You really should avoid this.


If you use an unsafe portable you should be aware that some unwanted files and/or directories (in Application Data, Documents and other directories) and/or some registry keys will be left on your computer. If you use many unsafe portables, your computer may become slower and slower. But this is the smallest problem. Unsafe portables may overwrite (or even delete) some important system files or registry keys, which may cause undesirable results, such as some installed programs won't run, your system may become unstable, you'll get strange error messages and so on, provided if your computer is able to boot up. I think it's unnecessary to say that we should avoid all these things.

There are cases when you cannot create a safe portable but only unsafe version of the software. If you are about to share them, notify the users that it may destroy the local install of the same software. For whom are not able to create portable app yet, don't worry we'll learn together. Next I'll post how to create a portable app.

What is a portable app? (1)

Aunt Wiki says that "a portable application, or portable app for short, is a software program that does not require any kind of formal installation onto a computer's permanent storage device to be executed, and can be stored on a removable storage device such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, flash card, or even a floppy disk, enabling it to be used on multiple computers. This does not mean that it can be taken and used on a different operating system, processing platform, or another computer with completely different hardware (i.e., those that are not compatible with the software as stated by its requirements), so it is not to be confused with the concept of software portability, which is the ability for software to be run or compiled with little modification on diverse computing platforms. Ideally it can be configured to read its configuration files from the same storage location as the software program files."

Today, along with the willingness of simplicity, rapid advance of technology development encourages people to create as simple as possible technology supporting their daily needs. In the case of software development, people has began to prefer light applications that can be used instantly without necessities to install and configure it before hand as the conventional applications require. Time, mobility, and simplicity boost the need of such kinds software which can be used fast, no installation, and possible to be brought along wherever needed in a tiny storage.

Quoted from PortableApps.com, imagine such conditions when you can:

• Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks
• Carry your calendar with all your appointments
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
• Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
• Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities
• Carry all your important passwords and account information securely
• Consider the Convenience...
• Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
• Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
• Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
• Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems

As a result, it has bloomed a trend of three NOs in software choice:

1. No Special Hardware - Use any USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod/MP3 player, etc
2. No Additional Software - Just download the portable app, extract it and go
3. No Kidding - It's that easy

To underscore what I mean with this posting, just simply think about a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your
personal data is left behind.