I always got this type of message in Windows XP when installing with MSI:

The Windows Installer service could not be accessed

But this occurs on my friend’s PC. So, I tried to start the service Windows Installer service. And the message shown:

Could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a
timely fashion

I really like Unix philosophy:

Data dominates. If you have chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming. [link]

Yes, I used to install all the programs to the Windows > Program Files. And I found that the data is always saved in My Documents. And the settings of the programs are stored in user profile application data. This is very annoyance when I needed to format and reinstall the Windows. Because My Documents is in C:. Though we can move My Documents to other location, I did not do so. Because not everything in My Documents is what I want. Most of them just created by the programs. Very annoyance.

当你感觉被爱（被动式）的时候，正是你爱（主动式）的时候。

If you like portable applications, surely you know about PortableApps.com. I think the most prominent projects of the website are OppenOffice Portable, Firefox Portable, and GIMP Portable. But recently, since I subscribed the RSS, there are more and more new applications in PortableApps.com, such as the game like “Frets on Fire”, the online game “The Mana World”, etc.

This is very interesting. Portability is a very convenient feature because this allows us to bring our applications by using a USB pendrive. And sometimes, we need administrative privilege to install the applications. But portable applications just let us extract it, then we can run the applications anywhere.

A very bad experience for me to upgrade COMODO Firewall. The update was slow. So I decided to download the latest version installation file.

Then tried to install from the latest version. And the installation detected the existing of the older version. I was asked to uninstall the older version. Right, I uninstalled it. Then I was asked to restart the computer. But I didn’t restart. (I know, this was my fault). Then I continued installing the latest version. Finally, restarted the computer.

Previously I said that Firefox is just like an OS (Operating System), with the add-ons like the applications. If this is the metaphor, then all the bookmarks will be the important files that we own.

Sometimes I will reformat the harddisk and reinstall Windows due to some error, registry corruption, virus infection, some unexpected performance, etc.

And recently, I found that my Firefox have some problems. When the Firefox opened for a long time, 2 or 3 hours, there will be a high CPU usage. Which hinders me to work properly. I don’t know what happened, may be add-ons. I tried to uninstall some of the add-ons, but the problem still there. So, the final solution is “reformat” it.

For me, Firefox is just like an operating system, with the add-ons like the applications.

I always have a problem on managing the tags of Firefox 3. Unlike the bookmark system of the other web-browser, tagging is allowed for the Firefox. The tagging feature is based on the SQLite database in Firefox.

I had an experience that I corrupted the tag because of installing the Wizz RSS in Firefox. Thus, I seldom manage the tags. And previously, I installed StumbleUpon toolbar, this add-on generated a lot of tags which I don’t like.

Previously, I was using FeedReader to read the news with RSS and Atom. I like it, since it has the portable version.

But after I uses Xmarks (previously Foxmarks) for Firefox, the bookmark synchronisation helps me a lot. Because No matter which PC I used, the bookmark will always sync to the server.

But the news feed reading is quite troublesome. Because I need to update for both PCs if reading news feeds using the desktop client like FeedReader. Then I tried to search around which can solve my problem. The web-based service is the solution.

I have tried Google Chrome. Sure it is nice, because it is clean and simple. But, I still prefer Firefox as the default web browser. So, if you are interested in Google Chrome, and still using other default web browser, you can try the followings:

Portable Chrome (Chromium)
SRWare Iron

I am now using Iron portable version. Very nice.

Just very happy to find that, my eMule is high ID now. Great!