Multiboot USB experiment

After installed MS Windows 11 onto an incompatible PC, I packed the files in the installer USB back into an ISO. I wanted to test whether the ISO will work to install MS Windows if I put it onto another USB. At the same time, I had collected some ISOs of rescue disks and tool disks. So, I wanted to try them in a multi boot USB.

At first, I tried multibootusb, and it did not work, even did not boot up from it. It may be that I did not have a good knowledge of how to use it. So, teacher Google came to play. After reading some articles from Google, I wanted to try Ventoy.   

In the official site of Ventoy, I found that it was related to the Deepin team and the Wuyou forum, it gave me confidence that it would work. I downloaded both the Linux and Windows versions and started my trial with the Windows version. After I installed Ventoy into a 32GB USB stick, I pulled the modified Windows 10 installer ISO, the Active@Boot disk ISO, the USBox ISO and the Clonzilla ISO onto the USB stick.

The experiment began with booting up the USB stick and install Windows 11 onto a blank SSD disk. It worked, but during the installation process some flashing of screen occurred and the installation was successful.

Next, booting up the USB stick and playing with Active@Boot disk. It also worked. I did not test the USBox ISO and Clonezilla ISO as I supposed it would work. 

My experiment was completed successfully.

The IT world changed a lot after my retirement and I have to do a lot to catch up in order to  kept my brain healthy. Use it or lose it.

Install Windows 11 on incompatible computers

After I retired, I got away from Windows system and started to use Zorin OS for almost 8 years. I did not pay any attentions to the Windows system until recently. One person told me that his computer can not install Windows 11 as it is a bit too old and I found my computer also did not meet the requirements. Then, I came across an article from a IT man in Taiwan, it stated that it is able to get around the limitation imposed by MS to install Windows 11 to those computers.

His method is by replacing the install.wim file of a Windows 10 installation ISO by that of a Windows 11 installation ISO and use the modified Windows 10 installation ISO for installation.

The detailed procedures are list as follows:

• get a Windows 10 installation ISO
• get a Windows 11 installation ISO of the same language
• use Rufus to flash the Windows 10 installation ISO onto an USB stick
• delete the install.wim file from the sources directory of the USB stick
• extract the install.wim file from the sources directory Windows 11 installation ISO (you may use 7zip or else to do that)
  
• put the extracted install.wim file into the sources directory of the USB stick
• use the USB stick to install Windows 11

I followed the steps exactly and it worked. I used my MS a/c to start Windows 11 and it can update. 

I do not intended to make Windows 11 the OS of the computer I used daily. I tried to install it this way, just want to check whether the method works or not.  

健腦保健湯水五款

收拾書桌抽屉時，發現一張由賽馬會老圍中藥園印發的單張，上面介紹了五款健腦保健湯水和一些護腦小貼士。單張的紙已經開始變色，為了保存起見，將它整理張貼於此。

桑寄生合桃湯

【功效】 補腎益精 養箇安神
【材料】 桑寄生 60 克、合桃肉 100 克、桂圓肉 300 克、瘦肉 300 克
【做法】     

1. 瘦肉汆水備用。
2. 全部材料放入煲內,加清水熹沸後, 轉慢火煲 1.5 小時。

【使用注意】 咸財電者及體遙偏熱者慎用。

花生腰果魚頭湯

【功效】 補氣健脾 健腦益智
【材料】 合桃仁 100 克、花生 100 克、大魚頭 1 個、生薑 3 片、紅棗 5 粒
【做法】   

1. 大魚頭洗淨後用少許油煎香，放和煲內。
2. 全部材料放入煲內，加清水煮沸後，轉慢火煲 1.5 小時。

天麻石斛圓肉湯

【功效】 養心 滋陰安神
【材料】 天麻 30 克、石斛 20 克、党參 10 克、 杞子 20 克、  圓肉 15 克、黑棗 2 粒、
              麥冬 15 克、豬𦟌300 克
【做法】

1. 用清水浸石斛 10 分鐘備用。
2. 豬𦟌汆水後備用。
3. 將所有材料放進煲內，大火煲滾後，轉慢火煲 1.5 小時。

【使用注意】脾胃虛弱，大便浪泄者慎用。

南瓜甘筍合桃湯

【功效】 補腎益精 養血安神
【材料】 南瓜 200 克、甘筍 200克、合桃 100 克、腰果 100 克

【做法】

1. 南瓜及甘筍切件洗淨備用。
2. 將所有材料加入水中，大火煲滾後，轉慢火煲 1.5 小時。

栗子合桃雞腳湯

【功效』 補腎 強肋 健腦
【材料】 栗子肉 100 克、合桃肉 100 克、雞腳 10 隻
【做法】

1. 雞腳剝去外衣，用鹽擦洗，汆水洗淨。
2. 將所有材料加入水中，大火煲滾後，轉慢火煲 1.5 小時。

護腦小貼士

常用腦袋

大腦的發展是依循「用進廢退」原則, 故要多做益智活動，學習新事物,創造新的感官經驗，切勿一成不變 !

 維持社交活動

多參與社交活動，避免人際孤立或退縮。文獻證實,常與家人、親友、新居、同事往來互動,除智較不易吝退外，壽命也會較長。

 保持心境開朗,放鬆心情

研究發現，長期處於壓力荷爾蒙下會造成神經元的大量死亡，導致腦部海馬體等區域的萎縮。因此要學習壓力調適的知識及技巧，如練習放鬆、正向思考和自我肯定等。

備註：在制作此貼時，學會在Ubuntu OS的電腦上安裝和運用OCR軟件，開動了腦袋，護腦了！

To send colon in script using msmtp

In an project of building a file server for a small office and which should be able to access outside the office via Internet. The office did not have a public IP. It was decided to setup a nextcloud server together with a samba server and send the dynamic public IP obtained from the ISP to related staff in a email each time it started.

Msmtp was installed and configured properly for sending the required email in a script. The simple email just consisted of the subject and the IP as the body. The command is 

printf "Subject: NextCloud Server New IP\n${myip}" | msmtp xxx@gmail.com

It worked. In order to improve the performance, it would be better to send a link to the server rather than the IP itself. So, the command was modified to

printf "Subject: NextCloud Server New IP\nhttps://${myip}" | msmtp xxx@gmail.com

Here came the problem, the email had still to be send, but nothing in the body. There seemed do not have any syntax error. The printf function prints exactly what is needed. The problem should be on msmtp.

Google the great came to help. Not many articles related were suggested from Google. Colon cannot be send with msmtp is still an open question. Some suggested to prepare a text file for the email first and then send the text file with msmtp. So, text files were prepared and it worked once and only once. It was rather strange. After trying to make it work again, many many times, one noticed that at the time it worked, the text file was copied from somewhere and consisted many blank lines before the body text. So several blank was then inserted before the https: and tried again. It worked and could be duplicated. The final command is

printf "Subject: NextCloud Server New IP\n\n\n\n\n\nhttps://${myip}" | msmtp xxx@gmail.com

No attempt was made to see at least how many blank lines are needed. At least it worked for what was needed. 

The conclusion is that msmtp uses blank lines to distinguish the header and the body of an email. If the colon is inside the body, it will be handled properly.

 To cheat hp-plugin

Enjoyed the use of Zorin 15 for quite a long time, Zorin 16 had come out recently. To update the system in use to the new Zorin release and to get rid of the damaged hard disk housing the OS. I made up my mind to have a clean new installation of the new Zorin release in a new SSD. 

It was easy to set up the new system and everything seemed to be OK. It was the HP all-in-one printer that cause the problem. The printer functioned good, but the scanner did not function. Whenever a software wanted to make a scan, a hpaio I/O error with the scanner was reported. I did not have any hints on what was happening. Of course, Google is the place for me to ask for a solution. After reading a lot form those related articles, I concluded that I had to re-install hplip and run hp-plugin. When I ran hp-plugin, it needed to download the plugin. It said the plugin downloaded was corrupted and quitted. So, I got the plugin from the net and gave the path to hp-plugin. It said Zorin is not an approved OS and quitted. I asked it to select the OS as others. That is Ubuntu, the ancestor of Zorin.  It went ahead and then told me that a lot of dependencies were not available and asked me to install them manually. OMG, what a tedious works. I tried, but some of them are not available from the depositories. Ther was no way to solve the problem, all failed, I thought.

After a long time of thinking about the matter, I decided to cheat the program hp-plugin. I got a copy of the os-release file from an Ubuntu machine to replace that of the Zorin machine. Then run hp-plugin again, it worked. The plugin was installed successfully and the scanner can then be work properly.

Sometimes, a trick can help you work around and save a lot of times.  

Reformation of the mathematics resources section

Building up of the mathematics resources section had been stopped for a long long time. It is because of I do not had solutions or answers of some worksheets, test papers and examination papers  and I do not have times and energy to make them up.

As recently, I found there are needs of these materials for the fact that the section was visited sometimes. So I make up my mind to post all my worksheets and test/exam papers collection again to pay a little effort to mathematics educations. 

As a matter of fact, almost all these materials were collected from various sources from the Internet and these materials were used in my worksheets according to the fair use principle. If any of the materials offended you right, please let me know and I should take it away from the section ASAP.

As solutions and answers were not available for worksheets, test /examination papers, I would be very happy to see someone would share theirs with others.

Let make mathematics learning a fun!

 香港濕地公園荷花2022

公園內有兩種荷花，一白一紅。今年紅的開得比較好，白的沒那麽好。由於花在池中、溪中，距離遊步道比較遠，不太好拍。可是距離加上池面較大，可以拍到倒影。所以，拍攝環境沒有絕對的好與壞。