Three Dimensions: Where did they come from?

Though it makes me far from the objective of these blogs, as one reader has contacted me regarding the previous comment and has asked me this question I add this short comment here. How man understood that he is living in a three dimension space? It is from builders experience since the ancient time. To build a wall straight we use a piece of heavy plumb and string. To make a floor straight what do we need? A flat floor means for us that water do not flow on any direction on it. It is enough to check only two directions on the floor among infinite directions. It is easier to take those two direction perpendicular, in right angle, to each other. Builders do it by fixing two straightened perpendicular string drawn on two sides of a floor. With these three string we can build a room with straight walls and flat floor. We never need more than that and these tree strings in a corner create a 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinates system for the room, for the space that we live in. Further if you make each of these floor strings in right angle to the string of plumb, then the water will not flow in any direction on the floor. Floor will be "leveled," as it is said. If the floor is small compared with the radius of earth it is consistent with water flow. This floor made by perpendicular to the line of the plumb is actually a surface tangent to the sphere of the earth at the point where the tip of the plumb touches the earth and if it becomes larger in lengths then the water will flow to the tip of the plumb from all directions. It is equivalent of a pendulum, indeed. In imagination, one can use it in ocean for converting very tall water waves, to re-wind up the damping pendulum every now and then, to electrical energy. Locally, it is said, surface of the earth is a collection of these small flat surfaces. Intrinsic geometry of the earth surface can be studied with these two dimensions. This floor also is called to be a chart at the touching point of the plumb. Earth surface is a collection or an atlas of these local charts many of them folded together in the atlas. Hence the earth surface is a manifold.
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(c) Copyrighted materials, Copy rights, Peter Jones December 2009.

A Decimal Calendar

I have created a decimal calendar. One might ask what do I mean by a decimal calendar. Making things decimal started from the time of French Revolution. They wanted to change everything to a sacrilegious, scientific and inspired by the enlightenment movement in modern philosophy. They knew the most natural and easy type of division and multiplication can be done if all numbers be in radix or base of ten, using only ten symbol for counting, based on the fingers on a human hands. Before that the roman scales and measures with differences were used in the world. Things such as pound or yard or mile. First they decided to make a right angle from ninety degree to hundred units and they called it hundred grads. So round a circle becomes four hundred grads. And any circle round the earth, including the equator circle, will also be four hundred grads. Then they divided a quarter of that great circle of equator in fractions of ten until it became near the size of a yard. To do that one should divide that right angle length into ten million. They created a rod of platinum in that size and called it one meter. They created units of decimal fractions of one meter and units of decimal multiplication of one meter. They made a cube of water with length at each edge equal to one tenth of meter (one decimeter) and called it one kilogram and made a platinum block of that weight as the new standard. One gram is a cube of water one centimeter in each edge.
Division of a circle into 360 degrees is due to Babylonians. They noticed that the sun rotating round the earth in three hundred and sixty days and night to go back to its last year position in heaven at the dawn. They recognized it was more than that a bit, but 360 had all the divisors from one to ten except seven, and it was good enough. They could not find a number that can add seven to other divisors and be near to 365 solar days. That brought the idea from ancient time that seven should be a sacred number exempted from being a divisor and an exception to that celestial rule. Babylonian further divided each degree of 360 degree into sixty "minutes" and each minute into sixty "seconds" for further precision of their calculations. They had to do calculations in cumbersome 60 radix. To reward the resilience of seven they created "Week" which is "Seven" solar days and seven got its own and unique position of honour among the "ten" numbers.
French revolution could not change number of solar days to 400 days and make the calendar decimal. They wanted to make things more precise not less. Hence, they left it as before. Day is divided into twenty four hours in accordance to idea of Babylonian such that each quarter of day be six hours and each hour be sixty minutes and each minutes be sixty seconds.
As astronomers were dealing with solar 365 days they were reluctant to abandon 360 degrees and adopt the French revolution 400 grads and its decimal fractions. Changing astronomical and naval tables and charts of the world at that time was a formidable task if not impossible. Geometers and trigonometers who were actually workers of astronomers also followed the old Babylonian style of 360 degrees for the circle. Most of the times they even do not need that and they use an intrinsic measure of angles called "radian." Still, all the calculators and computer programs are able to work with any of these three units of angles, though rarely one might find "grad" of any usage.
In my decimal calendar I have not divided the year into 400. I have divided it into twenty months. Each season has five months and year is consistent with real solar day from spring equinox to next spring equinox. Further I have divided each solar day into 20 hours instead of twenty four hours. Then I have divided each hour into 100 minutes and each minuets into 100 seconds. Hence my minutes and seconds are shorter and more consistent with modern usage of more precision in time. In this way each solar day is equal to 200000 seconds of my proposed clock instead of difficult to remember, 86400 seconds of conventional clock. You see in sports, for instance, that many fractions will not need to be used anymore in this way. I also created a five days "Week" that consolidate the sacred day of Christians -Sunday-, Judaism -Saturday-, and Moslems -Friday- in a single common day.
You can download a decimal clock of mine from my Google Code page, or click here. There is also a software for conversion of Gregorian to Decimal calendar for dates after spring of 2000, at the same place, or click here. You can see the length of each months and more details of the calendar by clicking here.

Tuning Google Analytic for Microsoft Office Live

I found it more convenient to create an xsl style page rather than using the code lines offered on the dialogue of Office Live "Custom footer." In this way if I need some modification I modify the xsl file on my own computer and then I delete the old xsl file in the Office Live Document Gallery and I upload the new modified file in its place. I do not need to do anything on the web design. The new style automatically comes on-line. It is a good side that you do things on your own computer and then you upload them. Some people say that why the Microsoft Office Live has not its own editor and you have to delete the document and upload it again. Well, in this way I have the choice of using my own favourite editor rather than an imposed editor. I have seen when the Web Hosting Sites offer their own editors. Frequently the compiled result is not what you expect and what you intend and you have to tune things again and again. The HTML does not follow concisely the visual, for instance. You need to do much hacking. So it is better to have them in your computer with your own editor. Perhaps on the good old "notepad." For example, on the advice of Google Analytic I changed the previous style page to following
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="text" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<![CDATA[
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._setDomainName(".messiahpsychoanalyst.org");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
</script>
]]>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The modified part is in bolface letters. I used my own website domain ".messiahpsychoanalyst.org" by dropping "www" from the web address. I did that such that Google Analytic can track the inner pages of my website, too.

Google Analytic for Microsoft Office Live

I wondered how I can put tracking code of Google Analytic on a website designed on Microsoft Small Business Live. I found that I needed an xsl style file to embed inside my home page. I copied the tracking code offered by the Google Analytic. It is like this; it is java script:
&ltscript type="text/javascript"&gt
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
&lt/script&gt
&ltscript type="text/javascript"&gt
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
&lt/script&gt
In the statement "UA-XXXXXXXX-X" the letter "X" stands for the numbers given by the Google Analytic profile for the desired website. Then I put this piece of code inside an xsl document like this
&ltxsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"&gt
&ltxsl:output method="text" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/&gt
&ltxsl:template match="/"&gt
&lt![CDATA[
&ltscript type="text/javascript"&gt
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
&lt/script&gt
&ltscript type="text/javascript"&gt
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
&lt/script&gt
]]&gt
&lt/xsl:template&gt
&lt/xsl:stylesheet&gt
The Google Analytic codes are shown as boldface fonts inside the xls template. I put this in a notepad and saved it as, say, aStyle.xsl. The extension .xsl should not be forgotten and the file format is in UTF_8. Then I upload it to my "Documents Gallery" at my Microsoft Office Live website designing console.
Now I go to my "Page Manager" page in my Microsoft Office Live console and click on "Edit" for my home page. When the "Home Page" opens in "Edit" mode I notice two tabs. I select "Page Editor" tab. There, at the top from the "Insert" pane, I click on the second icon with a drop down menu; it is the "Insert Module" menu. I move the highlight down until I get to the "Custom footer." Upon selecting this, a dialogue opens. There is an option for "Link to an xslt file" and a "Select file" button. If you select this option then it takes you directly to the "Documents gallery" where you already had uploaded your file. You can point to the mentioned "aStyle.xsl" file. Looking at the zone that you have selected for the tracking "footer," then you can see a dashed border area. That does not show anything in your site. It is, merely, the Google tracking snippet resided there. Now go to your Google Analytic and follow their instructions. It immediately informs you of being successful in installing the tracker.

Boot Loaders

That XOSL loader with all success is not much stable and might start to oscillate between GRUB sector and XOSL sector. That is due to the fact that it is inside an extended partition at the beginning of the disk. That is less likely and less devastating if the extended partition was after primary partitions. A good observation is to go to Windows disk manager and delete the extended unstable partition and create a primary partition instead of that and formatted as NTFS. You become surprised that GRUB will disappear and in its place XOSL safely has kept its place at the beginning of hard disk and works perfectly loading any other bootable NTFS partition on the disk. You can open physical disk by a hex editor and see that affirmatively XOSL files still are there un-deleted, and un-touched. It is not at a place that through a simple reformating gets lost. XOSL is a nice small piece of software and can cosily reside at its snugging home that it has built at its installation and you cannot get rid of it that easily. What does it remind, then? This observation gets to the idea by some users that XOSL is a virus software. Well, it is not the case. But study of its source code is useful for people who are learners for developing anti-virus software against boot-sector-residenting malwares.I could sum it up for me that if I use only different flavours of Microsoft operating systems on the same machine it is wise to follow the procedures of Microsoft as they are well documented by Microsoft and if I use UNIX types only or mixed with Windows I can use GRUB. I know that Solaris of Sun Microsystem manages that automatically, if you follow their Big Admin procedure for multi-booting. Remains no place for good old XOSL.

XOSL: Use or not to Use?

A simple answer is no. XOSL has been expired in terms of being fashionable anymore. Nobody took that fallen bearing after its original developer. Well, open sources mean “with no guarantee.” But actually it is not the case. That slogan is for legal formalism. I do not believe that a responsible developer means by that phrase that he has created a “crap” application. Open source developers are always around, eagerly waiting for reporting bugs from  potential end-users and happy to answer their questions and helping them. One way of becoming rich and a reputable corporate owner or highly demanded employee is to develop high quality, open source, free products. But if a day comes that they say, “Well, now we have some other business and do not have a time to take care of our open product and nobody is interested to continue professionally to support our free applications," then after a certain period of time one cannot and should not use that goods anymore. It is only good for gaining experience, gaining familiarity with some principle or historical background. After that, one should go to living products with the developers around to interact in case. This is why I leave XOSL and go to GRUB boot loader. My XOSL worked fine from the within of an extended partition on a logical partition there and could load a GRUB boot loader for a Linux “Debian” flavour “ex2” partition.

Writing GParted GRUB Menu

To write the menu for the GRUB we have to invoke a text editor and write the menu.lst file. “Debian” command line has the “nano” editor, same as “pico” Hence, I can use either name. At the command prompt I enter “pico /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst” When  the editor opens I write down the following lines. I am careful not to leave spce after end of each line and not a line skipped between line. Only between each section I leave a line. each section starts with the phrase, “title”
default 0
title GParted live
root (hd0,0)
kernel /live/vmlinuz1 toram boot=live union=aufs noswap noprompt vga=normal ip=frommedia
initrd /live/initrd1.img
boot

title CDROM
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/grub/memdisk
initrdl /boot/grub/sbootmgr.dsk

kernel is the core of each operating system loaded to do house keeping jobs such as delegating jobs to the the hardware and doing their requests. initrd job is to intialize physical memory of computer that is to put the image of operating system in RAM. This image is called the system and its job is to boot or make the computer live. I remember that I had the required files “memdisk” and “sbootmgr.dsk” on my customized GParted ISO.  I use the copy command
“cp –pf /live/image/memdisk  /mnt/boot/grub/memdisk” and
“cp –pf /live/image/sbootmgr.dsk  /mnt/boot/grub/sbootmgr.dsk” to copy these two files into the grub boot file. They load GParted from the GParted CD instead of GParted hard disk partition if I opt to. Let me tell you I can add more sections to this grub menu to load any further operating system from GParted partition and add a nice splash to the menu with cool listing and get rid of XOSL! So why not? It is because I do experiment with tools to become more efficient.

Java FX: A new cool platform for developing rich web applications

It is a while that Java FX platform is available. Already it was part of the NetBeans IDE bundle downloads until it became gradually independent, though one can download it with a NetBeans IDE attached independently designated for developing Java FX or as a plug-in into the newer versions of NetBeans. Now the platform is on its feet and can be used as a platform for its own. I liked this new tool since

• I could learn its basic lessons in a morning
• I need only a day to learn advanced features such as animation. Actually this feature is the only part that a Java programmer needs to concentrate.
• The language takes me back to all memories of C programming days as I notice structure and enumeration and unions have had a comeback from java to C grand-parents.
• Ease of using is similar to using Basic programming at its first emergence after horrible punch card programming era.
• NetBeans IDE allows me to exploit all the java capabilities, besides the new elegant Java FX.
• Events handling Listeners and Adapters are more friendly in FX than Java programming. That is the case with implementing Abstract classes too.

Still, I could not find documentations of classes for Java FX. Also in java projects that one is doing in NetBeans IDE, the IDE does not show the Java classes documents neither for pure Java nor for Java FX. I believe gradually I will use the Java FX platform for most of my work. That animation experience makes it more desirable and faster to be used.

Creating Partition on Virtual Box

After finishing on creating partition, it is a good idea to roam around “Debian” and become used to its environment. Just enter “ls”  to get a list of facilities that I got on the root. if I enter “ls /sbin” I’ll get a list of loads of utilities available for me. One is “mke2fs” that creates Ext2 file system for Linux partition. I can remember that I liked to install permanently a GParted on an extended logical partition at the beginning of my hard disk. I enter “mke2fs –L GParted /dev/hda6” at the command prompt. It does its job and creates a Linux partition on my hda6 logical device. I use option “–L GParted” to have a volume label for my partition, besides. I notice always to keep the required blank spaces. before and after that option in the command and after “L”. Now I run an “–pfv e2fsck /dev/hda6” to have some expert information about my logical device. Again those switches help me to keep things under control and unattended. I should plan everything ahead and leave them to be done without having  been around to watch them. At the end I can read the report or any log file to find out what has gone. So “unattended but verbose” is desired. Now it is time to “mount” the logical partition on a directory. I can create any directory that I like, but already there is a directory in “Debian” for that: it is “/mnt” directory on the root. I enter “mount /dev/hda6 /mnt”. At times it is necessary to use “mount –t ext2 /dev/hda6 /mnt” to explicitly guide the commands to the type of mounted partition. Now, everything is fresh and clean and I do not need to do that. I have the device mounted now I start to install my own image and directories. I follow advise of GParted site. I should decompress GParted.zip into the root of “/mnt”. I should find the place of “unzip” command and gparted .zip on the CD image that right now I have live on the RAM disk space. If I enter just “ls” I see a “live” folder in the list. I enter “cd live” that takes my inside the “live” directory. There I have two folders: “cow” and “image” I enter “cd image” Here is the list of all files and folders that I put when I was creating my custom GParted CD ROM. Among them now I need gparted.zip and “unzip”. They are here. Now I follow GParted website command but I should have all paths in commands. Alternatively I can copy these two files to the root of “Debian live RAM” I enter “/live/image/unzip /live/image/gparted.zip –d /mnt”. I note that I should repeat the complete path for each file and folder and unzip is completely case sensitive. Switch “ – d” shows the directory of installation. I did whatever GParted advised. From here, or at the root I check “ls /mnt” and find out every thing is as it should. I have “COPYING” file at the root. From now on it works on the hard disk but now I am in a logical partition and have other plans hence I need a “GRUB” for loading this device from “XOSL” I go into the root and enter “mkdir /mnt/boot” That creates the required “/boot” directory for installing “GRUB”. Then I enter “/sbin/grub-install ––no-floppy ––root-directory=/mnt /dev/hda6 ” Switch –no-floppy shows that I do not use a floppy for loading “—root-directory=/mnt is the place that “GRUB” finds its “/boot” directory as already created and ready and at the end we have installing device. Usually “GRUB” gives a warning about “device.map” that should be ignored. I can inspect “ls /mnt/boot/grub” for installed folders. It is better to sort out things by invoking GRUB command environment by entering “sudo grub” There at the “grub>” prompt, I enter  “find /bbot/grub/stage1” It replies “(hd0,5)” It is in the brackets and I know that it means the partition number 6 (5+1) on the device number 1 (=0+1). Grub counts from zero rather than one. Then at the “grub>” prompt I enter “root (hd0,5)” It replies “file system type is ext2fs, partition type ex83” both have the same meaning. Then I enter “setup (hd0,5)” It gives few lines of message and news of successful installation. Then I enter “quit” and back to “Debian” command prompt. So far so good. Now remains to edit the “menu.lst” of GRUbB and a nice splash for it.

Creating Partitions on Virtual Disks

After those calculations, I have better idea of what going on in hypothetical geometry of hard disks. Now I open my xVM virtualBox. I create a “New” machine. For operating system I select “Other.” For the Version, I select “other,” for version. I select a new virtual hard disk for it as much as 16Gb. I mount my custom made GParted.iso as CD on the “Other” machine and then I start the machine. It boots from GParted.iso.  I select the second row from the GParted menu, to be able to un-mount the CD if I opt to. Then I select the default key map of GParted. And finally I select the language from the language menu. After that a menu loads that ask me for three options: [0], [1], and [2]. I select [2] to take me to the GParted “Debian” command. Then I type “fdisk /dev/hda” at the prompt and then “enter.” It gives number of cylinders C=33288, and usual Linux warning on exceeding C=1024 and then subcommands for “fdisk” comes as “command (m for help).” If I type “m” and then “enter” a list of available commands and at the bottom “x” for expert commands. I type “x” and “enter.” A sub-subcommand comes for expert commands. In this if I type “m” and “enter” another list comes for available expert sub-subcommands. Now I type “c” to change number of cylinders and “enter.” A prompt offers me possible number of cylinders from 1 to 33288. I type 2088 as my previous calculations show. It accepts. Then I type “s” to confirm number of sectors. I can change it for adventure but not for work. I select the default S=63 without any change by typing 63 at the prompt and “enter.” Then I type “h” and “enter” to change heads. It offers me from one to 255 and default 16. I type 255 for H=255 and “enter.” At the next prompt I type “r” to go back to “fdisk” non-expert subcommand prompt. To do my partitions I type “n” and “enter.” It asks me with a help menu “type e for extended” and “type p for primary.” I enter “e” Then it asks me for partition number (1-4). Here I adventure to put the extended partition at the beginning of the disk contrary to usual practice that puts it at the end. I enter “1” Then it asks me for the size. It asks me for beginning cylinder by offering (1 to 2088). Here I get confirmation that my calculated scheme is under way. I enter “1”  and then for the end of extended partition I enter “40” I leave 2048 cylinder for two XP side by side. Then again I enter “n” This time it offers me “l for logical partition” since we cannot have any more extended partition but we can have only logical partitions inside the extended partition. I enter “p” and it asks me for partition number (2 to 4). I select “2” This time it offers 41 for beginning of partition as default that I accept by entering for the end of partition I type 1064 (=40+1024) I confine number of cylinder to its maximum of 1024. I repeat the procedure for the last partition from 1065 to 2088. Then again I enter “n” - what for this time? to create logical partitions inside extended partition. At the next menu, I enter “l” for logical partition. It offers me to select a number (5 and greater) since logical partitions at any situation begin from 5. I enter “5” Then It asks for the beginning that I enter default cylinder “1” and for the end I enter “3” This is my XOSL partition, 24Mb. I cannot have less than this. I repeat the procedure for second logical partition that keeps my customized GParted from cylinder 4 to cylinder 40 in partition “6”. Now I have four partitions ready. I type “a” at the “fdisk” subcommand to make GParted partition bootable. It asks me for the partition number (1 to 6). I enter “6”. To be sure of my operation I enter “p” It gives a list of my partition with their number of cylinders as “/dev/hda1” –the extended partition, “/dev/hda2” – the first primary, “/dev/hda3”, as the other primary,  “/dev/hda5” first logical and at last “/dev/hda6” the other logical partition. I can see a “*” is next to “/dev/hda6” showing that it is bootable. I enter “w” to save the partition table and come out of the “fdisk” subcommand.

Installing GParted and XOSL

In xVM virtual Box I mount the enhanced GParted.iso I prepared as I explained here, and then I start the machine. It loads GParted from ISO image. I continue on defaults of GParted, but for the last stage when it gives me a choice of command line, as choice [2]. After loading the "Debian" commandline, at the prompt I type "fdisk" and then "return". It gives a usage of "fdisk" command. I type "fdisk /dev/hda". It finds the virtual hard disk and describes its specifications. It gives usual warning of Linux regarding violation of 1024 cylinders limit. For this writting I selected a virtual hard disk of some 16Gb. "fdisk" recognizes a default H=16, S=63 and number of cylinders C=33288. This creates later problems for me if I do not correct them. Each cylinder now contains 1008 blocks, each block 512 bytes gives a total of 0.5Mb capacity for each cylinder. I should have an 8Mb capacity for each cylinder. If I keep S=63 and increase H to H=255 then number of cylinders will be 33288/(255/16) or 33288x16/255 which is roughly C=2088 and each cylinder contains SxHx512=63x255x512=8225280 bytes or some 8Mb of data.

Geometry of Hard Disk

Two weeks I did not write in this Blog. I am preparing a website here. I needed to become used to the Microsoft Office Live tools and editing the files and uploading and changing backgrounds. Now I am smoothly on the track. Hopefully that site includes very interesting pieces regarding hardware and assembly codes and this Blog remains for general tuning of computer and similar ideas. I was talking about the structure of hard disk. Their technology constantly is changing to reduce the size, to reduce access time for retrieving each piece of data, or in other words to increase the speed of data retrieve. At the same time it is desirable to increase the amount of data that one can put on a hard disk. There are also other goals such as reducing the noise created by hard disk and improve its mechanical features such as ambient compatibility and positioning of a working hard disk in different orientations. BIOS of computer and operating system talk with the embedded software of the hard disk and from that point on we do not know how that software handles data that I give to my computer to be saved. Hard disk takes my data and with all honesty keep them and gives them back to me. For that software all of my data are in form of bytes next to each other. It is like the RAM of computer: there is no cylinder or head or anything. From the time of corporate mainframe computers with their stacks of disks we have data organization in form of a three dimensional space. At each point "head" should stop, read the data and after passing certain time move to another point. While moving it cannot read anything. Normally people understand that a cylinder is a solid object. This is not meaning of a cylinder. A cylinder is only the outer surface of a solid cylinder similar to a pipe with no pith. A solid cylinder object is like many pipes, thousands, smaller inside the larger. I can address each pipe or cylinder by counting from the most outer and larger pipe to the most inner narrower pipe. Each disk in our imaginary stack of disks has two sides for putting data: top and bottom. On each side we have an imaginary head. Actually a real hard disk has two disks, called platter with four heads, but these are not our concern. For partitioning practice I assume that I have 128 disks each two heads (two sides), a total of 256 heads. I further assume that the most bottom disk has not a bottom disk and therefore no head. that reduces heads to 255 at the end. Hence, H=255. That gives address to find one side of an imaginary disk. cylinders on each disk can be seen as circular track of a CD ROM. Then I should navigate around over that side. I divide that similar to a pizza or a pie. Normally, you do it by make it half and then half again and further until you get small portions. For hard disk, small portions are called "sector." It is standard to continue to make half until we get 64 sectors; six times halving, one after the other. They are counted from "zero" to 63 included, 64 all together. Hence, S=63. One does not change this default, except to commit him to some adventures not utilizing partitions for daily work. the last thing remains for me to decide that on a specific sector on a specific head how many cylinders, inside each other, I need. With the scheme that I have had so far each of my cylinders contain roughly 8Mb of data. From that I can decide for number of cylinders. For safe experience I never exceed C=1024 cylinder, or around 8Gb. But for real works, I do not care much about these things and allow GParted or Windows or Solaris or other software manage these tasks.

Utilizing Virtual Box

I have the GParted.iso image saved somewhere in my computer and want to test it and become familiar with it. I have not burnt it yet to a CD ROM. I open my xVM VirtualBox and mount this ISO image on it by browsing to its saved folder. These all intuitively can be done. Then I start my virtual machine. I already had selected "Other" as name of machine to remember that type of my virtual machine is unspecified. When machine starts it automatically finds the mounted image and then GParted loads. I find it better to use graphical default GParted for a non-partitioned hard disk. In GParted GUI menu I create these partitions: first an extended 2GB second a primary 9Gb and third a primary 9Gb. I create three logical partition inside the first extended partition: first a 16Mb FAT16 for XOSL (it comes as 24Mb) then an ex2 logical with 250Mb capacity and remaining FAT32 for Freedos. I format next primary partition with NTFS for my first XP Windows. I leave the last partition for later. That I selected extended partition as first partition was to overpower myths regarding "first partition" usage. GParted promise is that that its partitions are rounded to "cylinder" but I cannot rely on that due to the fact that in its GUI I could not find any option for selecting number of heads. When you normalise the geometry of the partition and read CHS (Cylinder, Head, Sector), say by Ranish partition tools sometimes you get fractions. It is better to do a basic partitioning and then restart GParted in its "Debian" command lines and, using fdisk utility, fine tune partitions based on a CHS calculated as H=255, S=63 and C should be got through calculations, rather than default of GParted that uses only H=16. This default gives thousands of cylinder. For H=255 and S=63 each roughly 8Mb is one cylinder. Hence, for 24Mb I select 3 cylinders, for 250Mb I select 30 cylinders for Freedos I select 220 cylinders and so on.

Working with Virtual Box

My goal is not to run a virtual desktop in my PC. I do that but not for the jobs I counted in previous post. Virtualization has found its applications mostly in corporate computing from the time that Novell introduced its workstation software for Microsoft server software to be installed in place of Windows 2000 workstation. One good usage of virtual boxes is to test beta and candidate software. For example, now I am doing it with Microsoft's future operating system Windows 7 RC with 30Gb of virtual hard disk. I can have it free for more than a year with VIP services of volunteer users. It is not advisable to install a not very stable operating system on a hard disk that contains side by side the missus's emails and social networking and her daily software, except that you like to sleep on the couch with the pooch. (Well, they don't rhyme.) Ergo, you put it safely on the virtual box and if it doesn't behave you simply drop everything in the recycle bin and start anew. Anyway, I was talking about my GParted virtual experiments. I do them with virtual hard disk and when I become confident that I have done everything correctly and all necessary details have been put on the paper and the risk of doing them on a roaring and working hard disk with valuable assets are almost nil then I transfer my experience on the live and kicking hard disk. This is the way that modern engineers do their jobs. When You send a box round the Mars and it takes five years for such a project you cannot revise it at its destination. Everything should work as it is drafted on the paper. One should predict unpredictable. One way of achieving that is procuring redundancy, that is, having alternative devices and slack paths in the project. Perhaps people can remember story of Titanic ship sank in 1912. In the design of the vessel, modern finance management for optimization of costs had forced design engineers to show their confidence by reducing the number of lifeboats to the half of the necessary items that should be predicated for saving all crews and passengers in a belief of a never-sinking vessel design. To that reason, why any boat should be provided at all; for fishing day-out of some passengers? Actually, a modern engineer should provide more than enough of lifeboats in redundancy, in case some rich people might avoid being crammed with smelly people in the same lifeboat on a sinking accident. That lesson in terms of computer means, "Always keep a backup for your valuable data!" The other trick of engineers is called "simulation." It means repeating the desired job in a safe environment and finding what is not predicted correctly and what goes wrong. Then eliminating those obstacles and moving to the harsher level of simulation such that their design can safely pass the worst case scenarios. My virtual box helps me to simulate things in a safe environment without harming valuable assets of others.

Using Virtual PC Box

I fell a bit far from my GParted discussion. My goal is to create comfortable environments for writing assembly codes and debugging and writing drivers. Meanwhile, I craft to make hardware more friendly for me. I created a custom GParted.iso that included some additional software to install GParted permanently on hard disk. I need it for partitioning and also to use its good command line "Debian" Linux flavour. If I simply install a GParted on the hard disk, later in case, running it from GParted Live CD may cause complications, such as locking the live version. Hence, I should always keep the option of running both from the hard disk and from the Live CD in my GRUB menu. To do that I put sbootmgr.dsk and memdisk files into the root of my customized ISO. Some advised that I should have memdisk.bin. The correct, as Linux advises, is just memdisk without .bin extension. I can take it from syslinux or isolinux folder in GParted. I get sbootmgr.dsk from here. Now I have my GParted.iso built by ImgBurn ready to be tested on My Sun's VirtualBox. I install VirtualBox and I open it. From the tool bar I select "New" and I follow GUI for creating a new virtual PC. For the type of PC operating system I have different options. I can select a Microsoft Windows, a Sun Solaris, a Linux, a Dos or finally an unspecified shown as "Other." I select this very last one. In this way I do not bound me to later default choices of VirtualBox. I select a 374Mb for the RAM of my virtual PC. A dynamically expandable virtual hard disk with generous 20Gb space later allows me to put my ideas better in practice. The goal is to just install two XP operating systems next to each other and some little things such as a DOS system and of course GParted and XOSL.

Tools That I Need

I need tools to develop applications. Applications are pieces of software to do a task for me on my computer. I use any computer programming language to achieve that goal. To this end I do not need to use complicated software. Software that by its turn needs time to learn to utilize. I can use a notepad and carefully write my program on it avoiding mistakes, editing it as much as possible. But to test and run this program, I definitely need a compiler to translate my program to codes understandable by my CPU. When I get a compiler, frequently, provider of that compiler put a piece of software for you integrated with compiler that allows people to design and write and then run and test their programs in the environment integrated with the desired compiler and find their errors and correct them and re-run it again and again. This is called Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Some times IDEs can support environments for a panoply of compilers. An example of that is NetBeans IDE that supports numerous compilers such as Java, C (C++), and FORTRAN. There are facilities that shows errors on the fly and intelligently creates codes for you. Together I need tools to create database. With NetBeans I can have access to the very powerful and free database utilities suite, MySql. From within a Java application you can access to database created by MySql. Similarly, one might use Visual Studio free Express edition from Microsoft. It is the case when you like to develop your software in C, C++, or Visual Basic. It is very handy if one needs to develop programs for windows. It is called windows programming. From the Visual Studio suite one can install Microsoft SQL server for creating and running database from within the application. Good thing about Microsoft Visual C++ IDE is that I can write assembly codes and assemble them inside my project. A full blood debugging, that is watching CPU and memory in machine code is another story. One should leave other businesses to utilize them. It is also true for writing device drivers for kernel of an operating system.

Virtual Box

VMWare has a free virtual machine player. That player is not a virtual machine. Optimum virtual PC that I use is Virtual Box from Sun Microsystems. It is under constant development and informs you in periods of time, quarterly or sooner, of updated versions with enhanced features and is backed by Sun Microsystems technology. If you go here you can have a look at different useful development tools and click on Sun Virtual Box and then be guided to its download area. We know that sun is the first developer of a virtual machine, Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Job of JVM is different from virtual boxes I am discussing. JVM takes a piece of code from an application smashes it into the bytes. In this way that application becomes independent of length of the word of host computer and becomes portable over the Internet into the different platforms. It remains for that host computer to have a small free JVM installed in a corner. In real experience it facilitates things drastically. That said. some believe that it is a matter of habit mostly than technology. You have a set of tools at the Sun's place, you can have a similar set all free from Microsoft Visual Studio Express edition and a similar set free from IBM and similarly from Oracle. And I'll discuss them later, hopefully.

Virtual Box

There are many virtual desktops available that I can use them. This software is a piece of application that I can install on my computer like any other application but when I run it, it gives me a virtual PC similar to my own computer. Now I can configure that virtual PC such that it is possible to install any operating system on it regardless your own running operating system. (Perhaps you have seen exotic California oranges that have a full orange inside their cores. I have seen some with a third one inside that core. One told me he had seen four layers to the core and as big as a melon.) For example I have an XP home edition operating system, but I can install a Sun Solaris operating system on my virtual PC and work inside that as if it is a Solaris machine. When you are running your virtual PC you have options to create one or more than one PC on it. They are called "machines." One can find different virtual PC software, some free and some purchasable. Best of them I have experienced with belongs VMWare. One can trial test it free, but after ending the trial period you have to purchase the licence should you opt to use them. Good point about VMWare is that it does not load the CPU much. You see, they are virtual so at the end of the day they have to use your very real CPU. And at the same time your CPU has to run your real operating system in the background for all the real jobs that your computer is doing including running of virtual PC software. The other good thing about VMWare is when you are running your own operating system additionally on virtual desktop. Then a conflict of licence key happens. VMWare can solve that conflict by negotiating the key with operating system vendor. One can configure VMWare as a target machine for debugging when developing driver software. You can virtually null terminate port of your debuggee to the debugger machine. These are somehow advanced and one cannot use a family computer for debuugging. (If you open the door to any debugger then you should separate all ordinary jobs to another computer.) After sometimes ease of working with virtual PC makes you so lazy that you almost forget that you need another machine for experiment or multibooting. Inside that machine any trouble is isolated from your real PC and if trouble continues you can safely delete the machine and its virtual hard disk. See, you have installed Solaris on your virtual machine and now it does not connects to network. You go on the Internet from your background PC and google for solutions. On the other hand, more sophisticated virtual PCs devour your CPU and need almost all of your physical memory. Microsoft virtual PC is free but not designed for my XP home edition. It works on XP-home, but gives you warning every time you turn it on. It also asks for licence key if you install your own XP on it. So you cannot run XP on it for more than thirty days.

Making Enhanced GParted ISO Image

To make GParted.iso bootable, ImgBurn helps us in finding the image of the floppy which can boot CDROM. Any bootable CD carries such an image. If one is very kin or perhaps uber-geek, he might build that manually himself. Later I delineate my own attempts on that. I already had selected "creating ISO image from a folder" from ImgBurn menu. On the right side of the user interface for this command there is a "tabbed" pane. I open the "Advanced" tab from this. There I can see another "tabbed" system and a "tab" for "Bootable Disc." When I check the box at the top for "Make Image Bootable" then it makes the input fields "enabled." I see that I can brows to target "boot image file" wherever it is. I had created an empty folder, as I already said, and had filled it with extract of original downloaded GParted.iso. I brows into this folder and then open isolinux folder. Inside that ImgBurn picks the isolinux.bin as the boot image for my enhanced Gparted ISO CD image. I leave every other things to ImgBurn defaults and confirm all other dialogues. ImgBurn creates desired image in a minute or two. I do not need to burn this image to test it. I use a virtual machine to that end.

Building ISO Image

By the way I also need two additional files to be available in my custom made GParted.iso. One is memdisk and the other is sbootmgr.dsk. I need these later when I am configuring GRUB tools to access my Linux partition where I have installed GParted. One might be eager to utilize LILO for that. It is another challenge. GRUB install utility, grub-install comes with the GParted "Debian" terminal, but LILO should be worked out by you. XOSL can load both of them if they become configured properly. Now, I should build the ISO back. For that I use completely free ISO creator and burning tools ImgBurn from here . I believe when I use these excellent free tools it is not a bad idea to donate some money to their cause. It keeps the flame alight and is quite encouraging. I do that if I could. The tool "ImgBurn" has different options. We have a folder of GParted and we need an ISO image of it. We select this option from the "ImgBurn" easy select user interface. I should be careful to make the ISO "bootable."

Injecting Files into ISO Image

ISO images are read only files and one can't inject files into them. Hence to add some bits and pieces to my GParted.iso I need to extract the ISO into an ordinary folder and then inject, or rather add, extra files and folders to it. To be able to do that extraction Ther are two methods.
First, download a virtual drive software. This software instals a virtual CD/DVD driver on your computer similar to your real CD/DVD/Blu-ray driver. Only that instead of real CD/DVD/Blu-ray you put a an ISO image on it. Then you can open that image and copy the content of that image into your computer. Then add (inject) your additional files into the content. And at last create a second new ISO that includes the injected files. There are many virtual drivers out there, but the one that I have used is the free Daemon Tool Light When you are installing it be careful not to accept its optional features such as the toolbar if you do not agree with them. Only instal the virtual drive. Also download it from its official website; otherwise, you might end up downloading annoying bloated softwares and ad-wares. Also there are many other products are advertised in the page that you should carefully find Daemon download among them.
In second method, I downloaded WinImage tools from here. This tool is not free but you can use it for thirty days free and meanwhile sort out your projects. I created a new folder in "My Documents" named it with GParted ISO file, showing versions and everything similar to my GParted version. Only I deleted .iso from its name. The folder is empty. Then I opened WinImage tool. From the "File" menu item "Open" command, I opened the GParted.iso. All files and folders inside the image appears in explorer frame and navigation pane of WinImage. I notice that the CD image includes isolinux but GParted.zip for hard disk included syslinux as it is obvious from their application. Isolinux puts an ISO image of a CD on the memory, syslinux puts the image from a hard disk on the physical memory. Then I go to "Image" menu item "Extract" command and brows to GParted empty folder I have created in "My Documents" to extract all files and folders of ISO CD in this folder. Now contents of ISO are accessible for adding new items. I added "unzip" file to the root of folder to use it later on my "Debian" command line for unzipping GParted.zip. I also added file GParted.zip to the root. Now I can reconstruct the folder back to a new ISO image of mine, using free "ImgBurn: Image Burn" utility as I explain in the next post.

Update, 25 February 2014 : You might find these two wikis useful, too.

• How to Convert a CD or DVD to ISO Image Files
• How to Create an ISO File

They include images and are step-by-step. Moreover, they are more recent than this post.

Note that in Windows 8/8.1 you do not need a virtual drive. Just right click on an ISO image, select "Open with" from the context menu and then from  the secondary menu, choose "Windows Explorer" to open the file. Windows promptly creates a Virtual DVD drives and opens ISO inside that drive. Please, "eject" that drive after finishing working with the ISO to release your resources. Nevertheless, you need to copy files from that location to other locations to be able to manipulate them. ISO images are "read-only" files.

Using Virtual Drives

You see, for so many tests I can't burn Cd's and DVDs and then revise my things and throw those out and burn new items. I make everything virtual. I have Daemon Tools from here . There are numerous similar free software for this purpose. With Daemon Tools you can setup virtual DVD drives without actually having need to a hardware. You can put an ISO image on these virtual drives and test it. When I am installing these tools always I am vigilant to custom install them, and to prevent installing items that later might become annoying for me. I do not like having shortcut icons on my desktops and loading memory and CPU with quick launch processes.

GParted Has Commandline Linux

I always had two floppies of Basic Linux 3 to work on command line Linux. Now by permanent installing of GParted I have a more powerful tools. In due time I write what should be added to these tools to make them more ideal. For that reason I selected a more relax space for GParted. I also couldn't use the tools available in this minimalist Debian to unzip GParted.zip downloaded for installing on hard disk. Gunzip and Zcat give "more than one entry point" error. They cannot decompress Gzipped by "7Z" either. Curtis Gedak from GParted kindly instructed me, by private communication, that to use good old free "Zip" and "Unzip" from here. I selected "unz550x-glibc.zip" from the list. From the unzipped folder I only need to have the file "unzip," some hundred kilo bytes. Other pieces could be useful but not right now.Later I should inject this to GParted CD iso image that I have together with other things.

Installing GParted on a Hard Disk Partition

A good drill is to put GParted in some Linux partition flavours. If you can force different operating systems and different partitioning schemes coexist or even symbiosis together and you can do it when you are young then later you can force your dog to sleep on the floor instead of on your bed. Hence, my goal becomes to put XOSL and GParted inside an extended partition and have other operating systems in primary partitions. I am interested in using XOSL as the start menu. One bad thing about XOSL is that you are limited to its GUI. There s no way to edit some script to hack things over it. It is another project to search inside its source documents and find things. It has its own dedicated partitioning system with partition type=78 hex. I still have not tested a second version, XOSL2 (Return of XOSL?). But it has many good things such as destroying booting trace of installed operating systems and taking all activities in its own hands. That eliminate need of editing boot loaders of other operating systems. They do not become aware of each other activation and believe that each one of them is the default active operating system. That encouraged me to work with XOSL until I become convinced that it is becoming obsolete and I need to replace it with some new device such as GRUB or GRUB2 and I am still puzzled with GRUB super CD. You notice that I mean GNU and free software. Otherwise, if one pays he can get consultants come and sort things for his computer. Let me tell you what happened next. I reformatted my extended partition (already I called it "Lab" partition) as again 24Mb of FAT16 logical partition for XOSL and a 300Mb logical for GParted with "ex2" partition type. I left this space bigger than required 120Mb because I want to do some other experiment later. I used GParted latest CD to do that. Gparted includes a command line Linux "Debian" flavour, which is crammed with desired tools for experimenting Unix type of operating systems.

Installing GParted and XOSL on FAT partitions

Alternative way, I liked is to use GParted for all partitioning jobs. I put Gparted Live CD and restarted computer. I select safe mode from the menu. It is more comfortable for sight to have vga normal rather than default vga=791 or whatever it is. In the menu of Gparted I delet any partition I had done from XP, but the XP's NTFS partition. I keep my XP untouched and then choose an extended partition, something more than 4GB from the beginning of the unallocated space. I selected "Lab" as its name since it is the place that I can experiment. For the logical partitions inside the extended partition I started from a default minimum of 16Mb for XOSL that comes out later as an actual 24Mb. I format it as FAT16 partition. It is more than enough for XOSL. Second logical drive I partition in the menu is a 120Mb for permanent residence of GParted with FAT32 format. I leave a 4Gb for FreeDos. If I can find my installed partitions on a DOS prompt by "fdisk" I will find partition letters "C:," "D:" and "E:" for these three new partitions, respectively. Now I should install XOSL and GParted. For XOSL installation I need to have any DOS bootable floppy that gives me a DOS prompt A:\> that is all. I put the entire XOSL folder inside this floppy. When I restarted after Gparted partitioning job I put this diskette immediately in the floppy drive to reboot from the diskette. When A:\> prompt comes I "cd," that is I change directory to XOSL and then I type "INSTALL." After that I follow and accept all defaults. I am careful to have "C" as installation partition. I can change it by toggling "Page Up" on my keyboard, but I don't. When it reboots I configure it to be able to boot from GParted partition or from FreeDos or from XP or from a floppy drive and, of course, any future operating system that I might decide. I check the box for XP to be my default boot and select a hot key such as "x" key for accelerated booting. I'll have XOSL on my hard drive installed forever and whatever happens in future, even if I want to fresh install other things, it remains there. I check "My Computer" to see what letters XP has chosen for new partitions. I notice it has selected "E" for "XOSL" and "H" for GParted and "I" for FreeDos partition. It has left "F" and "G" for my other hard disk drives. I go to disk manager and change "XOSL" to "P" and Gparted to "Q" to keep them away from other drives and daily unwanted manipulations. Now I should install GParted and make it permanent, as well. I go to my XP. From here I downloaded a zipped version of GParted for hard disk drives. Inside that, when unzipped to a folder in any place in XP, there are three folders: "live," "syslinux" and "utils." Inside utils from the folder "Win32" I copy "syslinux.exe" and paste it in "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner" to be accessible from XP command prompt. Then I go to "start" in the XP and "Run" from the right hand pane. When the "Run" dialogue comes usually is on its default "cmd" or in the last command that has been run. In the later case I change it back to "cmd" command and then I "OK" button. In the command prompt window I type "syslinux.exe -sfa Q:" where "Q" is the designated partition for GParted. In this way I install "ldlinux.sys" on Gparted partition to make it linux bootable. Then from the unzipped folder of GParted I copy three folders "live," "syslinux," and "utils" and drop them in the "Q" drive such that they sit on the root of the drive. Now, if I restart and I go to menu of XOSL, I can choose to boot it in GParted partition and voila Gparted boots to its menu and I have it permanently for any future manipulations of hard disks.

Multi-booting Windows XP

When I installed my XP and fully patched it with all service packs and updates and watched its fresh install then I turn my computer fully off and switch off the main socket and without unplugging the cable I reconnect my spare hard disks; both of their data cables and power cables. Then I switch on the main socket and turn on computer. I allow it to completely loads the operating system and finds back spare hard disks and brings all bubble messages and finishes parking the hard disk. At this moment I point to start and in the menu I right click on "My Computer" and select "Manage" in the context. It opens the computer management window. I select "Disk Management" there to show my installed hard disks. When I find everything sound and safe, I select the unallocated space at the beginning of my main hard drive and partition it with extended partition of some 4Gb (4100Mb). Inside the extended partition I allocate some 4050Mb for FreeDos at the top and the remaining, some 50Mb (it is Mb) for XOSL at the bottom. These two new partitions inside the extended partition should be formatted with FAT32 file system.

Using GParted for Partitions of Different File Systems

I have a 250Gb hard disk for my operating system(s). I like to put two identical XP's on it. One for me and one for my wife. I do not like to use two different screen names. Let me do with my software developments and she does with emails and photos and social networking and uTubes without friction. But still I have not done that. It is easy to put two instances of XP on two different hard disks on the same machine and then command them with XOSL, but on the same hard disk you should eliminate some hurdles. I also have a free Solaris. So I need a place to exchange files between Solaris and XP. I need a small partition for my FreeDos as much as 4Gb and a tinny independent place as 50Mb for XOSL. I can put it inside the Freedos partition but I'd rather not since I might need frequently erase FreeDos and re-install it for improved usage. XP partition, I keep it within its 128Gb limit of old version BIOS's. This will be partitioned in NTFS. I use GParted to do this partition. I disconnect my other hard disk drives from inside the computer case, both data cable and power cable. Before opening the case I should turn the main socket off but I leave the plug connected, to keep the earth connection as it is. I disconnect the other drives to prevent the complications that occurs when installing operating systems on the main drive when installation reads all the hardware pieces and you might become confused and inadvertently one might format other disks and install operating system there. Then I switch the socket back. I put my latest version burned CD of GParted iso in the optical drive - hopefully now all have a DVD-combo drive at least or better - and restart the computer. When it turns on it goes on GParted Live Cd. It is not necessary to change the BIOS boot sequence. I accept all defaults of the GParted. In GParted menu I can see my main hard disk. I select all partitions on it and remove all of them to have one new unallocated whole disk. Then I select from the menu "partition" then "new" and a dialogue comes out to ask about the size and file system format. I select 120Gb and "linux swap" for the file format and choose SOLARIS for name. For the remaining part I select NTFS file system format and choose XP as name for it. Its size is almost 128Gb. I do this since at the time of installation of XP when it is searching for partition to install, XP completely ignores "linux swap" as unknown partition and without any complication formats its partition and installs on its own NTFS even if it is from an oem cd set. Later I can come back with my GParted Live and partition the first part. I need to put the other things at the begining partition. I can do the other way but when I am more comfortable with these kinds of operations. When XP is installed you can use the disk manager for creating partitions for FreeDos and XOSL.

Back up Is Essential

I should say that almost I never have much things on my main hard disk where I put my operating system (s). I have one TB spare disks in two other drives, plenty of room for putting everything there. When I install a program I change defaults such that storage materials go into the spare disks. For example, when I create a power point I always save it in a side hard disk in a folder belonging only to power points. In that I have subfolders for different subjects of power points. I regulary burn important materials that I like to keep into these cheaply available huge storage such as CD's, DVD's, double layer DVD's and in future in Blue Rays. I regularly backup my internet favourits folder too. I have a regular picture of Start Menu such that in case I can remember what I had installed. Hence, if I get serious trouble or if I want to do some experiment recovery of operating system is not disastrous.

Partitioning My Hard Disk

First I backed up everything from my main hard disks into other hard disks. Then I Downloaded The Gparted Live Iso from here. I can use this user friendly software to create my desired partitions. When you get something from Source Forge downloads it means it is free.I need to convert it to a Live CD. Live means a computer can come to life with this CD without having an operating system. They sometimes use the boring, vague term bootable disk for that. To burn an ISO image I installed the powerful Iso burner, Active@ ISO Burner 2.0 (Freeware), advised by Microsoft knowledge base from here. There are also other free iso burners. I found this with less errors. I burned Gparted on a CD.

Using Code View IDE in FreeDos

I had the companion software "Free Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0" as part of the book "Learn Visual C++ Now," by Mark Andrew, from Microsoft Press, 1996. My daughter, Mercedes, bought the book for me when we were in Exeter many years ago. I liked to install it on my computer frequently, I couldn't succeed. Recently I tried again to put it inside the MASM editor. There is no way to use its compiler. Windows XP SP3 that I have, has nothing to do to chase EMM.386 in a SYSTEM.INI legacy of 16 bits DOS. But the editor loads and saves and it is funny to have it exploited. The CodeView for Windows (CVW) is impossible to be used and CodeView for DOS (CV) takes a hell out of your CPU. The best thing is to install a separate DOS partition on your hard disk and take it there to enjoy. And I did that. I created a FreeDos partition next door to my XP.