i use 10.10 with USB, all the settings are gone/reset to default after restart, how can i make files/softwares persistent?

i figure that might be related to user settings
by default it is Live Session User with Custom type account
however even if i set an account and turn it to admin account, the settings wont save, it reboots as Live Session User again

Did you make USB key with a persistent area ?

Nonpersistence is part of what it means to be a live system. The simplest solution is to install Ubuntu on your computer. You can install Ubuntu on a USB flash drive to have a non-live Ubuntu system. It may be less portable--usually, Ubuntu is good at reacting to changes in hardware, but this is not a common use case so there may be bugs. And it will not work on different architectures (unless they're compatible), but that's a limitation of live systems as well. Finally, such a system will wear out your flash media faster because USB flash drives and compact flash disks cannot withstand the same number of writes as a magnetic hard disk or solid state disk. However, flash media is cheap these days, so that's probably not a big problem--just make sure to keep your documents well backed-up, as you should be doing anyway.

If you don't really need persistence, but instead only need different packages to be installed or a different configuration, then you might be interested to look into creating a customized live system:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization

"Did you make USB key with a persistent area ?"

Good point -- if all you (evan) need is a place to store documents on the same USB stick that has the live Ubuntu system, this would probably be the best solution.

my mini9 ssd is bad, i asked dell, they said it will cost $200+ and i check ebay and it costs around $90
so i thought using one of my 4gb usb will work
anyhow, any suggestions on how to create persistence on the usb?
ii remember when i set up to the usb, i put 1gb space on the option
and then when i boot the usb, i either select Default or Use ubuntu without installing
for the time being, i will check check the LiveCDCustomization link, see if i can make it work
thanks

"any suggestions on how to create persistence on the usb?"

These instructions are old but should work well, perhaps with slight modification. Maybe delance will have a better, more current source in mind.

http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-usb-bar

A few things to keep in mind:

(a) The third requirement ("a running linux system") is fulfilled by running from the live CD, so don't worry about having to install Ubuntu to get this to work.

(b) We have GParted now (System > Administration > GParted Partition Editor), which you can use for all of step 2, and it's way easier and faster. You will have to (or, rather, really should) use the Terminal for the instructions on the second page, however.

(c) If you are only accessing the nonpersistent partition on the drive from Ubuntu (or maybe also other Linux-based systems), then you might want to use a more advanced filesystem than vfat, such as ext4.

(d) We haven't used LILO as the bootloader in a really, really, really long time, though I suppose you could, since it *is* still provided by an Ubuntu package (lilo). Instead, we almost always use grub...and the second major release of grub, at that (GRUB2, actually provided for the PC platform by the grub-pc package rather than the grub2 package). See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2, which contains information about how to do the GRUB2 equivalent of the troubleshooting step provided in those instructions.

Finally, please note that creating a live USB with a persistent area is not the same thing as creating a customized live USB (though you could do both at once, if you like).

I never used Ubuntu on a USB key. I only know that when you make an installation key, which is able to start a Live session, you have an option to add a persistent area in the software, and I used it to check a new Nvidia driver and a few other packets.