Scott Brind

Bootcamp - a way to run Windows XP/Vista on a Mac

Recently I started using bootcamp and needed a way to backup that partition. I thought this would be an easy process because it is just backing up a single partition. The problem I faced was so many options and whether or not they supported Windows partition (NTFS) as I was going to be taking the backup from the Mac OS X side.

Then I discovered Winclone. It does exactly what I want it to do: take a complete backup of my Windows partition. This software can be used if you are switching Macs, deploying a bootcamp image to multiple Macs, want to resize your bootcamp partition, or you just want to take a backup. The image file can be saved anywhere (on the mac, on an external hard drive, etc) and will automatically open with Winclone when clicked.

To take an image of your Windows partition select the bootcamp parition in the source, write an image description if you wish, then click Image - done!

When you need to restore your Windows partition all you need to do is go to the Restore tab, select the image, choose the destination partition and click Restore. If you added an image description, that will appear as well.

Remember - Always check you are restoring to the right partition, don’t restore to your Mac partition.

Resizing a bootcamp partition

If you are resizing your bootcamp partition follow these instructions (taken from the Winclone FAQs).

Backup your data on the windows partition. You can do this by dragging files onto an external drive, running a windows backup program, or copying stuff off to an network volume. Cloning is inherently risky operation, as it involves copying at the block level, and not the file level. You’ll also be changing the partition table, so make sure you backup critical files on your Mac OS X partition as well.

You need a place to save your disk image. Since the image will be large (about the size of the used space in Windows), you’ll need to save it someplace that has the space. You can save it to your Mac OS X partition (if you have the space), but that will reduce the space that you are going need to use to resize the Windows partition. The most common scenario is a USB or Firewire drive. However, make sure it is formatted for Mac (HFS+), and not FAT32 or NTFS. FAT32 does not handle large files well, and you’ll run into errors.

Run Winclone, select the “Backup” tab, and select your bootcamp partition in the drop down menu.

Select the following options:
Prepare for restoring on a different partition: If the new partition is going to be the exact same size or larger, you do NOT need to select this option. If it is going to be smaller, you need to select it.

Make self extracting: This adds some extra binaries to the image that allows you to restore it on the command line without the Winclone application. If that sentence didn’t make sense to you, don’t select it. However, if you do select it and don’t need it, it won’t make any difference (aside from the image being a bit larger than it would without it).

Remove Pagefile.sys: Windows writes a file that is the size of your memory. It is recreated on reboot, so it just takes up lots of space. By selecting this option, it’ll save you 512 MB to 2 GB of space in the image. However, it deletes it from the source, so it makes changes to your source Windows partition. If you are not sure, uncheck this box.

Add Generic BCD: If this is a Windows Vista partition, and you are going to be restoring it onto a drive that has a different configuration, select this option or else Vista will not boot. An example would be if you wanted to move your bootcamp partition from your startup drive to its own drive on a Mac Pro. If you are not sure, don’t select this option.

Click “Image”, and select the destination mentioned above.

It should take a while to run (at least 1 minute per Gigabyte). If it finishes after a few seconds, it did not work. Review the log. Get info on the resulting image to make sure it is a reasonable size (it should be about 75% of the used space of the Windows partition).

Run Boot Camp Assistant. Select “Create or remove a Window partition”. Click Restore. Reboot if prompted.

Run Boot Camp Assistant again. Create the size of boot camp partition you want. Reboot again if prompted.

Double click on the image file that you created with Winclone. Winclone should open and go to the restore tab. Select your bootcamp partition in the drop down menu, and click Restore. After a few minutes (or maybe a bit more), you bootcamp partition should now be back.

If you have any other questions about Winclone, check out the FAQs

Here are some great terminal commands for Leopard users. For those of you who do not know, terminal is a CLI (Command Line Interface) which lets you use your Mac but with text. It gives access to the Unix shell of the operating system. Don’t worry none of these tweaks are at all complicated. Make sure you show your friends so that when they see you they think you are a master of the Unix shell.

First to launch terminal go to: Macintosh HD – Applications – Utilities – Terminal

Now we are ready to start!

Rather than type these commands in you can just copy and paste them in. Copy everything between the — starting with defaults and ending in either Dock or Finder. Hit enter after you have pasted. If you type them in yourself, make sure to hit enter after each line and use the correct case.

Two Dimensional Dock

Some users of Leopard, including myself, do not like the new 3D dock. This command will turn your dock into a 2D dock, like in Tiger.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

killall Dock

—

Three Dimensional Dock

If you want to return back to your 3D Dock.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

killall Dock

—

Adds a Mouse Over gradient to items in your stacks

I find this tweak useful as it is clearer to see what item you are about to select in your stack.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES

killall Dock

—

To turn off

—

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean NO

killall Dock

—

Display the address in the title bar

This tweak is handy when you need to know where a file is located without scrolling around to discover where you have gone.

—

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

killall Finder

—

To turn off

—

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool NO

killall Finder

—

Have fun tweaking!

Well here it is, an e-book of all my posts for the Challoner Challenge. To download just click on the link below.

Challoner Challenge - The Planet - Technology 2007/8

Enjoy!

Social networking is the main topic that springs to mind when talking about technology. Over the past few years, users of social networks has sky rocketed. So what is social networking? Social networking is a network of people connected together in some way. They allow people all over the world to connect together and view photos, messages, videos, links, etc. Some of the most well known social networking sites include: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Flickr.

The main advantage of social networking is the ability to be connected with your friends wherever you are. You are able to share photos from your last trip or post a link to your favourite website. Also, it is great publicity for people. Music stars such as Lily Allen and Kate Nash shot to fame through MySpace. By being able to upload their music onto MySpace they were able to gain a following of fans. As well as music stars, it can provide communication for businesses to with sites like Linkedin.

However, there are downsides to social networking. I personally do not enjoy social networking due to one problem: OVERLOAD. Today there are far too many social networking sites and you have to be on all of them because some of your friends are on one and another one is on a different site. Also, as well as too many sites, there are too many emails. A term has been given to emails that you get from Facebook notifying you that someone has added you and that is ‘Bacn’ (pronounced bacon). The reason this term was given was because those emails are not spam because you have subscribed to them. Email like this is not good as it ends up filling my inbox so I cannot see the important emails. Finally, this next disadvantage is one that affects most businesses all over the world, productivity. In most offices it tends to be quite common for workers to have open their Facebook page and be playing scrabulous during working hours. This is just another distraction for workers that employers have to compete with. An article last year from The Telegraph stated that ‘more than 70 per cent of businesses, including banks and law firms, have barred the sites’.

So to conclude, social networking can be good but can be bad. I think it is up to everyone to decide where they go and remember that there is a real world outside social networking!

Mobile technology is becoming more prevalent in our society today. Mobile technology has swept the world and completely changed our lives. We are now more connected than ever before. Is this a good thing? People argue that mobiles are of a great annoyance due to the constant interruptions. However, I feel that mobiles have become than a communication device and more of a fashion accessory that tries to become too many gadgets in one. For example, take the so called ‘revolutionary’ device the iPhone. The iPhone claims to be a phone, an iPod, an internet device, a calendar, a GPS device and a camera all rolled into one device. What part takes importance in this?

A few years ago people bought a mobile phone for the ability to call or text a person but now it is the other features that people are looking for. Companies are making fashion phones such as the LG Prada phone and the Giorgio Armani Samsung phone. These devices appeal to the fashion conscious crowd. Then there is the camera phone group with phones such as the Nokia N95, the Samsung SCH-V770 and the Sony Ericsson K850i. These phones have camera that take 5 mega pixel and even 7 mega pixel photographs. Then you have the business phones such as the Blackberry pearl, Palm Treo 750 and the T-Mobile dash. These devices have good data connections and are more concerned with getting things done rather than looking good. I personally own a smartphone and I think it is great because it enables me to have a phone but also my email and the internet. It has a QWERTY keyboard which I think it is great as I do not like touch screen keyboards, like on the iPhone. My recommendation is to get a phone that suits your needs.

Over the past few years e-commerce has been hugely popular with a wide range of consumers. E-commerce is defined as the selling and purchasing of goods online. The reason it has become so popular is the simplistic nature of e-commerce. People don’t have to leave their home to go and buy the new shoes they want or stand in line to buy the latest single. Also, another benefit is that there are usually better deals online by shopping around. All you have to do is a quick price comparison search and you will find some great deals. However, if the deal sounds too good to be true, then it probably is so always exercise caution. By shopping online, most companies offer free delivery. This is great because you don’t spend money on your travel costs if you were to get it yourself, but depending on the item, someone may have to be home in order to receive it.

So what is the general consensus on e-commerce? The majority of people think it is an excellent way of shopping and cuts down on the time they would spend travelling and browsing. On the other hand, the easy availability of buying goods can lead to impulse buying and debt very quickly.

Fact
US e-commerce spending reached $34.7 billon by Q3 in 2007

I ask many people about their opinion on blogging and it tends to be mixed due to the fact that some people still don’t know what a blog is! Hopefully, those people reading this will know what a blog is. However, the people who know what blogs are think they are great. I have spoken with a few bloggers recently and asked them what they like about blogging. The general theme seems to be being able to write without restrictions about a passion or what is going on at the moment. The great thing about blogging is the ability to share these passions and thoughts with the rest of the world. For example, if I had a passion for technology I would be able to find thousands of blogs specifically about technology. If I had a passion for fishing I would be able to do a quick Google search and find that there are 1,040,000 results for fishing blogs.

So what are the top reasons why you should start a blog?

4 Self promotion. By writing a blog you open yourself to the world so if you choose to show off your writing skills as a reviewer you may be asked to write a review for a newspaper or even another blog. It is quite common for other bloggers to guest post on other people’s blog. So blogging can be lucrative as well as an enjoyable hobby.

I urge you today to start blogging. The services I recommended above are really easy to use. All you have to do is click on write, then type your post in a box and click publish, simple. Once you write your first post you will not be able to stop and will soon have a successful blog read by people all over the world!

Many times I stop and think why do we need so much paper? How much of the paper on your desk now is useful? Could that information be on your computer and be readily accessible? These are the questions I ponder on a daily basis and always end up at the same conclusion: all our information should be electronic and eliminate the need for paper. However people then comment and say that it is not always accessible. I then reply by saying that when I need the information I will just go to my laptop or my smartphone and get the information. Isn’t that slower? I say no, in fact I find it quicker. The reason why: desktop search. Desktop search indexes your whole computer and this means you quickly find any file on your hard drive. Rather than search through a pile of papers I just type into a search box what I want. This also enables me to be more productive as all my information is accessible quickly and easily and it can take it with me anywhere I go at a fraction of the weight.

There is another huge benefit of a paperless society, saving trees! This issue was addressed by a blogger called Justine. She is appears on the Internet 24/7 as she has her own lifecasting channel, iJustine. Watch the video below to see her opening her first bill from AT&T for her iPhone. The bill was 300 pages long and arrived in a box! It contained very detailed information about her text messages and is such a waste. She made the video of her first bill to highlight this and spread the message to use e-billing. There is an option on AT&T to use e-billing which she has signed up for. If everyone used e-billing, even if it was just for our phone bills, think of all the trees that would be saved.

Here are a few tips to help you reduce the amount of paper you receive.

Internet Banking
Internet banking is a much easier way to bank because you can check your balance at anytime, download them to your computer and you do not have to wait until you receive your next statement. A further advantage of Internet banking is that you can transfer money via this system rather than write a cheque, which would take days to clear, or withdraw the money physically and give it to whom you request, which takes time as well. Using the online system makes transactions quick and simple and enables you to keep better track of your finances. In addition, if you check your account regularly you will be able to see straight away whether you may have been the victim of theft because you will see expenses that you are not accountable for.

E-billing
You can save yourself time and money by using e-billing. You do not have to go through your post when you get home you can from the comfort of your chair go through your receipts. Another benefit is that you can keep these for your records so that you can quickly and easily display your records from any time period you require. With this information at your fingertips you can analyse your income and expenditure.

Throw away the papers you don’t need
I know that for most people they may not be able to conform to a total paperless world for them so instead only keep the papers that you need. What is the point of keeping papers you do not need gathering dust. You may lose time sorting through your papers at the beginning but you will soon see that the system saves you much more time in the long term.

Facts
A single employee uses one ream of paper each week
An organisation with 2,500 employees uses 43 reams of paper each hour
Productivity lost in manual document processing can account for as much as 2% of a company’s revenue

The Challoner Challenge is a school wide competition where you have to create a project in something you are interested in, in a way you are good at. The theme for this year is ‘The Planet’.

I have decided to focus my project on technology and look at the latest technology and issues. This is something I feel is an interesting topic as it is so broad and it affects the planet immensely. Being about technology I thought the best way to present my project would be in the form of a blog. By making my project a blog I am therefore welcoming comments by people on the topics I will discuss.

At the end of this project I intend to publish an e-book (electronic book) of all my posts.

If there are any queries, thoughts or questions please email me at: challonerchallenge [at] scottbrind [dot] com