Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Unusual Flash Disk Design

1. Philips Swarovski Active Crystals USB Memory Key

This flash drive is a fusion of Phillips technology and Swarovski’s tradition of fine crystal jewelry. Designed in polished stainless steel and Silver Shade crystals set in Ceralun all wrapped around, it can store and transfer large files like documents, music and pictures via the USB port of your PC or laptop.


2. “Piece of History” Morgan Recycled Ash Flash Drive

Handmade by American craftsmen from wood salvaged from refurbished Morgan frame wood. Comes with water tight, 24k Gold plated hardware for enclosure and beautiful Walnut or Cherry case with 24k Gold plating for all hardware. Dont be afraid to spot numerous oil stains, rusted holes and minor cracks and chips!

3. Sandisk Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive

Ducati builds one of the world’s finest, and most sought after motorcycles. This USB pen drive will make you feel the power of Ducati as you transfer data easily. A must show off gadget.


4. SanDisk Cruzer Fleur

Cruzer Fleur USB flash drives are designed specially for women. The sleek, feminine, cap-less design makes it ideal for women of all ages. Cruzer USB flash drives are fun and easy to use. Just plug the drive into your USB port and you’re ready to go.

5. Channel Islands High Speed Flash Drive

It looks like a surfing board, with channel island graphics and Rubberized texture with a neck strap attachment on USB Drive. You might wonder where the USB stick will come out…

6. Corsair Flash Survivor Flash Drive

The Corsair Flash Survivor is extremely durable, water resistant, drop-tested flash USB memory drive. It delivers the highest value/performance solution for a rugged USB drive. From it’s CNC-milled, 6061 Type 2 Aluminum enclosure to the EDPM waterproof seal, the Flash Survivor is built for action. Take it on your next expedition to the jungles…



7. Victorinox Swissbit Swiss Army USB Flash Drive

It’s got an integrated Pen to note quick thoughts, LED to point out things, knife, scissors, nail file and a powerful and easy to use USB storage device. Branded by Victorinox, it is a Swiss knife for the geeky.


8. Pretec Sushi (Maki Uni - Sea Urchin) USB Drive

Pretec i-Disk Sushi could be recognized on the counter of a sushi bar and be eaten by mistake. With many “flavors” to be chosen from: Tuna, Salmon, Sea Urchin, and Smelt Roe and a creative and fashionable look, Pretec i-Disk Sushi series is an ideal gift for gadget and sushi lovers alike.


9. Centon Leather Hat Data Stick

Small enough to fit on your keychain or in your purse, encased in Genuine leather exterior in Cappuccino Brown color. Get the rich luxurious feel in your fingers, while you pass the data around.

10. Pretec i-Disk Vogue USB Flash Drive - Gold

Pretec i-Disk Vogue is an elegant necklace, stylish gadget, and perfect romantic gift. Available as a silver or gold handcrafted pendent, it can be used as a fashion accessory while satisfying your business data storage needs.

11. Ridata Yego Hub USB Drive

A multi-function USB flash drive featuring two additional USB ports that allows users to connect more USB devices and expand their computer connections. A tie-style LED indicator shows usage status, as to which port is currently in use.

12. uTronix Silicone Bracelet USB Flash Memory Drive

Features a USB 2.0 compliant flash drive integrated on a Stylish Silicone Bracelet Design. Wear it around your wrist and surprise people when a data transfer or storage need arises.

13. Pretec Mobile Duo USB Flash Drive with Laser Pointer

Use this new peripheral as a data bridge to connect your PC/NB with various mobile devices, while they are being charged. Unplugged, the internal battery not only powers the Laser-Pointer, it can also function as a mobile back-up energy source for your PDA or mobile phone.

14. T-Bot Pen Drive

With beads and springs for appendages and a dust cover for an adorable head, it’s prepared to carry your data wherever you go. Equipped with fast USB 2.0 speeds and a Windows Vista ReadyBoost upgrade, it’s even more functional than it looks.

15. Executive Attaché Flash Drive Pen

Elegant styling of a fine writing instrument wrapped around state-of-the-art USB flash drive technology makes a useful tool for busy executives.

16. Philips Active Crystals ” Heartware ” USB Memory Key

Phillips technology and Swarovski’s tradition of fine crystal jewelry goes to bring you the Active Crystals USB Memory Key in a heart shape. An ideal gift for your geeky girlfriend.


Remember: While most files will transfer data, look out if they are optimized for Windows Vista Ready Boost, are plug-&-play with any USB 2.0 certified peripheral computer port, come with a suitable warranty and brand guarantee.

Disclosure: I have no experience of personally using any of these and cannot vouch for their quality, performance, price or features. All information will be available on the respective gadget pages and can be

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Monday, January 21, 2008

Intel® Core™ Duo Processors


The Intel® Core™ Duo processor breaks new ground. Its dual-core technology rewrites the rules of computing, delivering optimized power efficient computing and breakthrough dual-core performance with amazingly low power consumption. Intel Core Duo processor is available in Intel's premium laptop platform, Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology.¹ It can also be found in select Intel® Viiv™ technology-based systems.²


Outstanding dual-core performance
With its two execution cores, the Intel Core Duo processor is optimized for multi-threaded applications and multitasking. You can simultaneously run multiple demanding applications such as graphics-intensive games or serious number-crunching programs - while downloading music or running virus-scanning security programs in the background.

Power efficiency
Demand for greater power efficiency in computing is on the rise from desktop to laptop PCs. With an Intel Core Duo processor, you get a balance of great dual-core computing capabilities and power savings. Its enhanced voltage efficiency supports cooler and quieter system designs as compared to traditional desktop and laptop PCs. And thanks to the innovative energy efficient technologies built-in, the Intel® Core™ Duo processor is able to transfer power only to those areas of the processor that need it, thereby enabling laptops to save power and desktops to have thinner, sleeker designs.

A vibrant media experience
The Intel Core Duo processor enables your Intel Viiv technology and Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology multimedia experience to be all the more vibrant. Featuring Intel® Digital Media Boost, the Intel® Core™ Duo processor enables accelerating technologies for applications such as CAD tools, 3D and 2D modeling, video editing, digital music, digital photography and gaming. This is one of the key ingredients that help Intel Viiv technology and Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology to give you a truly rich multimedia experience.

Smarter, more efficient designs
The Intel Core Duo processor features Intel® Smart Cache which helps deliver a smarter and more efficient cache and bus design to enable enhanced dual-core performance, and power savings.

An essential ingredient in Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology
The Intel® Core™ Duo processor is Intel's first mobile dual-core processor and a key component of the new Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology platform.

by : http://www.intel.com

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Make even more private your messages when booting

Now you can personlize even more your private messages. When you boot your computer add next command in the file autoexec.bat
Echo off
cls
Echo Komputer by pixel
Echo.
Echo Becarefull to using it
Echo.
for %%C(A B C D E F G H I J K L) do dir c:\windows >Null
Echo.
Echo Good luck



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Friday, January 11, 2008

Dual-booting Operating Sistem guide in your computer : Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step

If you've ever asked for advice on how to set up dual-booting, you've doubtlessly come across online tutorials that only tell part of the story.
You probably ended up spending all weekend researching the intricacies of adjusting partition sizes, boot loaders, installing operating systems in the right order, and other fun topics.
Well, we have good news: we have put together the definitive dual-booting guide.
We've thoroughly tested these methods and taken screenshots of every step.

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How to dual-boot Vista with XP - (with Vista installed first)





Scenario: You want to install Vista on your PC alongside your XP installation, on the same drive. You have installed Vista already.


Tutorial Summary: We're going to use the DISKPART on the Vista DVD to shrink the Vista partition on the hard disk and create enough space for an installation of Vista. We'll then install XP, repair the Vista bootloader which will be overwritten during the XP installation, and then use the EasyBCD utility to configure Vista's bootloader to boot the XP partition.

This is an updated tutorial, based on our first Windows Vista/XP dual-booting workshop. The main difference is that EasyBCD has been updated, but the processes are essentially unchanged.

This tutorial was tested on a VMWare 6 Workstation and an AcerPower SK50 system.

Prepare Windows Vista

This tutorial assumes that Vista has been installed on a partition which takes up 100% of the hard drive, so we need to create some space. Boot off the Vista DVD. Hit Next from the start screen and then select “Install now”. (If Vista came preinstalled on your machine and you don't have a Vista install DVD, you can use the Gnome Partition Editor to do it. Our earlier tutorial on dual-booting XP and Vista if you've installed XP first describes how to use it.)


Install Vista

Don’t type in your product key and untick “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online”, then hit “Next”, and “No” when asked whether you want to enter the key.

Vista Product Key

When prompted to choose the edition of Vista you’re installing you can actually select any of them as we’re not doing a Vista install at this point. Also tick “I have selected the edition of Windows that I purchased” and hit “Next”.


Vista Version

Accept the license terms and hit “Next” again, then choose a Custom installation.

On the screen where you’re asked where you want to install Windows, you should see a single large partition marked Primary – this is where Vista is already installed.

Vista Partition

Press SHIFT + F10. This is a Windows PE 2.0 shortcut to open up a command window – very useful trick.

Command Tool

Type in DISKPART and press Enter. This opens the Microsoft DiskPart application. You need to select the active disk, so type in:

list disk

The primary disk is generally Disk 0, so type in:

select disk 0

DISKPART Disk

Now we need a list of volumes on this disk, so type in:

list volume

In this case Volume 0 is the one we want, so type in:

select volume 0


DISKPART Volume

Now type in:

shrink


DISKPART Shrink

DiskPart will go off and reclaim as much of the drive as it can – you should get at least 50% of the space back.

Now type

EXIT

and

EXIT (again)

to quit the command window and get back to the install screen. Click Refresh and the partition window will update – you should now see the original Primary partition plus a brand new partition.


New Partitions

This is where we will install Windows XP. Eject the DVD, restart the machine (just hit the reset button) and boot off the Windows XP CD.

Now, install Windows XP

When the Windows XP setup reaches the point where you’re prompted where it is to be installed, you’ll see that while XP can see the space we created earlier, it can also see the partition with Vista on it.


XP Partition

You should be able to see the space you reclaimed on the disk earlier which has become "unallocated space".

Create a second partition using the Windows XP installer screen above by selecting the free space on the drive and pressing "C" to create a partition (if prompted, choose NTFS as the file system.)

Irritatingly, XP assigns a drive letter to this partition (C:) which means that it will use the next available drive letter after all the other physical drives have been taken into account.

This means that the system drive of the XP installation won’t be C:.

From XP’s perspective this isn’t really a problem – it’s smart enough to figure out where everything should go – but some applications make assumptions about where they should install to, and can’t cope with a non-standard Windows configuration.

This was also the case with our tutorial on dualbooting Ubuntu and XP, where Ubuntu had been installed first. However in that scenario, even though the XP system drive had a non-standard drive letter, it couldn’t read the Linux partitions so there was no danger of the two systems overlapping. This is not the case with Vista/XP.

Nonetheless, install XP as normal – there’s no need to do anything differently.

IMPORTANT NOTE – after the initial file copy, Windows XP reboots and loads up the GUI-based component of the install. You may get the following error: “A disk read error occurred – press Ctrl-Alt-Del to continue”. This is caused by a corrupt bootloader.

When the system reboots it won’t bring up a boot menu. Although XP recognises the Vista partition it doesn’t recognise Vista itself.

The Windows XP bootloader gets installed to the MBR and Vista can no longer boot.

When XP loads, open up Windows Explorer and you’ll see something interesting – a C: and (in this case) an E: drive.

The C: drive contains Windows Vista, and as Windows XP can read NTFS partitions, it can browse and modify Vista’s file structure.

More importantly, applications which have installation paths hard-coded into their install scripts rather than using Windows system parameter variables could easily dump files into C: when they should be installing to E:. This isn’t such a great situation.


Two Drives

Restoring Vista and dual booting

Because you can’t use the Windows XP bootloader to boot Vista, we have to reinstate Vista’s bootloader to the MBR and configure it to manage both operating systems.

Compared with scenarios involving Ubuntu where you have to reinstall the GRUB bootloader, getting Vista up and operational again is very easy.

Boot from the Vista DVD and on the screen where you’re prompted to “Install now”, select “Repair your computer”.


Repair Vista

The next screen searches for local Vista installations – there should only be one, so click Next.

Choose Vista

This loads the System Recovery Options screen. Select the first option – Startup Repair. This looks for problems which would prevent Vista from loading (like a missing bootloader) and automatically fixes them.

Startup Repair

If you click on “Click here for diagnostic and repair details” and scroll to the bottom of the list, it shows that the problem detected and repaired was a corrupt boot sector (according to Vista, anyway).

Repair Diagnostics


Click Close and then Finish, and the system will restart and boot into Vista.

Now we need to enable dualbooting with XP, and EasyBCD is the best application to achieve this.


Launch the app and go to Add/Remove Entries.

Under “Add an Entry” and under the Windows tab and select in the Version drop-down list “Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3”.

Change the Drive to E:\ and the name to “Windows XP”, then click “Add Entry” and “Save”.


Vista & XP - EasyBCD

Reboot the system and you’ll have two entries in the Vista bootloader, and can boot into either operating system.

Vista Bootloader

Removing Windows XP

If you eventually decide that dualbooting XP as the second OS isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it’s pretty easy to undo the changes made.

Use EasyBCD to remove the Windows XP boot entry, and then go into Computer Management (right-click on Computer, Manage) and go to Disk Management.

Right-click E: drive (the Windows XP partition) and select Delete Volume.

Right-click the newly-created partition and select Delete Partition.

Then right-click the C: drive (the Vista system partition) and click Extend Volume – this opens up the Extend Volume Wizard.

Extend Volume Wizard

The wizard gives you a readout on how much space is actually available to extend the partition – enter in how much you want to use and press Next. Vista will extend the system partition to reclaim the disk and Windows is well and truly gone.


Fixing the corrupt bootloader

If the Windows XP bootload corrupts during the install, performing a reinstall won’t fix it, nor will going into the XP Recovery Mode and attempting to repair the MBR.

Luckily, the install was up to the stage where all you need to do is be able to boot from the Windows XP partition, and the install will pick up from where it left off.

To achieve this, follow the procedure outlined above to restore the Vista bootloader.

This allows the system to boot into Vista, and then you can use EasyBCD to create an XP boot entry and boot into that to continue on with XP's installation. (For details on using EasyBCD.)



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How to dual-boot Vista with XP - (with XP installed first)




Scenario: You want to install Vista on your PC alongside your XP installation, on the same drive. You have already installed XP.


Tutorial Summary: We're going to use the DISKPART utility on the Vista DVD to shrink the Windows XP partition on the hard disk and create enough space for an installation of Vista. We'll then install Vista and use the EasyBCD utility to modify Vista's bootloader to get XP loading properly.

This is an updated tutorial,based on our first Windows XP/Vista dual-booting workshop. The main difference is that we're covering using both the latest version of GParted and DISKPART to shrink the Windows XP partition.

DISKPART can shrink NTFS partitions and it's certainly the more convenient option, but on some systems using DISKPART to shrink the volume will fail, with an vague "Access is denied" error.

This may have something to do with different disk controllers, as this was a problem on the AcerPower test system which has a SATA hard drive, but not on the VMWare system which uses a virtual IDE controller. So we'll cover both processes

EasyBCD has also been updated since the first tutorial was written.

This tutorial was tested on a VMWare Workstation 6 virtual machine and an AcerPower SK50.

Get Started - Using GParted

We assume that before you start this tutorial, you have backed up the drive (partitions and data) that will host the two operating systems.

Your first step will be to modify the Windows XP system partition to make space for Vista using GParted

The GParted Live CD ISO is available here – burn it to CD and boot the system from the disc. The version we used was 0.3.4-7.

Boot the Linux machine from the GParted LiveCD. Depending on your system, you should just need to select the auto-configuration boot option.


During boot, press Enter twice when prompted to select the keymap and language settings.

When the main GUI loads, right-click on the main Windows XP NTFS partition (depending on your setup, probably /dev/hda1) and select Resize/Move.

XP & Vista - Resize Partition

Use the slider to reduce the partition size and free up enough room to instal Vista (at least 10GB) and click Resize/Move.

XP & Vista - Resize Partition 2

The changes haven’t actually been made, they’ve just been scheduled to run. To commit the changes and resize the partition, click Apply. GParted will ask to confirm the changes – hit OK and away you go.

Get Started - Using DISKPART

Boot the machine from the Vista DVD. Select the appropriate language and then "Install Now".

XP & Vista - Load Vista

On the produt key page, press SHIFT + F10 to launch a Windows PE 2.0 command window. Then type in DISKPART and press enter to get into the DISKPART utility.

XP & Vista - DISKPART

Now type in LIST VOLUME - this gives you a readout of the volumes available on the system. Select the main Windows XP volume (probably Volume 0) by typing in SELECT VOLUME 0.

XP & Vista - DISKPART Volume

Now type in SHRINK. Vista will reduce the size of Volume 0 (the selected Volume) by around 50%.

XP & Vista - DISKPART Shrink

Once that is done, type in EXIT and EXIT again to get back to the Vista installation window.

Now Install Vista
If you used the GParted LiveCD to shrink the XP partition, you'll need to reboot the system from the Vista install DVD. If you've used DISKPART then you just need to continue the installation.
Once the install gets to the install location, there should be at least two options: a partition marked as Primary and unallocated space. Select the unallocated space and click Next. The install will then commence.

XP & Vista - Install Vista

The Vista boot manager will take over the system completely, and Windows XP effectively loads via Vista. It’s all pretty seamless though, and you shouldn’t encounter any technical problems.

Modify Vista's Bootloader

Once Vista is installed and the system reboots, you’ll be presented with a boot menu with two options: “Microsoft Windows Vista” and “An Earlier Version of Windows”.

XP & Vista - Boot Menu

This is perhaps a little bit bland, so you’ll probably want to change it. Here’s where one of the new features of Vista comes in, and it’s not so terrific. In Windows XP if you want to modify the bootloader, just right-click on My Computer, select Properties, go to the Advanced Tab, and click Settings under Startup and Recovery, then click Edit. This opens a local file – boot.ini. It’s just a standard text file and you can change pretty much anything. Unfortunately it’s not that easy in Vista – you can still navigate to the Startup and Recovery settings, but all you can do is select which operating system is the default and modify the timeout settings.

To edit Vista’s boot manager you have to use the command line BCDEDIT utility. To access BCDEDIT, run the Command Window as an administrator and type in BCDEDIT.

Unfortunately BCDEDIT isn’t an easy tool to come to terms with, especially as it’s purely command line-driven. So, a great tool to use here is EasyBCD by NeoSmart Technologies. EasyBCD offers a GUI frontend to BCDEDIT, and makes life much easier.

Once Vista is installed, call up the browser and navigate to the EasyBCD download page - download, install and launch the application.

To configure the bootloader go to “Configure Boot” – you’ll see the two entries, for XP and Vista. To change the name of Windows XP, just overwrite “Earlier Version of Windows” with “Windows XP” and click Save Settings.

XP & Vista - Modify Boot

Reboot the system and the changes are visible. You have a dual-booting Vista and XP system. That's all there is to it.

XP & Vista - Changed Boot

Open up Windows Explorer and there’s two hard drives – the primary disk running Vista and the secondary disk with XP installed. Restart the system and load up Windows XP, and the XP disk is now the primary, with the Vista partition running on the secondary D: drive

If you decide that dual-booting Vista and XP is not for you, EasyBCD lets you wind back the clock.

All you have to do is remove Vista’s boot manager – go to “Manage Bootloader”, select “Uninstall the Vista Bootloader” and then “Write MBR”. Restart the machine and that’s it – the XP boot loader is the only one left on the system and XP loads. You can then delete the Vista partition and use GParted to re-extend the partition to take up the entire disk, or the Extend command in Vista DISKPART.


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How to dual boot Windows XP and Linux (XP installed first)




Scenario: You want to install Linux on your system which is already running Windows XP. (If you're going in the other direction, installing XP on a system that already has Linux on it, or you want to dual-boot with Vista.)



Tutorial Summary: We’re assuming that Windows XP is already up and running on your system. We’ll install Ubuntu 7.04 over the top to dualboot both operating system.

This tutorial has been tested on a VMWare Workstation 6 machine and an ASUS P5AD2-based Intel system with 2GB RAM and an 80GB Seagate SATA drive.

Download Ubuntu

The first thing is to make sure you have the Ubuntu Live CD. You can certainly use Ubuntu 7.04 for this tutorial instead and it should work pretty much the same. However, the screenshots won’t be the same and there may be some steps which don’t match.

You can grab a copy of Ubuntu 7.04 from here:

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/ubuntu/releases/7.04/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso

Burn the ISO to a CD and you’re ready to go.

Prepare the XP System

Fortunately there’s almost no preparation needed from the perspective of the XP partition. Of course it needs sufficient space to install Ubuntu, and you can certainly create this space manually using either the latest version of the GNOME Partition Editor (available here), or use the application from the Ubuntu Live CD.

However, Ubuntu will use the same partition managing tools during installation, so we can leave it until that stage of the install.

Install Ubuntu

Boot the XP machine from the Live CD and select "Start or install Ubuntu".

XP & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu

Once the Live CD has loaded, double-click the Install icon on the desktop to start the installation process.

On the Welcome screen, choose your language and select Forward.

XP & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Language
On the "Where are you" (timezone) page, select your location and then Forward.

XP & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Timezone

On the next screen, choose the appropriate keyboard layout and then Forward.

XP & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Keyboard

Now Ubuntu loads the disk partitioner. The first option, to resize the main partition and use the freed space, is pretty much the best one to go with.

Dualboot - Partition Disks

The default recommendation for the new partition size is optimal, but you can move the slider up and down to change it as you see fit. If you’re feeling brave, you can also manually edit the partition table, but unless you’re really confident about what you're doing, this isn’t recommended.

Click Forward to continue.

Ubuntu now has enough information to install, so click Install and go make a coffee.

When the install is complete the system will reboot. When the GRUB boot menu is displayed, have a look at the last entry in the list.

After the Ubuntu boot options, there will be an entry “Other operating systems” and beneath that “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” (or Home, whichever version you’re using). By default Ubuntu will load itself after 10 seconds.

Dualboot - GRUB Boot Menu

If you choose to boot Windows XP at this point, it will probably launch a check on its partition. This is because the partition has been resized since last boot, and it will want to run a consistency check to make sure there are no problems.

When XP loads, it will also probably detect new hardware (again, the resized partition) and will prompt to reboot.


Dualboot - Reboot XP

On reboot it will probably run through another, longer consistency check and then reboot. This is the last time you’ll need to do this.

Configure GRUB

If you want to modify how GRUB handles the new dualbooting environment, you need to edit the boot menu. Boot into Ubuntu and open up a Terminal window (Applications, Accessories, Terminal), and type in:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Dualboot - Configure Boot Menu

This opens up the boot menu as a text file in gedit.

Dualboot - Boot Options

There are loads of options you can change, but only a couple that you’re likely to be interested in. The default boot entry is defined by the “default” value.

The default value is 0, which means that the first entry in the list (which is Ubuntu) always gets loaded.

If you want to make it so that Windows XP loads by default, change the value to 4, as XP is the fifth item in the list (the numbering system starts at 0).

The other way to load Windows XP by default is to change the value for “default” from a numerical value to “saved”. Then, GRUB will load whichever boot entry has been marked with “savedefault”.

If you scroll down the list and have a look at the entries, you’ll notice that both the main Ubuntu entry and Windows XP have been marked with “savedefault”. Remove the value for Ubuntu and Windows XP will launch by default.

You can also increase the boot menu timeout – just change the value for “timeout”. You can also hide the GRUB boot menu by removing the hash in front of “hiddenmenu”. Save and exit gedit to keep any changes.

And that’s about it. Dualbooting Windows XP and Linux when Windows is installed first is by far the easiest method of dualbooting, because most up-to-date Linux distros are very aware and accommodating of other operating systems, and GRUB is an excellent and highly flexible bootloader.


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How to dual boot Linux and Windows XP (Linux installed first)




Scenario: You want to install XP on your machine alongside your existing Linux installation, on the same drive. You have installed Ubuntu already.

Tutorial Summary: We're going to use the Gnome Partition Editor (Gparted) from the Ubuntu LiveCD to shrink the main Ubuntu data partition on the hard disk and create enough space for an installation of XP.

We'll then install XP, and, because XP overwrites the master boot record, we'll restore the GRUB boot loader so that either XP or Linux can be selected at boot time.

This is an updated tutorial from our previous Linux/XP workshop. That version was written using Ubuntu 6.10, whereas this tutorial was written for Ubuntu 7.04.

These steps have been tested in both an ASUS P5AD2-based system with an 80GB Seagate SATA drive and a VMWare 6 virtual machine.

Prepare the Ubuntu System

The assumption is that the Ubuntu system has been installed on a single hard drive which has enough space to accommodate both operating systems.

The first step is to create enough space on the disk to install Windows XP. The Ubuntu Live CD does contains GNOME Partition Editor, which can be used to resize Linux partitions, but the Live CD for Ubuntu 7.04 has an annoying tendency to mount the filesystem while it's checking it. This causes an partition work to bring up an error. It does work, but it's messy. So instead we'll use the GParted LiveCD, which acts independently of the OS and doesn't give us any grief.

The GParted LiveCD ISO is available here – burn it to CD and boot the system from the disc. The version we used was 0.3.4-7.

Boot the Ubuntu machine from the GParted LiveCD. Depending on your system, you should just need to select the auto-configuration boot option.

During boot, press Enter twice when prompted to select the keymap and language settings. When the main GUI loads, right-click on the main partition (depending on your setup, probably /dev/sda1) and select Resize/Move.

Use the slider to create sufficient space to house the XP installation then click Resize/Move.

Once that's done, quit GParted and reboot the machine from the Windows XP CD.

Now, install Windows XP

Once the CD has loaded, press Enter to install Windows XP, then F8 to accept the license agreement.

When the partition screen loads, you can see that Windows Setup can see the two existing Ubuntu partitions and has interestingly assigned them drive letters (even though it can't read them.)

The space we’ve just created is also there, so select that and hit Enter.


Windows XP - Select Partition

Because the primary active partition (/dev/hda1) has been marked as bootable, Windows can’t be installed until this partition has been marked inactive so that the new partition can take over. This is pretty much the same as installing Windows Vista. Hit Enter to make this change and then format the new partition.


Windows XP - Mark Partition Active

Unfortunately because XP detected the two Ubuntu partitions and assigned them drive letters, the new partition which Windows is going to be installed on will be assigned drive letter F:, which is definitely a non-standard drive letter for Windows.

However, it’s not that much of a problem – at least as far as Windows and therefore most other intelligent applications go.

It could be a problem for older apps which don’t look to the Windows settings and make assumptions about where they can install themselves (for example, apps that are hard coded to install to Drive C).

Reboot the system once Windows is installed and you’ll see that it boots straight into XP. Ubuntu’s GRUB bootloader in the MBR (Master Boot Record) has been overwritten, so Ubuntu isn’t bootable at this point in time.

There are ways to make the Ubuntu partition bootable while still using XP’s bootloader in the MBR. However this is fiddly and involves using FAT32 partitions, as FAT32 is readable by both XP and Ubuntu. Wherever possible I avoid using FAT32 – it’s nowhere near as optimised as NTFS, and you lose out on all the enhanced security and permissions features.

Reinstating GRUB as the system bootloader is a much better alternative – it handles pretty much any operating system you care to throw at it, and it’s very easy to administer.

Reinstall GRUB to the MBR

The next step is to reinstate GRUB as the system bootloader. Boot the system using the Ubuntu Live CD.

Go into the GNOME Partition Editor and you can see that the Windows XP Partition is detected as /dev/hda2 and has been marked as the boot partition.

It can actually stay as the boot partition, but as we’re going to reinstall GRUB it makes sense to change this – it doesn’t adversely effect XP.

Right-click the Windows partition and select Manage Flags.

Untick “boot” and select Close.

Then right-click the primary Ubuntu partition (/dev/hda1), select Manage Flags and tick “boot”, then Close. Done.

GParted - Manage Flags


GParted - Mark Bootable

Now to reinstall GRUB. Open up Terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal) and type in:

sudo grub

This will launch the GRUB application. Now type in:

find /boot/grub/stage1

This will search for where GRUB has been installed, and you should get the result hd(0,0).

Change the active root to this location by typing in:

root (hd0,0)

Now we’re going to reinstall GRUB to the MBR rather than the Ubuntu partition.

If we were going to use the Windows XP bootloader then we’d reinstall GRUB to hd(0,0), but as we’re not, type in:

setup (hd0)

This restores GRUB to the MBR. Type in QUIT and then EXIT to get out of GRUB and Terminal respectively, then reboot the system. Ubuntu will load by default.

Modify the Boot Menu

What we need to do now is modify the GRUB boot menu to allow Windows XP to load. Boot the system into Ubuntu and go to Terminal. Type in:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst


This loads the GRUB menu file (which is basically a text file) within GEdit.

Navigate down to the section which after “## ## End Default Options ##".

These are the individual menu items in the GRUB menu.


Ubuntu & XP - GRUB Menu

To create a new entry, navigate down to the end of the list (although it can go anywhere really) and enter the following lines:

title Windows XP

root (hd0,1)

makeactivechainloader +1

This places an item in the boot menu to launch Windows XP from its own partition (hd0,1).

If you like, scroll up to the top of MENU.LST and find the line called TIMEOUT.

The numerical value assigned to TIMEOUT dictates how long you’ve got to go into the boot menu (in seconds) before the default boot item loads.

When configuring a dual-/multi-boot system I find it better to increase this value.

Just above TIMEOUT is DEFAULT. This specifies which boot entry is the default.

The numbering system starts at 0 and counts upwards, so the DEFAULT = 0 means that Ubuntu is always the default entry.

If you want Windows XP to be the default, replace the value.

Save MENU.LST and exit from GEdit, then restart the system.

Hit ESC when prompted to bring up the boot menu, and there’s the newly-created Windows XP entry.

Navigate to this boot item and hit Enter – Windows XP will load.

Uninstalling Windows XP

If you decide after a while that this dualbooting situation is no good and you wish to scrap Windows XP, it’s actually very easy.

Go through the process outlined above to modify the MENU.LST and remove the Windows boot entry.

Then boot off the Ubuntu Live CD and go into GNOME Partition Editor. Right-click the Windows partition (/dev/hda2) and select Delete.

Then right-click the main Ubuntu partition (/dev/hda1) and select Resize/Move.

Drag the edge of the partition to reclaim the space you’ve just freed up by deleting the Windows XP partition and click Resize.

There will now be two actions waiting in the Operations window. Hit Apply and these changes are made.

This take your system right back to the start before Windows was installed, and is actually quite a graceful exit from the dualboot scenario.

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How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (Linux is already installed)




Scenario: You have Linux already installed but want to dual boot it with Vista on the same hard drive.

Summary of tutorial: We'll dual-boot Ubuntu 7.04 with Vista. With Ubuntu already installed and owning the entire drive, we'll use the latest version of GParted to shrink the Linux partition to create space for a Vista install. Then, as Vista's MBR will then overwrite GRUB, we'll reinstall GRUB to the Linux partition and use EasyBCD to modify the Vista bootloader so that it will boot Ubuntu.

This tutorial is an updated version of our previous Ubuntu/Vista dual-booting workshop. The main differences with this version are the newer versions of Ubuntu, GParted and EasyBCD, and we bypass using the DISKPART utility during the Vista install.

This tutorial has been tested on a VMWare Workstation 6 machine and an ASUS P5AD2-based Intel system with 2GB RAM and an 80GB Seagate SATA drive.

Get started

Preparing a Linux system to dual boot with Vista is very much like preparing an XP system. You first have to shrink the existing OS partition (in this tutorial, Ubuntu) to make way for Vista.

We’ll use a third-party application called GParted – the GNOME Partition Editor. GParted is available as a system application on the Ubuntu Live CD (System > Administration > GNOME Partition Editor), but we'll use the GParted LiveCD in this workshop.

The GParted Live CD ISO is available here – burn it to CD and boot the system from the disc. The version we used was 0.3.4-7.

Boot the Linux machine from the GParted LiveCD. Depending on your system, you should just need to select the auto-configuration boot option.


Ubuntu & Vista - GParted
During boot, press Enter twice when prompted to select the keymap and language settings. When the main GUI loads, right-click on the main partition (depending on your setup, probably /dev/sda1) and select Resize/Move.

Ubuntu & Vista - GParted Resize

Use the slider to create sufficient space to house the Vista installation (about 10GB) then click Resize/Move.


Ubuntu & Vista - GParted Resize 2
The resize becomes a pending operation - click Apply to commit the change. Once that's done, right-click on the /dev/sda1 partition (or the equivalent - the partition you just resized) and select Manage Flags. This partition is marked as a boot partition, and this means that the Vista installation won't work properly while there's a bootable non-Windows partition on the system. Remove the boot flag and click Close.


Ubuntu & Vista - GParted Flags
And that’s it – GParted really is one of the best partitioning tools out there. Quit GParted and double-click the Shutdown icon, then shut down the system. Then, fire up the machine with the Vista install DVD.

Step through the installation process until you get to the partition selection screen. Select the newly-created space (should be Disk 0 Unallocated Space), and click Next to continue the installation.

Ubuntu & Vista - Install Vista

Go and grab a coffee - Vista will install and reboot the system

Reinstall GRUBDuring the installation, Vista will overwrite the MBR and GRUB will be lost. When you the machine reboots, Linux is nowhere to be seen.

Once Vista is installed the GRUB bootloader is gone and you have no way of booting Linux. However, if you simply reinstall GRUB to the MBR it will overwrite the Vista bootloader and you'll have to manually configure GRUB to boot Vista. This can be done by the way - check out our workshop on dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu where Vista is installed first.

However, in this tutorial we're going to keep the Vista bootloader and modify it to boot Ubuntu. But, we can't do this without GRUB, so we'll install it to the partition which was the Ubuntu boot partition, rather than to the MBR.

To do this, we need to boot the system using the Ubuntu Live CD.

When the CD loads, launch a terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal).

Ubuntu & Vista - Terminal
In the terminal, type:

sudo grub

This will put you in superuser mode and launch the GRUB application.
To find the partition with the GRUB boot files, type in:

find /boot/grub/stage1


Ubuntu & Vista - sudo grub

The response should be “(hd0,0)” or something similar – this is where you need to reinstall GRUB.

Set this location as root for the current session:

root (hd0,0)


Ubuntu & Vista - set root

Then type in:

setup (hd0,0)

This will reinstall the GRUB bootloader to disk 0, partition 0. If you type in “setup (hd0)” then GRUB will be reinstalled to the MBR and will overwrite Vista’s bootloader.


Ubuntu & Vista - setup grub

Type in “quit”, exit the terminal window, and you’re done. Reboot the system and boot into Vista (at this point, you still won't see any option to boot into Linux).

Ceate the Linux boot option in Vista

Boot back into Vista. Download EasyBCD 1.60 and install it. EasyBCD is third-party GUI front end to the BCEDIT bootloader editor in Vista.

Then launch the EasyBCD program. Go to Add/Remove Entries in the left menu, and then the “Linux/BSD” tab.


Ubuntu & Vista - EasyBCD

In the Linux/BSD tab, under the “Type” dropdown menu, select Grub. The default name is “NeoSmart Linux" but you can change it to “Ubuntu” or whatever. Click the Drive drop-down menu and choose the correct partition - if you installed GRUB to (hd0,0), then select Drive 0, Partition 0.

Ubuntu & Vista - EasyBCD Linux

Select "Add Entry" and then "Save". Exit EasyBCD and restart the machine.

Ubuntu & Vista - EasyBCD Updated

Now you should be presented with a boot menu with two boot options - Vista and Ubuntu. Select the Ubuntu boot option and it will load GRUB and boot from the Ubuntu partition.

Ubuntu & Vista - Boot Menu
And that's pretty much it. Dual-booting any operating system with Vista can be a bit messy due to Vista's annoying habit of ignoring all other bootloaders on the system, but you can always get around it.


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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Install dual-boot Vista with Linux (Vista installed first)

Scenario: You want the simplest way to dual-boot Vista and Linux. You've already installed Windows Vista and now want to dual-boot it with Ubuntu 7.04

Summary of tutorial: This is an updated tutorial - we previouslyused Ubuntu 6.10 and then modified the GRUB bootloader to force Ubuntu to recognise the Vista partition. In this tutorial, we'll use Ubuntu 7.04 which does a much better job in interacting with Vista. We'll use the Vista management tools to resize the main partition and install Ubuntu into the freed space.


This tutorial has been tested on a VMWare Workstation 6 machine and an ASUS P5AD2-based Intel system with 2GB RAM and an 80GB Seagate SATA drive.

Get started

Boot into Windows Vista and go into Disk Management - right-click My Computer, Manage, Disk Management.


Vista Disk Management
Right-click on the main Vista partition and select Shrink Volume

style="font-size:78%;">Vista Disk Management - Shrink Volume
The Shrink tool will assess how much space can be freed up.

style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" class="fullpost" >Vista Disk Management - Shrink Volume 2

As a rule of thumb Shrink will reduce the main system partition by about 50%. As long as the partition is big enough to begin with (at least 10GB) it should accommodate both operating systems.
Select Shrink and the tool will reduce the volume of the primary partition, leaving the rest of the disk free as unpartitioned space.

Vista Disk Management - Shrink Volume 3

Once that's done, shut down the Vista machine.

Install Ubuntu
You'll need the latest desktop ISO of Ubuntu (7.04). You can choose a list of download mirrors from the Ubuntu website, or use this link from Planetmirror. Download the ISO and burn it to CD to create an Ubuntu Live CD.
Boot the Vista machine from the Live CD and select "Start or install Ubuntu".
style="font-size:78%;">Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu
Once the Live CD has loaded, double-click the Install icon on the desktop to start the installation process.
On the Welcome screen, choose your language and select Forward.

class="fullpost">Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Language

On the "Where are you" (timezone) page, select your location and then Forward.
style="font-weight: bold;font-size:78%;" >Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Timezone
On the next screen, choose the appropriate keyboard layout and then Forward.
Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Keyboard

Ubuntu will then load the disk partitioner to determine where it's going to be installed. Choose "Manual - use the largest continuous free space". This will automatically select the unpartitioned space we created earlier using the Shrink tool. Click Forward.
style="font-size:78%;">Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Disk Partitioner

On the Migrate Documents and Settings screen, if Ubuntu finds any user accounts to migrate, feel free to import it from Vista to Ubuntu. If it doesn't find any, obviously this isn't an option. Click Forward.
style="font-size:78%;">Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Migrate
On the "Who are you?" screen, enter your username and password details, then click Forward.
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" class="fullpost" >Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - User Details

On the "Ready to install" screen, you'll see that Ubuntu now has enough information to commence the installation. In the summary under Migrate Assistant, it should say "Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)". This means that regardless of whether Ubuntu found any user account to migrate, it certainly knows that Windows Vista is installed on the other partition and is aware of it. Click Install.
Vista & Ubuntu - Install Ubuntu - Install

See the install through and then let it boot into Ubuntu.
When the install is complete the system will reboot. When the GRUB boot menu is displayed, have a look at the last entry in the list.
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:78%;" class="fullpost" >Vista & Ubuntu - GRUB Bootloader
After the Ubuntu boot options, there will be an entry “Other operating systems” and beneath that "Windows Vista/Longhorn loader”. By default Ubuntu will load itself after 10 seconds, but you can select the Vista option and Vista will boot normally.

Configure GRUB
If you want to modify how GRUB handles the new dualbooting environment, you need to edit the boot menu. Boot into Ubuntu and open up a Terminal window (Applications, Accessories, Terminal), and type in:

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst_bak

and enter your root password when asked - this makes a backup of the GRUB menu file just in case things go wrong.

Next, type in:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Dualboot - Configure Boot Menu
This opens up the boot menu as a text file in gedit.
Dualboot - Boot Options

There are loads of options you can change, but only a couple that you’re likely to be interested in. The default boot entry is defined by the “default” value.
The default value is 0, which means that the first entry in the list (which is Ubuntu) always gets loaded.

If you want to make it so that Windows Vista loads by default, change the value to 4, as Vista is the fifth item in the list (the numbering system starts at 0 and "Other operating systems" counts as a line).

The other way to load Windows Vista by default is to change the value for “default” from a numerical value to “saved”. Then, GRUB will load whichever boot entry has been marked with “savedefault”.

If you scroll down the list and have a look at the entries, you’ll notice that both the main Ubuntu entry and Windows Vista have been marked with “savedefault”. Remove the value for Ubuntu and Windows Vista will launch by default.

It's also worthwhile changing the description of the Vista entry from "Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader" to just "Windows Vista".

You can also increase the boot menu timeout – just change the value for “timeout”. You can also hide the GRUB boot menu by removing the hash in front of “hiddenmenu”. Save and exit gedit to keep any changes. comfort

If instead of GRUB you want Vista's bootloader to be in charge, load up the Vista installation and install EasyBCD. Go to “Manage Bootloader”, then “Reinstall the Vista Bootloader”, an GRUB is overwritten. You can then configure the Vista bootloader to add Linux to the boot menu.

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How to convert a song using WinAmp version 5.51

Do you want convert with another format your favorite songs into your mobile? Winamp version 5.51 is a good solution.(New from WinAmp version 5.51)
Just follow next steps:

1. Open your WinAmp version 5.51 (if still you have not this version, simply download it from www.winamp.com and install)
2. Make a play list in "left tools", take the play list, click the right side on the mouse and choose "new play list" and rename the play list (as it is showed in the next diagram).
3. Type the name of the new play list (as follows)
4. Add the file with your favorite songs in your play list (in tools button you can choose your favorite songs, as is showed below)
5. You can convert your songs to another format, just click right, choose "send to" --> "Format Converter". You can save in your standard folder or you can choose a new folder.Good luck.

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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

What about WiMAX?

Today, municipalities have two options for deploying metro-wide wireless Internet service: WiFi mesh and WiMax. Almost all are choosing WiFi meshes, though most also have an eye on WiMax for the future. After all, WiMax lets you cover a much greater area — up to 10 miles — with just a few radio cells, as opposed to the hundreds of access points in a WiFi mesh.

One reason to choose Wi-Fi meshes today is that the technology is well-established, so you can be reasonably confident it will work. A related reason is that WiFi technology is very common — it’s included in many new notebooks and is a relatively cheap add-on to notebooks and desktops alike. It’s fairly common on newer PDAs, and there are now even some smartphones that support WiFi. A third reason is that WiFi doesn’t require a spectrum license, so there’s no cost to use the airwaves themselves. (Though that means that an area can be saturated with multiple Wi-Fi networks, causing interference and slowdown.)

WiMax is in the opposite situation on two of these three counts. The technology standard was formalized in 2004, but the actual hardware has only begun shipping in 2006, and the degree of interoperability among different brands is not certain. Therefore, there are no cheap WiMax cards to add to notebooks, PDAs, and desktops — though there are pricey WiMax modems available for the first WiMax providers like Clearwire (and for pre-standard versions of WiMax offered by ISPs such as NextWeb). On the third count — free spectrum — WiMax does run over the same unlicensed spectrum as WiFi. Because a municipal WiMax network based on unlicensed spectrum presents no greater issues than a WiFi mesh using the same airwaves, many agencies are interested in WiMax as an eventual replacement to WiFi meshes, once the technology becomes proven, cheaper, and more available.

But today, those most interested in WiMax — cellular carrier Sprint and Clearwire, most notably — are opting for for WiMax deployed over licensed spectrum, which means they pay the federal government for a certain portion of the available radio waves in return for exclusive access, which all but eliminates interference issues and should provide faster access compared to WiMax networks unlicensed spectrum.

Government agencies can also license spectrum, so it’s possible that various cities might offer public Internet access using WiMax without fear of interference. Washington, D.C., has done something akin to that, using some of its licensed spectrum to deploy a similar technology called OFDM to blanket the city in a wireless network available to city employees and public safety officials from the district, surrounding counties, and the federal government. For the district, this was a cheaper option than paying its local carrier for the new 3G and older CDPD cellular data services, but D.C. also has the advantage of functioning as a city, county, and state — as well as support federal needs — so it could spread out the costs across many more agencies than a typical city can.

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Saturday, January 05, 2008

Membuat pesan saat shutdown

Membuat pesan pribadi pada saat shutdown computer di window XP

click kanan desktop pilih new --> shortcut
pada saat jendela creat shortcut ketikan shutdown.exe -s -c "Pesan anda" contoh
shutdown.exe -s -c "See You Later"
click next, pada jendela berikutnya ketikan nama shortcut anda ini
click finish
Good luck

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Menganti Info pada Recycle Bin/Change Info in Recycle Bin

Cara Mudah menganti info pada recycle bin, ikuti langkah2 dibawah ini.

Dari start up --> Run, Ketik regedit
Pada Register editor, pilih
HKEY-CLASSES-ROOR --> CLSID-->{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Valu infotip pilih rename, ganti namanya menjadi infotips, buat value baru, click menu edit -> new ->string value, beri bana value baru dengan nama infotip, double click value baru yg anda buat , muncul kotak dialok edit string.
pada tab value data ketikan teks yg anda inginkan misal"Kotak sampah semua, Bersihkan kotak sampah anda"
click Ok
Restart computer
Good luck.

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Menampilkan Nama Anda pada Taskbar

Dari Start --> Control Panel

Click Icon Regional and Language Option, Customize
Akan tampil jendela popup, click tab time
Pada Kolom AM symbol Ketik nama anda(Max 8 Caracter)
Click OK

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