The Wow is here! (With some tweaking)

I just came across a great site called MyVistaBoot.com . As the name suggests, it is dedicated to sprucing up that fairly boring Vista boot screen. Each new boot screen is packaged with an installer so it is trivial to get them on your system without resorting to the use of third party applications as was necessary with Windows XP. Take a look, there are some very elegant ones on there to suit every taste.

UPDATE: My mistake, the file downloaded replaces the winload.exe.mui file directly. It is not as simple as just replacing the Windows file but the instructions are clear and concise.

PC Recovery How-to

This started off a reproduction of a leaflet I wrote for the company I work for. It basically attempts to answer the question : “How do I recover my computer” or “How do I run a system recovery” (and permutations there-of) in as few lines as possible. Because I am not constrained for space on here, I have expanded on it somewhat and will continue to do so, if you have any questions, feel free to comment and ask.

The reason for this procedure is simple - recovering your system to the ’shipped’ or factory settings is the best way to clean your system. Over time Operating Systems (Windows is the worst for this) accumulate lots of rubbish. This can be in the form of zombie or orphan dependencies (e.g. .DLL or .OCX files in Windows that are no longer needed) miscellaneous and or useless configuration or drivers and even damaging or misinstalled components. Some retails can not take in laptops or computers for warranty repair unless a full system recovery has been performed first due to the high occurrence of non-supported software related problems being futily sent to manufacturers for hardware repair.

Please note, a full system recovery is NOT the same as a Windows Restore / System Restore point recovery or a partial system recovery. In some cases, Windows Recovery Environment (only on Windows Vista) can solve the issue although I mostly have found it time consuming and unhelpful.

Step 1: Back up all your data

When done correctly, a full system restore will completely wipe your computer. This means all your data (e.g. photos, documents, music) and settings (e.g. ISP / Internet, Web Passwords etc) will be removed. Please make sure you have a complete copy of all the data you wish to save on a external source (e.g. a USB Flash drive, USB Harddrive, CD/DVD, NAS etc) before you continue.

Step 2: Determining what recovery method your PC / Laptop uses.

Regardless whether the unit is a PC or a Laptop, it would have been shipped with a method for recovery. This can be in the form of backup CD/DVD(s) or preinstalled on the computer in a hidden ‘partition’ on the computer’s hard drive. You may have been required to create the recovery discs yourself when you first switched on the computer. If this was the case you normally would have been prompted. If you have not created recovery disks or something has happened to render your recovery partition useless, see troubleshooting #4.

Step 3a: Performing the Recovery with Recovery Discs

If your machine has (or came with discs) read on, if not, skip to the section 3b.

Put the (first if applicable) recovery disc into your machine and restart the computer. When the computer switches on, you may be presented with the option to ‘boot from Optical / CD / DVD / Media’, press enter (or the key specified) to do this.
The disc should now boot into the recovery mode. (If not, see troubleshooting #1.)

Follow the on screen instructions. When imaging / recovery is complete, your computer will restart. Remove the recovery disc from the drive when prompted.

Recovery should be complete, follow any remaining instructions on the screen.

Step 3b: Performing the Recovery from a Recovery Parition or Image.

If your machine has backup software installed on the hard drive, please read on.

The process is very similar to the one discussed in section 3a, except there will be a short time window where a certain key combination will need to be pressed BEFORE Windows XP / Vista starts to load. If you see Windows XP / Vista start to load, you have missed the window of opportunity and should restart and try again. A PC or laptop system will go through the following steps whilst booting:

1) Video card POST *

2) Main BIOS Post (CMOS and Ram check)

3) Secondary BIOS POST (for RAID cards or some legacy 13h network equipment) *

4) Cycle through boot device order. At this point you might see a small white icon flashing in the top left corner for a moment.

5) Transfer execution to boot sector (MBR) of specified harddrive.

6) Windows starts to boot.

* Only applicable to some systems.

This key combination changes depending on the model and manufacturer but will be something along the lines of [alt]+[shift]+[F10] (for Acer PCs) or [F12] (for some Toshiba and HP models) etc. More confusingly, different manufacturers check for this key combination in different places. Acer tend to check for the keypress predominantly during stage 3 to 4 although some models exist which check for the key combination during BIOS POST (stage 2), HP base units normally check during stage 2 whilst their laptops wait until stage 3 to 4. The general rule is start pressing the keys when the BIOS shows up and keep pressing them until you get to the recovery partition. If your operating system starts to boot, simply restart and try again. CHECK with your manufacturer the key combination your system looks for.

When done correctly, it will take you to the recovery section of your computer. Follow the on screen instructions selecting, if asked, the full system recovery option. If this fails, please see troubleshooting #3.

Recovery should be complete, follow any remaining instructions on the screen.

Troubleshooting
For more detailed information relating to your specific model, please consult the manufacturer’s website or helpline.

#1 - Can’t Boot from Recovery Discs
If you are trying to run a recovery from a CD/DVD but it is not loading (booting) from the disc, you will need to make sure the CD/DVD drive is checked before the hard drive (containing the software issue) is read by the BIOS.

You will need to go into the BIOS by pressing a button almost immediately after the computer is turned on. This can be [F2], [F8], [F10] or [Del] depending on the specific model you have.

CAUTION, do not touch anything other than what is directed here.

When inside the BIOS, check the ‘boot order’ to make sure the CD/DVD drive is booted first. These drives can be called a number of different things, when in doubt consult the manufacturer. When you have changed the boot order, save the configuration into the CMOS and let the computer reboot.

#2 - I have lost my recovery discs / I didn’t back up my recovery software
Some manufacturers have a facility to send you replacement discs if you have failed to keep or create your recovery software. There may be a charge related to this service, please contact the manufacturer. (See #4)

#3 - Can’t Boot from Recovery Partition / Recovery from recovery partition fails
Some software problems (e.g. malware / viruses) can corrupt the built in software recovery. If this has happened, there will be no way to complete the software recovery and you should contact the manufacturer for further instructions. (See #4)

#4- Recovery partition destroyed / useless or no recovery option.
There is a more advanced way to perform a system recovery than using the built in recovery method. I would only reccommend this for more advanced users as it involves manually installing and setting up Windows (XP or Vista) and installing drivers by hand. You may also need to be comfortable manually partitioning your hard drive. This method will give you a better, more responsive system free of crapware / bloatware preinstalled be the manufacturers as well as potentially utilise wasted hard drive space.

With almost all Vista PCs (I will cover XP in a moment) you will receive a Vista Installation DVD. This DVD contains every version of Windows Vista and you can use it to wipe your computer and reinstall Windows Vista. The process to using the disk is the same as is outlined in Section 3a substituting the recovery discs for the Vista disc. Simply select the version of Windows Vista that came with your machine (you can install any edition of Vista e.g. Home Premium / Basic, Business or Ultimate but it will be limited to a 30 day demo) if you are unsure which version you have, check the side of your PC (or under side of your laptop) for your Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity (sometimes called CoA.) This brightly coloured certificate will not only have the version of Windows you are entitled to use written on it, but your Product Serial key as well - this will be important as it proves you are entitled to run the particular version of Windows and will be required during the installation.

Alternatively, if you are using Windows XP (or another Operating System like 98/95, NT, 2000, Server etc) you may need to obtain a Windows CD. I am not sure of the legality of this, but if you find a download somewhere online for a Windows CD image (I won’t provide a link) and install it using the Product Serial key provided on your certificate of authenticity, strictly speaking you are not committing piracy as you are entited to run that operating system on that machine. Because I am not a lawer, I do not know if such a proceedure would be legal and as such can not recommend it. You can always buy a new CD (OEM version) or go directly to the manufacturer for a replacement.

Once Windows Vista/XP (etc) has installed, you will have the basic framework for your PC / laptop. What will still be missing is the drivers and software. Drivers can be downloaded from the manufacturers website and should be done prior to reformating your computer. Some operating systems (XP and prior although to a lesser extent Vista as well) will need security software loaded onto them before you allow the computer to be exposed to the Internet. There are a number of free alternatives as well as commercial options.
Useful Contact Numbers (for the UK)

Sony 0870 240 2408
Acer 0870 853 1002
HP 0870 010 4320
Toshiba 0870 220 2202
Fujitsu Siemens 0870 243 4390

The pride of Chinese Fakes

I want to briefly share an interesting story about a fake iPod I came across earlier in the week. At work, it turns out someone had tried to return a Apple iPod Nano 8Gb they had bought, substituting the Apple iPod for a cheap fake. The circumstances surrounding this are a bit sketchy as I was not there at the time, the first time I came across it was when the fake iPod nano was returned by Apple with a polite and bemused letter to the effect that Apple only services original hardware. Intregued, I took another look at the iPod nano.

As you can see, from the outside it is a very good quality fake - the screen looks a little strange but there are no marks or variations which would immediately suggest this product is a fake. The back plate is engraved correctly with the appropraite logos and serial numbers, although there is a small circular hole on the back plate which should not be there.

On switching on the iPod however, it becomes immediately apparent it is not a geniune article, the unit took a few seconds to boot during which it displayed a strange egg time icon immediately followed by an odd screen with an Apple logo and an animated message saying ‘Loading…”.

The low resolution screen looks awful and the user interface, although trying to copy the iPod interface, clearly fails to impress.

The scroll wheel doesn’t work, nor does the middle button. To move from entry to entry, you have to press the left and right buttons (for up and down respectfully) along with ‘Menu’ to enter into an option.

Entering any of the menu options results in this bland and annoying message for a few seconds.

The Music section looks as though the skin has been copied from WinAMP. Apart from the initial menu, no effort has been made to recreate or emulate the Apple iPod interface in any of the ‘functions’ of this device. Song and albumn navigation is rudimentary and feels more reminiscant of a portable CD player than a modern MP3 player.

The photo / picture option takes you to a very unfriendly file browser with no previews.

I never did get far into the movies function given that the machine appartently was devoid of movie content. Next up is the radio function. I didnt test if this would tune into anything but at least it is a feature not found in original Apple iPods.

Voice recording, another first for the clone! Unfortunately it didn’t seem to want to record anything and I quickly moved on.

The eBook feature simply took me to a screen saying Empty Disk and promptly switched off the machine.

And of course the essential “Good Bye” screen, you will be seeing a lot of it as the battery is terrible, the clone performs poorly and frequently switches off at random. I have no idea what a fake iPod like this would cost, but the only value I can see it having would be in situations like these where people try to con refunds on their original Apple products (or as a film prop), I pity anyone who would consider using this as a functional MP3 player.

Great idea, poorly implemented

In the last day or so, WordPress have begun inserting “Possibly Related Posts” and a series of links at the end of some blog posts made by hosted members on wordpress. The backlash was predicable.

This is potentially a great idea as it allows visitors a much greater range of posts that may be of interest to them. Its the kind of feature that allows you to click through to someone Else’s blog, find something interesting, click through to someone Else’s blog… repeat etc. This cascading exploration (which for example, Youtube do brilliantly) has always interested me and is the best way to find interesting stories / ideas online.

This kind of stumbled-across traffic is a welcome boost to those of us who like looking at our traffic stats (I am guilty of this) although at the moment I have seen no noticeable increase in traffic from this ‘feature’. My problem with this new addition is that, apart from a blog post a few days back by Matt (which most people would have missed) there was no warning at all from wordpress. This ‘feature’ has the potential to add content to every post we make here on wordpress and it should have been officially announced, not snuck into blogs surreptitiously like this.

I take time and care over my posts and I dislike the idea that an algorithm can add links to the bottom of my content with no approval from me. I have no way of filtering or proofing/vetting the links until they appear which is unacceptable. What would be interesting would be if this ‘feature’ was offered in the “Write Post” dialog either allowing you to add your own links (based on a pool of posts from an algorithm) or at least preview the default “Related Posts.” I have disabled this function for now, if you want to too then simply goto Design>Extras an check “Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way“

Ok wiseguy, now what do I do!?!

Randomly came across it today on youtube, brings back memories from my childhood! The episode where the Coyote finally catches the road runner - classic

Ubuntu 8.04: Hardy Heron on the Amilo 1650

After using Hardy Heron for about twelve hours now (at least eight of those tweaking and fiddling) I must say I am impressed although, it sometimes feels a bit more clunky than previous releases. This release builds greatly on the previous release 7.10 and feels more feature complete and compatible as well. This is largely due to native inclusion of the b43 driver over the depreciated bcm43xx driver for the wireless as well as an improved restricted driver manager.

Here is an overview of how things work with my Fujitsu Siemens A1650 Amilo laptop:

CPU: Works perfectly (including frequency scaling and power management)

WiFi (Broadcom 4318 ) : Works *! (After the install of Acer_acpi tools and a bit of tweaking)

Graphics (Ati x200m) : Works perfectly! (With Ati Non-Free driver)

Flash (in Firefox) : Works perfectly (I had lots of problems with this in 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.)

Memory Card Reader : Not tested.

PCMCIA : Works perfectly (tested with IDE > CF converter and tried a CF memory card)

Hot Keys : Can be made to work, but I have not got around to this yet.

* Although it picks up and connects to wireless networks, I need to do a bit of testing before I am 100% sure all the problems have been sorted. Bloody Broadcom….

I had do install a few extra packages to get it all working however and I am going to detail this now.

To get the wireless working we need to install the firmware (not shipped with Ubuntu) via the new firmware cutter b43-fwcutter. In a terminal window, type:

sudo su

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bc43-fwcutter

Once that is done, follow these instructions to obtain and load the correct firmware module.

Now we need to install the Acer_acpi packages. Do not follow the instructions on the project website relating to acer_acpi as you will end up trying to install the depreciated version of b43 (bcm43xx.)

We need to add the following line to the package manager to enable the repository containing the acer_acpi code:

deb http://www.mumblyworld.info/ubuntu gutsy main

Once that is done, open a console window.

Sudo Su

wget http://www.mumblyworld.info/ubuntu/depot.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

apt-get update

apt-get install aceracpi-source

m-a prepare

m-a a-i aceracpi-source

This first downloads the repository public signing key and then gets the acer_acpi source package. In the process you will likely be asked to install other dependancies, agree to this as these will be required during the compiling process. Once the above commands have completed, you will need to activate the module:

modprobe acer_acpi

The wireless light on the A1650 will now light up showing the wireless module has been activated. For future reference, it can be activated and deactivated with the following commands:

Sudo su

echo 1 > /proc/acpi/acer/wireless  (to activate)

echo 0 > /proc/acpi/acer/wireless (to deactivate)

Restart and your wireless should be operational For reference, I followed parts of the guide found here. I would not recommend you do the same, as you will end up trying to install the depreciate version of the b43 driver, bcm43xx.

Another thing which I installed was the Compiz manager as well as emerald. Compiz has a lot of options, but window decoration is still one I prefer to use Emerald for. These are installed in much the same way as they were in 7.10 with a few key exceptions.

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-gnome compiz-plugins libcompizconfig-backend-gconf libcompizconfig0

Then install emerald:

sudo apt-get install emerald

Once these packages (and their dependancies) have installed, you will find two new options under System > Preferences gnome menu. One will give you complete control over the effects Compiz uses and the other will let you load/tweak and create Emerald themes. However, as per default metacity is the window decorator. In the Compiz “Advanced Desktop Effects Settings” find the window decoration option and replace the command field with “Emerald –replace”

Save and restart if required.

Ubuntu 8.04 MD5 Checksums

Ubuntu 8.04 has been released! I, like many are now in the process of burning the ISO images to CD ready to install / upgrade, however there is something that should be done before you even burn that iso image. Because of the nature of the Internet, trunctated connections are common place particularly during server stress (e.g. during a distribution release) and as such, you need to check the CD images you have downloaded are in fact 100% complete and accurate - this could save you a massive headache later on.

There are a huge variety of such utilities for Windows, Linux and Mac. Once you have the utility and the CD image, it’s MD5 checksum needs to be calculated. Once this is done, the calculated MD5 hash needs to be compared to the ‘official’ MD5 hash for the specific file you have tried to download. The MD5s are not easy to find as Canonical do not post them with the download links (which is what most people do.) Instead, you will have to goto the ftp mirror directory and find the MD5SUMS files.

To save you looking, here are the MD5 sums of the Hardy Heron Ubuntu images:

For Ubuntu:

7d0ac92c56361949d099dd9337c975e7 *ubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
166991d61e7c79a452b604f0d25d07f9 *ubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
fc43f665ba51c4be0d95c011aefef45d *ubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
8895167a794c5d8dedcc312fc62f1f1f *ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
8a73cf85b04f37d5d91fb436525ea395 *ubuntu-8.04-server-amd64.iso
c3162b21757746c64a0a22cdd060b164 *ubuntu-8.04-server-i386.iso
cdd32124f23b455b0aa22cc3ff35ff35 *wubi.exe
a96aa69961f3ed80dd7a88fae1e28196 *wubi.exe

For Kubuntu:

fe122a713c5945dbbff035b16848ae47 *kubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
94b892ac78fdb4d1f164e7bd0f7da2ca *kubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
99da350d4163ee046a00ef1dda81be6a *kubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
8aebb0dc17588d22dd3bb59d7df71061 *kubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

For Kubuntu with KDE 4.x: (these servers are being particularly hammered at the moment)

8a822b70f1e169f462727cb885e2b565 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
b7195c72b564b3676e584cb774e9002c *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
3028e26593a29b007c8878f0fbbe5639 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
1933f11ccea58de5bc80549774479031 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

For Edubuntu:

210822f1d1d618153a4fdf993c5c3fe7 *edubuntu-8.04-addon-amd64.iso
7259d6f34c5f09e26927c39066833d03 *edubuntu-8.04-addon-i386.iso

And Xubuntu:

c83b84dc02b9e5480d64d2accdd9f3bb *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
4f398cd35eaf297347f18634a5be5d77 *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
0fb2297b036d9d1bf4cc0a13a4d82f76 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
665bcc283e131be4cb71ecb2bf0e3794 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

These are correct as of 24/04/08 @ 15:51 GMT, Enjoy the new release

Update, the issue with the MD5 of wubi.exe has been corrected. Hashes are now correct as of 27/04/08 11:23 GMT.

Nokia PC Suite = RUBBISH

It is not like me to post massive rants, but over and over again the software that came with my N95 has been a major cause for annoyance. It all started when I went to update the firmware, the PC Suite told me to back up all my data which I did do. As part of that, I told the PC Suite to synchronize all my contacts, calender and text messages. A minute or two later, after assuring me it had completed successfully I performed a firmware update.

This took about ten / fifteen minutes and was followed by a synchronisation to restore my data. It was at this point that I discovered the PC Suite had randomly selected 7 of my contacts (my number being one of them) to save and promptly deleted the others (as well as all text messages and calender entries.) This was frustrating as the last backup prior to this was when I changed from my trusty K800i to the N95 and I was missing three months worth of new numbers (and messages etc.)

What happened today was inexcusable, I had just updated the Nokia PC Suite software (it crashed during a sync and in the process killed my Vista Calender backup of my N95 Calender) and connected my mobile phone. I then told the Nokia PC Suite to re-synchronize my calender entries which is happily did. The problem was, it arbitrarily (and automatically) deleted ALL my calender entries!!! This is completely inexcusable for a PIM utility which is supposed to be aimed at a business market as well. This post is a rant for which I apologise, but I am fuming at the moment.

Jaw-dropping Galactica!

Battlestar Galactica exploded back onto our TVs a few days ago! I must say parts of the first two episodes left me with a mouth wide open - it has been a long while since a show has done this, especially on a season opener! I have been watching this Battlestar Galactica, totally transfixed since it’s debut on Sky One four years ago, it has gone through troubles and amazing triumphs, and although this is the last season, I have never been more excited about a show. I simply can not wait to see where we are taken from here.

The religious and political overtones are hard to miss in this show, I get the feeling the producers go out of their way to be cryptic and leave little clues in their shows which only adds to the excitement. Perhaps one of the most famous religious riddles recently highlighted was in “The Da Vinci Code“, in that vain, the producers and writers have released the ‘last supper’ image of Battle Star Galactica purportedly containing a cryptic message telling us what will happen in Season 4. I can already see it is going to be an amazing ride, the only thing that could ruin it would be if the season is spilt into two halves with the latter being shown in 2009.

GIMP Basics - Screenshots

One of the main programs I use is Photoshop, I use it mostly for simple image editing / cropping and resizing for my blog. I am trying to move over from Windows to Linux for blogging and as such, I decided to finally get to grips with the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (The GIMP) which is the GNU photoshop equivalent for GNU Linux. Whilst the Wine project have made great leaps forward in recent years to the point where Photoshop can be run inside Wine, it is still not an ideal solution.

In this post, I just want to very briefly explain how to do something simple : take a screenshot, crop it, shrink it and compress it using the GIF interlaced format.

1 ) Download and install GIMP. On Windows this is done via a download from the GIMP site, on GNU Linux it is done via the distribution specific package manager.

2 ) Once it is installed, lets assume we have a screen we want to capture. Fire up the program and goto “File>Acquire>Screen Shot”. This will bring up the WinSnap dialog which will allow you to take a screenshot of the entire screen (after a defined pause) or a specific window. The specific window feature didn’t work particularly well so I recommend taking a snapshot of the entire screen. (If you have pressed the Print Screen button, you can instead use the “Past as new image” option.

3) Now we have the entire desktop, we need to use the select tool to highlight the area we want to capture.

4) Next we goto the menu, select “Image > Crop to Selection”

5 ) Finally, I tend to scale the image to 80%, this is achieved by going to the menu “Image > Scale Image” and selecting 80% width and 80% height. If you constrain the proportions of the image (the chain icon) then selecting a 80% width will automatically select 80% height.

6 ) Now simply goto “File > Save As..” and append “.gif” to the end of the filename. This will launch the GIF exporter.

7 ) You will be told that the GIF exporter can only handle Greyscale or indexed images. Select “Convert to Indexed” and click “Export”.

8 ) Check “Interlaced” and uncheck the “GIF Comment” field and click “Save”.

And thats it! When I get some time to play with GIMP’s more advanced features I will write more on the subject.