Windows 7: Create a Recovery Partition

This tip will help you easily create a "recovery" partition: 

After some testing with Windows 7, it is probably possible to create a hidden partition, allowing access to all repair tools, and the ability to completely reinstall the system,therefore no need to use DVD or USB key. 


To begin with, you'll need: 

• A PC functional 
• A blank hard disk, (that intended to receive the recovery partition)
• Your DVD of Windows 7. (or iso file to extract the content) 

Preparation of hard disk

The disk drive must be partitioned into two. Consider a partition of about 3.5GB, at beginning of the disk, so that this partition can contain all the files from the DVD and one for the system partition. 

Copying files

Once the partitions of 3 to 4 GB created, simply just copy the entire DVD on this partition, and make this partition bootable.

Prepare of the partition to make it bootable

Open the command prompt and run this: 

1. x:
2. cd /boot
3. bootsect /nt60 X:
4. (x being your partition) 

A message "boot code was successfully updated on all targeted volumes" should appear. 
Then check that the partition is marked "active" in disk management. 
If necessary, right click on the partition and "mark partition as active" 

Now mount the HDD in the PC and boot.

• The PC will automatically launch the installer from the partition and add an entry "Windows setup" in the entries in bcd. (so no need to use third party software to edit the boot entries)
• Everything is done automatically!
• You now have a PC with a recovery partition that lets you reinstall new Windows 7 in case of problems.

How to clone a hackintosh hard drive on a mac

I have found that CLONING a hackintosh hard drive is a little difficult compared to cloning a PC hard drive. With a PC I can simply clone the drive with things like Ghost or Acronis tools. These are my favourites, but by no means the only method..

Tools needed for the job

• iBoot bootable CD
• Multibeast
• Retail Copy of Snow Leopard

The first thing we need to know is that on the Snow Leopard bootable DVD there is something called Disk Utility. This little app is all you need to CLONE your hard drive. 

.. Yeah I know, I was shocked at that little gem of wisdom too!

With Disk Utility you can create an image of the whole hard drive. There is one very important step you need to take to make your CLONE work properly. In the toolbar click on Images > Scan image for Restore. This one single step, makes the image hardware independant. In other words you can restore your CLONED hard drive to any Mac regardless of the hardward used when the image was created!

Back in a sec ..

How to build a Hackintosh on an ASUS P5Q Motherboard

Download these files:

Retail Copy of Snow Leopard 10.6.3
Latest Apple Combo Update
Kext Helper b7.zip
MultiBeast.zip
AttansicL1eEthernet_0418_64.zip
ALC1200_1063.zip
iBoot.zip

Extract iBoot.zip and burn iBoot.iso to CD

Get a Flash drive or external usb hard drive ( at least 2GB ) and copy these files onto it.

Latest Apple Combo Update
Kext Helper b7.zip
MultiBeast.zip
AttansicL1eEthernet_0418_64.zip
ALC1200_1063.zip

Restore the Snow Leopard Retail Install DVD 10.6.3 to USB Flash drive using Disk Utility on a MAC.

Setup BIOS as follows

Restore BIOS to Setup Defaults
Set to boot from CD first
Set power management to S3
Set ACPI mode 2
Set ALL hard drives to AHCI mode

Insert iBoot CD from step 1 reboot the computer. Once in iBoot insert your USB Flash Drive with Snow Leopard Retail 10.6.3 and hit F5 on the keyboard. You should see another icon appear after a few seconds. Select this icon and it enter to start the installation process. Fill in all the options as required. I un-tick all extra options like printers X11 etc. You can install this lot later. Once the install completes the computer will restart.

Once the computer has rebooted into iBoot, you will see another icon which is your newly created Mac installation. Select it and boot into Mac OS X Leopard. Setup the Mac as you want it. Don't worry about applications yet.

Open MultiBeast and install the Combo Update 10.6.5 from the flash drive ( step 2 ) DO NOT REBOOT YET ! Once the installation of the combo update has completed, click on MultiBeast and run it. Do not reboot yet!

Extract AttansicL1eEthernet_0418_64.zip and ALC1200_1063.zip to the desktop. Open Kext Helper and drag both the extracted kext files onto Kext Helper Type in your Mac password and run it.

Now take out the iBoot cd and reboot. You should now boot straight into Mac OS X Leopard.

Congrats! you are done.

[PC] Codemasters F1 2010 Replay Mode

The new patch v1.01 for Codemasters F1 2010 game allows you to save your replays in .f1player format and replay them at your leisure. 


Heres how you do it:

This is exactly how it should look in the target path box:
"C:\Program Files\Codemasters\F1 2010\f1_2010.exe" -savereplay
"C:\Program Files\Codemasters\F1 2010\f1_2010.exe" -replayui


The only space is after the .exe" and before -savereplay and -replayui

How to get AirPrint working on Apple update v10.6.5

Apple released Mac OS X v10.6.5 which was supposed to bring AirPrint to any printer connected to your Mac. Only problem is, a last minute issue (due to patent trolling?) has caused them to pull support for AirPrint in OS X.


Don't panic! You can return it, but you're going to have to pull some files from a prerelease version of 10.6.5.


The files you need are:


/usr/libexec/cups/filter/urftopdf
/usr/share/cups/mime/apple.convs
/usr/share/cups/mime/apple.types
If you migrate those from a 10.6.5 prerelease build (there seem to be many floating around torrent sites and file sharing sites - build 10H542 works; naturally I can't link you to the files themselves, sorry!) to your machine you're just one step away from having AirPrint working.


The final key thing is you have to remove and re-add your printer in the Print & Fax preferences pane. Once you do that (and share your printer in the Sharing preferences pane) it should show up on any iOS devices that support AirPrint.


Nerdy extra info: Basically, doing this should add the image/urf mimetype to your shared printer, and a new Bonjour field 'URF'. Once you have those, it should work. Theoretically, there's no reason someone can't write a server application that broadcasts said Bonjour info and prints for you, so you don't have to use files from a prerelease build. I would expect something like that to appear over the next few weeks.

Hotmail on the iPad

Microsoft has enabled POP access for all Hotmail accounts; Accessing Hotmail on your iPad is very easy .. Use @hotmail.com, @hotmail.co.uk or @live.com as part of your username


Incoming Mail Server
Host Name: pop3.live.com
User Name: ***@hotmail.com


Outgoing Mail Server
SMTP: smtp.live.com


The advanced settings
Delete Messages
Remove: After one week


Incoming Setting
Use SSL: ON
Authentication: Password
Delete from server: Never
Server Port: 995

Safari Web Browser Full Screen Trick

One thing that bugs me about Mac's is the lack of Maximize Window. The plus button does not resize the screen to the maximum available space, unlike windows.

Like wise Safari has no FULLSCREEN view.. until now

Drag this link to the favourites bar..

FULLSCREEN

This one resizes the window to 1024x768, try it ..

1024x768

Source: jydesigns.com

How to Download Adobe Reader The Easy Way!

Here is a quick and easy way to download Adobe Reader for MAC and PC

MAC Download
http://get.adobe.com/reader/completion/?installer=Reader_9.4_English_for_Mac_Intel

PC Download
http://get.adobe.com/reader/completion/?installer=Reader_9.4_English_UK_for_Windows

.

Move Your Steam Install

Move Your Steam Install

Update:There is an “official” Steam post on how to do this. While the steps below will work, you can also use this method. However it will require you to reinstall steam/update the client. The method below still works and requires no downloads/updates/installs.

Moving your steam install? How? This question was raised after I installed Steam and downloaded Half-Life2, Episode One, Lost Coast, and Team Fortress 2 and fully patched them all. I installed Steam to my C: drive and figured that I would get to chose where each purchased game is installed to. Not true!

Steam runs all of its games as subsidiary applications of Steam. Each of the newer Steam based games stores all of its data files and executables under the same directory structure as the Steam client install!

For me, I have one disk for windows and a raid array for games. Having my games run off of my windows drive was getting to me as I know I could have faster load times. After some Googling, I found out how to do it! I compiled directions from a few sources as well as from my experience doing it!

It worked flawlessly for me! However, if you mess it up its your fault and you can just do a fresh install to fix things (you will just have to wait for the dl again though).

Rules!

1. Steam and all games must stay in thier current directory strucutre
2. That means you can’t split games and steam up across drives
3. You can only have 1 active steam install
4. This will break all shortcuts for games/steam. You will have to manually recreate or fix them. (not hard)

Steps: Moving The Install

1. Shut down steam if it is running (right click system tray icon => exit)
2. COPY the steam directory from the original location to the new one.
3. Rename the original directory. (e.g C:/Program Files/Valve => C:/Program Files/Valve_ORIG or C:/Program Files/Steam => C:/Program Files/Steam_ORIG)
4. In the new directory (not original), delete the file named “ClientRegistry.blob”.
5. Manually run “steam.exe” in the newly copied directory.
6. Watch steam “update” a.k.a verify itself. It won’t download anything/need to reinstall.
7. Run a game to verify it works
8. Delete the ORIGINAL install (e.g. C:/Program Files/Valve => C:/Program Files/Valve_ORIG or C:/Program Files/Steam => C:/Program Files/Steam_ORIG )
9. Done, except for fixing short cuts on your desktop/start menu (see below)

Updating the Shortcuts

1. Find the short cut that needs to be fixed either on your desktop or in the start menu
2. Right click it
3. Chose “Properties”
4. Change the “Start in” property to reflect the new drive & directory path (e.g “C:\Program Files\Steam\” => “X:\Program Files\Steam\” )
5. Change the “Target” value to use the new drive & directory path. The STEAM shortcut can’t have i its target edited, don’t worry it will work! (e.g “C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 => “X:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 )
6. Click Apply, Click Ok
7. Repeate

How to install SABnzbd+ on FreeNAS (Official Guide)

Installing Sabnzbd

This guide was written using FreeNAS i386 0.69 and VirtualBox 3.2.4 r62467. The steps involved should all work on the latest version of FreeNAS, but your mileage may vary.

Prerequisites

This guide has been written for users with no knowledge of BSD and who don't have or necessarily know how to use SSH. If there is something in this guide that is unclear please correct it. This guide assumes you know what Sabnzbd is. If not, why are you trying to install it?

You will need about 500MB free on the OS partition (/) as the Python install requires around 500MB of temporary disk space. The final usage after this procedure will be about 150MB. You will also need your FreeNAS server configured with a static IP (not DHCP) to use Sabnzbd.

Procedure

1. Install the following packages. In the Web GUI go to System → Packages and click the +. Add each of the listed packages using the interface here. Because of their dependencies you will need to add them in the order below. An archive of all the required packages can be downloaded here.¹⁾ If the addition of a package is successful you should see something like the image on the right.

• par2cmdline
• python25
• py25-elementtree
• py25-cElementTree
• py25-chardet
• py25-setuptools
• py25-cheetah
• py25-cherrypy-old
• py25-feedparser
• py25-openssl
• py25-utils
• unrar
• unzip
• sabnzbdplus

2. Create a new user to run Sabnzbd. It's a security risk to run Sabnzbd as root, which is what most tutorials advise you to do. Using the Web GUI go to Access → Users and Groups and add a new user called sabuser. Set their primary group as admin, home directory as /home/sabuser and check give full shell access to user. Make sure you click the Apply Changes button after this to create the user.

3. Allow the new user to write to the temporary directory. When you upload an NZB file via the web interface, Sabnzbd saves the NZB to /tmp while working with it. Using the Web GUI go to Advanced → Command. Enter chmod o+w /tmp and click the Execute button. If all goes well this command will return nothing.

4. Run Sabnzbd once to generate the configuration settings. Using the Web GUI go to Advanced → Command. Enter the command su - sabuser -c "/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /home/sabuser/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini". This should return nothing as shown below.

Now we need to stop the Sabnzbd process that's running in the background. Using the command interface run the command ps aux | grep sabuser and note the process ID in the second field on the line beginning with sabuser.

Next run the command kill pid, replacing pid with the ID you noted in the output of ps aux | grep sabuser. If all goes well this will return nothing.

5. Edit the Sabnzbd configuration file to insert your server's IP. Using the Web GUI go to Advanced → File Editor and load the file /home/sabuser/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini. Locate the line the reads ”host = localhost” and change this to read ”host = IP” where IP is your server's IP address. In my example, my server is 10.2.64.251. Click the Save button after you have made this change.

6. Add a PostInit command to start Sabnzbd. Using the Web GUI go to System → Advanced → Command Scripts. Add a PostInit command that does su - sabuser -c "/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /home/sabuser/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini" as shown in the screenshot.²⁾

7. Start Sabnzbd. To do this you can either restart your FreeNAS server (which will trigger the PostInit command) or go to Advanced → Command and execute su - sabuser -c "/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /home/sabuser/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini" again.

And you're done! You can access the web interface for Sabnzbd at http://IP:8080/sabnzbd where IP is your server's IP address. You can make any other changes to the Sabnzbd configuration through this interface.

¹⁾ If you are using a later version of FreeNAS than 0.69 you will need to add the appropriate packages for your underlying FreeBSD version and architecture. That is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

²⁾ At this point most guides direct you to create a Shutdown command to exit Sabnzbd when your server is shutting down. All the commands I have seen recommended are incorrect, but moreover this step is not necessary. Sabnzbd correctly catches SIGTERM when your server is shutting down and exits cleanly.

How to add SABnzbd+ to FreeNAS WebGUI

This little script will add a menu item to your FreeNAS WebGUI.

Open an SSH session to your FreeNAS box - (ssh root@192.168.1.250)

code: 

cd /rootfetch -o /root/sabnzbd.zip "http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/download/file.php?id=517&sid=23ce6d53f6505e04088e4543ba1e84c1"unzip sabnzbd.zipchmod 0555 ./SABnzbdExt/sabnzbd.sh./SABnzbdExt/sabnzbd.sh

If your server is on a port, something other than 8080, you will need to edit the extensions_sabnzbd.php  file. 

CODE: 

cd /rootnano ./SABnzbdExt/sabnzbd/extensions_sabnzbd.php

..........

How to install SABnzbd 0.5.4 on FreeNAS v0.7.1

Assuming IP of Freenas = 192.168.1.5
Assuming port of SABnzbd = 8080 (default per sabnzbd)
Assume that the everything is done through SSH unless mentioned otherwise.
This is for Full install only - embedded see this thread:https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4179
See Post #2 for some tricks and tips

Tested with FreeNAS 0.7.1 i386. The script should now fully support all architectures. 

The script has 3 options: Know good (hard coded link), latest stable version (dynamically updates when the script runs), latest beta version (same thing auto updates). All of these options should upgrade gracefully (go from stable to latest beta) and MAY downgrade gracefully.

Updated: 04/26/10

Credits: Grail (from LinuxQuestions), Ethan Spoelstra (ewspoelstra@computerphreaks.com)

Quick and easy method:

CODE: 

cd /root
fetch -o /root/sab.sh "https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/download/file.php?id=1237"
chmod 0555 sab.sh
./sab.sh

....

output from above commands: 

Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved. Welcome to FreeNAS! server:~# cd /root/server:~# fetch -o /root/sab.sh "https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/download/file.php?id=1237" /root/sab.sh                                  100% of 3644  B 4639 kBpsserver:~# server:~# chmod 0555 sab.shserver:~# ./sab.sh      *******Archeticture of Machine is amd64 *******          Latest SABnzbd Stable version is: 0.5.4         Latest SABnzbd Beta version is:            Which Version do you wish to Install?          ----- ------- -- --- ---- -- -------- [1] Upgrade/Install SABnzbd 0.5.0 (tested good)[2] Upgrade/Install latest STABLE SABnzbd 0.5.4[3] Upgrade/Install lastest BETA SABnzbd [4] Exit 2 *******Selected Option 2: Latest STABLE SABnzbd 0.5.4******* Downloading latest STABLE SABnzbd 0.5.4SABnzbd-0.5.4-src.tar.gz                      100% of 1376 kB 1514 kBps *******1. Installing the required prerequisites*******--Installing SABnzb (0.4.8)--Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/Latest/sabnzbdplus.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/python25-2.5.4_1.tbz... Done. ====Note that some of the standard modules are provided as separateports since they require extra dependencies: bsddb           databases/py-bsddbgdbm            databases/py-gdbmsqlite3 databases/py-sqlite3tkinter         x11-toolkits/py-tkinter Install them as needed.==== Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-openssl-0.8_1.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-cherrypy-old-2.3.0,1.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-chardet-1.0.1.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-feedparser-4.1_2.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-utils-0.3.0.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-setuptools-0.6c9.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-elementtree-1.2.6.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-cheetah-2.0.1.tbz... Done.Processing Cheetah-2.0.1-py2.5-freebsd-7.2-RELEASE-amd64.eggAdding Cheetah 2.0.1 to easy-install.pth fileInstalling cheetah-compile script to /usr/local/binInstalling cheetah script to /usr/local/bin Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Cheetah-2.0.1-py2.5-freebsd-7.2-RELEASE-amd64.eggFetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-cElementTree-1.0.5_1.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/unrar-3.80,5.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/par2cmdline-0.4_2.tbz... Done.--Installing py25-yenc--Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/Latest/py25-yenc.tbz... Done.--Installing unzip--Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/Latest/unzip.tbz... Done.--Installing py25-pysqlite-2.3.5--Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-pysqlite-2.3.5.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/pkg-config-0.23_1.tbz... Done.Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/All/sqlite3-3.6.11.tbz... Done.--Starting SABnzbd (to generate config file)----Shutting down SABnzb--fetch: http://localhost:8080/sabnzbd/api?mode=shutdown: Connection refused*******2. Removing outdated files/folders*******--done--*******3. Extracting updated version of SABnzbd*******--Extracting upgrade----Extracted upgrade----done--*******4. Moving/Installing newer version of SABnzbd*******--done--*******5. Deleting extra files*******--done--*******Done - SABnzbd should be installed*******

Then do steps 6-8 from below:

Manual Method (may work better for some):
1. Installing the required prerequisites (and generating config file)

CODE: 

pkg_add -r sabnzbdplus
pkg_add -r py25-yenc
pkg_add -r unzip
pkg_add -r "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.2-release/All/py25-pysqlite-2.3.5.tbz"
/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /root/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini 
/usr/bin/fetch "http://localhost:8080/sabnzbd/api?mode=shutdown"

2. Removing outdated files/folders

CODE: 

rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy
rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/sabnzbd
rm -rf /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/interfaces
rm -rf /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/language
rm -rf /usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py

3. Downloading upgraded version of SABnzbd (0.5.0) and extracting

CODE: 

cd /root/
fetch "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/sabnzbdplus/sabnzbdplus/sabnzbd-0.5.0/SABnzbd-0.5.0-src.tar.gz"
tar -xzf SABnzbd*
cd SABnzbd*

4. Moving/Installing newer version of SABnzbd

CODE: 

mv cherrypy /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy
mv sabnzbd /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/sabnzbd
mv interfaces /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/interfaces
mv language /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/language
mv SABnzbd.py /usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py
chmod 0555 /usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py
ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/python
ln -s /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/interfaces /usr/local/bin/interfaces
ln -s /usr/local/share/sabnzbdplus/language /usr/local/bin/language

5. Deleting extra files

CODE: 

cd /root/
rm  SABnzbd*.gz
rm -rf SABnzbd*

SABnzbd in now installed. We now need to configure a few minor things:

6. Set proper IP in sabnzbd.ini

CODE: 

nano /root/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini

Replace the localhost in the "host =" spot to be your freenas box IP. Would look like this:

/root/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini wrote:host = 192.168.1.5

7. Start updated SABnzbd for the first time
From SSH run the following command

CODE: 

/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /root/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini

Access SABnzbd via the following address (on your desktop machine): http://192.168.1.5:8080/sabnzbd
Go through the basic install wizard. Once completed it will update the sabnzbd.ini file (config file)

8. Add startup and shutdown scripts (so FreeNAS knows to turn SABnzbd on and off)
Obtain your unique SABnzbd "API Key" from this page: http://192.168.1.5:8080/sabnzbd/config/general/ - Add this key to the SHUTDOWN command below (where it say APIKEY; replace it with your API key)
Add the following entries to your System|Advanced|Command scripts section of FreeNAS web interface (http://192.168.1.5/system_rc.php):
Type: POSTINIT

CODE: 

/usr/local/bin/SABnzbd.py -d -f /root/.sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini

Type: Shutdown

CODE:

/usr/bin/fetch "http://192.168.1.5:8080/sabnzbd/shutdown?session=APIKEY" >/dev/null

Script version of commands 1-5 (6-8 need to be done by hand)

 sab.sh

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