Geek Tips

Apple OS 10.5, aka Leopard, was released last Friday and is full of new features. The best review we have seen is from John Siracusa, it is very deep and covers pretty much everything there is to know. For a higher level quick and slick overview, check out Apple’s guided tour. As with any software, particularly operating systems, there are some bugs. One or two of them are significant including a Windows-esque blue screen of death in some upgrade circumstances. Unless you are in a position to do a clean erase and install, our advice is to wait until Apple has had time to offer patches or verified procedures to correct these problems. REMEMBER: When attempting any kind of upgrade or fresh installation, mirror your startup disk to an external drive before doing anything!

Linux is a relatively lightweight operating system and can be run quite effectively from a USB flash drive. This can be very useful when trying to retrieve files from a PC with a corrupt OS or boot sector. Most PCs manufactured in the last couple of years will allow you to boot from a USB device but you may have to enter the computer’s BIOS to enable this functionality. This tutorial enables you to install, boot and run Ubuntu Linux 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon from a USB flash drive. In addition to installing Ubuntu to the USB device and then booting from it, this also enables you to automatically save your changes and settings back to the flash drive and restore them on each boot using a second persistent partition.

You will need:

1. Ubuntu 7.10 ISO image
2. DVD Burner
3. Blank writeable DVD
4. 2GB USB flash drive
5. The computer on which you are working must have internet access

Throughout the following instructions, replace X with your drive letter:

1. Grab the Ubuntu 7.10 ISO image and burn it to a DVD
2. Insert the CD and your USB flash drive
3. Reboot your computer into Ubuntu from the CD
4. Open a terminal window and type sudo su
5. Type fdisk -l to list available partitions. Note which device is your flash drive (example: /dev/sda). Throughout these instructions, replace x with your flash drive letter. For example, if your flash drive is sdb, replace x with b.
6. Type umount /dev/sdx1
7. Type fdisk /dev/sdx
8. Type p to show the existing partition and d to delete it
9. Type p again to show any remaining partitions (if partitions exist, repeat the previous step)
10. Type n to make a new partition
11. type p for primary partition
12. type 1 to make this the first partition
13. Hit enter to use the default 1st cylinder
14. Type +750M to set the partition size
15. Type a to make this partition active
16. Type 1 to select partition 1
17. Type t to change the partition filesystem
18. Type 6 to select the fat16 file
19. Type n to make another new partition
20. Type p for primary partition
21. Type 2 to make this the second partition
22. Hit enter to use the default cylinder
23. Hit enter again to use the default last cylinder
24. Type w to write the new partition table
25. Type umount /dev/sdx1 to ensure the 1st partition is unmounted
26. Type mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n ubuntu710 /dev/sdx1 to format the first partition
27. Type umount /dev/sdx2 just to ensure the 2nd partition is unmounted
28. Type mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L casper-rw /dev/sdx2 to format the second partition
29. Remove and re-insert your USB flash drive
30. Type apt-get update
31. Type apt-get install syslinux mtools
32. Type syslinux -sf /dev/sdx1
33. Type cd /cdrom
34. Type cp -rf casper disctree dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines ubuntu.ico casper/vmlinuz casper/initrd.gz /media/ubuntu710/ (ignore any cannot create symbolic link errors)
35. Type cd /home/ubuntu
36. Type wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/U710fix.zip
37. Type unzip -o -d /media/ubuntu710/ U710fix.zip
38. Restart your computer, set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device and reboot again.

You will now have a USB flash drive running Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon that will automatically save your changes, restoring them on boot. If you have trouble getting Ubuntu to boot, your memory stick may have a corrupted Master Boot Record (MBR). To repair the MBR of your USB device, at the terminal type sudo apt-get install lilo followed by lilo -M /dev/sdx (again replacing x with the letter of your flash device).

To capture a screen image in Apple OS X, you have two options. Firstly, to capture an image of your entire screen, select Command-Shift-3. You will hear a camera click sound and a PNG file will be created on your desktop containing the image. To capture a particular section of your screen, select Command-Shift-4. Your cursor turns in to a crosshair, now just click and drag your mouse to select the part of the screen you want to capture. When you let go of the mouse button, you will hear the same camera click sound and, as above, a PNG file will be created on your desktop containing the captured image.

When using groups in the Address Book, you may want to see which contacts are not assigned to any of your groups. This is a pretty convoluted method but until Apple provide a smart group option in Address Book to accommodate this requirement, you can do the following:

1. Backup your Address Book by selecting File then Backup Address Book
2. Create a new group and call it anything you like (I suggest “Z”)
3. Select all of your contacts and drag them in to this new group
4. Click on your first existing group (let’s pretend it is called Group1) and select all of its contacts (Command-a)
5. Click on the Z group and you will notice that only the contacts you have just selected are highlighted
6. Press Tab once to switch focus to the Name column
7. Hit the Delete key and then click the Remove From Group button

At this point, you have a group called Z which contains all your contacts except those listed in Group1. Repeat steps 4 thru 7 for all your remaining groups and you will end up with group Z containing only those contacts not assigned to any other groups.

To quickly cycle through open applications in MS Windows, hold down Alt and repeatedly press Tab. Just let go of all keys once the desired application is highlighted. Similarly, in Apple OS X, hold down Command and repeatedly press Tab. Another option in OS X is to use Expose. Press F9 to invoke it and then just select the desired window with your mouse. However, if you have Spaces enabled in OS 10.5 (aka Leopard), Expose will only show you open windows in your current Space whereas the Command-Tab method will cycle through all applications across all Spaces.