My company builds their machines based on a USB rebuild solution, applying a Windows WIM image with Windows PE. I wanted to get this into a VMWare Fusion VM. After some googling, I managed to get it working, and here is how. My main resource was this invaluable page. I have put my steps here for clarity.

1. Follow the instructions here for creating a Windows PE boot disc. You will need a Windows system to create this with. Unfortunately the file resultant ISO file is 180MB, not really suitable to share here.
2. Get your WIM image on a USB drive.
3. Create you VM, selecting the appropriate OS, in my case, XP. Use the ISO image you created in step 1 as the install media.
4. Start up your VM and wait to be presented by a command prompt.
5. Type DISKPART to start the disk partition tool. Type the following commands

list disk
sel dis 0
clean
create part pri size=30000 (for 30GB, change as necessary)
ass letter=c
format fs=ntfs label=XP quick
act
exit

6. Next you need to insert the USB drive with your WIM image on. And we need to go back into DISKPART. You need to assign a letter to your partition on the drive. So do this

list disk
sel dis 1 (confirm disk number from list disk command)
list vol
sel vol 3 (in my case, my partition on the drive was 3)
ass letter=m
exit

7. Back at the command prompt, you can now begin applying the WIM to your VM. Type the following command, inserting your own wim file name where I put in filename.wim
imagex  /apply m:\filename.wim 1 c: /verify

The variables for this are of course your wim file name, the destination drive should usually be C:, and the “1″ is the index number on your wim. This is likely to be 1 but if you are unsure or have issues, refer to the Microsoft Support pages.

Then, give it about 10 minutes to apply your WIM and once done, type “exit” to reboot the system. You will probably need to shutdown the VM when it reboots, to allow you to remove the ISO image which will be attached to the VM as a physical disc. Once that is out, reboot and make sure you’re plugged into your company network if needed, and that the networking mode is Bridged. This will give your VM a physical IP address from the DHCP server, rather than using NAT routing to reuse the IP address of your Mac.

During my job I make a lot of trips to Oxford on a bi-weekly basis and it was only this week that I actually bothered to put on my “All Time Faves” playlist to listen to. And I thought I would share it here.

The history of this actually goes back to an iPod leaflet I picked up in John Lewis in Norwich one time while walking past their Apple selection. On their screenshot of iTunes, they had a “All Time Faves” playlist, which I stole and adjusted to create this.
iTunes links are provided where available

1. Alanis Morissette – Hands Clean [iTunes]
2. Avril Lavigne – Don’t Tell Me [iTunes]
3. Barenaked Ladies – Aluminum [iTunes]
4. Blink 182 – Here’s Your Letter [iTunes]
5.Box Car Racer – There Is [iTunes]
6. Busted – Meet You There [iTunes]
7. The Calling – Adrienne [iTunes]
8. Dashboard Confessional – Hands Down [iTunes]
9. Dashboard Prophets – All You Want
10. Death Cab For Cutie – Summer Skin [iTunes]
11. Dido – White Flag [iTunes]
12. Fastball – Fire Escape
13. Goo Goo Dolls – Slide [iTunes]
14. Guster – Amsterdam [iTunes]
15. Hoobastank – The Reason [iTunes]
16. Incubus – Talk Shows On Mute [iTunes]
17. Less Than Jake – Look What Happened [iTunes]
18. Lostprophets – Last Summer [iTunes]
19. Mark Owen – Four Minute Warning [iTunes]
20. Michelle Branch – All You Wanted [iTunes]
21. OutKast – Hey Ya [iTunes]
22. Robbie Williams – Feel [iTunes]
23. Ryan Adams – New York, New York [iTunes]
24. Semisonic – Secret Smile [iTunes]
25. Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 [iTunes]
26. Sponge – All This And Nothing
27. The Starting Line – Best Of Me [iTunes]
28. Steriogram – Walkie Talkie Man [iTunes]
29. Superfine – Betsy Went Flying [iTunes]
30. Tenacious D – Tribute [iTunes]
31. U2 – Beautiful Day [iTunes]
32. The Vines – Ride [iTunes]

You can now get the whole playlist (minus a few tracks) in an iMix on iTunes. Get It Here

When it comes to home media centres, there’s no shortage of options. You have Windows Media Centre, AppleTV, MythTV, XBox, and more. If you’re looking at something on the Mac platform, you’ve got plenty of choices. All new Mac’s come with Front Row, that gives you remote controlled access to your iTunes library of music, videos, podcasts, as well as access to iPhoto pictures. But what about if you have non-iTunes suitable content or you want to use some of the online streaming services? Front Row just won’t cut it. Read the rest of this entry »

Boy do I watch a lot of TV. Yet surprisingly not much is actually on the TV. I’m a big fan of lots of the American dramas, and have watched Dawson’s Creek, The OC, Gilmore Girls, and others come and go. But I always like this time of year, because all the new seasons start. So, for the next 8 months (roughly) I will be watching:

One Tree Hill (recent convert), Smallville, Heroes, Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs, Chuck, and beginning in Janurary, Lost.

However I really just wanted to share this great advert which appeals to two of my interests. Can you guess which?

And here is the second one. (and yes I know the ads aren’t current but hey, who cares)

As you may have read last year, I got a new Macbook Pro. With it came 2GB RAM, and a 120GB hard drive.

Needless to say, that space quickly got used up, and I started spending a lot of time deleting iTunes content, and backing up stuff to DVD’s and my MyBook. I played with the idea of upgrading the drive a lot, but always held back because I have AppleCare and there is a chance it could void my warranty, or cause problems if I ever have to take this machine in. 

But this isn’t a post of regrets, its a post of action. The action being I finally took the plunge. The price was right so I ordered a Western Digital 5400rpm 320GB laptop drive and it arrived swiftly last week. I really couldn’t wait so I immediately formatted it, and started to clone my current drive over using SuperDuper. Three hours later and it was ready. I did a quick check and booted from it via USB. All was good so I was ready for the replacement.

I followed some instructions from iFixit.com and got to work. The whole process took about 90 minutes in total, and that was being very cautious and taking it slowly.

So what gems of advice can I pass on? Screws! The biggest issue is all the screws. In total, there are 8 sets of screws from around the laptop. I had a small screw box/pill box that I used to keep each type apart, and put them in the pot in the order I took them out. This made it easy to put it back together.
I would also make sure you put down a towel or cloth to lay the laptop on. You’ll be moving it around to access all the screws and the last thing you want is scratches when you’re done.

The last bit of trouble I had was removing the hard drive cable from the drive itself. Its a thin plastic cable that is glued to the top of the drive. In an ideal world you have a spudger, a small plastic tool you can use to separate the cable from the drive. I had none so I had to make do with a business card and then a pen lid when the card got too messed up. So before you delve in, make sure you have something to hand. And don’t be too worried about pulling the cable with your hands if you need to. Its fairly robust so will probably come off in your hand if you’re slow and careful.

That was the difficult part. I also bought 4GB RAM from Play.com as recommended by WIl Harris on ChannelFlip.com. Replacing this was easy as removing the battery and taking out 3 screws. Its possibly the ONLY user replaceable part of a Macbook Pro. And that is what perplexes me. Why does the high end machine have to be so difficult to replace a hard drive on? You’re paying more and are likely to be a bit more technically minded, so why is it such a pain and why does it void your warranty? That I will never understand.

But the final story is that I have a 2.2GHz C2D Macbook Pro with the biggest hard drive I can get, and the most RAM it can take. Its a true powerhouse to me.