Too Much: February 2007

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Install Vista from a USB Thumb Drive!

As reported from otgnet.com

WHY INSTALL FROM USB FLASH DRIVE?
Why would someone want to install a client OS from a thumb drive instead of a DVDROM or over the network? One reason: Performance. Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is in my experience the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install. This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate. To put this into perspective, y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast? Imagine something roughly just as fast, except for doing installations of the OS on to actual workstations.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS
Here's some step-by-step instructions on how we do this, some of which was adapted from Josh's instructions, again, kudos to Josh.

Acquire an ultra-fast USB 2.0 flash drive
The drive I and my coworkers recommend is the Apacer 4GB Handy Steno USB Flash Drive HT203, 200X Hi-Speed USB 2.0. It's the fastest USB 2.0 Flash Drive that we've found - it has a read speed of 25MBytes/sec. & a write speed-14MBytes/sec and also works great as a ReadyBoost cache. You can get them from $56.99 each:
http://www.directron.com/ht2034g.html

Incidentally, once you've got Windows Vista up and running, you may want to consider getting an ultra-fast SDFlash card, installing it into your laptop or desktop, and leaving it there as a ReadyBoost cache. Why? It can't hurt and they're so cheap that it's worth getting. I personally got a SDFlash card for every one of my machines - the A-DATA 2GB Secure Digital Memory Card, 150X Turbo SD Card has a read speed of more than 22.5MB/s and a write speed of more than 15MB/s. You can get them for $19.99 each:
http://supermediastore.com/adata-2gb-sd-secure-digital-card-150x.html

Format the Apacer Flash Drive
Run CMD.EXE and type the following. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as "disk 1". you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type "list disk") before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command.
(This was a warning that Josh added to his post along with the following commands that I copied from him, so kudos to Josh)
diskpart
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32
assign
exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive
Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.
xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\
And that's it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows Vista installed quickly before (usually 20-25 minutes per install of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition) then let's see how you like having Windows Vista install in less than 5-10 minutes. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields, and even that can be automated using the Windows Automated Installation Kit.

(Oh yeah... and for you server jockeys: Windows Server Longhorn will be installable in the same way. Gone are the days of waiting more than an hour just to get the OS up and running!)

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Monday, February 5, 2007

Six Things To Do With A PC When You Have No Internet Connection

1. Clean out and categorize your bookmarks. I don’t know about you, but I tend to just click ‘bookmark this page’ and call it good. Yesterday, when I hit my favorites to let the bookmark list scroll down it took way too long to get to the bottom. 10 seconds worth of scrolling bookmarks is way too many. If you haven’t visited a site in a month it’s not important. Create yourself folders and organize the bookmarks after you’ve eliminated all those links you don’t need.

2. Uninstall programs you don’t use. Why get rid of them when you have plenty of space on the drive? Because it makes things like Scandisk and Defrag run faster. It might not make your PC run any smoother, but you’ll feel good knowing you aren’t wasting space.

3. Unplug your PC, take the cover off and clean out the dust. Invest in some canned air. If I don't have canned air I blow out the case with a hair-dryer. Remember, heat is a PC’s enemy and even in a clean environment, cooling fans suck dust through every opening and it builds up fast. If you have pets, do it once a month. I cleaned out enough dust to build a rabbit hutch to keep all the dust bunnies in.

4. Write your next blog post. If you use a blog client like BlogDesk just write and save. If not, write to a text file and format it after your connection is live. Not being connected may force you to write about something different, like say, five things to do when you have no Internet connection.

5. Run any maintenance programs you don’t have auto-scheduled. Reclaim your drive space and allow your PC to run smoother.

6. Write down your logins and passwords for all your sites, blogs, email accounts, Adsense, affiliate programs, where you purchased your domain names, etc. All that information is the key to your business. If something should happen to you your spouse or significant other will need that information.

When you’re done, put the information in a safety deposit box or keep it in a fire resistant safe at the house and let the people that may need that information know where it is kept

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Install Vista from a USB Thumb Drive!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

38 Sites for TV Shows

Monday, February 5, 2007

Six Things To Do With A PC When You Have No Internet Connection

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