I have been examining various virtual machine applications for projects I wanted to work on.  I was aware of Parallels and VMWare but they are commercial solutions.  Ideally since these were hobbyist projects I was looking for a free solution, preferably open-source.  VirtualBox was suggested to me and I instantly fell in love.

I’m so pleased with VirtualBox.  I needed something that would allow me to take screen shots during an operating system installed.  Any VM would’ve done.  But the price was right with VirtualBox.  I’m also amazed at how polished and functional the application is for a free product.  There was a minimal learning curve to get it up and running with a basic OS install.  It ran without any problems when using it on a Windows XP machine.  Under Ubuntu it took a bit of extra tweaking to get USB running.  Persistence prevailed though and ultimately I was not only able to get USB working, but I got a virtualized iTunes to sync with my iPod.

The latter was huge bonus.  The only reason I keep windows running on a machine is for my iPod.  Sure there are open-source applications that will copy my mp3 onto my iPod, but they aren’t enough.  I use almost every feature of the iPod.  And nothing handle video, podcasts, and smart playlists quite like iTunes did.  Finally with this solution and can fully immerse myself into a Linux environment.

Installing VirtualBox isn’t all that complicated.  Its a pretty straight forward install, even on the Linux side.  On Ubutnu download the bundle for your version from here.

Click on the file in your Firefox download manager or browse your way to the file and click it there. Take your pick.  Either way it should open up in your package installer with the option to install the package.  Click Install Package, enter your password, and it will proceed to do its thing.

You’ll only get one additional prompt during the package installation.  Basically it’s just a reminder to add your user to the VirtualBox group.  We’ll get to that later.

Once the package installation is finished, you’ll have to reboot.  For some reason it doesn’t show up under the Applications menu unless you do.  Afterwards you’ll find it under the System Tools menu.

The first time you start the software you’ll be greeted by a pretty lenient EULA, followed by a registration form that’s not required.

Now you are ready to start making new VM’s.

To be continued on in Part 2: Building your first virtual machine.

Update:  I found a more practical way of installation.  It’s not as obvious as downloading the package and installing it manually, but it has the benefit of updating VirtualBox to newer versions along with all other Ubuntu updates.
Goto the System menu -> Administration -> Software Sources

In the window select the second tab for “Third-Party Software.”

Click the “Add” button and in the field enter:

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free

Click “Add Source” then “Close”.  Click on OK.  You’ll get an error.  Don’t worry about it.  Click OK.

Load up a command promt and enter the following:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

This keeps that error from returning, not to mention its required for this to work.  It loads an encryption key to make sure we are getting the software we asked for.
Next at the command prompt enter:

apt-get install virtualbox-2.1

Reboot, and the software will be in Applications -> System Tools

I’m sure just about anybody that’s worked in a corporate environment for any length of time has encountered a laser printer that will jam more than it prints.  Printer jamming like this is usually because the rollers that grip the paper from the tray and feed it through the paper path are completely worn out.  Generally these rollers should be replaced at this point.  All though while you are waiting for your shipment from HP, you have a jammed printer that’s taking up space, I figured out a quick fix that will at least get you by until you get your hands on some replacement rollers.

Rollers are a bit like tires, in that if you look closely at a new one, you’ll see treads or a texture on the roller causing friction and gripping the paper.  A completely worn roller will be perfectly smooth, and sometimes shiny.

To get a little more life out of a worn out roller pull out your multi-tool, one of which every geek should have, folded out the saw-blade, and proceeded to scuff up the worn roller.

Best technique is to lightly drag the saw-blade lengthwise across the worn roller.  As you do so, slowly turn the roller in your fingers as you rough up the surface until you’ve completely circled the cylinder.  Of course you should be careful that you don’t nick any of your finger tips.

It might not look pretty but it will retexture the surface enough to grip the paper and return functionality to the printer.

Logging into the blog I learned there was a new version of WordPress out, the blogging platform that I use to run this site.  So it’s time for a quick follow up to “How to Setup WordPress.” and learn how to upgrade to the latest version.

Compared to installing WordPress, this will be a piece of cake.  You’ll see on your WordPress dashboard that there is an alert about the upgrade.

Click the link and it will take you to where you can download the updated software.  Go ahead download the file.

Find where you saved the file on you computer use your favorite file compression utility (WinRAR in this case) to extract the WordPress folder from within it.

Next, open up your preferred FTP client.  Connect to your web server.

We are using Filezilla as the FTP client in this example,  your computer’s folders will be located on the left side, and your file server on the right.  Find the WordPress folder you just extracted from within your computer’s window.  Go in it and select all the files within the folder, EXCEPT any thing you may have modified since you originally installed WordPress.  The only changes I’ve made are to my wp-config.php which is not included because I created it myself when I installed WordPress the first time.  Same goes with my customized theme.

Copy everything selected over to the public_html in your web server window to the right.  All you have to do is drag the selected files from one side to the folder on the other.  On my setup Filezilla just happens to warn me about overwriting file.  So I wont spend my whole day clicking the “OK” button, I check the “Always use this action” box, followed by the “Apply to current queue only”.  This will go ahead and overwrite everything, but only until we are done copying WordPress over.  It will go back to prompting when its finished.

Once the FTP client has completed copying everything over.  Open up your web browser and point to http://yourblogsite.com/readme.html.

We used this file before during the install, and we’ll be using it again for the upgrade.  If you scroll beyond the install instructions to the “Upgrading from any previous WordPress” you’ll see we’ve already done the first two steps.

Follow the third step and click the /wp-admin/upgrade.php link.  In this particular case we get a page telling us “No Upgrade Required”.

This is normal for small upgrades when there are just minor patches and updates.  If this were a major upgrade, you have a bit of a wait while the upgrade script made changes to the WordPress SQL database until it displayed “Upgrade Successful”.  Either message is satisfactory and you are ready to continue blogging with the latest software version.

Using a store bought linksys router for my wireless access in my home network.  It began to give us all sorts of trouble this weekend.  After hours of exhaustive troubleshooting with my room mate, we finally came up with a solution.  Do to the highly technical nature we decided a video presentation would work best.  Enjoy.

This tutorial isn’t going to be as in depth as my previous ones.  The problem is this procedure can vary greatly from computer to computer.  It also requires a basic knowledge of how a bootdisk works and the use of some DOS commands.

As the IT department for the most of my family, I’m always looking for ways to minimize the amount of time I need to spend fixing whatever might be wrong with a cousins, aunt or uncle’s, or even parents machine.

One of the quickest ways to break your home computer is to install every piece useless software from every website you can find.  Most of which is probably loaded with spyware and viruses that are usually impossible to get rid of.  If my family gets something nasty on their system my opinion is usually to whipe the computer and start over.

Reinstalling everything on the computer and getting exactly the way it was before can be a tedious and time consuming experiance.  My current solution doesn’t exactly run much quicker, but it certainly automates the process a bit taking out some of the monotony.  It’s a little something I’ve dubbed “The Ghostbuster”.

The Ghostbuster isn’t entirely clever, but a very useful part of my toolkit.  It’s basically a bootable usb hard disk that has a copy of Norton Ghost installed.  The idea is I can plug this drive into any computer capable of booting from a USB device.  Then, by going directly to Ghost I can either create a perfect backup of a machine or restore it back to it’s original state.

Things you’ll need to make one of your own:
USB Hard disk
a DOS Boot disk
with some basic commands loaded (FDISK, FORMAT, and SYS. EDIT would make things go faster)
Copy of Norton Ghost that runs from DOS (specifically 2003)

For the hard disk I’m using 250GB Western Digital passport drive.  Its available on Amazon.com.  I also found it at my local Walmart for $80. I chose it for its storage and portability.  I’m also going to assume, that whatever drive you buy is already FAT32 formatted.  The drive I’m using is and so is almost any USB drive you’ll purchase.

The best place to get a boot disk if you don’t have one is Bootdisk.com.  They have oodles of them.  Something for just about everything.  I’m using an old windows 95 CD for this.

First you’ll need to get into your system BIOS and set the USB device to be the first in the boot-up sequence.  How to do this is going to vary from machine to machine.  To get to your BIOS screen you’ll most likely have to press one of the function keys or the Delete key immediately after you turn on your computer.  You machine will probably have something along the lines “F# Setup” in one of the corners of your screen.  If it says “F2 Setup” then you press the F2 key to get into the BIOS.  If it says “F10 Setup” then you press F10 to get into the BIOS, etc…

You’ll know you’re in when you see some kind of blue screen with lots of white text.  That what your average BIOS screen looks like.  Usually there are keyboard commands listed along the bottom of the screen.

Flip around your BIOS menus until you find the “Boot Order”.  Using the on screen instructions move USB to the top of your boot order.  Apparently the system won’t allow FDISK to make this drive an “active” partition unless its first in the boot order.  This will be essential.

Next put in the boot disk you have, and power on the PC with the USB drive connected to your machine.  Let it boot up completely until you get you A:\> prompt.  If you are using a Windows 95 CD like I am, you’ll have to select for it to boot to a prompt as apposed to a Windows setup.

At the prompt (A:\>) type FDISK and press enter.

The first thing that should come up is a screen telling you that drive more than 512MB are detected and you should enable large disk support.  Press Y for yes and enter.

Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB.  This version of Windows
includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient
use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be
formatted as a single drive.

IMPORTANT:  If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on this

disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating

systems, inlcuding some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as

earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS.  In addition, disk utilites that

were not designed explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able

to work with this disk.  If you need to access this disk with other operating

systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support.

Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)...........? [N]

On the menu that follows, press option 2.

Microsoft Windows 95

Fixed Disk Setup Program

(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp.  1983 - 1995

FDISK Options

Current Fixed Disk Drive: 1

Choose one of the following:

1.  Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive

2. Set active partition

3. Delete partition or logical DOS Drive

4. Display partition information

5. Change current fixed disk drive

Enter choice: [1]

Press Esc to exit FDISK

You’ll get a table with a few lines of text.  You’ll see at least one marked with an “A” under the “Status” column.  Probably the first line and it is most likely your main hard disk.  The last line is most likely your USB drive.  Press the number corresponding with the correct partition.  An “A” should appear under the “Status” column.  Press Esc to return to the menu and again to leave FDISK.  Agree to saving any changes that are made.

Set Active Partition

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition  Status   Type     Volume Lable  Mbytes   System    Usage

    1         A    Non-DOS                  8012                74%

    2              EXT DOS                  2769                26%

The only startable partition on Drive 1 is already set active.

Press Esc to continue

Reboot the computer and let it boot to the bootdisk again.  When you return to your prompt, type

dir c:

and it should show whatever is on the USB drive.  Hope its nothing important as we are about to format the drive.

Next type

format /s c:

All data on the drive will be erased, and the basic DOS system files will be loaded.

The process may take a while, especially with a larger drive.  Took over an hour with my drive.  Be patient.  As long as the drive light is blinking, it’s still working.
When it’s finished and you’ve returned to a prompt, type

fdisk /mbr

Reboot.  If all has gone according to plan, then you have booted to a DOS prompt again, but this time from the USB drive.  Can’t do much else with it at this point.  It’s essentially a blank disk aside from the boot files.  Shut down your computer and remove both your boot floppy or CD, and the USB drive.  Power up your computer normally.

Once your computer is completely up, plug in your USB drive.  Copy the files from your copy of Norton Ghost over to the USB drive.

Create a text file on the USB drive and name it “CONFIG.SYS”  The contents of the file should be as follows:

device=himem.sys /testmem:off
DOS=HIGH,UMB
fileshigh=60
buffers=30
lastdrivehigh=z

Create another text file on the USB drive and name it “AUTOEXEC.BAT”.  Contents of the file should be as follows:

@echo off
path=c:\;
ghost

When powering up a computer with the USB drive plugged in, this list of commands will execute, the first two really just for aesthetics, the final one launches Norton Ghost.

That should be it.  Next time you plug in that USB drive and boot the computer, it should boot from the USB drive and immediately launch Norton Ghost.  If it doesn’t, drop me a comment and we’ll see where you went wrong.  I’ll also let you know this isn’t the speediest device.  When backing up an image it takes this drive as long as five hours.  Maybe an hour less to restore.  That was an 80GB drive.  The reason its so slow is that the BIOS is emulating a standard hard disk connection over USB version 1.  Hopefully in the future they’ll move it to USB version 2 and we’ll see an improvement with faster motherboards.  Though even at the slower speeds, it would save you from the weekend long process of restoring your family members computer.  Restoring to factory settings, patching the OS, updating the virus scanner, installing all the games and applications they’ve bought, can be done by restoring from a previous imaging, and letting it run unattended.

Directions for this tutorial have been based on the one provided by Aaltonen.us