How to remove a Mac EFI partition in windows

September 3, 2010

Here’s a handy hint for anyone who’s ever created a Mac partition on a disk that can’t be removed using Disk Management in Windows…

1. Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell window and type DISKPART at the prompt

2. The first thing that you want to do is have DISKPART list the hard disks that it sees so that you can tell it which one you want to work with.

DISKPART>list disk

3. Then look at the list and you will propbably see a disk with a small partition around 200mb which should be the EFI partition. You will need to select the disk because all the commands are applied to the disk you selected.

DISKPART>select disk 2

4. Now all you have to do is tell it to clean the disk. This will remove all the partitions on the selected disk.

DISKPART>clean

via Mark Koberlein.

Bing’s streaming wallpaper for Windows 7

September 3, 2010

Here’s a lovely addon for Windows 7, Bing Wallpapers that automatically update each week…

Windows 7 users need only to download the theme package from Microsoft’s offering page and double-click it to set up a “Bing Dynamic” theme. By default, the wallpapers rotate every minute or so, so you’ll want to head into the settings to slow things down a bit (click the “Desktop Background” link at bottom). You’ll get three months of Bing wallpapers through the feed, automatically updated each week.

via Gizmodo

Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse

August 18, 2010

Details of Microsoft’s Arc Touch mouse have finally leaked, hard to say if this is disappointing, although I’m going with tested.com’s view that if this doesn’t use bluetooth then somethings failed already.

From the product images, it seems the Arc Touch form factor stays the same as the first Arc, but it’s impossible to say whether the touch functionality will be implemented to meet the consumer’s needs (and whims). If the specs posted on the German retailer’s website are correct, I will be disappointed that the mouse will need to use up one of my two USB ports instead of connecting via Bluetooth.

I had really hoped it would introduce multi touch support but appears to be a fairly dull introduction of touch interactions to the PC, something my Magic Mouse with driver hacking already does.

Update: According to Paul Thurrott ’The Arc Touch is a mouse. That’s all it is. It’s arched in use, and it lays flat for packing’ which could be the very definition of disappointing.

via Tested.

Drive Extender data from earlier Vail beta versions are incompatible with latest Vail Beta

August 17, 2010

I kind of assumed it would be the case but any drive arrays created in the previous beta build of Home Server VAIL can’t be moved to the latest build…

The low-level data format for Drive Extender has changed with this release and is no longer compatible with data written by Drive Extender in earlier versions of Vail. Drives that were used as part of a server storage pool in an earlier version of Vail will show a status of incompatible version in the Hard Drives tab of the Dashboard. Incompatible hard drives can still be added to the default storage pool, but all data on the hard drive will be lost.

Fortunately I still have a 2tb spare disk to migrate data onto temporarily, so will do a rebuild tonight.

Windows Home Server adding support for OS X Time Machine backups

August 16, 2010

Awesome, the new version of Home Server adds support for Macs…

A new preview release, which adds support for Apple’s Mac OS X Time Machine, went out over this past weekend to select testers. No date from Microsoft as to when the final is due (guesstimates say late 2010).

via ZDNet.

New Windows Home Server VAIL Beta now available

August 16, 2010

There’s a new beta of Windows Home Server, Codename VAIL. You can grab a copy at Microsoft Connect, remember this is a serious Beta, use at your own risk and always keep a backup. That said I’m going in all guns blazing, so look out internet!

Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive

August 11, 2010

Here’s an interesting little drive, a standard 500gb laptop hard disk with a 4gb SSD for cacheing the most often used elements on the disk…

Upon boot, we noticed a 1 – 2 second improvement in how long it took to show us a useable desktop; hardly Earth-shattering, but a decent start. From there, we fired up Firefox, Photoshop CS5, Skitch, TweetDeck and iTunes in succession. Again, a 1 – 2 second improvement in total load time. But after using the apps for a bit, we shut our machine down and rebooted, doing the same song and dance all over again. And again. And again.

We went through this process four total times, with each one getting a bit quicker when it came to load time. After we’d given it ample opportunity to grasp our preferred flow, we noticed a 6 – 8 second improvement in total load time. That may not sound like a lot, but percentage wise it’s hardly worth sneezing at.

Still it might be a struggle to justify the cost, as the Momentus XT costs about £75 currently, compared to £35 for the same capacity. Cheaper than an SSD, might be worth it if you need to space on the move.

via Engadget.

Bend: A metro inspired text editor for Windows 7

August 5, 2010

Trying out Bend, a lovely little text editor for Windows 7…

Bend is a modern text editor. Bend takes off after the Zune client, but doesn’t constrain itself to it. Find on page borrows from Apple Safari. Tabs are Google Chome inspired. This text editor aims to be elegant, clean and a pleasure to work in. It exploits XAML / WPF to render beautiful hardware accelerated text, each feature is carefully selected to balance performance and style.

via Codeplex.com