How to Make a Bootable OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

How to Make a Bootable OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion USB Install Drive

Download OS X Mountain Lion and Extract the DMG File

1. Download OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion from the App Store
2. Go to the /Applications/ directory and right-click on “Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app” selecting “Show Package Contents”
3. Open the “Contents” directory and then open “SharedSupport”, looking for a file named “InstallESD.dmg”
4. Double-click on InstallESD.dmg to mount it on the desktop

Make the OS X Mountain Lion Install Drive

1. Launch Disk utility and connect a USB drive to the Mac
2. Select the USB drive from the left menu and click on “Erase” tab, choose “Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)” as the format, then click on the “Erase” button in the corner

3. Now select the formatted USB drive from the left side and click on the “Restore” tab
4. Drag the previously mounted “Mac OS X Install ESD” image into the “Source” section
5. Drag the formatted partition to the “Destination” section, then click on “Restore”

6. Confirm that the USB drive will lose it’s data and enter the Admin password when asked

Disk Utility will now create a bootable OS X Mountain Lion installer drive out of USB drive using the disk image, this can take a little while depending on how fast the drive and Mac are but 20-30 minutes isn’t unusual.

When finished, reboot the Mac and hold down the Option key to bring up the boot menu:

Select the orange “Mac OS X” option and you will boot into the OS X Mountain Lion installer, from here installation is the same as normal. Click on Continue, select the destination drive, and install.

How to create a Ghost bootable CD that works with SATA CD ROM support from the Ghost Boot Wizard

How to create a Ghost bootable CD that works with SATA CD ROM support from the Ghost Boot Wizard

BHAVESH PATEL'S BLOG

Problem

You want to boot a workstation with SATA CD ROM using a Ghost bootable CD made in 8.2, 8.3 or 11.0, "Error: HD system type (00) boot failure" may appear. In addition, you have tried updating BIOS which did not help.

Symptoms
An error "HD system type (00) boot failure" may appear. Or you may be able to boot all the way into ghost but not see your CD or DVD to restore a Ghost Image from.

Conditions
You have a system with a SATA CD or DVD ROM that is not compatible with the generic Microsoft drivers.

Cause

Not all SATA CD and DVD ROM drives properly emulate IDE drive specifications.

Solution

The Microsoft Generic CD-ROM driver (OAKCDROM.SYS) from Ghost version 11.0 or earlier is not compatible with SATA CD-ROM. Please download a new CD-ROM driver (GCDROM.SYS) that works with SATA CD and DVD drives.

To work-around this issue, use the Ghost Boot Wizard create a bootable Boot Package that includes the GCDROM.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE files to allow for SATA support.

Note: These drivers do not support SATA set to AHCI mode. Some system manufacturers have a setting in the BIOS to change this arrangement. The below directions, create a boot disk for a single network card only. The Multi-network card option is not supported.

To create a network Boot disk set:

1. Copy the MSCDEX.EXE and GCDROM.SYS files from their respective locations to a temporary folder on the system you have the Ghost Standard tools installed. See the "Technical Information" section at the end of this document for the location of MSCDEX.EXE and GCDROM.SYS.
2. Start the Ghost Boot Wizard.
3. Click Network Boot package, and then click Next.
4. In the Network Interface Card list, click on the appropriate Network driver, and then click Copy.
5. Select the copied network template and select Modify.
6. In the "Template properties" window open the "Advanced" tab and select New
7. Browse to and select the MSCDEX.EXE from the temporary folder that you used in step 1 and click Open.
8. Select New
9. Select GCDROM.SYS from the temporary folder that you used in step 1 and click Open.
10. In the "AUTOEXEC.BAT Additions" screen add the following line “\NET\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CD1”
11. In the "CONFIG.SYS Additions" screen add the following line “DEVICE=\net\gcdrom.sys /D:CD1”
12. Click OK
13. The edited NIC template should now be highlighted and you will be able to click on the Name button and rename the edited template to include a description that notes the SATA drivers are added to it.
14. Click Next
15. Under DOS Version, select Use PC-DOS, and then click Next.
16. If you want to use any Ghost command-line switches, type them in the Parameters box , and click Next.
    • Note: A list of Switches to help in detecting your SATA hard drive can be found in Troubleshooting the use of SATA hard drives with Ghost(http://service1.symantec.com/support/on-technology.nsf/docid/2007091314373760)
      
17. Either select DHCP will assign the IP settings or select the The IP settings will be statically assigned, and fill out the IP information
18. Click Next.
19. In the Destination Drive window, select one of the following, to build a boot CD select the Create ISO Image radio button,
    • "Format floppy disk" Lets you create a floppy disk boot set.
    • "Create ISO image" Lets you create an ISO image to write to a CD/DVD
    • "Format Disk" Lets you create a boot package on a removable or non-removable Device.
      
20. Click Browse and select a location and file name for the image file.
21. Click Open
22. Click Next
23. Burn this ISO to a CD and boot your system from it.
    • Note: For questions on burning a ISO file to CD please contact your CD burning software manufacturer.

References
Using Roxio / Adaptec Easy CD Creator and Roxio Easy Media Creator to make a Ghost bootable CD from ISO's Created with the Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard(http://service1.symantec.com/support/on-technology.nsf/docid/2006081611325225)

Using Nero Burning ROM to make a Ghost bootable CD from ISO's Created with the Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard
(http://service1.symantec.com/support/on-technology.nsf/docid/2006081506363225)


Technical Information
Please refer to the mscdex.exe file located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common folder.

Please refer to a third party provider for gcdrom.sys. Symantec is unable to distribute this 3rd party file but it can be downloaded from a variety of sources on the internet. One such site is http://marktsai0316.googlepages.com/gcdromfordos.

Legacy ID

2007020709414625

Google Android Jelly Bean OS 4.1 Overview

Google Android Jelly Bean OS 4.1 Overview

Android Jelly Bean OS

What It Did Right

Jelly Bean is fast, slick, and feels like what Ice Cream Sandwichshould have been when it first launched six months ago. This performance boost is due to Project Butter, a processing framework designed to improve responsiveness, smooth out animations and reduce latency.

I compared the Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean to my own personal Galaxy Nexus (running Ice Cream Sandwich) and noticed the difference almost immediately. There is basically zero lag when opening applications, and scrolling between different home screens is amazingly smooth. The phone's user interface looks basically the same, but there have been little animations thrown in that give it a more polished look.

Animations

In Jelly Bean, every time you open an app, you get one of these brief animations that quickly zoom in on the app you just tapped. Is it superfluous? Sure. But it's the little details like this that make Jelly Bean more pleasant to use. There are a few other minor user interface tweaks, such as bigger, easier-to-tap icons.

Notifications in Jelly BeanThe notification tray got a minor facelift, but the important change is in the notifications. You can expand certain notifications by using various two-finger gestures, allowing you to see more information at a glance.

Not all applications support this feature when I tried it out, but all of the pre-installed Google apps work. In fact, while writing this story, I received a Calendar alert telling me that I was going to be late to an event. When I went to the notification bar to see what the alert was concerning, I was able to see the name of the event (part of it anyway), the time and location, as well as a brief note describing the event.

Below that was a button that allowed me to "snooze" the alert, which I did without ever having to leave the notification pane. It's a smarter way of making notifications less intrusive, and I hope that third-party developers take advantage of this new feature.

Camera App

Camera AppThe Camera app also gained a few new tricks, with new animations that occur every time you take a picture. Once you’ve taken a few shots, you can swipe the camera screen away to bring up your camera roll and view the images you have in your Gallery. This is much better than what we had in Ice Cream Sandwich, where you had to exit the Camera app to see photos you had previously taken.

Mobile Search

Google went all out when it came to mobile search on Jelly Bean.

Google NowYou can access the new Google Now page at any time by swiping upwards on the Home icon in the navigation bar. Initially your Google Now page will be very plain, showing you places nearby that you might be interested in visiting as well as the local weather (which it gets by using your phone's GPS). \

The more searches you do on your phone, the more Google Now will meet your needs.

To test this out, I searched for several things related to baseball and a sports section appeared on my Google Now page. If you don't like a section, you can turn it off from the settings menu. It's a very visual way of displaying basic information and it worked well--but I feel like it could do more with the information, and I hope Google Now continues to expand.

Voice Search

Jelly Bean Search CardVoice Search has a much cleaner interface. You can now do voice input when you don't have a connection, and asking basic questions like "What's the capitol of Spain?" will bring up a card with an answer to your query.

If you aren't satisfied with your answer or if you want to know more, you can swipe away to the card to get to the familiar Google Search results screen. I tried asking a few questions and, after Google finally began to recognize my voice, I was able to get answers to almost everything I asked.

What It Did Wrong

While many things in Jelly Bean look and work well, I encountered a few quirks.

I noticed a strange ghosting, particularly while scrolling, that wasn't present in Ice Cream Sandwich. My guess is that this is the result of several new API's in Jelly Bean that are meant to smooth out text and graphics (to make them use less memory), but it's something that's noticeable when scrolling through webpages and other text-heavy content.

Another problem I found is one that's plagued Android for some time now: Fragmentation. With so few devices currently on Ice Cream Sandwich--and with many more phones currently waiting for their update--it seems unlikely that most phones out today (aside from the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S) will get the Jelly Bean update.

Jelly Bean may have solve a lot of performance issues in Android, but fragmentation will continue to be a problem. It seems unlikely that many developers will take advantage of any of Jelly Bean's new features, especially when most of their users will still be running Android Gingerbread or below.

How to Jailbreak Your iPad 2

These are instructions on how to perform an untethered jailbreak of your iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe for Windows.
Youtube: http://youtu.be/N2eRcUm2fiQ

Step One
Download the latest version of Absinthe.

Step Two
Double click to extract the downloaded archive and launch the Absinthe application.

Step Three
As prompted, connect your iPad 2 to the computer via USB. Make sure to remove any passcodes or VPN settings you've previously set.


Step Four
Click the Jailbreak button to begin


Step Five
The application will take you through several steps of the jailbreak: Sending initial data, waiting for reboot, waiting for device to finish booting, Preparing jailbreak data, and Sending payload data.






Step Six
You will be informed that the jailbreak is 'Almost done'.


Step Seven
On you device, locate the Absinthe icon and press it to complete your jailbreak. It could be on any homescreen.


If the server is down and you get an Error establishing a database connection message then tap the Settings icon on your springboard and turn on VPN.


You will get a configuration error; however, after about a minute your device will reboot.


Once your device restarts you will be jailbroken with Cydia on the Springboard!

How to Jailbreak iPod Touch OS 5.1

These are instructions on how to jailbreak your iPod Touch 4G on the iOS 5.1 firmware using RedSn0w for Mac. 

Step One
Create a folder on your desktop called Pwnage

Download the latest version of RedSn0w from and place it in the Pwnage folder. Likewise, download the 5.1 firmware from and place it in the Pwnage folder. (Note: you do not need to download the 5.1 firmware if you are already on iOS 5.1)

Extract the RedSn0w zip file by double clicking it.


Step Two: (Skip this step if you're on iOS 5.1 already)
Connect your iPod to the computer and launch iTunes.


Select your iPod from the list of devices on the left. Now hold down Option and click the Restore button. Restore is preferred as it won't create any wasted space on your iPod.


Navigate to the Pwnage folder on your desktop and select the 5.1 firmware ipsw. Click the Choose button to continue.


iTunes will now update your iPod to the new firmware.

Step Three
Launch the redsn0w application from the redsn0w folder we extracted earlier.


Step Four
Once RedSn0w opens click the Jailbreak button


Step Five
Plug your iPod into the computer and make sure its OFF then click the Next button


Step Six
RedSn0w will now guide you through the steps to get into DFU mode. You can find more help with DFU mode here


Hold down both the Home button and the Power button for 10 seconds.


Release the Power button and continue holding the Home button until RedSn0w detects the device.


Step Seven
Your iPod will now reboot


Step Eight
RedSn0w will prepare the jailbreak data.


Step Nine
Select Cydia from the list of options and click Next.


Step Ten
Your iPod will now be rebooted again and RedSn0w will begin uploading the new RAM Disk and Kernel.


Step Eleven
Once this is complete you will be notified that RedSn0w is done. When your iPod finishes rebooting (5 minutes or so) it will be jailbroken with Cydia on the SpringBoard.



BOOT TETHERED
Once you have jailbroken you will need to rerun redsn0w to boot tethered.

Step One
From the main RedSn0w menu click the Extras button.


Step Two
Select Just boot from the Extras menu to just boot tethered.

How to Put iPhone in DFU Mode

To put the iPhone into DFU mode so you can do an iTunes firmware restore follow these steps:

Step One
Open iTunes and connect the iPhone to your Mac.


Step Two
Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.


Step Three
After exactly 10 seconds release the Sleep/Wake button. Continue holding the home button until you iTunes pops up a message telling you that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode.


The iPhone screen will remain black like this:


It may take a few attempts to get your iPhone into DFU mode.
I hold down both buttons then release the Home button just before I think the Apple logo would appear. If you are still holding both buttons down and you see the Apple logo you are holding them down for too long!