Mike's Mostly Tech blog

Some simple privacy and security tips

Besides my many previous tips on keeping your Browsers(and plug-ins like Flash), Operating Systems, Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware, and other productivity applications here are some other things you can do to help keep yourself even more secure and less likely to be ‘compromised’. Please read my previous articles on security and follow those tips first. The things here are some ways to ‘clear/delete’ temporary files that may contain sensitive information or possible a trojan/virus that is just ‘waiting’ to launch from a temporary location.

First

Every time I close my internet browser(s) (IE, Firefox, Opera etc.) I run CCleaner. Actually I run a ‘batch file’ that runs CCleaner and clears my network cache settings too. You can, and I recommend you do, simply run CCleaner every time you shut your browser. If you would like to use/create my batch file simply copy the information between the ‘start’ and ‘end’ into a text file and rename it with a .bat extension. Example copy the file into notepad and save the file with a name of clean.txt. Then rename the file clean.bat.

For XP

Start:

"C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO
arp -d
nbtstat -R
ipconfig /flushdns
nbtstat -RR
ipconfig /registerdns

Finish

for Window 7

Start:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO

arp -d
nbtstat -R
ipconfig /flushdns
nbtstat -RR
ipconfig /registerdns

Finish

Second

Some third-party programs can temporarily store unencrypted (plain-text) passwords or other sensitive information in memory. Because of the Windows virtual memory architecture, this information can be present in the paging file.

Although clearing the paging file is not a suitable substitute for physical security of a computer, you might want to do this to increase the security of data on a computer while Windows is not running.

   1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
   2. Change the data value of the ClearPageFileAtShutdown value in the following registry key to a value of 1:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
      If the value does not exist, add the following value:
      Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown
      Value Type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 1

This change does not take effect until you restart the computer.

Hope this helps some of you.

Indonesian Muslim in the White House

A little reality check. Here are some facts you won’t see on the nightly news or read in the Los Angeles or New York Times.

Lolo Soetoro, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, baby Maya Soetoro, and 9 year old Barry Soetoro.

This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro.

Barack was raised from the ages of 6-10 in Indonesia, his name was Barry Soetoro, and he was in fact a muslim.
Name: Barry Soetoro
Religion: Islam
Nationality: Indonesian

First, here is the certificate of enrollment at the Indonesian school:

For those of you not up to speed with Malaysian here is the English translation:

How did this little INDONESIAN Muslim child – Barry Soetoro, (A.K.A. Barack Obama) get around the issue of nationality to become President of the United States of America ?

Barack Obama’s step father, Lolo Soetoro, adopted him and listed his name as “Barry” not Barack. Since Lolo was a muslim I don’t think he would have had a problem with a step-son named “Barack.” But Mr. Lolo Soetoro did identify Barry’s religion as Islam. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a hard core fact. This does not mean that the guy we now know as Obama was a terrorist in training. 99% of the muslims in Indonesia are law abiding folks who reject terrorism. What I don’t understand is why Obama continues to hide this part of his life and pretend that he was raised a poor white child in Kansas?

PART 2:

In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College ..

The transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia while an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California . The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify for this scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.

This document provides the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking – that he is NOT a natural-born citizen of the United States – necessary to be President of these United States . Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya , here we see that there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship..

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records.

Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still on-going but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder.

Mr. Holder has refused comment on this matter.

LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS – THE MEDIA WON’T!

Transparent as mud

Remember the campaign and the inauguration speeches – "most open and transparent administration ever…"?

Well we all know that it has NOT been the case. In fact this administration has made more backroom deals than any group of wiseguys ever have and certainly more than any other administration in our history.

Sadly the mainstream media are completely complicit in this too. And to further end any appearance or attempt to hide that fact that the administration is NOT transparent they are doing this:

His words on video:

7 Broken Promises:
1. Make Government Open and Transparent
2. Make it "Impossible" for Congressmen to slip in Pork Barrel Projects
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public (republicans shut out)
4. No more secrecy
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a Bill
6. You’ll know what’s in it (Republican Senators didn’t know)
7. We will put every pork barrel project online

Will anyone in the mainstream media ever call him to task on any of this? I doubt it.

I hope this fall and in two years we will be able to prune the tree of liberty by replacing him and his cohorts. Then maybe we can start to undue the massive damage to our Republic that has already been done.

Do you really trust the mainstream media?

I THINK IT IS REMARKABLE THAT WITHIN A WEEK OF TIGER WOODS CRASHING HIS ESCALADE, THE PRESS FOUND EVERY WOMAN WITH WHOM TIGER HAS HAD AN AFFAIR IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, WITH PHOTOS, TEXT MESSAGES, RECORDED PHONE CALLS, ETC.
AND, THEY NOT ONLY KNEW THE CAUSE OF THE FAMILY FIGHT, BUT THEY EVEN KNEW IT WAS A WEDGE FROM HIS GOLF BAG THAT HIS WIFE USED TO BREAK OUT THE WINDOWS IN THE ESCALADE.
NOT ONLY THAT, THEY KNEW WHICH WEDGE!
AND EACH AND EVERY DAY, THEY GAVE AMERICA MORE UPDATES ON HIS SEX-REHAB STAY, HIS WIFE’S PLANS FOR DIVORCE, AND THE DATES AND TOURNAMENTS HE WILL PLAY IN.

OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE FOR OVER A YEAR NOW, AND THIS SAME PRESS:

STILL CANNOT FIND ANY OF HIS CHILDHOOD FRIENDS OR NEIGHBORS,

OR LOCATE ANY OF OBAMA’S COLLEGE PAPERS OR GRADES,

OR HOW HE PAID FOR A HARVARD EDUCATION,

OR WHICH COUNTRY ISSUED HIS VISA TO TRAVEL TO PAKISTAN IN THE 1980’S,

OR BARRY SORETORO OR EVEN MICHELLE OBAMA’S PRINCETON THESIS ON RACISM.

THEY JUST CAN’T SEEM TO FIND THEM.

YET THE PUBLIC STILL TRUSTS THAT SAME PRESS TO GIVE THEM THE WHOLE TRUTH !

TRULY REMARKABLE !!!

Getting started Blogging with MS Live Writer

I won’t go into a long winded explanation of ‘why’ you should have a blog, or many blogs, if you are a person with many fields of interest and or a business owner, so I will provide a few links to some good reasons but you can find many more yourself.

I blog for a few reasons; get my ideas on paper(albeit digital paper), share news and ideas with others and probably the primary reason is that it allows me to put information into a place that then allows ME to easily find that information I know I have ‘somewhere’ into an easily ‘searchable’ format. I often go back to my own blogs to find technical information on how to do things I know I have done in the past but can’t remember exactly how to now. By putting this information online I can easily find that information. A recent example was trying to help someone share an external Mac Volume. I couldn’t remember the terminal syntax. But I know I’ve done it many times before in the past. So I just searched my blog for ‘external Mac volumes’ and found what I was looking for! For business owners, special interest groups and artists blogs can be an invaluable method for connecting with the public!

Here is a good article on 10 reasons a small business should have a blog:

Here is another guys blog with 33 good reasons:

Of course you can do this: http://tinyurl.com/2vs5trg and find many more.

There are some other ‘rules’ or tips you can find via the search engines too. Two which I will mention are; adding content on a regular basis and having others provide links to your content on their sites. These two things will, more than anything short of paid advertising, get your blog ‘noticed’. If your desire is to actually make money (monetize your blog) you can also find that via the search engines too. Though that subject is way too convoluted and complex for me to handle here, there are hundreds of thousands of sites to explain that. Just Google ‘how to monetize your blog’. Even then 99.999% of blogs will never generate real revenue anyways. [If you are nice you’ll click on my adds here in the hope I might though 🙂 ha ha]

So let’s get started. Virtually all blogging services offer a simple ‘new post’ option to add new entries. It’s as simple as logging into your Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress or other account, going to the ‘dashboard’ and choosing ‘new post’. Simple and easy but not that customizable or feature packed. For many people this is usually more than enough to get started. But once you decide you really want to continue your writing you should look at some other ‘publishing’ tools.

My favorite tool for creating posts/blog entries – Windows Live Writer. Live Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service—Windows Live, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and many more. Live Writer lets me truly create the post I am looking for. It also allows me to create ‘drafts’ that I can work on as time permits and review them before publishing.
You can get Live Writer here:

The following videos directly from the Live Writer Team are excellent and way better than anything I could have done by just doing screen captures and writing explanations. They are short and very instructional and well worth bookmarking and watching several times.

Note that if you use Google’s Blogger blog service or WordPress (or even host your own) blog you do NOT have to set up a Windows Live blog.
Make sure to click on ‘ I already have a weblog set up’ and go from there.

Basic Authoring:

Live Writer is VERY much like MS Word in it’s formatting options. This makes it very easy to get the look and feel you are shooting for much easier than trying to do this via the ‘dashboard’ of your blog account.

Inserting Rich Content:
How to insert images, video and other content into your post.

And the last video in the series – Saving drafts, printing, modifying existing posts and categorizing posts:

If you really want your blog to be ‘found’ by people searching and actually read you should make a concerted effort to create appropriate ‘categories’ or ‘tags’ for you posts.
Just like you organize your hard copy files in a file cabinet, you can organize blog posts into categories or with tags, so they’re easy to find by people using search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) and by people searching your blog site in the future. Tags are often listed on blogs ‘sidebar’.
In order for your blog’s categories to be helpful to your readers, they need to be fairly intuitive, meaning it’s obvious what kinds of posts are included in each category. As you create your categories, think like your readers would. It’s also important to strike a balance between creating categories that are too broad and therefore don’t help readers narrow their searches and those that are too specific and offer so many choices that readers are confused.

I could go on and on but I just wanted to get this out there for those that were looking for some good directions to start.

For now LiveWriter is still only a Windows application – Sorry Mac enthusiasts. But you can run it from a Virtual Machine ‘inside’ OS X. Or use the Firefox plug-in ‘ScibeFire Blog Editor’ for LiveWriter ‘like’ functionality. But I’ll save that for another post.

Desktop and Browser Pizzazz

I don’t use much ‘eye candy’ or bells and whistles for my computing experience. I tend to be very minimalistic in my approach to my working computing environment for three reasons.

First is security – I do not wish to install toolbars, sidebars or other desktop widgets that could introduce one more vector for an intrusion to my system.
Second is that most of the just mentioned things also drain system resources and tend to slow down systems and applications, sometimes dramatically!
And thirdly excessive ‘eye candy’ tends to strain they eyes and make it more difficult to find application shortcuts/aliases and links to items and files.

But there are a few places you jazz up and personalize without much impact to performance and usability usually without any security risk; the desktop background image and your browser theme (sometimes called skin).

The first and obvious place is your desktop. If you choose to personalize your desktop I recommend a picture or theme that allows you to easily find your shortcuts. [I have had to work on systems where it was nearly impossible for me to locate the icons from the image on the desktop!]

To change the desktop wallpaper:
For OS X:
1. Launch System Preferences by clicking its icon in the Dock, or by selecting ‘System Preferences’ from the Apple menu.
2. In the System Preferences window that opens, click the ‘Desktop & Screen Saver’ icon.
3. Click the ‘Desktop’ tab.
4. In the left-hand pane you’ll see a list of folders that OS X has pre-assigned for use as desktop wallpaper. You should see Apple Images, Nature, Plants, Black & White, Abstracts, and Solid Colors. You may see additional folders, depending on version of OS X you’re using. You can of course add your own pictures.

For Windows XP:
1. Right-Click on the desktop or open the Control Panel
2. select "Display Properties
3. Click on the Desktop tab and choose from the available background images. Or, use the "Browse" button to locate photos on your computer. Use the "Position" menu to set the background image as tilted, centered or stretched. Use the "Color" menu to set the background color. Click "Apply" to lock in your choices.

For Windows 7:

1. Open Desktop Background by clicking the Start button and clicking Control Panel. [Alternatively you can Right-click on the desktop and choose ‘Personalize’] In the search box, type desktop background, and then click Change desktop background.

2. Click the picture or color that you want to use for your desktop background.

If the picture you want to use isn’t in the list of desktop background pictures, click an item in the Picture location list to see other categories, or click Browse to search for the picture on your computer. When you find the picture that you want, double-click it. It will become your desktop background.

Picture of the Picture location menu

Look for pictures in other locations on your computer.

3. Under Picture position, click the arrow and choose whether to crop the picture to fill the screen, fit the picture to the screen, stretch the picture to fit the screen, tile the picture, or center the picture on the screen, and then click Save changes.

After the desktop the next place is you internet Browser.

I use Firefox as my primary browser for a number of reasons I have previously listed so I won’t go into those here. And I will concentrate on Firefox Themes.

First open your Firefox Browser

To locate themes just visit Mozilla’s theme library here:

Choose a category or search:

If you find something you like click on the image ‘details’

And choose ‘Wear this Persona’. You will then be prompted at the top of the browser to ‘Allow’, choose allow and the theme will be installed.

You can try a multitude of different themes by just doing the same thing over and over.

To manage or switch back to themes you previously installed follow this:

In the Firefox Browser go to the toolbar at the top and click on ‘Tools’ then ‘Add-ons’ Select the ‘Themes’ tab:

From here you can manage/switch your themes. Simple as that.

Currently Internet Explorer and Safari require third party tools/apps to change the Browser theme and I don’t use them.

If you use Opera there is a pretty good tutorial here.

Have fun!

More iPhone/iPad Jailbreak info

There is now a web based solution to easily Jailbreak you iP.. device for you.
JailbreakMe
Jailbreaking allows you to get tweaks and apps Apple won’t allow in the App Store.
Free, legal and safe.
You should sync with iTunes before using this tool.

Using this service to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad, or other iOS-driven devices is as simple as visiting the link below and swiping the slide-lock style interface at the bottom of the page.
http://www.jailbreakme.com/
For more info:
http://www.jailbreakme.com/faq.html

Also see my previous post here.

iPhone/iTouch Jail Breaking

I’ve been asked a whole lot recently since the courts ruled that jailbreaking is now legal about how to do this. So here are the links I HIGHLY recommend:
Hope this helps.
Latest exciting news:

Jailbreaking you iPhone/iPad just got even easier!

The Jailbreak Matrix is a massive chart of all the iOS devices and lists the various versions as well as the different firmware, baseband, and boot loaders that run on each. You check what you’ve got against the chart and it will tell you if the device/firmware combination is jailbreakable, what tools you need, what version of iTunes the said jailbreak technique has been tested with, and a step-by-step guide on how to apply the jailbreak.

As always check out these folks too!:
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/jailbreak/

[great information is here:
Great new article from Gizmodo on jailbreaking iPhones and iPads]
————————————-
This is the site to start at!!:

http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html

Forums which will tell you how to use the downloads below:
http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html

QuickPWN
Software Version: 2.2.5-2
Creator: iPhone Dev Team and poorlad
Description: QuickPWN allows you to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone and jailbreak your iPod Touch so you can modify it, SSH into it, choose your own theme and many other cool things.
Downloads:
For Windows:
http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/01/jailbreak-firmware-2-2-1.html
Mac:
http://quickpwn2-2-1.googlecode.com/files/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg

iPhone Firmware
iPhone firmware 2.2

iPhone 2.2.1 firmware

iPhone 3G Firmware
iPhone 3G 2.2 firmware

iPhone 3G 2.2.1 firmware

iPod Touch Firmware

iPod Touch 1G 2.2.1 firmware

iPod Touch 2G 2.2.1 firmware

Software Downloads

WinSCP – WinSCP allows you to SSH into your iPhone/iPod Touch and add/remove/edit files and execute commands.

AND:

See Here:
http://www.ipodtouchhacks.com/ipod/touch/jailbreak/

Using Opera Unite to share files and media

Here is another really cool and fairly secure way to share files and or content with people you choose. Or even just access your own files whilst away. It is called Opera Unite. It is actually built into the Opera Web Browser!

I am still a huge fan of LiveSync/Skydrive as I have previously written about here and here. And I use them as my primary means of ‘cloud storage’.

But to just share some files with co-workers, family or friends Opera Unite looks really cool. And some might find it simpler.

With Opera Unite, your friends view the content that is sitting on your computer. You can stream music or video or share actual files. Since this is a ‘live’ connection to your system you will be using internet bandwidth; this may be a consideration if your ISP has very low limits. Also since it is a live connection to your system you should consider all the security implications.

To run Opera Unite applications (File Sharing, Photo Sharing, Media Player etc.), you need an Opera browser version 10.10 or later from http://www.opera.com and an Opera account.

To view or access most of your applications, your friends can use any browser.

Operating systems: You can use those supported by the Opera browser; Windows, Mac, or UNIX/Linux.

To get started with Opera Unite, you just need to install an Opera browser version 10.10 or later, start an application, and then you can begin sharing and collaborating.

Opera Unite applications make it quick and easy to share content. There is no need to upload anything; you share the content sitting on your computer. And, you do not need to configure anything else, such as DNS services or complex access controls. For example, you can install the Media Player application on your home computer for your favorite songs. When you get to work, you can visit your Media Player application and listen to the songs directly from your home computer. No download, no fuss.

How Opera Unite is different to traditional data sharing

With more traditional content sharing, you have to upload the content you want to share, and this is then stored on a central, third-party server, out of your control. Your friends access this stored content from the third-party server.

Enable Opera Unite

To enable Opera Unite for the first time:

From the menu, select "Enable Opera Unite". A welcome dialog displays.

Select "Next".

To use Opera Unite, you need to have an Opera account. This is an account that you use for My Opera, Dev Opera (Opera’s developer-community resource site), or Opera Link. Your existing username cannot contain any symbols or spaces to work with Opera Unite.

If you already have an Opera account that does not contain symbols or spaces, select "I already have an account", if necessary, and type your existing username and password. Go to step 4.

If you do not have an account, or have one that contains symbols or spaces, select "I do not have an account", if necessary, and complete your details to create one.

Choose a unique and easy-to-remember username without any symbols or spaces. The username will become part of the link (Web address) for your Opera Unite applications, which your friends will use to access your content or communicate with you.

Select "Show" to read the terms and conditions, and check the box to indicate that you agree with them.

Choose a computer name from the drop-down menu. This name identifies the computer you are using, to distinguish it from other computers you may use. It also becomes part of the link for your Opera Unite applications. Choose an option that best describes how you use your computer, or write your own.

Select "Finish".

In the panel at the left, highlight an application that you want to use, and select the Start button at the top of the panel. The application start

Scroll down

The official guide is here: http://unite.opera.com/guide/

And after creating all this I found this super video!

Enjoy.

OS X Virtual Machines Two Methods

I recently had the need to test some ‘fixes’ for a co-workers iMac. Since I don’t like to make system changes on ‘live’ machines I went to my Virtual Machines (VM) and was able to easily test what I needed. I mentioned that to a colleague and they asked me to explain how I was able to create VMs of OS X. So I thought I would put together some of my older tutorials I’ve created and update and add loads of information for those that want it.

I have three Virtual Machine solutions I use. One is based on the industry leader – VM Ware, another the open source (and much improving) Virtual box and finally Microsoft’s Virtual Server (now HyperVisor). I will not discuss Microsoft’s VM solution here because I have not used it to create OS X VMs.

There is lots of information on how do create an OS X VM on both of these VM platforms but I hope I can give some of you some direction. There are now some greatly improved and easier to use ‘boot loaders’ and patches (kexts) for getting OS X to run in a VM or as a Hackintosh as mentioned in some of my previous posts. For some information on that check out these sites.

Here is my workhorse server System configuration and specs:
Windows 2003 Server SP2
QuadCore Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Abit IP35 Pro
8GB RAM
1.5TB SATA HDD (7200RPM)
GeForce 9600 GT (512 MB)
2 Realtek RTL8169/8110 Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Using VMwave Server Console:
Version 1.0.0 build 28343

First up the solution I have been using the longest – VM Ware. I have included as many screen captures where necessary to show some of the configuration changes I made. The VirtualBox solution is actually really easy now so I will explain that one last.

To get it up and running I followed the steps here:

I followed that fairly closely with some exceptions which are in the screen captures below and I will note later*. These guys are great and should be recognized.

Some other sites that were of great help:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I run an older version of VMware Server and so did not use the freely available VMware Player or the new VMware Server version2.x. Since my version is older, I suspect the newer free version would have worked as well. [After writing this and doing a lot of reading on the new – version 2.x of VMware Server- I now don’t think I would recommend it. Stick with the new free VMplayer/workstation version or VMWare server 1.5x or lower.]

I may try the new VMWare server versions on my other server eventually. But if it’s not broke don’t futz with it.

VMware products are available here:

http://www.vmware.com/

http://www.vmware.com/download/player/

I own Virtual CD v9, Alcohol 120, and a few other CD emulators but I am sure you can find free ones. Here are a few:

DAEMON Tools lite

MS Virtual CD

MagicDisc

I have a few copies of Mac OS’s around from 9 on up to 10.5 (Legal for my Mac’s – some alive and some put to rest), But I decided to try a version that had already been prepped/patched for running on x86 – it is named the “Mac OS X 10.4.8 [JaS AMD-Intel-SSE2-SSE3 with PPF1 & PPF2].iso distro”. I some others I’m going to try too – “Kalyway_10.5.2_DVD_Intel_Amd.iso” and “JaS.OSx86.10.5.4.Client.Server.Intel.SSE2.SSE3.iso”

If you want those you will have to ‘hunt’ for them (there is a torrent of information available to you hunters our there…). There are continuing updates to some of these builds to include the latest loaders built in.

Also did an ‘upgrade’ with a new Snow Leopard disk I have.

And just so you know;

“Even though Apple suggests Mac users without Leopard buy the $169 Mac box set to get Snow Leopard, anyone can purchase the $29 Snow Leopard disc and install Snow Leopard in its entirety without having already installed Leopard. This means the $29 Snow Leopard DVD isn’t an "upgrade" at all; it’s the full-on Mac OS X operating system for 30 bucks.”

I bought a few upgrade disks here, since I will be upgrading my physical a well as virtual/Hackintosh ones.

Below is a capture of my ‘vmx’ file with the changes I made:

OS X ON VM Ware: Follow these instructions in the link I posted above. Just take note where I changed some options.

Here are some captures of one of my OSX ‘Virtual Machines’ running on my pc.

I have reduced the plethora of VMWare VMs I was running to two for now (OSX and an Ubuntu desktop/client).

But I did have a couple of Vista’s instances, an Ubuntu Desktop, an Ubuntu Server, 2 WinXP, and Windows Server 2008 with Exchange 2007 and SQL2005(time limited) all running and talking to each other!

I use some of my images of existing (real world/live business servers – PDC, Exchange, SQL and other application servers) virtualized to experiment with upgrade/optimization strategies.

I just convert my recent images – (Acronis and Ghost type)together and converted to Virtual Machines [http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/get.html]. Big time and space issue now.

OS X on Virtual Box

First you will need the newest Virtual Box application, get it here. You will also need a ‘patched’ ISO version of OS X Snow Leopard such as one of the latest as mentioned above. Or The group Hazard has put out a good patched Snow Leopard installer that should do fine (just search for it on Google). Of course, if you feel bad about downloading the ISO of Snow Leopard, you could always go buy a copy to feel a bit better, karmically.

Install VirtualBox.

Then click on New at the top left. At the Create New Virtual Machine window, click Next.

At this window type OSX as the name and it will automatically change the system and version. The next window will let you choose your RAM amount:

If you can spare it, crank it up as far as you can go, but 1024MB should be sufficient.

This is where you’ll make your hard disk. 30GB should be enough so what it comes down to is dynamic or static. Dynamic will expand on use and Static will be a fixed 30GB no matter how much data is actually in it. Dynamic is better for not taking up your hard drive but static will give you better performance. I normally use dynamic. Click next unless you want to change it from dynamic or if you want to increase the disk size or file location.

It will show a summary of your settings. Click Finish, then click Settings at the top. Make sure you choose only one ‘core’ for processor too.

At this window click on System in the left pane and uncheck Enable EFI

Now click on the Storage button on the left. From there click on Empty under the OSX.vdi, then click the folder with the green arrow on the right (next to "CD/DVD Device").

At this window click the Add button at the top. Then find and add the OSX86 ISO (Hazard or other) you downloaded earlier. Then highlight it and click Select at the bottom.

Then click OK, and hit the Start button on the left side of the main VirtualBox window.

As it starts up, click inside the window and hit F8. Then at the boot: prompt type –v so you can see what exactly went wrong if something does go wrong. All the services will run and eventually you should come to the language screen. Choose your language then click next.

If you are unable to move your mouse around then hit Right-Ctrl + I. To ‘free your mouse to move outside of the VM window hit the right ‘Alt’ key.

Click Continue and Agree. Next, start up Disk Utility by going to Utilities in the menu bar.

At this screen highlight 20GB VBOX HARDDISK. Then click the Erase tab, name it what you want in the name box and click the Erase button on the bottom right of the window. It shouldn’t take long. Then click Disk Utility in your menu bar and quit it.

Now you’re back at the installer. Highlight the drive that is now showing up and click Continue.

The next window is important!

Don’t click ANYTHING YET!

Click the Customize button on the bottom left. Expand the options (arrows) and check the necessary boxes for your processor.

AMD Users check:
Any Updates included at the top.
Drop down Kernels and choose Legacy kernel.
AMD option below System support.

Intel Users check:
Any Updates included at the top.
Drop down bootloaders and check the newest Chameleon.
Drop down Kernels and choose Legacy kernel.

Then click Done and hit the Install button. To speed up the process you can click Skip when the disc check pops up.

As soon as it says "installation finished" and starts counting down to restart, press the right Ctrl key. Click on Devices at the top of the VirtualBox window, hit CD/DVD Devices and click Unmount CD/DVD Device. Remember you will probably have to hit the right ‘Alt’ key to ‘free’ your mouse! Do that before you get to the end of the install.

Then go to Machine > Reset and click Reset at the prompt. Next you’ll see the Chameleon loader , click inside the VM and hit and hit enter and then OS X will begin to boot.

After it boots you will see the setup screens for OS X! You’re good to go.

On a side note if you use NAT for networking you can control your Virtual Machines from any computer on your network or even remotely using a multitude of remote access solutions.