Unable to create BootCamp partition with Snow Leopard

Recently I was trying to install Windows on my Mac to run SolidWorks (yes, it's Windows Only). However, for some reason, Snow Leopard's bootcamp assistant refused to create a partition for me. It kept saying:

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.

Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.

I had created a Bootcamp partition once before with Leopard so I was puzzled when something Mac wasn't working! (Okay, no, Apple's computers are just as fallible as other computers). And there was no was I was going to go through formating the hard drive again, installing Windows would take long enough!

However, after trying several different things I was finally able to get Snow Leopard to partition the hard drive so that I could get Windows 7 to work. I'm not sure what worked, but I'm pretty sure that others are likely to have similar problems, which is why I took the time to write this post.

Step 1: Verify and Repair thy hard drive

First I put in my Snow Leopard DVD (this should also work for Tiger and Leopard) and pressed C on my Mac after restarting the computer to boot from my Snow Leopard DVD. After choosing English as my language:

• I clicked Utitilities in the menubar
  
• Clicked Disk Utility
• Selected my hard drive (Macintosh HD) in the drives list on the left hand side
• Clicked on the First Aid tab and clicked Verify Disk
• After it verified my disk I clicked Repair Disk

Disk utility then took the time to do some stuff and told me that it repaired some corrupt volume headers. And it also told me that the file count was wrong, and it repaired that as well. Then I restarted my comptuer normally into OS X, and tried BootCamp assistant again. Your quest to seek a Windows partition might here, if a mere repair disk was necessary. If not continue reading...

Step 2: Behold the power of fsck!

So after restarting into OS X, BootCamp assistant still didn't want to partition my hard drive so I tried fsck (a command-line utility to repair disks) to repair my disk drive which ultimately did the job!

If you want to read more about fsck and how to use it, you can try Apple's help page or just follow my (foot)steps. Here's what I did:

1. Restart the computer, and while it's restarting (before you get the Apple logo boot screen!) hold down "Command (or the Apple Key) and S" together to start up your computer in "single user mode"
2. Don't worry about the black text, you're computer is still ok
3. When OS X gives you a cursor and asks you what to do next, type in:
   

   /sbin/fsck -fy

4. Press enter
   
5. OS X will do its thing and tell you after it's done
6. Type in
   

   reboot

7. Press enter
   
8. Your computer will restart into OS X the normal way

Now try BootCamp again. This time BootCamp assistant should work, or at least it did for me! After looking around on a couple of forums, it seems that using a professional "disk defrag" tool for a Mac (yeah, defrag a mac!) seemed to have worked for a few people. But I personally like the free options ;).

Happy camping!

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Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook error

Although I'm not a big fan of e-mail clients, I did start using outlook recently because I could use it to sync calendar items with my phone (through Sony Ericsson's Sync Tool and sync to Google Calendar Online). However, it turns out that one fine day, Outlook refuses to open.

Here's an exact version of the error (Copied by pressing Control + Insert keys) I recieved when I tried to open Outlook:
---------------------------
Microsoft Office Outlook
---------------------------
Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. Errors have been detected in the file C:\Users\Rishi\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst. Quit Outlook and all mail-enabled applications, and then use the Inbox repair tool (Scanpst.exe) to diagnose and repair errors in the file. For more information about the Inbox repair tool, see Help.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

Turns out that the .PST file itself was corrupt, so Outlook had problems opening it. What I did to solve it was to close outlook, and simply delete the file. When outlook started up again, it seemed to work properly.  Of course, I did have to setup everything again, so I'd recommend deleting the PST file only if you don't mind doing this. Also, you'll probably loose all of your email address autofill data, so deleting the file is not always recommended.

Some other alternatives to this may be to use the Scanpst.exe tool, and see if that can help solve the problem.

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Adding a deskbar to Ubuntu 9.10's panel to search files and other things

Interestingly enough, my trusty deskbar applet seems to have gone missing in this latest flavour of Ubuntu 9.10 (aka Karmic Koala). Usually, you would be able to right click on the main panel (The bar on the top of the screen that has Application, Places and Systems and so on) and add the panel called "Deskbar" to your computer.

Why deskbar you ask? Because deskbar is to ubuntu as spotlight (or Windows Start menu search) is to Mac OS X (or Windows 7). It helps you quickly find the files that you need on your Ubuntu partition or your PC partition, and helps you do stuff like quick math, searching the dictionary and searching the Interwebs.

So anyway, turns out that you have to install deskbar manually on 9.10. To do so, open a terminal window and install it by hand.

1. Click Applications > Accessories > Terminal
2. Type in
   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install deskbar-applet

3. Type in your password if Ubuntu asks you for one
4. Restart gnome panel by typing in (note: typing in gnome-panel after the first line may not be necessary, as ubuntu is smart enough to restart it automatically!):
   
   
   

   killall gnome-panel
   gnome-panel

5. Then right click on the panel where you'd like deskbar, Click Add to Panel, drag and drop deskbar whever you like

Oh, and you might want to remember the handy shortcut Alt+F3 to access deskbar if you need to.

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Unable to find an application to support "mailto" navigation

While using Windows 7 (professional edition) I ran across this little bug that might cause you a lot of grief. The reason I ran across this bug was because I was trying to use Microsoft Groove to send "my contact info" via e-mail. However the error kept coming up whenever I tried to use the "mailto" link in groove.

I'm also assuming that this is the case for any mailto: link that might be in an address across the operating system. This error has most likely resulted because Microsoft decided to ship Windows 7 (which most people will be getting on October 22nd by the way) without a mail client. Therefore, Microsoft presumed that people will download Windows Live Mail or something else like Thunderbird for their e-mail needs.

In my opinion letting the users choose their desired mail program (instead of something like having Windows Mail in Vista and most people downloading Windows Live Mail because it was superior to Windows Mail anyway... causing a duplication of effort) is a good idea. But this also means that the operating system for some reason doesn't have a 'Default' mail program to go to in order to open mailto: links.

As such, to open mailto links, you'll first need to set Windows Live Mail or whatever else you plant to use as your default mail program.

How to set an application as the default mail program in Windows 7 (and solve the mailto problem)

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Default Programs
3. Click on 'Set program access and computer defaults'
   
4. Click on the chevron (arrows) beside "Custom"
5. Under "Choose a default e-mail program:" choose 'Windows Live Mail' or any other program you wish to use. If you don't have any other program under the options, you probably need to download and install one. I'd recommend you give Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird a try.
   
6. Click OK.
7. Close the window
8. Try clicking on the mailto link again.

This time it should work as it was supposed to!

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Open PDF files inside Firefox on Macs

One thing that I find annoying on a default Firefox installation is opening PDF files. Interestingly enough Safari seems to open them fine right inside the browser. However, Firefox by default requires you to download the PDF file first and then open it.

The downside to this of course is that if you need only simply "view" several files a day, each file you view adds to the clutter of the "download" folder on your computer. Of course, when you have a mix of necessary PDF downloads and unnecessary "temporary" downloads, the result is not optimal.

On the other hand, Firefox does have a plugin for Intel or PowerPC macs which will enable inline PDF viewing, a great tool if you view a lot of PDFs in a day. Simply go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7518 to install the plug-in for Firefox.

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Fix the “programs still need to close” problem in Windows 7

One sad thing about Windows 7 is that sometimes, it gets a little confused. Especially if you have applications like Norton or any similar anti-virus programs (which Windows 7 still needs by the way) installed.  And often, when you try to restart or shut down your progam, you’ll get a window that says:

Programs still need to close – Force Restart or Cancel

Of course, the easy way out of this would be just to click Force Restart all the time. Plus, if you see an open Microsoft Word document that you forgot to save, this screen will no doubt remind you of something you’d better save before restarting. But that won’t help when you don’t have any programs that you can save data in.
The ideal solution in such cases, in my opinion, would be to wait for a couple of seconds till the notorious programs close and then restart. But if you’re running something like Norton that doesn’t seem to be the case.

However, fear not! Because Windows 7 is still Windows, there are some great tricks were discovered 10 years ago, namely registry hacks, that can still be applied to Windows 7.
So without further ado:

How to automatically force restart your Windows 7 computer for a 1-click-quick-restart experience

Okay, yes, I really am that lazy. An extra click sucks. Nevertheless, it might save you time. So here’s how you can tweak your registry to force a restart as soon as possible. Essentially, what you need to do is set the ‘WaitToKillServicesTimeout’ parameter to a very low number so that the computer will kill (in terms of code execution of course) any open programs quickly and move on.

1. Log in with an administrator account
2. Click Start (blue windows orb)
3. Type in regedit where it says search in the start menu and click on it when it shown up in the start menu
4. Then, using the columns on the left hand side, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control
5. On the right hand side, double click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout
6. Type in 1000 (this will set the time to 1000 ms (which = 1s)) in the box that pops up, under ‘Value Data’
7. 
8. Click OK
9. Close Registry Editor
10. Restart your computer (note you might still get the force restart button this time, but you won’t ever get it after you restart).

Then, simply enjoy the faster restarts/shutdowns! But make sure you remember to save your work before you click on shutdown or restart!

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Snow Leopard - A highly uncritical review

The good news/features

Faster + More Space + 64 bit computing

Yup. Snow leopard is more faster and occupies less space. Plus it uses 64 bit computing. Enough said.

Little Things

Plus, I love the little things, like ability to resize icons, and to play movies and video files right form the icon. It's pretty handy, and makes Quicklook look a bit useless for media files (although it is a totally useful feature when it comes to documents).

I especially like how the circle around the play icon for music and video files indicates the information of how much music has already been played. It's great to be able to listen to music without even waiting for QuickTime to open.

I also like how QuickTime has a screen recording features. Read more about Quicktime in the "cons" section...

Plus, other changes like naming screenshots with the time and date (for example: "Screen shot 2009-08-31 at 12.51.52 AM.png") are also useful, instead of simply having a generic name like "Picture 1".

Apart from the other little changes, mentioned in various websites on the interwebs, the only other really noticeable change is most likely the wallpaper.

The bad news

Although the new release is great, there are a few bugs I discovered right off the bat. Perhaps they should have let me beta test it.

Notice anything wrong in the screenshot above? No, it's not that my desktop is empty (I did a clean install). Yes, the menubar looks a bit different. What are all my menubar icons doing in the middle of the screen? Shouldn't they be near the end of the screen?

How on earth did this happen you ask? Well, I guess I must qualify this "bug" (which didn't exist in the previous versions since Tiger by the way), by saying that I use 2 monitors. One 19 inch monitor in portrait mode (i.e 1280 x 1024 instead of 1024 x 1280) and the second is the MBP screen.

Turns out that if I unplug my DVI cable from the MBP, Snow Leopard will automatically recognize the change and move my main monitor (the one with the menubar and the dock) from the now disconnected 19" to the MBP screen, however the position of the menubar icons will still reflect the position they were in when they were on the portrait monitor.

Is this a big problem? Not really, but it certainly is a problem that didn't exist before. Perhaps I'm the only one experiencing it, but I don't think that a special case still justifies the bug.

Similarly, Quicktime has lost all it's previously touted features. Although it is easier, the ability to customize settings for the power user have been removed. However, it's not such a big deal since people can still download the older versions, and choose Quicktime 7 during the installation. Nevertheless, I still feel that there should have been a preferences menu at least, since I found it to be highly useful while using my laptop to give presentations.

Another thing that I've found to be interesting is the feature called "Put Back". It was available in previous versions of OS X, but disappeared for a while, and now it's back again. Essentially, it allows a user to right click a file in Trash and "put it back" to the location from which it was placed into the trash. A feature I'm sure Windows users are all to familiar with. However, the problem with this is that if you drag a file from a stack (say the download stack, which is conveniently located right beside trash) and drop it into trash... you won't be able to use the 'put back' feature! It only works when you drag something from Finder!

Apart from these three "bugs" Snow Leopard is great. I'd recommend it to anyone who is running Leopard.

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