Winclone: Backup your Boot Camp partition

Filed under: OS, Freeware

Now that many Intel Mac users have a Windows Boot Camp partition on their Macs, backing up or restoring that Boot Camp data becomes a bit challenging, as most backup utilities only copy the Mac partitions; if you want to create a bootable copy of your Windows installation it's even more difficult. That's where tools such as Winclone, or Mike Bombich's NetRestore, come in; they allow you to easily make a disk image of your Boot Camp partition, which you can then restore to a separate volume, save for archival purposes, etc.

Winclone can also be used to quickly deploy a Boot Camp image to a number of machines (e.g. in a lab). Mike reports that he recently used Winclone to successfully reimage the Windows side of 10 iMacs with only a few clicks, sending the image package and the install commands via Apple Remote Desktop. Comparing it to NetRestore, he likes Winclone better: "Using NetRestore requires a separate install of the ntfsprogs toolkit to add the NTFS restore tools. Winclone bundles the ntfsprogs tools and a Perl restore script in with the image, so it's portable -- just copy the image and run the script to restore the Windows boot environment."

Winclone is a free download from twocanoes software, and donations are requested. Macworld's Mac Gems blog has a thorough walkthrough of backup and restore of Boot Camp using Winclone.

[via Macworld]

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Talkcast #19: Introducing Cory

Filed under: Podcasts

As I mentioned in my Wiretap Studio review, it's possible to record only one side of a Skype call by mistake -- and I did it! Hence, the audio quality on this week's show is not what it should be; I had to fall back to the Talkshoe recording. :-( You can download the 55 minute, 32 MB show right here directly or stream it direct from Talkshoe.

Since some readers are still having difficulty with the RSS feed in Mail.app when we have a podcast enclosure, I'm leaving this show off the regular feed; however, you can subscribe to the Talkshoe feed in iTunes to keep up with the show. As soon as we have more traction on the Mail vs. enclosures issue, I'll advise.

Join us again Sunday night at 10 for a casual pre-holiday show, when we'll ask you what kind of Apple gifts you're hoping for under the tree. If you want to download some of my other appearances in audio form, the recording of my stint on the Typical Mac User podcast is also online, and if you're a Coverville listener you might catch a familiar voice introducing song #34 in the annual countdown. See you Sunday night!

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Ask TUAW: Drag and drop images, Front Row skipping, Leopard SMS and more

Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

In this round of Ask TUAW we'll tackle questions on dragging and dropping images from Safari, skipping in Front Row, using an iPod to move files from OS X to Windows, sending SMSs from the Leopard Address Book and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. And now to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Drag and drop images, Front Row skipping, Leopard SMS and more

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1Password beta is Firefox 3-ready & 40% off today

Filed under: Software, Beta Beat

If you're looking to add one more gift to the switcher-pile for tomorrow, a license for the indispensable browser credentials manager 1Password might be just the thing. MacZot and Agile are offering a 40% off deal on 1Password today ($29.95); along with the license you'll get access to the prerelease my1Password site, which provides anywhere/anytime access to your 1Password confidential store.

Meanwhile, if you're already a 1Password owner but you're bemoaning the lack of a compatible version for the Firefox 3 beta, check out the Agile blog -- the 2.5.8 beta of 1Password is available and will work with Firefox 3 today. What could be merrier?

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Windows Binary iPhone Toolchain Installer Released

Filed under: Developer, iPhone

If you work under Windows and have been waiting for a pre-built compiler chain to debut, your ship just came in. Over at the iPhoneGameOver Wiki, David Supuran has put together a binary installer plus installation instructions.

To make this all happen, you will need a jailbroken iPhone (so you can get at and copy the file system) and a free Apple Online Developer account (so you can download certain sdk files). The development environment appears to run via the Cygwin Bash shell, so some level of Unix experience seems to be a prerequisite as well.

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BetterZip is a better zip

Filed under: Software, Leopard, Deals

With zip support built into OS X a third-party compression utility has to bring something special to the table, and BetterZip does. Basically it allows you to open and inspect archives without expanding the whole thing first. This can be useful if you only want a few of the files that are compressed within an archive. It also does compression naturally, including encryption, splitting large archives, and stripping out Mac specific hidden files to make archives more cross-platform..

BetterZip supports a bunch of formats which should cover just about anything you'll run into on the net: ZIP, SIT, TAR, GZip, BZip2, RAR, 7-Zip, CPIO, ARJ, LZH/LHA, JAR, WAR, CAB, ISO, CHM, RPM, DEB, NSIS, BIN, HQX, DD. Finally, the developer has also put together a great Quick Look plugin that supports most of the same formats.

BetterZip is normally $19.95 and a demo is available but as it happens it's on sale at MacUpdate Promo until Monday evening for half-off ($9.95)

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PSX emulator goes public, runs 3D on the iPhone surprisingly well

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Multimedia, Apple, iPhone

This is why I'm looking forward to 2008 more than anything else-- MacNN reports that psx4iphone, the Playstation (PS1 or PSX) emulator for the iPhone has now gone public. The files are available for download, and we're told that the emulator should be available on Installer.app soon (if not already-- this news dropped over the weekend).

There's no official word about playability (as you can tell from the video above, it is running, but not in a state where you could actually play it), but work is still being done. What this does tell us, fortunately, is that it's possible to run 3D on the iPhone. And as MacNN says, that means there are big things ahead when the official SDK drops in February. Of course, we still don't know what the dev kit will be made of (and who will get to use it), but if this is what can be done unofficially, I can't wait to see what will be done with an official SDK.

[Via MacNN]

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