How to dual boot your Mac OSX with Windows OS

You can have both a Mac and a PC on a single computer, using Apple's new Boot Camp software. Boot Camp lets you install Windows on your Mac in addition to Mac OS X. With Boot Camp set up, when you start your Mac, you can choose whether to use OS X or Windows. Boot Camp is a great way to consolidate the computers in your life and to run essential Windows programs that aren't available on the Mac. Here's how to set up Boot Camp to get a Mac and PC all rolled into one.

Note: Setting up Boot Camp is not a trivial task because it involves repartitioning your Mac's hard drive and installing another operating system and drivers. Block out a couple of hours for this project.

What You Need

Getting Boot Camp and Windows up and running on your Mac requires specific hardware and software. Here's what you need:

• An Intel-based Mac running OS 10.5 (Leopard) with all software updates installed.
• At least 10GB of free space on your Mac's hard drive.
• A working printer connected to your Mac (with plenty of ink and paper!).
• A genuine Windows XP installation disk, which includes Service Pack 2. (Important: You cannot install XP using a disk that does not include SP2 and expect to download it after the fact. If you have an old XP CD without SP2, here's more on how to add SP2 to your older Windows XP installation disk.)
  
  OR
  
  A genuine Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate installation disk (32-bit version only.)

Set Up Boot Camp

Before you get started, free up as much space on your Mac's hard drive as possible. (Here's more on how to identify and cut back disk space hogs.) Then back up all your important data, just in case. Do not skip this step! Finally, log on to your Mac as an administrative user (and log off any other users), quit all running applications, and if you're using a portable Mac, make sure it's plugged into a power source. Got all that? Great. Now it's time to get Boot Camp going.

Step 1: Launch the Boot Camp Assistant

The Boot Camp Assistant is a step-by-step wizard, located in /Applications/Utilities/, but it can help you only as long as you're in Mac OS X, which you are not throughout this entire process.  Experienced users may be annoyed by this seemingly unnecessary step, but because you'll be rebooting your system and making major changes, a paper copy of the guide is a comforting help along the way when the on-screen Assistant isn't available.

In fact, Apple's user guide printout is more complete than any instructions I could include here, so rather than repeat the instructions it already contains, I offer additional information not included in the official instructions.

Step 2: Partition Your Mac's Hard Drive

After you've told the Boot Camp Assistant that you want to set up Windows on your Mac, you come to the scary (and fun!) part: splitting your Mac's hard drive into pieces and setting Windows to install on one of those partitions. The Assistant will show you a map of your Mac's hard drive. Click the divider to drag it and set the size of your Windows partition (which will take space away from the Mac partition). Alternatively, using the buttons, you can split the drive equally, or use exactly 32GB for Windows, as shown.

What size should your Windows partition be? Good question. This decision is difficult to undo later, so do consider a couple of questions before you decide:

• What will you use Windows to do and how much how much hard drive space will that take up?
• If you're using Windows just to play PC games, for example, you won't need much space (10-20GB will do.) But if you want to manage your photo library in Windows (which I do, with Picasa, because I prefer it over iPhoto), you'll need enough space to accommodate all your photos. It's impossible to know in advance exactly how much space you'll need, but guesstimate as best as you can. Also, keep in mind that you can attach external drives to add space in Windows. But remember: Files stored in the Mac OS cannot be accessed from within Windows, so make sure you have enough space for all the programs and files you'll want in Windows.
• What format will the Windows partition be, FAT or NTFS?
  
  If your Windows partition is larger than 32GB, you will have to format it as NTFS, not FAT. Mac OS X cannot write to NTFS-formatted drives, but it can write to FAT drives. That means that a Windows partition greater than 32GB will be read-only in Mac OS. In general, FAT is considered less reliable than NTFS. (Windows Vista uses only NTFS, so the 32GB threshold isn't a factor if you're installing Vista.)

After you've chosen how to split your hard drive between Mac and Windows, click the Partition button.

Step 3: Start the Windows Installation

With your partition created, insert your Windows installation disk and click the Start Installation button in the Boot Camp Assistant. Your Mac will reboot from the Windows installation disk and begin working. Two things to know when you're installing Windows:

• When it comes time to select the partition to format, be absolutely sure to choose the partition labeled C:Partition3 . Vista will list it as Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP. One false move here and you could wipe out your entire Mac, so choose carefully.
• If your partition is less than 32GB and you're installing Windows XP, you'll have a choice between the NTFS or FAT Windows format. NTFS is recommended, although FAT is okay, too. Whatever you do, don't select Leave The Current File System Intact—make sure you format the partition to NTFS or FAT.

Complete the rest of the Windows XP installation per the installation disk's instructions.

Step 4. Install the Windows Drivers for Your Mac's Hardware

After you're completely booted into your new Windows installation, eject the installation disk and insert your Mac OS 10.5 installation CD. Let Autorun launch Setup.exe, and follow the on-screen instructions. When the drivers are installed, Windows will recognize your Mac's devices (such as the Bluetooth receiver, video adapter, iSight camera, and wireless receiver.) If you receive a message saying that the software hasn't passed Windows testing, click the Continue Anyway button. You'll have to reboot to finish this installation. Then you're done!

You Choose

Now you have the choice to start either Mac OS X or Windows on your Mac. To make that choice when you turn on your computer, hold down the Option key and you'll see the two partitions you set up, as shown. Click the one that has the operating system you want to use.

Alternatively, if the computer is already running, use the Boot Camp software to restart in a particular operating system. In Windows XP, click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray, and in the Startup Disk tab, select Macintosh HD or Windows and click the Restart button to move into that operating system, as shown.

While you're in OS X, you can do the same thing by going into System Preferences and choosing Startup Disk.

Using a Mac Keyboard in Windows

When you first start using Windows on your Mac, one of the first things you'll notice is that the Mac keyboard is different from Windows keyboards. It has a Command key but no Windows key; on MacBooks and iBooks, the keyboard has a Delete key but no Backspace key; it also has no Print Screen Key. The Boot Camp user guide you printed includes a complete table of Mac keyboard Windows action mappings, but the most important ones to know are the following:

• The Option key is the Windows Alt key.
• The Command key is the Windows key.
• The Delete key is the equivalent of Backspace. To forward delete with it on built-in Apple keyboards (on your Mac notebook), use Fn-Delete. (External Apple keyboards have a forward Delete key.)
• The Windows Print Screen key is F14 on an external Apple keyboard.

 

Dual booting your Windows 7 with Windows XP

So you got your shiny new pre-installed Windows 7 computer over the holidays, but you want to have trusty XP standing by in a dual boot setup. Today we’ll walk through creating a new partition in Windows 7 then installing XP on it.
In this process we are going to shrink some free space on the Windows 7 hard drive to allocate toward a new partition. Make sure to take a moment and decide how much space to use for the XP partition. Make sure you have enough space on your hard drive for files you’ll be adding to each.
Create a New Partition
The first thing we need to do is create a new partition on the Windows 7 machine. Luckily we can do it without any 3rd party software. To begin, click on Start and type either partition or disk management into the search box and at the top of the menu click on Create and format hard disk partitions.

The Disk Management window opens, and from here we need to free up space on the (C:) drive Windows 7 is installed on. Right-click on the drive and select Shrink Volume.

A window pops up showing the drive is being queried for available space.

Now enter the amount of space you want to shrink the volume. You’re shown the total size of the disk and the amount of size that is available to shrink. In this example we’re freeing up 40GB of space.

After the process completes you’ll see the new Unallocated space. Right-click that and select New Simple Volume.

The New Simple Volume Wizard launches which is a straight forward process. When you get to the Format Partition section, NTFS is selected by default as the file system and you can leave that as is. You might want to rename the Volume label something else like “XP Partition” so it’s easier to identify when installing XP. Also you’ll probably want to make sure to check Perform a Quick Format.

After the format is complete you will see the new volume as a healthy partition listed.

Now when you go into My Computer you’ll see the the new disk and notice that space has been taken away from the (C:) drive Windows 7 is installed on.

Install XP on the New Partition
Now that you know how to create a new partition on your Windows 7 machine, it’s time to install XP on it. Here we’re installing XP Professional on the new partition. Boot from the XP installation disk and start the install process.

When it comes to choosing a partition, make sure you select the one you created using the steps above. In this example we made a 10GB partition for the XP install.

If the partition you created was already formatted as NTFS you can leave it, or you can choose the FAT file system if you want. 

Basically you continue through as if you were doing a clean install on any hard drive.

Create Boot Loader
Once installation of XP is successful you can now go through and install the latest Microsoft Updates and drivers. You will undoubtedly notice that the machine is booting directly into XP at this time. This is due to XP writing it’s bootloader over Windows 7’s. To get both XP and Windows 7 as an option at the boot screen you can use the free utility EasyBCD 1.72 or their new 2.0 Beta.



After getting the bootloader back you should see both XP and Windows 7 as options in the Windows Boot Manager.

Conclusion
To download the EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, you’ll need to register with the NeoSmart Technologies Forum first. If you’re hesitant to try out Beta software, EasyBCD 1.7.2 is also free and will still work as well.  Of course there are other ways of creating a dual boot system, but this is the method I have been using and it’s simple and effective.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4

Back in October of 2012, Apple threw the tech world for a loop by announcing the iPad 4. This was at the event where everyone was expecting the iPad mini, and the Cupertino firm made good on those rumors, but no one expected a successor to the iPad 3 so soon.
Yes, the poor iPad 3 was less than a year old when its was pushed from the spotlight. To add further insult to injury, Apple refers to the iPad 4 as iPad with Retina display, even though the iPad 3 was the first tablet with the signature high-density display.
The iPad 3 is now gone from Apple shelves and assembly lines. It's only available as a refurbished product when buying directly from Apple. The iPad 2, however, is still sold new, and serves as Apple's budget tablet offering.
But enough about confusing marketing practices, what are the actual differences between the two iPads? Is it worth plunking down the extra cash for the iPad with Retina aka iPad 4? Or should you save a little money and grab a (gently) used iPad 3? Let us break it down so you can decide just how broke you're going to go.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Screen

Both the iPad 3 and the iPad 4 come with Apple's Retina display. They both have a pixel density of 264ppi (pixels per inch). Not too shabby, but it's actually outdone by the iPhone 5, which is 326ppi. We think if Apple can make a 4-inch screen than dense, then an iPad mini 2 with Retina should be a given.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Camera

Apple might not have upgraded the screen, but it did upgrade the front-facing camera. The iPad 3 came with a 0.3MP standard definition offering, whereas the iPad 4 makes full use of the Retina display for video chatting with a 1.2MP HD camera.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Processor

Gearing up from the iPad 2, the iPad 3 comes rocking a dual core A5X processor, with a quad core GPU. However, the iPad 4 packs Apple's latest A6X processor, which Apple says "doubles the performance of CPU tasks."

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Battery

The iPad 4 comes with a battery that lasts up to 10 hours, but so does the iPad 3. Don't think that this is a bad thing though, we noted in our iPad 3 review that despite the high-resolution retina display, the battery life was "more than acceptable."

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: OS

Apple's latest operating system, iOS 6, was recently launched alongside the iPhone 5, so unsurprisingly it's also featured on the iPad 4. The iPad 3 launched with iOS 5.1 but is upgradable to iOS 6.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Connectivity

The big difference between the two iPad generations lies within their connectivity options. The most obvious of these is the new 8-pin Lightning dock, first announced on the iPhone 5.

Old and new, left to right

This is 80 percent smaller and more durable than Apple's original 30-pin offering.
The other major difference is that the iPad 4 (Wi-Fi + Cellular version) comes LTE enabled. The iPad 3 did come enabled with 4G, however, it couldn't be used in the U.K. But, with the introduction of the iPad 4 Brits can also enjoy super fast mobile internet when they're out and about.

iPad 3 vs iPad 4: Price

With the announcement of the iPad 4, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the iPad 3 would be made cheaper. Apple has different ideas, with the plan seeming to be to phase out the 3rd gen iPad.
The iPad 4 debuted at the same price of the iPad 3, with the Wi-Fi only tablets coming in at £399($499, AU$539) £479($599, AU$649) and £559($699, AU$759) for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB respectively. The Wi-Fi + Cellular versions cost a bit more, at £499($629, AU$679), £579($729, AU$789) and £659($829, AU$899) for the three storage options.
As mentioned, the iPad 3 is no longer in production, but Apple and other retailers are still clearing out an inventory of refurbished models. Savings compared to a new iPad 4 is about 15-18 percent.
For the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models, you'll spend £249($US379, AU$419) £309($469, AU$509), and £369($549, AU$539). For the Wi-Fi + Cellular versions it'll cost you £415.00($509, AU $499) £469 ($599, AU$589) £539.00($679, $669).
Since there won't be anymore, stock on the iPad 3 is limited. Honestly though, given the small price difference, you're better off buying the newer, more future price device, unless you're looking for a collector's item.

Paint that generates electricity

The paint on your wall could soon power your home by generating electricity from sunlight. Interestingly, it could even change colour on request if you find it tiring to stare at the same shade.

British scientists have found that combining the wonder material 'graphene' with other stunning one-atom thick materials could create the next generation of solar cells and optoelectronic devices. The breakthrough, published in the journal Science on Friday, could lead to electric energy that runs entire buildings by sunlight absorbed by its exposed walls.

The energy can also be used at will to change the transparency and reflectivity of fixtures and windows depending on environmental conditions, such as temperature and brightness. The isolation of grapheme led to the discovery of new family of one-atom-thick materials.

Bye Bye hair dyes!!

Using hair dyes may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists have for the first time reversed premature greying of hair. British and German scientists have created a new compound that reverses oxidative stress, thus curing loss of hair or skin colour.

The researchers found that people who are going grey develop massive oxidative stress via accumulation of hydrogen peroxide in the hair follicles, which causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.

The research now shows that this massive accumulation of hydrogen peroxide can be cured with a treatment developed by the researchers described as a topical UVBactivated compound called PC-KUS (a modified pseudocatalase).

The study also shows that the same treatment works for the skin condition vitiligo-a disease that causes skin depigmentation to almost 65 million people globally. Treatment options for vitiligo are presently limited.

Current options include phototherapy, which needs to be administered for three days every week for three years to achieve even partial pigmentation-that too in only 30% of the patients.

"To treat vitiligo, we analyzed an international group of 2,411 patients with vitiligo," said Karin Schallreuter, author of the study from the Institute for Pigmentary Disorders . Of that group, 57 or 2.4% were diagnosed with strictly segmental vitiligo (SSV), and 76 or 3.2% were diagnosed with mixed vitiligo.

Scientists found for the first time that patients who have SSV within a certain nerval distribution involving skin and eyelashes show the same oxidative stress as observed in the much more frequent general vitiligo.

Predicting Robot being developed

Indian-origin researchers have developed a new 'smart' robot that can predict human actions with surprising accuracy. The robot can refill your coffee cup and hold the door open for you, in addition to performing several other tasks.
The robot developed at the The Personal Robotics Lab at Cornell University, has learned to foresee human action and adjust accordingly.
The robot was programmed to refill a person's cup when it was nearly empty. But when the robot sees the human reaching for the cup, it can anticipate the human action on its own and avoid making a mistake.
From a database of 120 3D videos of people performing common household activities, the robot has been trained to identify human activities by tracking the movements of the body.
Observing a new scene with its 3D camera, the robot identifies the activities it sees, considers what uses are possible with the objects in the scene and how those uses fit with the activities.

Best smartphone ever

In the year 2013, few things are as hyped as a new premium smartphone. There were adverts for the Sony Xperia Z all over the national press, technology journalists (ourselves included) are falling over themselves to pick up on any rumours about the Samsung Galaxy S4 and even staid, businesslike BlackBerry hired Alicia Keys to be its Creative Director. By contrast, HTC has been relatively quiet about the new HTC One.

There was a launch press conference in London but, acrobats aside, there were few gimmicks. Make no mistake, though; this is the big one. HTC has fallen far behind Apple and Samsung in sales, and it hopes this is the top-end phone to revive its fortunes.
First impressions, thankfully, are great. The One is a gorgeous phone, and we think it wipes the floor with the Sony Xperia Z. The combination of metal rear, bevelled metal edges and edge-to-edge screen are class itself, and make the Xperia Z feel square and tacky, despite its glass rear. The HTC One's curved back also makes it comfortable to hold - a minor downside is that it's tricky to type when it’s lying flat on a desk.

The metal-backed HTC One is a thing of beauty, and even out-classes the Sony Xperia Z's glass chassis
We were also seriously impressed with the screen. It's a 4.7in model with a Full HD 1,920x1,080 resolution, leading to a huge pixel density figure of 468ppi. When compared side-by-side with the Xperia Z's display, we preferred the HTC One's screen, thanks to its superb contrast. It has incredibly deep blacks (for an LCD at least), and our test photos showed rich, vibrant colours and plenty of shadow detail.
The Xperia Z had the advantage when it came to looking at web pages, however; its slightly larger 5in display meant text was ever-so-slightly larger and easier to read when web pages were fully zoomed out, helped by brilliant white backgrounds, compared to the very slight grey tinge on the HTC One.

Last year it was 720p, now Full HD 1080p screens are becoming the norm on top-end smartphones
The HTC One wins out when it comes to web browsing performance. It has a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, and completed our Sunspider JavaScript benchmark in a super-fast 1,123ms. This is far faster than the 1,890ms we saw from the Xperia Z, but we think much of this is down to the speed of the Xperia Z's browser. For comparison, we ran the same test using the fast Dolphin browser, and the HTC One remained ahead of the Xperia Z with a score of 1,120ms compared to 1,357ms.
This difference was borne out in our subjective web browsing tests. Both phones rendered graphics heavy web pages at a similar speed, but when zoomed in and panning around a web page, the Xperia Z would stutter when coming across a large image – a problem we didn’t have with the HTC One.
Luckily, HTC has provided a huge 2,300mAh battery to power the fast processor and bright screen. The handset managed 8h 32m in our continuous video playback test, which is a strong result and bodes well for all-day battery life.

SENSE 5.0

An Android smartphone can be beautifully designed and have an amazing screen and top-notch chipset, but none of this will make any difference if the software is rubbish. HTC sails closer to the wind than most on this front, as it heavily customises Android with its latest Sense interface.
Sense has always divided opinion, but this time HTC has really pushed the boat out. Running on top of Android 4.1.2 is Sense 5.0, and with it comes the end of the traditional Android homescreen, with its mix of widgets and icons.
Instead, you get what HTC calls BlinkFeed. This consists of a rolling grid of tiles, containing information aggregated from various news websites and your social media feeds. You can add all the major social media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr, but the choice of news websites is quite narrow; you get the Guardian, the Independent and Reuters for news, and CNET and TechCrunch for technology. For those used to getting their content from a wide variety of sources the BlinkFeed selection will seem very narrow.

BlinkFeed replaces the standard Android homescreen, and shows you news feeds and social networks in chronological order
It looks like the BlinkFeed needs to be specifically supported by the corresponding news outlet or website, so it remains to be seen whether overstretched publishers will be keen to support yet another platform. We found BlinkFeed more useful for keeping an eye on our Twitter and Facebook feeds, though, and often used Twitter links to find news stories anyway.
BlinkFeed is a clever idea which is in tune with how many people actually use their smartphones; to keep an eye on what's happening in the world and among people they know. Of course, if you prefer to use your Android smartphone to check your calendar widget at a glance on your homescreen before opening your email, you will most likely hate it.

The app tray is a smooth-scrolling lovely bit of design
The standard Android homescreen isn't completely dead and gone, though. Swiping right from the BlinkFeed takes you to a standard Android homescreen with space for the usual apps and widgets, and you can add up to three more screens if you need more room.
Most importantly, you can set a standard Android home screen as your default screen (the one that appears when you unlock the handset). BlinkFeed is still there, sitting to the left of the default screen, while your other home screens are off to the right.
Meanwhile, pressing the icon in the middle of the shortcut bar at the bottom of the screen takes you to the app tray, which is rather lovingly designed; we like the way it scrolls smoothly through pages of icons rather than continuously, as this makes it easier to keep track of where you are.

MUSO CORNER

HTC has made a big deal about music playback ever since it first stuck a Beats by Dr. Dre logo on one of its phones, and the One is no exception. It has what HTC calls BoomSound – a pair of stereo speakers at the top and bottom of the phone - or left and right when watching video in landscape orientation.
Amazingly, these speakers sound reasonably good. It's the best sound quality we've ever heard from a phone, but the bar is set pretty low. The speakers are loud and produce audio with some definition, but the sound is certainly harsh with a definite high-end emphasis, but that's to be expected from speakers this size. We're also not convinced that putting loud speakers in a phone is a great idea, as most bus journeys we take are hellish enough as it is.
The One also has built-in twin microphones, which HTC says are designed for recording gigs. We didn't have any upcoming gigs during our time with the phone, so we decided to simulate one instead. We played back a Crowded House gig from YouTube on our PC with our speakers turned up high, and recorded the result on the HTC One.

ULTRAPIXELS ARE THE NEW MEGAPIXELS

As if replacing the Android homescreen wasn't radical enough, HTC has also gone against popular convention with the One's camera. Instead of racing to fit as many megapixels as possible on a tiny sensor, which is normally a recipe for huge amounts of noise, HTC has made a sensor using what it calls Ultrapixels. These are larger-than-average pixels, which means that instead of having 12 or more megapixels on a small sensor, the HTC One only has four megapixels.
This should mean that there's less interference as light hitting one of the sensor's pixels scatters onto those around it, which is a key contributor to noise in digital images. HTC also claims the camera lets in 300% more light than a standard smartphone model; we're not sure how the company came to that figure, but the 1/3in sensor, F2.0 lens and optical image stabilisation all bode well.

Shake-free indoor shots with little noise indoors from the HTC One - click to enlarge

The Xperia Z can't manage the same level of detail, but colours are marginally more accurate
We were impressed with the HTC One's indoor shots. We saw camera-shake free images under poor indoor lighting, with little visible noise or noise reduction. However, we did find colours rather muted. The Sony Xperia Z's camera captured shots with more vibrant colours, but they didn't have the same level of detail as those from the HTC One.
The phone also picked up a large amount of detail in very dark conditions - far more than the Xperia Z could manage. There was one problem; a light source in our test scene caused artefacts elsewhere in the image, which is a problem we've also seen on the iPhone 5. We suspect this is due to internal reflections in the camera's lens.


Under very low light, the HTC One (top) picks up an impressive amount of detail compared to the Sony Xperia Z (bottom). However, artefacts are visible to the right of the monkey's ear
When we went outside, the One's camera was again impressive in some ways and less so in others. The camera captured plenty of detail in the medium distance, and shots were much sharper than on the Sony Xperia Z. However, once again we found the One's colours to be rather muted, and shots from the Xperia Z were both more vibrant and with more true-to-life colours.

The HTC One (left) produces sharper photos, but the Sony Xperia Z (right) has more accurate colours
However, when taking shots outdoors we noticed the limitations of the HTC One's low megapixel count. Photos were fine at short and medium distances, but detail tails off significantly in the distance, leading to smudgy details and pixilation.

Pixilation is evident in the HTC One's shots (left) when you zoom in, showing the limitations of its 4-megapixel sensor
Like all smartphone cameras, then, the HTC One's model is a compromise. If you mainly use your phone for taking indoor shots of friends and family, you'll definitely appreciate the impressive low-light performance. It's also fine for outdoor snaps, but if you like your smartphone to be a replacement for a compact camera for holiday snaps, you're better off with choosing one with a higher-resolution sensor such as the Sony Xperia Z, or even maybe the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4.

VERDICT

HTC has pulled off a blinder with the HTC One. It’s a gorgeous phone with a beautiful screen, and we think it's a more desirable handset than the Sony Xperia Z.
Given you can move BlinkFeed out of view, the HTC should appeal to everyone. It will be especially tempting to those who crave the low-light capabilities of its camera. Its metal chassis is also a big selling point - and one, based on past models, that is unlikely to appear on the Samsung Galaxy S4.
Most will be tempted to see that handset before making a choice, but with the HTC One, HTC has a huge contender for handset of the year. It's an amazing phone and deservedly wins our Ultimate award.