I have been trying for a long time to find a way to image Macs from our WDS server to no avail…Macs don’t have PXE boot!  WDS has had a feature to allow you to create a “Discover” image and a resulting disc to boot from.  However, typically when just using the GUI to create this disc, it boots up with a command prompt window, runs winpeinit and then that’s it.  After some deep searching, I found a blog with accurate instructions for how to actually create a disc that will not only boot up to winPE but also launch straight into the WDS deploy on a given server.  It does require command line but the latest WAIK has some very verbose and useful tools, making it not too hard even for a WDS novice.

Thanks to David Bolton’s blog: http://www.davidbolton.com/?p=24

I also had to extract the network drivers from the Snow Leopard bootcamp disc but for general purposes, adding all of the drivers from the latest LAN Driver Pack to the disc image will make sure to cover a wide variety of machines.  Check out my previous post for the easiest way to add these via command line!

I have been doing a lot of work lately on deployments of Windows 7 (Yes, companies are jumping on board already since they sat on their hands during the Vista years).  Some of the new features of Windows Deployment Services in Server 2008 R2 are really nice, especially the driver package management.  However, it is somewhat limited in flexibility as the drivers can only be applied to deployed images based on a few very inflexible filters.  If there are some drivers that you want to apply directly to an image, you have to resort to the command line.  In my case, I was actually creating a WDS boot CD (which is not as easy as Microsoft’s directions) using the directions here: http://www.davidbolton.com/?p=24 .

The problem comes in with the Windows 7 Automate Installation Kit because some of the commands I was familiar with have been done away with.  This is not to say is is less feature packed, instead the peimg command has been rolled in with a few others under dism.  Here is how you can use dism even more powerfully than peimg.

As you can see, DISM has a number of options when it comes to making changes to images either in offline file-structure format or mounted (online) .wim files.  The option we want to focus on here is the /Add-driver switch.  The nice thing about DISM is that at any point in making a command, you can put a /? switch after what you have and it will tell you what further options you have at this point and even gives some examples.

You will notice that doing a /add-driver /driver:c:\whatever /recurse will search a given directory for drivers and add all of them, recursing through any sub directories.  This is useful for a situation where you have a driver installer that you unzipped instead of installing and you want to add all of the different drivers for different architectures or OS versions to an image.  The resulting DISM command then looks like this:

dism /image:f:\winpe /add-driver /driver:f:\drivers\LAN /recurse

That’s all there is to it!  Then you just follow how to commit the changes to the image you were working on.

Madrid, Spain

Barcelona, Spain

Dublin, Ireland

Kinsale, Ireland

Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

Authorities hassle a man who is a Iraq vet flying his flag upside down in Wisconsin
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/11-0

Global warming may not be hitting the US as hard as other parts of the world…
India: monsoon is late and water supply is severely limited and fights break out over water rations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/12/india-water-supply-bhopal

An interview with Stephen Hawking on possible reasons we have not yet encountered life in the galaxy.  Definitely some interesting ideas, but I would most agree with his assertion we are not yet advanced enough to understand or encounter the other life out there.  Or, civilizations advance but destroy themselves before they can truly evolve into a space-faring race.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/-stephen-hawking-why-is-the-milky-way-not-crawling-with-selfdesigning-mechanical-or-biological-life.html

Another strong earthquake in China: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090709/ap_on_re_as/as_china_earthquake

Ireland’s hypersensitivity to religious criticism made law by new Blasphemy law.  Absolutely outrageous, not only can it get you fined or imprisoned, the police reserve the right to confiscate books and search your house! http://www.palibandaily.com/2009/07/09/ireland-makes-blasphemy-illegal/

Muslims in China’s Xinjiang meet for prayer of peace after the weekend’s riots and deaths following a rampage of Chinese natives: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/11/content_11689293.htm

AIG plans to pay out millions more in executive bonuses next week, land in the crosshairs again.  When is any criminal action going to be taken against these banks and insurers?
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/10/news/companies/aig_bonuses/?postversion=2009071011
Thanks to No Agenda, Huffington Post, and  Reddit!

Yes, this phone is not exactly new; I’ve had it the past year.

In that time, while it has not been as frustrating as the two Moto Q’s I went through, it certainly hasn’t been a fun trip.  At this point, it is nicely functional but I basically use it to call, text, check the web for the next approaching buses, and use Google maps.  I’m on Sprint so fortunately, I have the more powerful version of the Touch.  Full specs and features can be found here.  Don’t get me wrong, the hardware itself is actually pretty nice,  it feels good in the hand and is quite capable.  The real problem here is Windows Mobile itself.  After using the smartphone version of WM on my Moto Q, I realized the Professional (touch screen) version was the only version worth having because smartphone was pretty restricted in terms of apps and the control you have over them.  It was definitely an improvement and opened up the use of a lot more apps to me, but it is still the same OS with its inherent slowdowns, lagginess, and outdated UI.

What it does well is everything you’d expect from a WM phone, especially if you’re a corporate customer.  Yet, at the same time, it may drive you crazy to use the onscreen keyboard, which uses a Blackberry Pearl style two letters per key qwerty layout.  I installed the best full qwerty that is available for free, but typing is often frustrating because it’s so small and a resistive touchscreen (responds to pressure).  Finger typing on the iPhone can be frustrating too, but having an iPod touch as well, I can assure you, the Touch is a whole different beast in terms of frustration.

The phone is very prone to dropping.  I haven’t ever dropped a phone as many times as I have the Touch.  It’s so rounded like a pebble that it’s really easy to lose your grip, at which point, it drops, the back and battery explode out.  As a result, its mediocre camera has been rendered not very useful with a few lines on pictures due to damaged sensor pixels.

There is a very large developer community for the Touch, the best of which can be found at www.xda-developers.com and www.ppcgeeks.com.   There are many good apps to install and I would definitely recommend flashing your default Sprint ROM to one that’s a lot more customized.  The home screen with the flip clock at the top is called M2D which is a developer driven knock off of the M3D interface on newer HTC phones.  It works quite well when integrated properly and although I’m not totally happy with some of how it works, it gets the job done.

Battery life is a contentious issue for me.  On the whole, I can get through about a day and a half to two days without charging.  However, occasionally it’ll start draining in a day or less and keep doing this for a few days, even after rebooting the phone, there is no clear source of the problem.

It was definitely good to move from WM Smartphone over to the Professional edition, but at the cost of a real keyboard.  However, as the experience wears on, the same problems that plague WM keep popping up.  I have little hope for it until version 7 which will not be out for a year or two.  The promised 6.5 version for later this year appears to merely dress up the same old terrible UI and lagginess that plagues this platform.  As my Sprint contract is about to expire, I will either get a new phone on Sprint or switch to an iPhone.  I really like the looks of the Palm Pre, so if it is compatible with my plan, I’ll be jumping to that.  No more Windows Mobile for me.