Odds and Ends
I’ve been somewhat consumed with rebuilds of several systems at home. Through this arduous process I’ve come across four utilities/resources that I’ve found helpful that I wasn’t previously aware of. If your trade involves working with computers and lab systems, these just might help you out.
Mounting ISOs
One thing I love about VMware is that it is super easy to mount ISO files. I wish that functionality was native to Windows. In the past I had used the Windows Virtual CD Control Panel to provide this functionality but felt it lacking.
Then I found Virtual CloneDrive from Slysoft. This is a free utility that gives your right-click functionality to mount any ISO on your system. It’s free, a simple install, and effortless to use. A must have for the SE tool bag.
Booting Up
I don’t know about you but I’ve always been surprised at how difficult it can be to acquire basic hardware functionality in a pre-OS (boot up) environment. I’ve got two winners here.
Ultimate Boot CD
If you’ve ever been a sysadmin I’m sure you had your own special concoction of special boot CD. The folks at Ultimate Boot CD have done all the heavy lifting for you. Just download and burn their software to a CD and you have most every utility you could need. Very handy!
Boot from USB
If booting from a CD/DVD-ROM is too much of a hassle or not available, most BIOS allow you to boot directly from an attached USB (thumb) drive. This gives you the added benefit of being able to make changes on the fly to your boot disk without having to physically burn new media. Here is a pretty complete resource from BootDisk.com.
Expanding a VMware Hard Drive
If you use VMware a lot to create and manage your software demo library, you’ve no doubt run into instances where the base image you’re using simply doesn’t have enough space to run the latest and greatest version of software you’re selling. Since it’s a pain to recreate a new gold base image you’d rather just expand what you have. No longer to you have to go through this old methodical process. Now you can use VMware Converter to do it for you through the UI. Very slick! (why this isn’t standard in Workstation I don’t know, AHEM!)
Enjoy. Hopefully at least one of these prevents a little more gray hair for you.
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Filed under: Utilities
