GBB #69: Using PHP from the command line for fun and Profit!

Geek Brown Bag #69: Using PHP from the command line for fun and Profit!

Devo: Choosing your master

Matthew 6:24 tells us we cannot serve two masters, and gives us the example of serving God and Money, but there are tons of other masters we serve regularly. I'm going to take this a bit further and say you must serve a master. We are not built for spiritual independence, we have a need for God and our spiritual nature will not let us go without some sort of dependence.

We may choose to serve God, money, pleasure, entertainment, philanthropy, culture, etc. As geeks it is easy to slip into serving and worshiping the geek culture that oftentimes ties us together and builds our friendships. What we should be doing is taking a step back and asking how much are we serving our God, and how much are we serving our culture.

God, money, pleasure, entertainment, culture, twitter, etc. are not bad things, but we've got to prevent ourselves from serving and worshiping anything or anyone other than God.

A good way to determine if you are serving another master is to ask yourself how your thoughts, words, and actions are glorifying God. If they aren't, odds are you are serving someone or something else.

Romans 6:1-11 describes the fact that we should not continue sinning just so "grace may increase" because we have died to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin, because we share in Christ's death and resurrection, and anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

The rest of Romans 6 describes that just because we are free from sin doesn't mean we are no longer slaves, just that we are now slaves to righteousness. Even though we are under God's grace, that doesn't mean we should sin, because when we accepted His grace, we offered ourselves to Him. We are slaves to who we obey--- whether to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Every day, we make the choice not to "be good" or "be bad", but to serve God or serve sin. (I recommend serving God, even if I'm not always the best at it.)

PHP from the Windows command line, for Fun and Profit!

PHP is not just limited to the browser! You can actually write command line scripts and launch them with PHP!

Three primary ways to launch a PHP app:

1. Open a command shell and type c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\script.php
   
2. Using shortcut commands
   
1. add PHP to your system path
   
2. open a command shell
   
3. navigate to the directory of your script
   
4. type php script.php (where script.php is the name of your php script)
   
3. Create a batch file that does step 1 for you and double-click it!
   

script.bat:

@echo off
c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\script.php

We'll start with step 2's method since it makes it easier to debug scripts. When you double-click a batch file, it just goes away once the script is done executing, and if it errors out, so it is hard to get started and comfortable with command line scripting.

Let's make a typical Hello World! script.

1. Make a new file with your favorite text editor called helloworld.php
   
2. put the following code in it:
   

helloworld.php

echo("Hello World!");
?>

3. now go to the command line and type php helloworld.php
   

There you go! Your first PHP command line script!

---

Let's make an interactive script.

Now, what if you wanted it to say hi to you personally? Let's have it ask your name.

1. 
   Make a new file with your favorite text editor called hello.php
   


2. 
   put the following code in it:
   

hello.php

<?php

echo("Hey, you... I totally remember your name... but how do you like it spelled? ");

$name = trim(fgets(STDIN));

echo("\n\nAwesome " . $name . ", I'll be sure to remember that!\n");

?>

3. 
   now go to the command line and type php hello.php
   

Sweet!

But how else can we send data to the PHP scripts? What about all those crazy command line parameters that other tools use?

Let's modify hello.php to let us tell it our name:

1. 
   Open up hello.php again in your favorite text editor.
   


2. 
   Add the following lines to check for command line arguments:
   

hello.php

<?php

if(isset($argv[1])) {

echo("Hey " . $argv[1] . ", how's it been?\n");

} else {

echo("Hey, you... I totally remember your name... but how do you like it spelled? ");

$name =trim(gets(STDIN));

echo("\n\nAwesome " . $name . ", I'll be sure to remember that!\n");

}

?>

3. 
   now go to the command line and type php hello.php
   

---

Let's make a double-clickable script!

1. 
   Create a new file in your favorite text editor called hello.bat
   


2. 
   put the following code in it:
   

hello.bat

@echo off

c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\hello.php

pause

3. 
   Now find that file and double-click it!
   

Now, let's take some drag and drop-able command line arguments!

1. 
   Open hello.bat in your favorite text editor
   


2. 
   Add "%*" to the end of the second line:
   

hello.bat

@echo off

c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\hello.php %*

pause

3. 
   Now drag a file on top of hello.bat and let go!
   

Sermon notes on the Biography of God

20081026 bio of God

Psalm 19

Difference between General and specific revelation.

General: nature and what we see around us.

V1 David is looking up at the stars, the regularity of the seasons, etc.

V2 it pours forth speech. Those stars are like preachers pouring forth
sermons pointing to a loving creator.

We need more info to know this God, such as why are we here, where are
we going.

So now David goes from the "World book" to the "Word book". Pointing
to God's law and commands.

God's word tells us the rest of the story. We need more than just
hugging trees to know God, but nature is enough to tell is there IS a
God.

V7- the Law is perfect, converting the soul. It will bring us back,
restore us to God. It is complete, we are incomplete without God's word.

More than enough cause to read daily and write notes, circle words. It
is a tool.

It can 1 save your soul, 2 satisfy your mind.

5,750 manusripts of the New Testament. No spiritual facts are lost in
translation. Other books of the time, like Plato or Shakespeare only
have 18 copies from much later than the original writing.

Dead sea scrolls verified many of our books with only a few
punctuation or letters out of place.

The bible is reliable hisory. There are events, people and places that
are provable by many other secular writings.

The message of the Bible is consistent from begginig to end despite
the change in time, author, background, location, language, etc.

Nowhere else do we see this many authors agree on the same critical
and controversial issues at length.

God also spoke of things that had not happened yet, and they happened
with perfect accuracy.

3: it will satiate the heart. (rejoicing the heart)

4: stabalize your future.
It is pure, lightening the eyes.

V8,11,19 the truth that got me through yesterday and is getting me
through today will be there and will be effective tomorrow.

David's prayer is that God will speak personally to the worshipper.

The world speaks, the word speaks, now let the Lord speak through me.

How often do I pick up the bible and let it govern my life.

There is a difference between getting, having, and treasuring.

We must obey God's word.

Verse 11: there is great reward in keeping (doing) the word not in
reading, underlining or even memorizing the word.

God speaks everywhere, and it should lead us to thirst for more info
and a personal relationship with God.

--
Chris Adams

Attempting to subnet the Church

At my church, we have over 200 nodes on our network, and we have a /24 subnet. This means we have very few IP's to play with, especially considering the need for a decent DHCP range for new devices.

We have about 6 buildings connected to an unmanaged megabit network, all plugged into a security gateway that enforces antivirus, blocks bad websites, and scans incoming packets for viruses. (it is also our firewall and router)

Many people have told me it would be nice to have an IP structure that reflected building and node type, such as:
10.x.y.z where:
x = building
y = node type

Of course, you can't just chop up IP ranges wherever you'd like, you've got to do it along clean binary divions. (At least that's what I'm told.) So now I'm wondering if that means I should just grab a large chunk, such as: 10.0.0.0/12 and put everything under the same subnet, but use tagged VLANs to keep things separated.

(10.128.0.0/9 is already taken up by a wireless mesh network)

To accommodate the change, we have 4 managed switches (ProCurve 2848) with one of them being dedicated to the server rack to connect all other switches (managed or otherwise) to the gateway.

Any thoughts?

Geek Brown Bag #51: Synergy - with Chris Adams

Bible Study

The more we rebel from God, the harder it is for us to listen to Him.

We have our own perspective of our lives, and we want to live the way we see fit.

Obvious Problems:

• We are usually wrong: Proverbs 14:12 - "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."
• We are limited in our perspective: 1 Samuel 16:7 - "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
• We don't see all of our own faults: Proverbs 16:2 - "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the spirits."
  

Solutions:

• Admit that we are wrong: Pray and confess (agree with God that you have sinned)
  
• Seek after God's perspective: Read God's word, and ask for God's wisdom while reading.
• Proactively evaluate your actions: Actively search for ways to obey God, and for ways to avoid disobedience.
  

Closing Illustration

Driving behind the car with sparks.

Geek Demo - Synergy

Download: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net

Read the instructions! This is a simple yet complicated program, and it is very easy to get confused.

The Basics:

• Synergy sends mouse movements and keystrokes over the network to another computer.
• If the other computer is listening (and responds) synergy will send those mouse movements and keystrokes to the computer.
• If someone else sniffs packets, they can decipher the keystrokes. You are basically installing a networked keystroke logger!
• You can send synergy traffic through an SSL tunnel and be very secure.
  

93 Words Per Minute

93 words

Speedtest

After reading a blog entry by wantmoore about typing speeds, I just had to try it myself. I decided just to post my first score, rather than practicing or anything.

I got 2 words wrong and 93 correct in 60 seconds.

Those years of not-sports have really paid off!

The Sword of the Spirit

This week Justin Marbury continued our study on the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 by going over the Sword of the Spirit.

Ephesians 6:13-19

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.

(emphasis added)

The Sword's Substance

In Roman times, swords were made of sturdy metal, were double-edged, and had a sharp point. The idea behind them was to be able to stab the enemy, piercing through the armor they had on. During the study we looked at a photo of another sword with a similar length, but it was made of cardboard and duct tape. The question posed was "Which would you rather take into battle?"

The answer is obvious, I'd rather take the real "Gladius" sword (or whatever the Roman sword was called). If we would rather take a real sword in our physical battles, shouldn't we also want to take a real sword in our spiritual battles as well?

Biblical Specs

• 66 books
• 40 Authors
• Written over a 1500 year span
• Billions of Bibles have been sold
• Translated into over 2200 languages

It has been

• Historically validated
• Archeologically supported
• Prophetically proven

There are about 24,000 New Testament manuscripts.

It also answers the most important questions in life. Why we are here, who we are, is there a God, and what does God expect of us? How do we handle the difficult issues in life?

The Bible is double-edged, is useful for every good work, and gives us God's word, which is all we need for life and godliness. This is the sturdy, durable, and effective sword to take into spiritual battle.

Feel-good books, seminars, and regular entertainment that we take in on a daily basis are like the duct-tape sword (no offense Dr. Phill), and while they may look like a sword fit for spritiual battle when highly polished, they will not withstand the battles we face in life.

The Bible has revealed truth to us. Psalm 19 gives a good description of the truth that God has revealed.

The Sword's Purpose

So what now? We have a sword, ready for battle, but does knowledge of it automatically equip us?

We need to:

• Understand It
• Believe It
• Live It
• Share It

this is commonly referred to as the Seed, the Planting, the Growth, and the Fruit.

The world wants us to think that the material world is all that there is, that the "Here and now" is all there is to life, and that it is all about us. But the Bible tells us that there is both the material and spiritual world, that there is the "here and now" as well as eternal life, and that it is all about God, not us.

Our Enemy

Our enemy is spiritual, not physical. We waste our time if we fight against people. Jesus died for everyone, and we should love everyone, not fight them. But we should, however, fight fiercely the spiritual battles that are all around us.

Fighting against the harvest will only rob them of a loving relationship with God. Nobody will be won over by being defeated. We must defeat the lies of the enemy and fight against the enemy's tactics, but not against the people the enemy (the Devil) has deceived.

When can we start using email as a memo replacement?

Over the past few months I have had more email support requests than anything else, and one of the primary reasons is because apparently using email to send audio, video, and photos does not always work.

Sometimes sending files will be blocked by:

• Sender's Mail Server due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Sender's Spam Firewall due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive
  
• Recipient's Mail Server due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Recipient's Mail Client due to Junk Mail settings
• Recipient's Spam Firewall due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive

Not to mention network outages anywhere along the way, and our favorite "User Error".

I have had no problem with my 7KB text emails in the years of working at this organization, but when users start sending mass emails from their mail clients to keep their ministries up-to-date, especially while sending photos of the previous event or a special book they recommend, our Mail Server gets sluggish, our Spam Filter has to work overtime, our users run out of storage space, and sometimes our IP gets blacklisted.

Apparently, using email as a text-based communication device does not have these side effects, and there are plenty of alternatives for transferring files (such as the File Transfer Protocol). For some reason, our users, and many many many outside organizations insist on sending EULA's, PDFs, manuals, radio spots, video previews, etc. etc. via email.

When can we stop sending cars in the mail and start sending letters as to where to go pick up the car? Meaning, send me a link to a website that manages EULA agreements, lets me download radio spots, lets me preview videos, and lets me download large files?

I understand there are services like constant contact for sending bulk mail out, and YouSendIt for uploading large files and emailing a link to them, but when are businesses going to start using them?

I'd love to simply block all non-text-based email if I could. Then again, I think it should be borderline illegal to use frames on a website or require a specific browser or operating system to view a web application...

/me votes for simplicity

Armed for battle: part 1

This Saturday we had a great study on the armor of God. One of the
key points that gets overlooked is that in the scripture on the armor
of God (Ephesians 6:13-17) the first item mentioned is the belt of
Truth. We often loose sight of the fact that all of our pieces of
armor are held together by the Truth in God's Word.

If we let ourselves believe things just because they make us feel
better, then we deceive ourselves and will not be effective in our
battle. We can't believe things just because we want to, we need to
seek out the truth and test the spirits and take joy in the service
our Lord has called us to.

Not taking notes

Despite the coffee, I find it easier to blog than take notes during
meetings at times.

Expelled preview

I had the opportunity to watch a preview of Expelled: no intelligence allowed. It was a very enlightening movie that was presented in a very mature fashion. I also, however think that if Christians want to be heard, we also need to be willing to listen. I have seen too many Christian arguments that have no thought behind them. I agree with my fellow Christians most of the time, but I still wish the debates we start would allow the opposing side the same respect we demand of them, as was presented in this movie.

What makes this movie so easy to relate to is the fact that it is not making a religious argument, but rather that the debate on evolution should have two sides. A one-sided debate is pointless and stifles growth and knowledge. I think anyone in favor of free speech and the freedom to think should watch this movie. Anyone who does not agree with the freedom of thought should continue to yell at people who don't agree with them, and should not be surprised when one day we give up entirely on searching for truth in favor of making the world fit our preconceived notions of how we think it should work.

Paper templates for my podcast

I decided to finally start working on the geekons podcast again by
printing and cutting some forms for my planner. For some reason I have
gotten on a "write everything down" kick in an effort to keep things
simple. To see if it works, check out geekons.com over the next few
weeks.

Truth-Land Security

"Truth-Land Security"
2 Timothy 4:1-4

One of the subthemes of this passage is apostacy, or a falling away from the truth.
The emerging church: claims there are no absolute truths.
Illustration: a cow only has 4 legs, even if you call the tail a leg.

2 timothy 1-3 goes over all of the signs of apostacy. 1 john 2:13, revelation 2-3, and many others show examples of churches falling away from the truth. Churches have always been at the forefront of the battle for truth. The church is ground zero, which is why we always
have to be on guard.

The world council of churches claims churches need to get past the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The emerging church came from a desire to update the church, but wound up giving up on absolute truth.
The same thinking was happening when 2 timothy was written. Because of this, Paul was focusing Timothy on the truth, ensuring that regardless of what was going on around him, he needed to preach the gospel because Jesus is coming back, and we will be judged, and we need to be ready for it.

The bottom line: we know too much to fall for this line of thinking.

Paul reminded Timothy that people would exchange truth for a lie and fall away from the church, but he still (in view of the second coming) charged him to preach the Word (the truth of the scriptures). So he may lose members of the flock, but it is better to have pure truth
than a big following.

How we feel is becoming more important than what is true, and we need to change that.

We want to be the most well fed church, which is why we dig into the word to get to the truth of God's word.

Blogging photos directly from the iPhone

To continue my series on using my blog as an excuse to play with the
iPhone, I have decided to share a photo of some plates.

The iPhone just has to have center stage.

ok, I am getting better at typing with the iPhone keyboard. It gets much easier when you learn the simple shortcuts, like hitting space twice to enter a period, or allowing yourself to make mistakes, hoping that the autocorrect will catch it ( it usually does).

The new thing I am discovering about the phone is that using the wifi feature too close to a cordless phone will knock out both my iPhone and the cordless phone. Weird.

Of course the solution is to simply unplug the cordless transmitter for the house phone, but for some reason I don't think my wife would be too happy about that.

making a change, not a switch

I just got an iPhone and a MacBook for work. To give you an idea of how fun it is to blog with an iPhone, I think I'm going to stop now. I'm sure I'll get used to it at some point, but I'm just too used to keyboards. It is kind of weird, sometimes the keyboard is incredibly slow, and sometimes I can type pretty quick.

Well, this turned out to be pretty boring. I'll post more later about broadening my platform horizons when I have a proper keyboard.

In search of the ideal home office

As a code designer and graphic developer, I've found myself to have acquired a geeky sort of body type. The type that encourages nice cloths and activities involving popcorn. (Not quite the type that encourages bathing suits and protein shakes.) I've also developed a nice bezier curve that makes reaching the keyboard and monitor much easier than sitting straight-backed.

Apparently I have discovered this to be more a result than a development, so I'm trying to remedy the situation. (Primarily because I keep reassuring myself that the remedy does not include giving up coffee or more money, which could be spent on coffee.)

I am currently typing this while sitting on an exercise ball with my laptop on a snack tray. (Better a laptop than pizza, eh Steve?) . The only problem I have with the current situation is that my snack tray is just a tiny amount too tall and is angled down (great for snacking, bad for typing).

Well, that and the fact that I can't easily plug in my computer speakers, so I'm stuck with the laptop's built-in speakers. They aren't bad, but a nice 2.1 set are so much better.

I'll give this a day of designing code and see how well it works.

Is ignorance worth the bliss?

I currently administer an Active Directory domain, and am learning how to via on-the-job training. This usually works really well for me, but I've discovered group policy objects, organizational units, and login scripts... which all make administering the network much easier.

Imagine.... I can write a GPO to install software that will report back all of the software and hardware settings of each computer within an organizational unit... and I can look in a single window and see a list of all the computers on my network along with a brief description of each.

Unfortunately, this means that when someone decides to purchase non-standard hardware/software, I now know what I'm missing... I know that the new iMac won't identify properly on the network. OS X Leopard did add on an official "Active Directory" feature in the Directory Utility, whose sole purpose in life, apparently, is to prevent the computer from binding to an Active Directory Domain. So the fact that I knew Tiger could bind to AD makes Leopard even worse.

Now, the question I'm presented with is whether or not ignorance is worth the bliss.

Should I stop learning all the amazing things we could do with our resources, knowing that we will slowly be migrating to equipment that lack these features? Would it be better to throw in the towel for everyone, or attempt to manage 2 networks. I would imagine that the "fun" and trendy network with no rules and shiny animations would beat out the boring network that is managed and secure.

On a scale of "Bad=> OK => Best" if "Best" isn't even an option, would it be better to be ignorant of all the "Best" methods and benefits?

This situation brings up a lot of frustration which breeds bitterness. Bitterness is sin. In order to have a positive attitude about it, I only see two options; 1: be ignorant of what we could do and be happy with mediocrity, or 2: find another job.

The next problem is, are there any jobs that don't enforce mediocrity? Previous experience indicates that at most companies the non-technical staff make decisions (in an effort to add cool and useful features) that prevent company-wide coolness and usefulness. Most IT staff will look at that, laugh at the irony, and check their monster.com account for any leads.

I think I'll stick with where I am, and just pray that God will get rid of my bitterness. Now I just need to make sure this feeling of defeat isn't sinful as well.

Adventures in Drive Imaging: Part 3 - Restoring the Image

Well, I got Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) installed, and even got Compiz-fusion running (with all the shadows, 3d effects, and stuff like that). But because I still haven't found a good Outlook clone that ties securely into our Exchange server, it is time to get back to business.... Vista Business.

I rebooted with the UBCD4Win in the CD drive, and with the USB drive plugged in that we saved the image to yesterday. Not surprisingly the live version of XP we are running on this disk was unable to properly mount the linux partitions, and therefore considered my USB drive as the "C" drive.

I still fired up Self Image and told it to grab c:\backup\HPdc5750\whateverIcalledTheImage.img.gz and put it on Hard Drive #0

It warned me that sometimes when you wipe a drive clean and put a new image over it, you will loose all of the data on the drive you are wiping clean. (Actually, according to them, it happens 10 times out of 10.)

I figure we really don't need Linux on this machine anymore, and I click OK, and it starts decompressing the image and saving it to the hard drive.

In the time it took me to write all of this, it has gotten to 30%. That's probably because I'm decompressing a 20GB file from a USB drive, and because I type fast.

I would guess that when I save the images to a partition on the internal drive in the future it will go much faster. But hey, it has only been about 5 minutes, so 10 to 15 minutes to restore a computer isn't bad!

---Waiting for the image to finish restoring---

Well, it looks like the blank space was being restored pretty quickly, so it has been 25 minutes and we are now at 75%.

Fortunately I had a few other support tasks to take care of in the meantime, including a triple Americano at the cafe we have here. Mmmmm fresh roasted espresso!

---Still Waiting---

Oops! I ran out to help with a support call and came back and it was done! So I don't know how long it took.

I do know that it took no more than 40 minutes, but it may have been just 30 or 35. Either way, when you factor in getting the USB Drive, CD, and kicking the person off their computer, I can expect about an hour of downtime for the user.

Kind of cool.

--Rebooting--

--Logging into Vista Business!--

It works!! That is AWESOME!

Considering I installed a separate boot manager (GRUB, which came with Ubuntu Linux), changed the partition table dramatically, and have wiped the drive a total of 2 times, and I'm able to flawlessly log back into a fully functional Vista Business Environment, I'm pretty excited!!

Wo0T!

Adventures in Drive Imaging: Part 2 - Making a Need for the Image

Well, now that I've got a new drive image, what's the point if the computer is working well?

I could install viruses.. virii... uhm... malware, but I'd rather not, so I won't.

Instead, I'm going to install Linux! Ubuntu 7.04 desktop to be exact. I'm running it on my laptop at home and I really like it. I've been running Ubuntu for a few years now, and it is great for lazy people like me who want to ease into a new area. Now that I'm used to the interface I'm getting more comfortable with the command line. It is like Linux with training wheels, but like any good kids bike, not only is it free if you can run fast, but you can also take the training wheels off when you are comfortable with it.


I popped in the Desktop CD, checked its integrity, and it seems like a pretty stand-up CD so I went into the live CD environment. Everything booted fine, I've got a good 1280x1024 display by default (unlike Windows' 1024x768 default on the same machine) so I went ahead and double-clicked the installer.

I think there were like 6 choices to make, such as what language I speak, and what language keyboard I use, and what time zone I'm in, then it asked me about the drive to install it on. I selected the option that wipes the entire drive and installs Ubuntu on it (since that is the simplest)

It seems to be stuck on the "downloading package list" part, which makes since, since it is plugged into the corporate network which won't let it on the internet until I assign it a static IP.... oops... clicking "skip".

Now it is finishing up the install, which should take another 30 seconds or so. (Pretty quick on this AMD Athlon 64 X2 machine)

I am now restarting into a nice reliable non-networked Ubuntu machine, giving it an IP address, then restarting for grins. Oooh! 78 updates!

The crazy part, after installing them all and restarting, there shouldn't be any more updates after that... they roll them up quite intelligently rather than having me update, reboot, update, reboot, rinse, lather, repeat. Like other operating systems I know. (emphasis on plural... Windows isn't the only non-free popular operating system that has done this to me...)

Anyway, long-story short, I installed Linux. It took about 30 minutes because I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was trying to download stuff when I had it blocked at the router from seeing the internet. Oops...

Join us tomorrow for the conclusion - Reluctantly Restoring, where we will attempt to go from Linux to Vista in less than an hour.

(It is impressive considering it will have all of the exact preferences, user accounts, passwords, etc. that I set it up with previously. If this all works, we'll be installing XP and making an image of that, since I'm not ready for Vista yet.)

Adventures in Drive Imaging: Part 1 - Making the Image

Somehow I have gotten to this point without ever making an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. Well, that all changed this morning when I made my first "UBCD4Win". The only customization I did was to update AVG Free Edition with the latest virus definitions. (making this CD obsolete tomorrow, rather than last month)

It looks like I could even have installed Kapersky if I wanted to spend the $$. Cool.

The idea behind UBCD4Win is the same as BartPE, to the extend that I don't know the difference, other than I installed UBCD4Win rather than BartPE, purely by chance.

What's this got to do with imaging? Well, I'd tell you, but I'm too busy getting off topic.

By restarting the computer with my UBCD4Win in the drive I was presented with a weird version of Windows XP that doesn't run off the Hard Drive, instead it runs from the CD and from memory. (So make sure you have enough RAM, or this could potentially be uncomfortably slow!)

I've got 1GB of RAM in this machine, and it worked just fine.

It has Drive Image XML and Self Image in the package, and while I've only used Drive Image XML, I was more curious about Self Image because it also grabs the boot sector, cool!

So step 1 was to make a Drive Image XML copy of each hard drive partition from the computer to an external USB drive. (Since I'm comfortable with Drive Image XML, I felt it would be a safe "backup")

Step 2 was to use Self Image to copy the entire disk (including 2 extra partitions HP made to contain restore software and drivers) using Self Image. Because I wasn't using the hard drive, none of the files were in use, so it was quick and reliable.

Step 3 was to re-do step 2, but this time with an NTFS enabled USB drive, since the final file (for this 75GB Hard Drive) was around 22GB, and FAT 32 only supports around 4GB per file. (boo FAT 32!)

And, that anticlimactically concludes Part 1 of Adventures in Drive Imaging. Visit us next time for Part 2 - Making us need the image, where I will describe how I formatted the whole drive and installed Linux, just to make sure I totally changed the Hard Drive's contents and layout.