Macbook Air alternative creating Windows 7 USB Bootable Drive

Traditional bOOtcamp with usb ODD

After partitioning the HDD and machine restart, "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" Normally this is the part where I start preparing my coffee where it should be "Press anykey to boot from CD or DVD..."

Some may try change installer disc, change ODD drive, update apple software or even redo partition, well....

Following are what I have tried on a new macbook air (mid 2010). Lets just put a side EFI issue/update or Software Update as Apple would recommend to do so before we start. (Also many thanks to posted sites for knowledge and skill sharing)

Amazing google search result for "macbook windows 7 installer" or "macbook installing windows 7" will list you many results and numbers of ways to do this but what if it won't work as it should, error message everywhere or simply we can't understand what it says...

USB installer - Creating

You are going to need this rEFIt tool kit for the boot menu beside holding the "option (alt)" key all the time for boot disc including the usb pen drive selection. (download here)

Diskpart method

Using some simple DOS command and things to have for start are Pen Drive (4GB); Windows 7 Installer DVD and here's the guides link.

My result was it couldn't mount the pen drive and have 3 different pen drive same result. So.. next!

Windows 7 USB DVD tool

A windows base interface tool kit. (download here) You will also need a 4GB pen drive, windows 7 ISO file.

Unfortunately I was stuck at the ISO loading step. I have these 3 ISO files 1 was downloaded from web, 2 were created from DVD installer, all no luck... Next!

WinToFlash tool

Also a windows base tool kit. (download here) And finally I get it done here :P

It will cover the manual DOS command making the pen drive bootable, all it takes is to select which OS, destination pen drive drive letter and OS source drive letter (no iso file required). Good luck to you!

USB Wireless for Mac

An alternate way to setup wireless ready for an old mac machine where it originally didn't not came with an Airport card. In this post, would like to share this D-Link DWA125 USB device that work with iMac G5 running OSx 10.5.8

Initially I was looking for DWA110 where you can also find in many post sharing it works but the goodies are newer model faster speed replacement with DWA125. It equip with Ralink RT3070 chipset. download here and thanks to this post for the update.

After unmount the image file, follow the instructions given for each version of OSx. When done, look for this Ralink Wireless Utility folder in Applications. Fireup the Ralink Wireless Utility for searching (Site Survey) for your signal. Select the right signal name, Connect and Add Profile. Done!

The only small issue was it doesn't show the wireless signal icon on top of the finder, where I think is still ok. Good luck to you.

Mac Mail Signature with Facebook & Blogger Link

To share with a friends, few simple steps to add facebook, blogger or any other sharing site quick link in text and graphical (icon style) to your mac mail signature without any html or programming high skill.

Before begin, these few things are needed.
1. Text editor;
2. Site icons, I used fb & blogger in size 32x32 and looks just nice;
3. Site address, eg: www.facebook/yourUserName (click here more info);
4. Simple signature that still in use. (Will be replace after this) Click here if haven't got any.

Next, we shall begin typing your desire information using text editor including to drag in those sharing site icons you have prepare earlier.













Next inserting those link info (sharing site web address) to those icons individually by doing so, highlight the icon then go to Format from menu bar, select Text then Link then paste the web address.
















Once done, hightlight the entire info that just created, copy them to clipboard then goes to Mac Mail, open up Preferences goes to Signature and paste it here or overwrite the current one)



















Done, hope it helps you.

App Delete for Mac

Sharing this with new switched from Ms Windows user if you have doubt how to remove unwanted app. It is like the Add/Remove Program in Control Panel. I've been using the free edition Version 1.1.1 and it fit with 10.5.8 but for 10.6 Snow Leopard best to download the latest Version 3.12 which has the 64-bit performance.

AppDelete is an uninstaller for Macs that will remove not only Applications but also Widgets, Preference Panes, Plugins and Screensavers along with their associated files. Without AppDelete these associated items will be left behind to take up space and potentially cause issues. more about...

Windows 7 slow boot on Macbook 2006/07

Earlier installed 2 units of macbook 06 with dual boot Windows 7, OSx and dicover that W7 was booting extremely slow with the cursor blinking on top left of the screen. (It takes about 30 to 40 seconds). Many has the same issue and reasons given as well. Anyway, thanks to these download AI7E_1 & Ai7E_2 and found a fantastic & helpfull cmd patch.

These are the steps thats i used & running fine. When load the AI7 and from main menu:

Step1 select 2, SLIC2.1 Bios Install
Step2 select 1, SLIC2.1 Default
Step3 select 3, SLIC2.1 Hidden 2
Step4 select 1, SLIC2.1 Hidden 2

Wait for a while you should see a pop up saying successful message, follow on screen to restart your notebook. That's it. The home page is in korean, I can't read, good luck to you :)

After above all, you may notice that there's no windows bootcamp boot drive in OSx Startup for selection, same with me here. Still pending for solutions but I think it is the old bootcamp version issue. Meanwhile you can use windows base bootcamp to overcome this, do download and install the version3 (for 32bit OS).