As such I (once again) deleted my Ubuntu partition and subsequently lost access to my Windows install because of the GRUB bootloader which overrides the Windows one.

Now, in the event that you want to stay with Windows you’ll need to fix the Master Boot Record (MBR). The MBR is the starting point on the Hard Disk which gets passed to the processor that allows it to actually start up the Operating System.

If you have a Vista or 7 install disc then you simply pop it in the drive and boot the CD as though you were going to install Windows again. However rather than install Windows again and lose everything, you need to:

1. Select Repair your Computer, let it scan the Disk and
2. Select the Operating System you want to get back.
3. Once you have found it hit Next,
4. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt then type the following commands exactly as they are written:

bootrec.exe/FixMbr

bootrec.exe/FixBoot

If you have a Windows XP disc then you follow the same methodology but:

1. Type R to open the repair screen then select the OS
2. If needed type the Administrator password
3. When the command prompt screen appears type in FDISK.exe/Mbr

This will repair the MBR and system boot, restart the computer and you should be ready to go!

Now before I begin I do not condone the acquisition of copyrighted material but I do believe that there are some occasions when a service like Replay Music is necessary.

If you’re not familiar with the past three incarnations of Replay Music then basically it’s a program that records audio streams that come through your PC and converts them to MP3 to keep for posterity.

One of it’s main functions (and please refer to my disclaimer) is that it can pick up streams from services such as Spotify. In older versions you had to tag an edit track information manually but via some sort of black magic it will now automatically pull track an album information from and online database as well as porting it straight into programs such as iTunes and Windows Media player.

It’s dead simple to use and no matter what audio stream is coming through your sound card whether it be YouTube, online radio it will nap it.

There’s even a free trial and the full license is actually less than 13 quid which is backed up with a 30 day money back guarantee. Might be worth a look.

From the creators of OnLive the cloud-based gaming service comes the OnLive Desktop. This app brings a fully functional Windows 7 operating system to your iPad and best of all it lives in the cloud. All you need to do is to download the app (but there are limitations to this but read on) and create an OnLive Desktop account and that’s really all there is to it. Once the app is fired up you’re presented with a full Windows 7 desktop complete with the full Office 2010 suite.

The interface is pretty much what you’d expect to find on a touch screen Windows 7 laptop. Apart from Office you’re pretty much limited to the standard Windows apps such as Paint, Calculator and sticky notes but considering the revelation that you’re actually running Window on your iPad I don’t think you’ll mind.

While typing in documents etc you’ll be get with the standard Windows 7 touch keyboard which compared to the native iPad keyboard leaves a lot to be desired but like I say you’ve got Windows, you can live with it.

OnLive provides you with a limited amount of cloud store (I think it’s a couple of gig) but most certainly enough to store those documents that you’ll want to be typing.

I’m sure that there will be more developments coming in the future but as a launch app this is killer.

Now like I said earlier there are limitations to getting this app as it is only officially available in the the US at the moment but as I have found there are ways of getting round this which I am more than happy to share if you get stuck. It should be in the UK soon though.

But I must admit that some of them are incredible and whilst they may not offer much in terms of showcasing the product they do make it memorable purely because of how clever the advert is. Just look at Honda Accord Rube Goldberg Machine:

The reason for this post is because a friend of mine brought to my attention the new Volkswagon advert, aptly entitled “The Bark Side” which speaks for itself I think.

I now have an overwhelming urge to buy a new car. Or doggy treats.

I own a HTC Desire which I got under a contract from Vodafone and whilst it has performed admirably I have been rather disappointed with the experience over all. Nothing to do with the phone itself or the Android platform but mainly due to Vodafone’s insistence that I have installed – at all times – their proprietary apps like Facebook and Twitter. If there was a means for me to be able to remove said apps altogether so that I can run the official apps without having two services running concurrently then I probably would not have looked into the rooting path that I have subsequently took.

Following a recent conversation I had with Paul over a bevvy or two he reignited my interest in the rooting of Android devices as he was/is planning on rooting and installing Cyanogenmod on my sisters Legend. Couple this with the crashes I was getting under the default OS I decided that enough was enough.

What is Rooting?

Beating at the heart of Android is Linux. This means that in order to be able to perform tasks which you otherwise would not be able to, such as flashing a new firmware onto the phone you must have Root access. This is very much like running an application as Administrator on a Windows PC, so before you can do anything else you must do this first.

Is Rooting Illegal?

In the UK it is legal and in 2010 the U.S Copyright Office made an exemption which allows users to root their devices and run third-party applications or after market firmware as well as be able to unlock a phone from it’s carrier (unlocking a SIM-locked Vodafone to work on Orange for example).

As a result HTC and Motorola are now supplying pre-unlocked Bootloaders to let people do this without having to unlock it before hand, if you are fortunate enough to be in this camp then you can go directly to the Cyanogenmod installation instructions.

Will it void my Warranty?

Yes, although it does depend on the device and the person you speak to. According to a reliable source I have within O2, rooted devices aren’t their problem but an issue for the manufacturer to resolve.

But your carrier may argue they you have changed the software on the phone and therefore if you did “brick” the device it’s your own fault and you would still be liable to charges for replacing the phone and stay locked into your contract.

Can Rooting be reversed?

Yes, but to be fair you won’t need to concern yourself with updates from your provider as they take ages to release them. I had a Motorola Defy (again Vodafone) and it was running Android 2.0 Ecliar which – at the time – was months out of date as Froyo was live, so the Open Source community is usually faster at releasing updates and patches.

Why should I root?

Other than being able to install custom Firmware you regain full control over your phone. You can perform backups of both the phone memory and the SD card so if you make any changes to it, you can do so safely in the knowledge that you can restore your device to as it was.

Also, how many times do you get the annoying message that Disk space is low? In order to move apps to the SD card to free space up the developer of that application would need to specify that it can be moved and not all are. You can move most apps to the SD card thus freeing up space when running a custom firmware, however certain apps run better on the phone than on the SD card.

How secure is my phone after Rooting?

As you are allowing greater access to the Android kernel, it is theoretical that malicious software could intrude on the phone and damage the software. But the same can also be said with an unrooted phone running poorly programmed or malicious apps installed from the Market.

If a programme tries to get Administrator status then you are given an alert in which you can allow or deny the app. In my opinion the option to allow or deny actually makes it safer as you are in control.

You also need to remember that whilst Android is Linux based there is far less malware in the wild that can work effectively, unlike Windows. Whilst this doesn’t mean that no software cannot harm your device, you are statistically less likely to encounter such malware than you would on your Desktop PC.

It’s a sorry sign of the times when your phone is probably more secure than a PC!

Remember

As a precaution you should backup your phones contents so either download a backup app from the Market or if you don’t need that level of protection please sync your contacts with your Google mail account.

What is Cyanogenmod?

Cyanogenmod is an after market firmware which replaces the phones stock Operating System (and carrier provided software) with more streamlined and reliable software. In doing this you are probably more secure than using Carrier provided Android because as already mentioned they are slow in releasing updates.

However you can still use your existing sim card and use the phone network as normal.

How-to: Root

Before we begin we need several pieces of software. The first is a specific driver called Hboot which can be downloaded here, this is a driver which facilitates communication between your Phone and PC whilst the phone is in the boot menu.

1. Start by powering off the phone and then turning it on whilst holding down both the Power button and the Volume down button on the volume rocker.
2. Plug the phone into the PC via a USB.
3. You should see a message on the screen saying HBoot USB Plug
4. On the PC open the Device Manager and expand the Other devices option and you should see Android 1.0.

If you’re not familiar with this yet new category of product then please let me explain. The Ultrabook is the brainchild of Intel who are basically introducing a PC that rivals the design, style, power and thinness of the Macbook Air. In essence it’s just a thinner, faster laptop with the addition of a solid state drive and the subtraction of an optical one. Although to become an official Ultrabook manufacturers must conform to a tight set of specifications such as boot up and wake up times, processor speed etc.

So now that I’ve had a good play with it what’s it like? Well for a Windows laptop it’s pretty damn nice. It is super, super thin and man is it light. It’s actually lighter than the equivalent 13″ Macbook Air. But this comes at a cost. Even though it’ll probably blow away in a slight breeze at only 1.12 kg the compromise compared to the Air is that the Satellite Z830 feels flimsy. There’s a hell of a lot of bend in the screen and I could easily see this in a PC repair shop in the very near future.

Performance wise it’s great to see a Windows PC that boots up quickly and resumes from sleep within the blink of an eye which is probably helped with the Core i7 processor, 128GB SSD and the 6GB of RAM that comes as standard. Check out the video below for a quick boot test.

Design wise it does look pretty fine, even with the flimsiness. Sporting a brushed chrome effect which isn’t bad but it’s just no competitor to the uni body chassis of the Air. The most impressive thing with the actual body that does outshine Apple’s offering are the 3 USB ports (one of them that’s USB3), SD card slot and even though it may not be important to you but is to me but is to me, a LAN port.

So all in all if you’re in the market for a thin, fast laptop and don’t mind parting with (ahem) a penny short of a grand of your hard earned English pounds then please be my guest but I suggest somewhere else to take your pennies.

Now I’m sorry to make constant comparison to yet another Apple product but considering that this is the device is directly mimicking the Air then it’s unavoidable. Sorry folks.

The wonder of Netflix is that it is completely unlimited so you can stream as many movies and TV shows that your heart desires and all this for only 6 quid a month.

So what’s the selection like. Well if you’re looking for the latest blockbusters then you’re going to be disappointed. As the ever wise Steve Naybour tweeted the other night “it’s a bit more like your local spar that also rented videos”, (you remember the ones) and that’s perfectly true but if you’re in to the classics then you’ll probably find something that suits. There are a few newbies in there but if you’re looking to catch up on the movies you’ve missed over the years or just want to watch your faves again then 6 quid really isn’t a bad deal.

The amount of films they currently hold isn’t going to blow your mind but they have promised deals with major movie studios and a greater range to come.

But the killer app of Netflix is the amount of devices that support it. You can get it through your Blu-ray player, console, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and even your Wii. It also allows you to watch something on one device, say your TV and then if you have to go out you can continue watching from where you left off on your phone.

At the mo they are running a 1 month free trial so you can try it out at no cost. I’m currently with LoveFilm and I’ll see in 30 days whether any more of my cash will be coming their way. I’ll keep you posted.

Produced by the Bad Robot film company, the brainiacs behind Cloverfield and the latest Star Trek all you need to do is to choose your effect, then film your clip and after a little tweaking it’s all laced together seamlessly.

The app is free and comes with 2 effects (missle attack and car smash) but other pairs of effects can be nabbed for 69p a go.

To see how good it looks check out this half-assed attempt I made at lunchtime… it looks freaking awesome!!!

I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that it was pretty much dominated by Apple products but you do have to admit that it really was their year.

My first and probably the biggest extravagance of my life was the purchase of my 2 iPad 2′s. I couldn’t make my mind up whether I wanted a black one or a white one so I thought f*** it I’ll get both. When the iPad 2 was announced being an iPad 1 owner I really didn’t see the point of upgrading that was until I held one in my hand on one of my regular trips to the Norwich Apple Store. When I first unboxed my first foray into the world of tablets I couldn’t possibly think of any way that they could improve it but what a difference a year makes. I can’t really think about how they could ever improve on the latest model but it must truly be the iPad’s halo moment. How you can produce something so thin and so powerful and so easy to use is beyond me. Also I never thought that the addition of front and back cameras would change my world but man was I wrong. I know that there are probably not a lot of you out there that are into video calling but it’s a big part of my life and I have to tell you that the Skype experience on the iPad 2 will blow you away. The quality of the picture and the sound is out of this world and even in low light it looks absolutely stunning. I’ve even recently been using it for Google+ Hangouts and even though I’m using the iPhone app on the iPad it still performs brilliantly. Now there are a lot of rumours saying that the next iPad will have a retina display and the obvious performance bump but I don’t think that 2012 will see me forking out as quickly as I did from version 1 to 2 because this thing is the muts. Hats off to Apple for making tablets relevant in my life when 2 years ago I’d have laughed at you if you’d told me that more than half of my online activities would be performed on one.

The second part of my Apple indulgence came in the form of their hobby, the Apple TV. Now to be fair I didn’t actually buy one for myself, I bought one for my Nan. At home I’ve got a media centre PC plugged into my lounge TV and one night I was showing her how easy it was to watch YouTube videos on the telly and it was something that really appealed to her. Now I didn’t want to be supporting someone of 80+ years with a PC or a Mac so the Apple TV seemed like the obvious route to take especially when it was sub 100 quid and so easy to use. But before I gave it to her I thought that I would try it out especially as I have been considering whether to get one for myself. So after getting it from John Lewis as we got a discount on city centre parking discount (and yes there was free hay for my horse) I wasn’t actually to blown away by it. Fair enough you could rent movies (which I could do from my PC) and you could watch YouTube (ditto) but I couldn’t see any situation where it could ever replace my current set up. That in until last week where I found myself recovering from a knee operation. So there I was laid up on the sofa feeling sorry for myself with iPad in hand watching the odd video and podcast or two and I happened to click the AirPlay button which as you all probably know by now streams the content from your iOS device straight through your Apple TV to the goggle box. I was completely blown away by how seamless it all worked and how reactive it was to everything I did. It certainly eased the pain of my immobility as well did strong painkiller and spam sandwiches. I might just hold off for a little while before getting my own though if the rumour mill holds true as Apple’s TV offering promises to be big in the new year.

But the highlight and the lowlight of my year has to be the iPhone 4S. Now if anything proves that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear then the rumours of the iPhone 5 prove this beyond comprehension. I’m not really sure what we were promised but the tech blogs fooled us into believing that it was going to be completely revolutionary. So on the day of the keynote I waited with sweaty palmed anticipation yo be told that we’d get the 4S and not the 5, a phone that looked and felt exactly the same as their last offering but would be faster and would include your own personal assistant. Now to be honest I was far from blown away by this announcement but I had loyally stuck by my 3GS which I’d bought outright in 2009 and championed even though I secretly hated all those which an iPhone 4 due to the fact that it was so fricking gorgeous. But the time had come to upgrade (especially after discovering what a god the 3GS was after the iOS5 upgrade). So I marched into the Apple Store the day after release and said I’ll have an iPhone 4S 16GB please to be told ‘you must be joking, we’re completely sold out’. Like I said my last iPhone was bought outright and I tried a number or providers and service to keep the cost of my calls and data down but by the end of it I only really saved a couple of hundred quid over 2 years which for the level of service I got (cheers O2 for nothing) which really didn’t seem worth it. So I marched on over to the Three Store in Chapelfield Norwich who low and behold had the 4S in stock. Begrudgingly I signed up for a 2 year contract on the ‘One Plan’ just to make sure I got the new phone there an then but almost 2 months after selling my soul I could not be happier. The main selling point was the ‘all you can eat data’. Now I made sure that beyond no shadow of a doubt that this literally meant what they said and it did. It did also help that the rep in the shop was student at the uni I work for and the threat of working in IT and the ability to change their grades seemed to push the issue to come clean about exactly what I’d been getting. I’m now pretty much abusing any what any other data plan offers especially when it come to tethering my iPads when out and about so hats off to Three for being true to their word and for pretty decent coverage on the whole. As for the phone itself despite my original scepticism from its original announcement I’m pretty damn pleased with my decision to take the plunge. It’s super slick and super sexy. The camera is out of this world and I’m getting some awesome shots from it. As for Siri, yes it is a bit of a novelty but I do find myself using it from time to time but for a beta piece of software there’s nothing out there that touches it. Whether I’ll feel the same about my pricey commitment when the real iPhone 5 is released is yet to to be realised but for now it just feels right, not spectacular, just right.

Nowadays being in the tech industry means that you have to be on top of things and pretty much be in front of the curve in terms of what is new and upcoming. I find that my best form of intel comes from various tech podcasts and this this year I believe I have found the halo moment especially if you are looking for the UK perspective on matters. Recommended by one of my last years picks ‘@iconfessimageek‘ this year I discovered the Bagel Tech News Network. Never before have I found a network of like-minded people bundled into a pretty much perfect presentation of tech. This kingdom is overseen by the all-seeing Ewen Rankin who must be commended for the evolution of this network (especially over the last 12 months) where the wide-ranging breadth of subjects from daily news to Apple news on the ‘Mac Show‘ to general geek goings-on on the ‘Big Show‘ through to all that is ‘Photo‘ and a personal fave ‘F1‘ just blows me away by the sheer dedication of the network and the people that contribute to it. This is a truly social experience that could never be matched even by corporations with millions of dollars and teams of programmers. This just works and one of the true highlights of my year.

So what a fab year it has been. There will be some BIG changes to the way that this site works in the coming weeks due to circumstances beyond my control by I promise that you’ll still get the same perspective from an IT guy in Norwich if that means something to you. But until then thank you sooo much for staying tuned and for all the feedback it really means a lot.

And from what has possibly been the longest post of my life I wish you and yours a proper Crimbo and a happy New Year.