Fixing UNetbootin on Mac OS X to create a Bootable Linux USB

If you had issues trying to create a bootable linux usb for a pc, from your Mac, the below tutorial might help you. Even though it sounds slightly ironic, creating a pc bootable linux distro from a Mac, it's a situation I recently faced. So sharing the workaround.

Another hard disk crash but we never learn

I have lost count of the number of hard disks I have lost over the years. One would expect after years of repeated mistakes, I am more prepared and the road to recovery should be easy. However, it wasn't. So this is what happend.

Excel Quick Tip: Counting occurrences of a character in a cell

I found an interesting problem recently. We have a shared google docs at work for folks to sign up for hobby clubs. The idea was people to sign up against clubs by adding their names in a cell.

In the next week or so, the docs was filled with names and I wondered if there was a cool way to count the people who had signed up, using a simple formulae.

So here is the solution, which works both in excel and google docs.

Excel Quick Tip: Finding Year and Quarter from dates

I deal with huge data around dates all the time.  Be it daily revenue, volume or activities. Though daily data is interesting,  we often need to aggregate data into weeks, months or quarters, to see trends, forecast projections and track them against targets.

Here is a quick tip on getting you the year, month, quarter and weeks from a given date. Read on.

Google Spreadsheet tip: how to SUMIFS

SUMIFS is probably the most useful feature, Microsoft rolled out in Excel 2007. It lets you SUM a range, using multiple criteria. For instance, in the situation below, if we wanted to find out how much John made in 2010 Q3, you could use this simple formula.

Now how do you do this in google spreadsheet? Unfortunately, it only has the older SUMIF formula, which lets you select a single criteria. Let's see how to make it work.

How To: Test driving Windows 8 on Virtual Box

Are you curious, what the next iteration of Windows has in store for you.
Windows 8 developer preview is now available for download. Head over to MSDN and give it a try. Virtual Box is a great free cross-platform Virtualization application which is easy to set up and lets you run different OS instances in parallel.

Below instructions are for Virtual Box on Windows 7, but should also work for Linux/MacOSX
1. Download and Install Virtual Box for your specific platform (Win/Linux/OSX)
2. Download the Windows 8 developer preview from MSDN. You can chose 32-bit/64-bit w/o Developer tools
3. Open Virtual Box, and  click on New. You will be greeted with a VM set up screen. Give it a name and select Windows 7 (32/64bit) as OS




4. In the later screens, allocate 10-20GB (or lower) for the VM and chose dynamic expansion. This takes shorter time to set up and Virtual Box will dynamically increase the VM space as when needed to a maximum of the earlier chosen capacity.


5. Once the VM set up is done. From the Virtual Box home screen, select the VM and click Run. The first time, you would be greeted with a First Run Wizard. Select the Windows 8 Developer Preview file you just downloaded (*.iso file).



6. The VM would now boot with the iso, and Windows Installation process would begin. To switch controls back to your desktop OS, press Right Control in Windows.


7. Follow the instructions on-screen. Chose Custom (Advanced) as the type of installation.



8. That’s it. Wait patiently for 25-35 mins for the setup to complete. Once done, the VM will restart and you voila, you are right inside the new Metro UI. Do note, it’s a developer preview and could have loads of bugs and issues Enjoy!




9. Some helpful tips
1. Use windows key to switch to the start metro menu
2. Change windows 8 screen resolution (default on VM is 800x600)
3. Live tiles don’t work on a local Administrative account. Create a test user account to get the Metro Apps/Tiles working
4. Right Control-C to pass control back from the VM window

Still undecided on your next phone? The smartphone dilemma continues

My last phone was an iPhone 3GS. I had queued over an hour at the Singtel office, alongside thousand others. This was July 2009.

Back then, the choice was almost too simple.

iPhone was the best touch phone money could buy. The first wave of Android devices were underwhelming (Remember HTC Hero and Magic!). Nokia was struggling to innovate. And Blackberries were (and still are) just dull and uninspiring.

HP gives up on webOS and exiting PC Business

Tumultuous times at HP. Just 49 days after releasing the first webOS based tablet, HP announced it is discontinuing its webOS devices. The company now plans to "optimize" the value of webOS after spending nearly $1.2b on Palm, a year back. HP could either sell or license webOS off to other manufacturers or more likely salvage Palm's patent portfolio, in  a time where mobile patents are a premium.

The news was part of a bigger announcement with HP openly declaring its intention to spin off its low margin PC business and focus more on enterprise, software and consulting. HP shares immediately fell 20% wiping 12b of market cap in a single day.


One third of HP's revenue comes from PCs with an operating margin a bit above 5% (2010) compared with 11.7% from its overall operations.

HP seems to be taking a page from rival enterprise giant IBM, which successfully sold its PC arm to Lenovo in 2005, after a period of dismal PC sales.

HP's exit from both PC and mobile segment will definitely hurt competition. With the US and EU heading for another recession, it will be interesting to see how HP rebounds after the spin off.