Ubuntu Linux: How to Mount .iso Images

Here's an easy way to mount a .iso file as a CDROM with Ubuntu Linux:

sudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 imagefile.iso /mnt/iso

Ubuntu Linux: How to Create .iso Images from CDROMs

It turns out to be surprisingly easy to create .iso files from CDROMs with Ubuntu.
Just use the readom utility with the device path and output file name, like so:

sudo readom dev=/dev/cdrom0 f=/home/mydir/imagefile.iso

There are other ways, but readom does error checking.

Windows XP: Install Windows onto a USB Hard Drive

I successfully used the instructions here to install a fully working installation of Windows XP SP3 onto a 60G USB drive.
Luckily I had a Windows and Linux laptop to hand, so I used ISO Master on Ubuntu to edit the .iso, rather than WinISO, and my favorite K3b to burn the image.

With my laptop set to boot from USB as the priority, I can plug the drive in to boot Windows, or leave it unplugged to boot into Linux.

I haven't gotten around the page file warning on startup yet, but I plan to create some space on an internal drive to host it.

Windows: Show the Desktop

Press the Windows and D keys together to minimize all currently open Windows.
Press them again to restore all windows.

I use this key combination constantly, to access desktop icons and launch other applications.

See here for some more handy Windows shortcuts.

Thanks to Thomas Lee who skilfully lead us through a Windows 2008 Server course this week.