Category: Life

As I’ve mentioned in the past, VirtualBox is my favourite of all the virtualisation tools out there. I use it to run Kubuntu on my Windows XP machine, for web development purposes.

Anyway, I have just the one “guest” machine, Kubuntu, so it seems a bit tedious to have to start VirtualBox each time. Naturally, there is another way – a command line shortcut.

Cutting to the chase, I’m assuming you know how to create a shortcut. I’ll also assume you’re using the latest version of VirtualBox. Right, here’s the shortcut…

"C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBoxVBoxManage.exe" startvm xxx

Where xxx is the name of your virtual guest.

And that’s it really. Oh, and if you want to make it pretty, I even found a Kubuntu icon to make that shortcut look even more appropriate.

If anybody has been following my Twitters (and as a consequence my Facebook status) you’ll know I did something today that I wasn’t looking forward to. Well, I was look forward to the possible outcome if all went well. It was just the possibility that it wouldn’t go well.

Ok, let’s put it another way. I may work in IT but electrical things – particularly computers – don’t like me. They break. Easily. And quickly.

So, when I had an idea that involved taking apart my PC, modifying it and putting it back again, the chances were slim.

A few years ago I made my own PC – a picture of it can be seen at the right. The case is superb – large, sold and very airy, giving a good circulation and therefore making a quiet PC. It also takes large fans so I chose large, slow moving ones.

Unfortunately, as my luck goes, I had problems with it so in time I bought myself a replacement from a well-known manufacturer, thinking that would put an end to my luck. The replacement was, well, small, plastic and loud. I’ve done what I can put it’s size and lack of abilities limited this. However, the components were newer and more powerful.

So, my idea was to transplant the inards of my current PC into my old case – I could use my larger fans and would have room for expansion, etc. That was my job today. Remove the insides from my PC, clean them up (yes, using an air duster!) and put them in the other case. Plus add some extras, such as the better cables, etc, that I had.

And yet, with all things against me, it worked. It’s back! And god, it’s quiet. You can’t heard it downstairs through the vibrations on the floor – in fact you can’t tell it’s on when standing outside of the room (with the door open). I’ve even ordered some more stickers for the front to reflect the new hardware 😉

One of the great advantages of running a site such as Copy+ is the potential for publicity – both for us to receive and also to give. Therefore after stumbling across a piece of hardware that would be ideal for users of the Copy+ software, I got in contact with the distributor.

Not only did I get a 10% discount for everyone in kind return for the publicity, but they’ve even sent me (or rather the Copy+ author, Stuart) some of their hardware – in this case a SATA hard drive dock. You simply drop 1 or 2 SATA hard drives into this device, which is connected to your PC via USB, to access them.

Brilliant! And I look forward to Stuarts review – assuming all goes well we can eagerly promote this product further on our site.

However, one thing struck him. And tickled me. The logo to the right was on the front of the box. No hammers or chisels required apparantly. Damn, and they’re a vital part of my PC repair kit.