No Longer Requires USB Drive To Install Windows by Using Boot Camp on OS X El Capitan

Some very interesting changes in how Windows is installed in Boot Camp on OS X 10.11 “El Capitan”.  When you open Boot Camp Assistant on a new Mac that supports Windows 8 or later, you’ll get the new Boot Camp interface.

Notice the ISO image and partitioning are all on a single screen.  Prior to El Capitan, you had to insert a USB Flash Drive and Boot Camp Assistant copied the Windows installer from an ISO disk image to the flash drive, and then downloaded and set up the Windows drivers to the correct location in the installer for the Mac hardware.  El Capitan makes this a lot simpler.  Just select the ISO and how much space you want from Boot Camp, and then you click Install.

After Boot Camp Assistantd completes, OS X restarts to the Windows installer, and you follow the normal Windows installation.

Behind the Scenes

So how is this possible?  Where is the Windows installer if there is no installation media?  Boot Camp Assistant doesn’t just create a Boot Camp partition, but also creates an additional partition called “OSXRESERVED” that is FAT32 formatted.  It places this partition right after the recovery partition, and before the Boot Camp partition, as shown below.

The command line make this really clear.  Partition 1 is the standard EFI partition, partition 2 is the Mac partition, partition 3 is the Recovery partition.  All standard stuff.  Partition 4 is now the OSXRESERVED partition, and partition 5 is the BOOTCAMP partition.  You’ll also notice that disk2 is the Windows install ISO disk image that the Windows install files are copied from.

The OSXRESERVED partition has all the installer files, the Boot Camp drivers for Windows, and the EFI files for booting.

If you are familiar with EFI booting on OS X, you’ll see a familiar setup.  The EFI folder on the OSXRESERVED partition is the same one you would normally find on the EFI partition (normally disk0s1).  It appears that newer Macs have the ability to detect this partition and present it to Windows as if it were EFI installation media (such as a DVD or USB Flash drive).

So what happens to this partition after you are done installing?  During the next boot into OS X, the OSXRESERVED partition is removed and put back into the Core Storage container of the OS X partition:

Note that the Device is disk0s5 since the other partition existed on startup, but then it was deleted.  On next reboot, this device will change back to disk0s4, which is the standard device location for a Boot Camp partition.

This setup is not supported on all Macs that run El Capitan.  Only hardware that has newer firmware supports this.  We did a survey of all the shipping Macs, and here are the ones that support this new slicker setup:

Supported:

• Mac Pro
• MacBook Air 13‑inch
• MacBook Air 11‑inch
• MacBook Pro 13‑inch
• MacBook Pro 15‑inch

Older USB Installation

• iMac 21.5″
• iMac 27″
• MacBook Pro 13‑inch
• USB-C MacBook (surprising)

El Capitan’s Boot Camp-related updates are not just limited to Boot Camp Assistant.  There are also changes in how Boot Camp is affected by the new System Integrity Protection (SIP).  Tune in tomorrow for the next segment.

(Source: Twocanoes)

Categories: Mac

Tip: How to save photo from instagram

Looking to save some of the precious moments you find on Instagram? If so, thenSaveGram is a jailbreak tweak that you want to try today. It allows you to not only save photos from the people you follow, but also videos as well.

After installing SaveGram, it just works, and there are no settings to configure. In fact, no preference panel exists in the Settings app for the tweak, and no app icons are placed on the Home screen.

SaveGram is wholly contained within the Instagram app, and looks totally like a native feature. Once you’re viewing a photo or a video that you wish to save, simply tap the ellipsis button in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo page, and tap the new Save button and the bottom of the list. This will save the photo or video directly to the iOS Photos app.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a simpler and more native method for saving IG photos. If you want to check out SaveGram, you can do so free of charge from the BigBoss repo on Cydia.

Categories: IOS

Call Enhancer allows you to make phone calls anonymously

Making anonymous phone calls that lack Caller ID credentials has always been possible. In fact, many countries have their own specific prefix codes in order to block your phone number from being displayed on a recipient’s Caller ID. For the US, that code is *67, but in iOS, there is no easy way to add the prefix to a contact that you wish to call. Call Enhancer is a jailbreak tweak that makes anonymous calling much easier on iOS, and it brings with it one additional key benefit.

This additional benefit is a new interface that prompts whether or not you want to make a phone call upon tapping a contact. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally called someone from my contacts due to an inadvertent tap. Call Enhancer provides you with the opportunity to confirm your intentions before the call is initialized. Some may not like this functionality, believing that it slows down their workflow, but if you find yourself subjected to a lot of unintentional phone calls, then I recommend giving this a try.

From the confirmation interface you can choose to complete the call as normal, or you can complete the call anonymously. Anonymous phone calls are simply prepended with the Caller ID blocking code for your country. You can also choose to cancel the phone call by using the ‘x’ button residing beneath the two phone call buttons.

Venture over to the stock Settings app once Call Enhancer is installed, and open the tweak’s preferences. There, you’ll find a nicely designed preference panel, with several options geared towards configuring the tweak to your liking. You can enable Call Enhancer from the Keypad interface, or system wide. You can also choose your Caller ID prefix based on the country you reside in.

There are several styling features that can be customized by means of Call Enhancer’s preferences. There’s the Dial Tab style, which allows you to swipe on the green phone call button to reveal the anonymous button option. You can also choose to tap and hold to reveal the anonymous button, or always display the button.

Next, you’ll find the system-wide style, which is the confirmation interface that ensures that you actually want to complete a call upon tapping a contact. This setting defaults to “show always” which I recommend keeping that way.

Lastly, you’ll find the button style, which lets you customize the look of the anonymous button option within both the keypad dialer and the systemwide dialing interface. There are four button style to choose from, with some style being more discrete in appearance than others.

I really like Call Enhancer, because it brings functionality to the table that I’m able to derive real-world benefits from. I can’t stress how many times I’ve accidentally dialed a number, and I’ve always wanted to be able to block my Caller ID on the fly. With the way I use the Phone app, Call Enhancer makes the Phone app better.

What do you think about the feature set brought forth via Call Enhancer? Would you consider using it?

Categories: IOS

It seems 12″ MacBook Air’s logo doesn’t glow

As soon as Chinese website iFanr posted a bunch of photos last night showing what appears to be a display assembly for Apple’s rumored twelve-inch Retina MacBook Air, one particular design feature immediately stood out: a polished logo on the lid.

And if the latest leak published by French blog NowhereElse.fr is anything to go by, it seems that Apple’s radically redesigned notebook will in fact lose its traditional backlit translucent logo on the lid in favor of a metallic one that doesn’t glow.

A source who obtained the part back in late December told NowhereElse that it was designed for a brand new product. The publication clears up any possible confusion by stating that iPhone 6 logos are sent to the assembly lines in batches of six units, not four like you see on the top image.

NowhereElse sat on this info for weeks until iFanr’s claimed photos of the notebook’s display assembly came along, clearly showing a polished rather than the traditional translucent Apple logo on the lid (see below).

To make its point, NowhereElse scaled up the original iPhone 6 logo seen on the far right on the above photo. You can clearly see for yourself that the resulting surrounding area is much larger than that of its iPhone 6 counterpart.

For what it’s worth, DigiTimes, a hit-and-miss Taiwanese trade publication, alleged that Apple is about to switch to laser cutting and advanced embedding technologies. The new process technology is supposed to make the logo on the company’s upcoming products “3D-like and shine at the edges”.

Source: NowhereElse.fr 

Categories: IOS