The Unarchiver freezes? Quitting it is easy

The Unarchiver in my Macbook froze for the first time while I was extracting few RAR files at once. I could close the queuing files but not the one stuck in the unarchiving process.

I wanted to force quit it but it did not appear in the Force Quit list. Restarting the computer is one solution but my experience tells me it should always serve as the last resort and in most cases, it shouldn’t be considered as a solution at all. So how?

I found that just two UNIX commands can easily settle the problem:-

First enter top in Terminal and you will see a list of running processes on your system (just like the Activity Monitor). Spot for The Unachiver and its PID.

Then, enter the second command: kill -9 PID

Problem resolved!

 

How to Display An Image Inline in Gmail?

As most of the Gmail users may have realized, Gmail does not have the ability to send inline images in the body of email because it does not support HTML formatting. Sometimes, to get our messages delivered in a more meaningful and colorful way, an attachment is definitely less effective than an inline image.

So how to make it in Gmail? Here is a trick for you.

First upload your images to Flickr (sign up an account if you aren’t a Flickr user). Set the privacy to Public.

Then download and install the social web browser, Flock.

Launch Flock and go to one of its homepages “My World”. Go to Friend Activity and click Flickr. You’ll be directed to the website. Log in and choose the image you wish to insert. 

There is an option bar appear on top of the image. Click Blog as if you’re going to write a blog entry. You’ll be asked to set up a blog account. You can ignore it (if you don’t plan to) by clicking Continue.

 

A blog editor containing your selected image will pop up. Now open a new tab in Flock and go to your Gmail account. Drag the image from the blog editor window to your Gmail message box.

Complete your email and send it. Your recipient will get your inline image mail like this:

Well, it does not seem a good solution but if you can’t find any, it is nevertheless an useful solution to embed image in Gmail rather than attaching it as a separate file. Other suggestions are welcome.

Oops, running out of HD space in Boot Camp Windows partition?

Few weeks ago I faced a problem of disk space shortage when I needed to install the space-consuming MATLAB in my Mac’s Boot Camp Windows. As I checked out the free space available in the Boot Camp partition, oops, there remained only few hundreds MB. Oh no, I seriously don’t like all the troubles of backing up all data and reinstall everything from A to Z after readjusting the Boot Camp partition size. It seems I have to get through all these huh?

If you have the same concern as mine, read on. Here’s a solution that can save you all the troubles.

First spend a few seconds on Google to find your saviour, the Winclone.

Download and install it. You can start your backup, repartition, and restoration in ease right away. Wait a minute, check out what is your Windows filesystem before you leap. If it’s is FAT32, then you need to first convert it to NTFS before you can increase the size of your Windows partition. Otherwise no matter how much larger you’ve resized your partition, it will just shrink to match the size of your original partition.

 

How to convert FAT32 to NTFS?

 

1. In Windows, first go to My Computer and choose the drive you wish to convert. Right click on the drive icon and go to Properties. Make sure you know the drive letter (such as ‘C’ for C drive) and the drive’s volume label.



2. Go to Start>Run and type cmd and click OK. The command prompt will appear.



3. In command prompt, type convert [drive letter]: /fs:ntfs    (for example, convert C: /fs:ntfs). Press Enter.



4. Next you’ll be prompted to key in the volume label for your drive. (Don’t type Alliraph, that’s my drive’s volume label, not yours.)
5. You’ll be asked to if you would like to force a dismount on the drive (Y/N). Type Y and press Enter.
6. Since the drive contains the operating system, conversion cannot be done immediately. Type Y and press Enter again so that the conversion will be scheduled the next time the system restarts.
7. Now reboot your Windows and let your computer take over the job. You can go have a cup of coffee while the filesystem is being converted.
8. The conversion is done. You may want to confirm it by going to the drive’s Properties again. You should see the filesystem is now NTFS.

Now let’s go back to Mac OS X. Run Winclone. At Image, choose the source that you wish to create the image, which is your Windows partition. Click Image…

Go to Boot Camp Assistance, remove your Windows partition and restore the disk to a single-partition Mac OS X volume. Click Restore.

Then, create a new partition of your Windows. Set the size of your partitions as desired.

When the partitioning is done, go back to Winclone>Restore, select the Windows partition image you just created a while ago. Select your new Boot Camp partition as the destination and click Restore. Winclone will restore your operating system and data onto the new partition. 

Congratulations! Your Windows is back with larger size of disk space. The entire setup is such a breeze isn’t it?