Run Hyper-V and VirtualBox on Windows 10

I have been using VirtualBox for long time and have setup quite a few VMs for development and testing purposes. I upgraded to the Windows 10 Pro for my main work laptop, and began working with Hyper-V, which is available on a client OS since Windows 8. Since I use virtualization to do software testing as well development work on daily basis, I was eager to see what Hyper-V could do. Hyper-V have impressed me so far. It performs well and stays out of my way when I’m not using it.

However, as I have a lot of my previous work in VirtualBox, and rather than try to make all the old VMs work with Hyper-V, it made more sense to continue using them on the original platform (VirtualBox). The challenge is that VirtualBox and Hyper-V cannot run at the same time. Only one hypervisor can run at a time, and since Hyper-V runs all the time, VirtualBox always fails as it only runs when launched.

The workaround (there’s always a workaround, isn’t there?) is to disable Hyper-V when you want to run VirtualBox. I found a few different ways on the web to accomplish this, including altering the registry, and running a command. But the only one I found that worked involved changing the boot configuration using bcdedit.

If you run bcdedit with no arguments, you should see a property called hypervisorlaunchtype. This will be either set to off or auto.

To disable Hyper-V in order to use VirtualBox, open a command prompt as administrator and run the command:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

You’ll need to reboot, but then you’ll be all set to run VirtualBox. To turn Hyper-V back on, run:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

and then reboot.

GitHub Flow

what is GitHub Flow?

Anything in the master branch is deployable
To work on something new, create a descriptively named branch off of master (ie: new-oauth2-scopes)
Commit to that branch locally and regularly push your work to the same named branch on the server
When you need feedback or help, or you think the branch is ready for merging, open a pull request
After someone else has reviewed and signed off on the feature, you can merge it into master
Once it is merged and pushed to ‘master’, you can and should deploy immediately

That is the entire flow. It is very simple, very effective and works for fairly large teams.

So, let’s look at each of these steps in turn.

#1 – anything in the master branch is deploy-able

#2 – create descriptive branches off of master

#3 – push to named branches constantly

#4 – open a pull request at any time

#5 – merge only after pull request review

#6 – deploy immediately after review

To read the full article by Scot Chacon please click here.

Ultimate Boot CD

Ultimate Boot CD is completely free for the download, or could be obtained for a small fee.

You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to:

Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives. More and more PCs are shipped without floppy drives these days, and it is such a royal pain when you need to run diagnostic tools on them.
Free yourself from the slow loading speed of the floppy drive. Even if you do have a floppy drive, it is still much much faster to run your diagnostic tools from the CDROM drive, rather than wait for the tool to load from the floppy drive.
Consolidate as many diagnostic tools as possible into one bootable CD. Wouldn’t you like to avoid digging into the dusty box to look for the right floppy disk, but simply run them all from a single CD? Then the Ultimate Boot CD is for you!
Run Ultimate Boot CD from your USB memory stick. A script on the CD prepares your USB memory stick so that it can be used on newer machines that supports booting from USB devices. You can access the same tools as you would from the CD version.

You can download the latest version of Ultimate Boot CD by clicking the image below.

What’s the Difference Between “Image” and “Clone”? –

The difference between image and clone is both simple and confusing, because the terms are used interchangeably to mean different things.

Image and clone are two very confusing backup terms.
One reason is a deep, dark, dirty little secret of the industry: we don’t all agree on what these two terms mean. Quite literally, one person’s clone is another person’s image, and vice versa.
It gets confusing, and if you’re hearing different things from different people, that’s why.
I’ll provide what I believe are the most accurate and common definitions. Hopefully, that means you’re more likely to hear people agree than disagree with what I’m saying.

Source: What’s the Difference Between “Image” and “Clone”? – Ask Leo!

Is There a Way to Know Where a URL-shortened URL Is Going to Take Me?

Link-shortening services make it hard to tell a link’s final destination. When you receive one in an email, you may want to do some detective work to see where it’s going – before you click.

Some services do have preview features. For example, if you visit tinyurl.com/preview.php, TinyURL will help you turn on a cookie-based feature in your browser. Then, when you click on a link, you can preview where it goes prior to going there.

Bit.ly also allows you to do this. Simply add a plus sign to the end of the URL, and Bit.ly will display where you would have gone rather than taking you there.

There are also several sites that show you where a shortened link will take you. Some current services 1 include:

Each of these display the target and some additional information about a short URL.

The bottom line, really, is to stay away from mysterious links sent to you through spam. But when you receive a shortened link from a trusted source and you aren’t sure why, investigate with these preview tools.

Source: Is There a Way to Know Where a URL-shortened URL Is Going to Take Me? – Ask Leo!