Awesome Techs

The good thing about using virtualBox is it allows us to convert to different types of images by itself. We do not require any other tools for it. And if we can convert any image to RAW we can simply mount it under linux as any other Harddisk Drive.Well that  is a very handy TIP right?

Now How to do it, Its a little complicated and the information regarding this is not widely available in Internet as far as I know. I used IRC help channels for these products,and I got help form there.

Converting a VDI image to RAW:

For this we can use 2 techniques.

1. VBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw srcname dstname
2. VBoxManage clonehd srcname dstname –format raw

Both will work almost all the time. But usage offirst one is not recomenteeeed as “internalcommands” parameter is not meant for normal use and its not recommended. Now the 2 one will always work. With no issues.

Another point to remember before the conversion:

If you ‘ve created a snapshot, it’s expected behaviour that the “base” image contains the state as of the snapshot. So you actually have to use clonehd, and you have to dig out the filename for the changes after the snapshot (or the uuid of that). You only need the name/uuid of the “current state”.  For that go to the VM config pane, select the disk you want to see the details for and tick “Differencing disks”.T he “Information” section will then show the filename you need.

Use this name as the source disk. It may be having less size but It will work.

Mounting The RAW image:

Since this is a RAW diskimage we will have to use it as a loopback device for mounting it. Also we have to specify the offset for the disk.

so the mount command will be,

sudo mount -o loop,offset=32256 <raw_img_file> <pth_to_the_dir_where_the filesystem_should_be_mounted>

Now you will have mounted device mounted with raw image you’ve given.

As a search engine, I can say google is the Best. Even with Image searches. Now its even getting better with Google Image Swirl.

When you search the images using google image swirl, the search results will be a new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a fun, exploratory interface.

If you given a search query, the result will be containing around 12 images which looks like they have ordered all the images into 12 sections. Once we click on any of this 12 images, the images will come in a rounded region. One circle(right) seems to be having the similar image function which google launched recently. So by clicking any of the images in that circle, will give you another circle of images of similar nature.

So now you go and experiment the feature.

You can try the Swirl here.

The site Hid.im, allows users to convert torrent files into PNG images, as a way to allow the uncensored, hidden upload of torrent files to image hosting services such as photobucket, imageshack etc, also almost all discussion boards allow uploads of image files.

According to Michael Nutt, founder of the site, via TorrentFreak the site is

“an attempt to make torrents more resilient. The difference is that you no longer need an indexing site to host your torrent file. Many forums will allow uploading images but not other types of files.”

For this to work we have to simply select the torrent file and submit it to the site and the site will do all the background work. the only restriction is on the file size. The file size should be less than 250 KB.

Those trying to decode the message will need either a Firefox extension or through the site’s bookmarklet.