[MacTUG] Much love for Mike Bombich -- Bootpicker 1.3 makes Mac/XP choice easier - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

[Marlon A. Griffith]

Let us count the ways that the Mac sysadmin community hearts Mike B: we relish 
his reliable and full-featured Carbon Copy Cloner, we depend absolutely upon his 
fast and simple NetRestore, we puzzle through his instructions for deploying 
dual-boot machines and for working with Active Directory. Most of all, we love 
that all this snazzy management goodness is free. Now, for everyone tired of 
telling dual-boot users "just hold down the option key," Mike has released a 
Boot Camp OS selector tool called (unsurprisingly) BootPicker. It's open source, 
free and delightfully slick.

What differentiates BootPicker from a simple option-boot, or from more elaborate 
tools like rEFIt, is its manageability and simplicity. Installed as a preference 
pane, BootPicker actually boots to Mac OS X every time and lets the user click a 
button for the OS they want (or, if administratively desired, reboots 
automatically to Mac OS X or Windows without user input). This gets around a 
couple of tricky problems; normally, setting a permanent boot OS requires an 
admin password, and a machine set to always boot in Windows is immune to the 
management oversight of tools like ARD or Workgroup Manager (you can manage both 
sides of the fence with LANrev or similar tools, but that can be a pain). By 
booting into Mac OS X first, there's an opportunity to change the preferences 
for BootPicker itself and modify the behavior for the next boot cycle.

There's a very solid Read Me for BootPicker that (unfortunately) is only 
included in the install distribution, so you'll have to download it to peruse 
the details. Mike includes a candid evaluation of the security risks involved 
with something like BootPicker, which runs as root before the normal login 
window is presented to the user; please use discretion and care if you decide to 
deploy it. Check it out, and take a moment to appreciate what Mr. Bombich has 
done to make our lives a little bit easier.

<http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/31/much-love-for-mike-bombich-bootpicker-1-3-makes-mac-xp-choice/>