No more Ventoy Secure Boot Issues - just use an IODD drive!

If you need a Multiboot solution that works with Secure Boot without any problems (no BIOS issues, no MOK Manager changes to the BIOS for Ventoy, etc.), then get an IODD Virtual drive.

The latest one is USB C and is a 2.5" HDD/SSD enclosure. So you can just buy it and fit you own 2.5" SSD which are pretty cheap these days.

These devices allow you to also select fixed size VHDs as a virtual drive (as well as .ISO files and .IMA floppy image files). This means you can have 100's of virtual drives in one device. Each VHD can contain an MBR or GPT drive, each with multiple partitions (e.g. contents of a Rufus USB drive, WinPE, Windows installer, full OS's, Ventoy drive, E2B drive, etc.).

ST400 IODD (#ad link)

Simple hack to make sure Amazon deliver to you personally (no more 'drop and dash')!

In the UK, certain items are age restricted. If you include one of these items in your order, then the delivery driver must ask you for age verification. This means they must knock on your door or ring your doorbell, wait for someone to open it and then verify the age of the person that receives the parcel.

Of course, someone over 18 must be in to receive the delivery or they will need to redeliver it.

So, in the UK, simply include a knife in your order (the Amazon page will warn you that age confirmation is required - see above). Cheap knives on Amazon are often only £1-£2, so just add a useful cheap knife to your order and make sure someone over 18 will be in on the delivery day!

You can always sell any surplus knives or give them as gifts to your friends and neighbours!

Steve's stock market top UK ETFs and tips (Q3 2024)

This article will be updated regularly. Visit every week for updates. Bookmark it now!

Charts/Info correct at 11 July 2024 (Justetf.com comparisons).

Updates

Blog page updated 15/7/24

Update 26/7/24 - Current Tech stocks correction, but 2024 Q4 S&P500 expected to do well in Q4. Wait for stocks to start rise again (may start today 26/7) and then BUY. May want to sell some in Q1 2025 if USA market volatile and buy more quality or world emerging market and small cap?

Update 5/8/2024 - Markets down 2-10% !! Mainly affected by USA - Fed failing to reduce interest rates and higher unemployment. Mostly however, companies are doing OK and the US market should recover after September. Probably too late to sell now, but get cash ready to invest in late Aug/Sept as soon as stocks start to plateau. UK\EU may be good as a hedge. Could consider selling some stock and buying CSH2 (money market 5.4%) but may miss recovery! I am not selling as expect bounce up when Fed finally cuts interest rate in Sept.

Update 13/8/2024 - Markets recovering to previous 3 months level. Market expecting Fed interest rate cut in Sept and better USA employment figures. If stocks dip today/tomorrow, maybe I will buy more.

Update 14/8/2024 - Best performing ETFs YearToDate, UICM 19% (US Comms), PQVG 21% (S&P QVM), IWFM 20% (World momentum), XDEM 20% (world momentum), IITU 22% (US Tech), XLKQ 25% (US Tech).

Update 16/8/2024 - Market recovered.  Hot Tip: Buy TSLA now using ETF ICDU (Amazon 34%, Tesla 13%, Home Depot 8%).  These companies may benefit from AI and also TSLA from sale of it's non-Chinese car software to all other global car companies that currently use Chinese OTA update software. Timeframe: 1 yr. BT group, Amazon, Alphabet and MSFT looking like strong buy (most except BT already in XLKQ ETF).

2024/8/27 - I bought FLXX sold some EMIM iShares Edge MSCI EM Value and all Japan.

Update 13/9/2024 - Market dipped but now recovering again! ICDU tipped last month is up almost 6% in one month.  new tips are energy and finance sectors - e.g. IESU and IUFS for Mastercard\Visa. These are expected to do well within a 6 month time frame. For steady UK dividend stock try IUKD (5.8% in 3 months, 17% in 1 yr) which has beaten SWDA\XDEQ in last 1,3,6,12 months! Gold SGLN at all-time high, not a good time to buy - hold. I bought XLKQ 2024/9/4, XDEQ, SGLN and EQQQ 2024/9/10, IESU and IUFS 2024/9/13.

Update 21/9/2024 - Fed 0.5% rate cut happened which gave approx 1% rise to S&P. Smaller companies should now begin to do better as they will pay less interest on borrowings and can expand. The S&P600/small cap is a good bet now - e.g. ISP6 (2 divs/yr) or USSC (acc - heavier in financials which is good) or both as their top 10 don't overlap. Also Financials (WFEG or XLFQ or UIFS) and Energy (IESU - long term) seem good value.

How to make at least £20K ($20K) for free!

This article mainly applies to UK residents but the general principle applies to most countries.

WARNING: If you have a non-state Pension, you may be being ripped off!

Reading this article can save you a lot of money! Someone may have robbed you of at least 20K and you don't even know it!

agFM v1.A3 BUGFIX RELEASE - please update!

This bug affects anyone who uses .imgPTN* files that contain images of Windows Installers or WinPE images and they UEFI booting to agFM. Please update agFM.

v1.A3 2024-05-12 - bugfix - if you boot to agFM and Partition 1 has a XML or INI file in the root, agFM always permanently altered some of those files. This permanently changes the imgPTN image file contents if one has been swapped into Partition 1. The new version now only cleans these files if Partition 1 contains E2B files.

Info: When E2B (legacy) or agFM (legacy or UEFI) first boots, it cleans out the contents of various .xml files and .ini in the root of Partition 1 (see files above). If the user then runs a Windows ISO (or launches Ventoy), these files will then not affect anything.

How to improve your Ventoy USB drive!

Ventoy is a very good multiboot solution but it lacks some features and has some legacy compatibility issues. A common problem is that Linux distros keep changing and they break Ventoy compatibility and so you find that you cannot boot to the latest Linux ISO any more and have to wait for a Ventoy update. Using E2B or grubfm can often solve this issue.

Here is how to enhance your Ventoy USB drive and make it much more compatible and reliable. E2B and grubfm use a more compatible and universal method to boot Linux ISOs (but it requires the ISO to be contiguous and USB partition 4 must be unused).

HURRY - SPECIAL OFFER until May 1st - 3 months of Audible for 99p

I have previously mentioned that I used the online service Readly (use this #Ad link for 1 month free!) - to get access to thousands of magazines and publications (though I only read about a dozen or so every week, plus newspapers). This works very well despite the price increase.

However, Amazon now have an offer on for Audible (#Ad link) which I have also taken advantage of. I can listen to books and podcasts on my Amazon Echo devices or via my smartphone or computer. I can even download them and play them on my esp32 web radio project!

Get 1 audiobook of choice each month. 99p for the first month, months 2 + 3 are free. Renews automatically at £7.99 / month. Terms apply. Cancel anytime.

'Ventoy for E2B' v.1.0.97 is now released

No issues have been reported and it seems to work so I have now updated the release version.

New 'Ventoy for E2B' v1.0.97 pre-release

I have now made a pre-release version of 'Ventoy for E2B' which has been based on the current Ventoy 1.0.97 version.

The current released version is based on Ventoy 1.0.79 and so it is getting quite outdated.

How to quickly display the amount of system Total RAM under Ventoy

The easiest way to get information about the system you have booted from in Ventoy is to simply press F5 and select Hardware Information.