Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Free SMB Books Sampler CD from Karl Palachuk

Published on December 21, 2009 in Events. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

It’s Christmas, and Karl Palachuk of Great Little Book is in the mood for giving gifts! If you get yourself over to Karl’s Blog – Small Biz Thoughts – then you’ll see an announcement that he’s giving away a Free SMB Books Sampler CDcontaining a ton of goodies.

The CD contains a ton of genuinely fabulous content, so if you’re a Consultant in the SMB Community then I’d encourage you to go grab your copy before stocks run out!

“SMB Books, the Resource Center for SMB and MSP Consultants, has just announced an amazing FREE Sampler CD.

The SMB Books Sampler CD includes more than seven hours of audio and video, plus hundreds of pages of great material. Much of this material is unique to this CD and not distributed anywhere else.

Contributors include:

- Robert Crane

- Karl Palachuk

- Robin Robins

- George Sierchio

- Erick Simpson

- Dave Sobel

This is too big for a download, so you need to request the physical CD.

Please see the official announcement here:

http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/2009/12/smb-books-free-sampler-cd.html

Hundreds have already requested their SMB Books Sampler CD since it was announced last Saturday. Spread the word and request your Free SMB Books Sampler CD today!

Thank you!”

Why I Don’t Send Christmas Cards Anymore

Published on December 20, 2009 in Personal. 3 Comments

For the past few years I’ve not sent the traditional Christmas Cards out to Friends and Family. Not because I’m all “Bah Humbug!” at this time of year, but because, frankly, with the advent (no pun intended!) of the Internet, E-Mail and Social Networking – rarely a month goes by without me keeping in touch with pretty much every one of my contacts anyway!

There are exceptions to this rule – I’ve got a few older friends and family who are not on-line, but I use this time of year as a reason to pick up the telephone and call them, or make the time to visit with them.

My Green instincts also influence me here – all those printed cards produce a lot of waste, much of which isn’t recycled. Those Christmas Cards I do receive are recycled in the New Year along with all the rest of my Christmas Waste – you can find out how to do the same yourself here.

In conclusion, I’m really not sure how sending a piece of card through the post is relevant anymore!

I know many people feel differently to this and take great pleasure in sending and receiving Christmas cards, and I hope if you’re one of those people you won’t be offended by not receiving a card from me, but with the Royal Mail failing to deliver one-in-six Christmas Cards, then there’s a poor chance that if you’ve sent me a Christmas Card that I’ll not receive it anyway!

Instead, as I have for many years now, I’ll be making a donation to my favourite Charity, The Woodlands Trust.

So whilst I won’t be sending Christmas Cards, I’ll still be enjoying what I believe Christmas is all about – taking time to get together with friends and family, relax and have fun!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas! :-)

Installing Windows 7 from USB Key Disk

Published on December 2, 2009 in Computers and Internet. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I recently showed our IT Support team how to use this method for working with Windows 7, I hope it’s useful for you too.

If you’re still installing Windows 7 to a PC from DVD, then you’re missing a trick to speed up installation times.

If you’re installing Windows 7 to a Netbook, then you’ll pretty much need to know how to do this as you won’t have a DVD-ROM to boot from. :-)

Installing Windows 7 from a USB Key Disk is the fastest way to get Microsoft’s latest Operating System on to your PC – I’ve seen installs take 15 minutes or less from boot-up – and here’s how to do it.

  • First – make sure you have a Windows 7 installation disk or ISO!
  • Second – make sure you have a USB Key Disk of 4GB in size or more to enable you to store all the Windows 7 installation files.
  • Third – make sure you’ve turned on the option to boot from USB Key Disk in the BIOS of your PC. Most PC’s built in the last three years will have this option available – if you can’t see it, seek out a BIOS upgrade from your PC manufacturer web-site, then look again post-upgrade.
  • Fourth – make sure you run this process on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine. Windows XP, sadly, won’t allow you to do this.

Stage One – Format the USB Key DiskDISKPART Command Prompt Screenshot

WARNING:- Be *very* careful when using the diskpart utility. Select the wrong disk to use diskpart on, and you can do a lot of damage!

1. After plugging in your USB Key Disk, open a command prompt as administrator (Click Start > type command > right click “Command Prompt” and click “Run as Administrator”)Windows 7 "Run as Administrator" screenshot

2. From the Command Prompt, type diskpart and then when the utility has loaded type list disk. Make a note of the number of your USB Key Disk.

3. Type select disk x (where x is the number of your USB Key Disk) then clean

4. Type create partition primary then select partition 1

5. Type active then format fs=NTFS quick

6. Type assign then exit.

Leave the Command Prompt open for the next stage of the process, and make a note of the drive letter given to your newly formatted USB Key Disk.

Stage Two – Make the USB Key Disk Bootable

1. Insert the Windows 7 DVD into your DVD Drive (or alternatively, use the Windows 7 .ISO file and mount it using MagicISO or similar).

2. From the Command Prompt, change directory to the DVD’s “boot” directory – typically this would mean typing d: then typing cd d:boot (where d: is your DVD Drive)

3. Type bootsect /nt60 g: (where g: is the letter assigned to your newly formatted USB Key Disk).

4. Close the Command Prompt.

Windows 7 Folder Options Screenshot

Stage Three – Copy the Windows 7 Installation Files to the USB Key Disk

1. Within Windows Explorer, from the Tools > Folder Options menu, make sure you’ve got “Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives” turned on, and “Hide Extensions for known file types” and “Hide protected operation system files” turned off.

2. Copy all the files on the Windows 7 DVD to the formatted USB Key Disk.

Stage Four – Install Windows 7 from USB Key Disk

Making sure you’ve set the BIOS of your PC to boot from USB Key Disk, pop the USB Key Disk in and go through the (much faster than from DVD!) installation routine! :-)