Menkom Blog
A Blog for Australian Small Businesses
How to find Drupal Developers
Jan 19th
Whilst its enticing to hire outsourced drupal developers you need to very careful on who you plan to take on the role as your primary drupal developer. Outsourcing can be great to leverage your time and knowledge. We have hired, fired many freelance drupal developers in our time because of many reasons such as communication barriers, non performance, tardiness. This practice can be a massive waste of both time and money.
There are many service providers such as elance or guru were you can find countless freelancers to undertake your next project, of course be prepared for the worst as we have had first hand experience with many of them and most never seem to reach our expectations. You will have to rummage through the bad to get to the good, and the good are few. Finding the balance between cost per hour, language barriers, availability etc… is hard and sometime you have to sacrifice one for the other.
To save you a lot of trouble we recommend you pay the extra dollars and hire someone who at the very least lives in the same country and you. It will eliminate most of your problems right away and you can be proud to keep someone else employed where you live. 
Menkom now have a solid team of drupal developers who can undertake your next project and take the headache our of contracting a freelance drupal developer.
Head over to our website to read more about our Drupal CMS services we offer.
How To Stop Spam
Dec 7th
Is your inbox getting clogged with spam ? We have written an article to teach you how to combat spam with both free and paid solutions. We also cover in detail not only how to eliminate spam but also more importantly how to prevent spam.
Checkout this article How To Stop Spam and get some real answers to the growing spam epidemic many of us face.
How to find out when your Windows was installed
Dec 4th
Has your computer technician ever asked you, or have you ever asked yourself “When was this server or pc installed?”
There are a number of ways to determine the build date of your windows operating system. One excample would be to look at file dates, but this sometimes does not represent the true build date because of system and backup restores you may have peformed. The most accurate way to determine your windows build date is by using the systeminfo command in windows. Follow these quick and easy steps to find out the original install date of your Windows operating system;
Open a command prompt window and type in the following command and then press Enter;
systeminfo | find /i "install date"
The systeminfo command is common across all versions of Windows .
Resize Images Easily In Windows
Dec 1st
There are times you need to resize a photo in windows and there is no better and easier way to do it than with this nifty little program called Windows Image Resizer PowerToy Clone. This program will easily let you resize 1 or more images in sequence to predefined sizes or custom sizes you specify. Its very easy to use and results are quick, all you need to do is right click on a photo to choose the Resize context menu option. This program can be run on all versions of windows and even Windows 7. This program is great if you have a large photo that you need to shrink down to a smaller size for emailing or uploading a photo to your website that has file limitations. This is especially useful for Drupal CMS users as most modules have a 2mb file limitation.
DOWNLOAD: Windows Image Resizer PowerToy 2mb
Windows 7 Australian Pricing
Oct 23rd
Windows 7 is now officially released in Australia, pricing has been announced.
Upgrade pricing:
- Home Premium $199
- Professional $399
- Ultimate $429
Full Version pricing
- Home Premium $299
- Professional $449
- Ultimate $469
Windows 7 Upgrade Promotion
If you buy a new computer with Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate any time between now and 31 January 2010, you can upgrade to Windows 7 for nothing, or for a small cost, thanks to a special Microsoft promotion.
The upgrade can be redeemed from October 22, when Windows 7 is released, until 28 February 2010.
Take care though: only certain PCs are eligible for the promotion.Check in-store stickers on PCs before you purchase and visiting www.windows.com/upgradeoffer to check if the system you are planning to buy . You can also asking in-store if a system is eligible for the Windows 7 Upgrade.
Each manufacturer will have their own steps that you’ll need to complete before getting the upgrade. Microsoft also notes that some manufacturers may only provide the upgrade option for a shorter period, so we’d sugggest you get all the facts before you buy.
We also have pricing for OEM version of Windows 7 which is much cheaper than retail.
- Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit – OEM – $150 inc Gst
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit – OEM – $150 inc Gst
- Windows 7 Professional 32bit – OEM – $200 inc Gst
- Windows 7 Professional 64bit – OEM – $220 inc Gst
- Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit – OEM – $280 inc Gst
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit – OEM – $280 inc Gst
To eligible for OEM pricing you must purchase a piece of hardware such as a Hard Drive, CPU, Motherboard, RAM.
This is a much cheaper alternative than buying the Retail Versions as you can see. It would be better to put some money towards upgrading your computer and making it faster.
We have done extensive testing with Windows 7 and have found it to be extremely good. It worth the upgrade. Give us a call if your interested in upgrading your network in your business to the new Windows 7 operating system. 1300 855 465
Microsoft Security Essentials. FREE Antivirus / AntiSpyware Software
Oct 14th
Microsoft is having a second stab at the anti-virus suite, only this time its package is free. Has it got it right second time around?
Security Essentials is Microsoft’s second go at producing a standalone security package for Windows.
It replaces the now-discontinued Windows Live OneCare, but takes a fundamentally different tack. Where OneCare was a commercial package, positioned as a comprehensive security solution, Security Essentials is free and – as the name implies – keeps things as simple as possible.
In practice, that means a minimal feature set. Security Essentials doesn’t use fancy cloud analysis or sandboxing techniques like most commercial antivirus packages. It adds nothing to the standard Windows firewall, and makes no attempt to warn the user away from phishing websites or hijacked pages.
But it will check the files on your hard disk and intercept known malware before it can wreak havoc. That should be enough to keep you safe from the vast majority of online nasties, be they worms, viruses, Trojans or whatever.
And in our tests, Security Essentials did indeed detect almost all of the malware we pitted it against, picking up 96 per cent of our selection of live files. That’s a very creditable score, though Avira’s free AntiVir package scored 100 per cent.
The no-frills approach brings some collateral benefits too. In terms of ease of use, Security Essentials is hard to beat. Its interface comprises just four tabs, labelled “Home”, “Update”, “History” and “Settings”. It’s laughably easy to get an at-a-glance view of your protection status and launch manual database updates (regular updates come down with Windows Update, making it effortless to manage Security Essentials in a business context). You can also check detected items, and access simple options such specifying folders and file types to ignore.
This security suite is not standard in Windows 7, however we can guarantee that this type of software will eventually be intergrated into future versions of windows as an overall package. We did not notice any noticeable lag with our test systems and the software is not full of additional options that make your head spin not to mention make your system lag.
Infact we have uninstalled the once reigning AVG FREE version to Microsoft Security Essentials for now. Click the link below to download your copy of Microsoft Security Essentials.
DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Security Essentials 4MB
NOTE: You will need an activated legal version of windows to run this software otherwise it will not pass validation. Currently Windows 7 users can install this software without the need to worry about validation as Microsoft have as yet to pass down WGA checking for Windows 7 operating systems.
New Website Packages Now Available
Oct 14th
We have packaged up and added some new Website Packages at our parent website. Full CMS Websites powered by Drupal CMS are now available for a great price of only just $499. Great Small Business Websites don’t have to cost an arm and leg. Check out our website for further information on our Website Packages.
website packages
Menkom Homepage: Affordable Small Business Websites
90 FREE Windows 7 Wallpapers Collection
Oct 14th
A nice collection of Windows 7 Wallpapers for you to download FREE before the official release of Windows 7 on the 22nd October.
a sample of wallpaper in this pack
DOWNLOAD: 90-free-windows-7-wallpapers-collection 25mb
How to Install Windows 7 From a USB Drive
Oct 14th
Imagine a situation where you need to install Windows Vista or 7 in a system but you don’t have access to DVD drive. We all know Windows Vista, Server 2008 or 7 comes in DVDs and you’ll need a DVD drive to install them. Then how will you install them? The solution is, you can create a bootable USB drive which can be used to install Windows without using DVD drive.
Requirements:
* A USB Drive (4 GB or more)
* Vista, Server 2008 or 7 ISO image or DVD
* Host OS: Windows Vista (SP1 or SP2), Server 2008 or 7
How to use:
Once you meet the requirements, run the utility. Its a portable utility so doesn’t need installation. Simply run it and check the option “I have read and accepted the following License Agreement”. Now click on OK button and it’ll launch the main application.
a bootable usb application
It also shows a Help window so that you can use the utility easily. The utility requires only 4 easy steps to follow:
* Check USB drive (To check whether your USB drive is attached or not)
* Format USB drive
* Choose DVD or ISO image (To copy the required files to USB drive)
* Start the process to create bootable USB drive
DOWNLOAD HERE: how-to-install-windows-7-from-a-usb-drive
Windows 7 Releases First Round of Security Updates
Oct 14th
I woke up this morning and noticed Windows Update with 6 new security fixes. This is the first round of fixes that Microsoft has officially released for Windows 7. Windows 7 gets officially released in Australia on the 22nd of October.
Windows 7 in our bench tests is a fantastic operating system and we can finally say Microsoft did a good job of the latest operating system, as everyone is well aware Windows Vista came and went before we knew it.
Here is a screenshot of the Windows Update that came in this morning for the Aussies.
windows 7 releases first round of windows updates
The security update, which is rated as Important, is available on Windows Update as of today, but is also available for direct download on the Microsoft Download Center: Windows XP 32-bit (733KB), Windows XP 64-bit (1.1MB), Windows Server 2003 32-bit (684KB), Windows Server 2003 64-bit (1.1MB), Windows Server 2003 for Itanium (1.6MB), Windows Vista 32-bit (1.4MB), Windows Vista 64-bit (2.1MB), Windows Server 2008 32-bit (1.4MB), Windows Server 2008 64-bit (2.1MB), Windows Server 2008 for Itanium (2.4MB), Windows 7 32-bit (307KB), Windows 7 64-bit (447KB), Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit (447KB), and Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium (562KB). Windows 7 users who run Windows Update will also see updates via three other Security Bulletins today: , MS09-055, and MS09-056.
This patch tuesday has a total of 13 Security Bulletins, covering 34 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Silverlight, Office, SQL Server, Developer Tools, and Forefront. Once again, you can get all the updates your system needs through Windows Update.
Last month Microsoft released non-critical security updates for Windows 7, however these updates are seen as important and hence when the general public purchase Windows 7 on the 22nd of October and fire up their systems for the first time they will be presented with these updates immediately.
