May 30, 2014
May 27, 2014
May 26, 2014
What is on your list?
Many folks, including myself, have what is called a "bucket list" - a list of things to see or do before we kick the bucket. This post is not about that list. You see, many of us also have a list of things we need to do or say before we feel like we are ready to kick the bucket. It is not the same list.
If you were on your deathbed, knowing your time was nearly at an end, what are the things you would be saying that you wished you had taken care of?
Do you have a brother or a sister that you haven't spoken to in years, but upon your own death's door would relish the chance to make amends - or at least try?
Do you have a long-lost friend you wish you had talked to just one more time?
Do you have things you feel you must get done - call them "obligations" if you like - before your time on Earth is through?
It may be religious in nature, it may not be. That is not for me to know or judge or to call out. Instead, I would like for you to take a moment and truly believe that you will be dead by midnight. Make a list of things that you wish you could take care of.
And then take care of them. Before midnight. And, if that is not possible, then start the process of taking care of those things.
Oh, I know. You are sitting there thinking, "I have time" or "that's ridiculous" or "I don't have time" or one of a myriad of excuses not to do it. Do it anyway. Make the list. Share it with your closest friend or a relative. Let that person help you cross off each and every item from that list before it really is too late to cross them off.
If you were going to die, what would you want done before you left?
*This post partially inspired by a sermon I heard on May 25, 2014. The sermon, of course, was focused on forgiveness, telling that one person about Christ, and being prepared for what comes after death. You will notice, I took great pains to avoid such discussion because when all is said and done, one's religious beliefs have little to do with taking care of the things that weigh one down when the Reaper comes knocking at death's door.
If you were on your deathbed, knowing your time was nearly at an end, what are the things you would be saying that you wished you had taken care of?
Do you have a brother or a sister that you haven't spoken to in years, but upon your own death's door would relish the chance to make amends - or at least try?
Do you have a long-lost friend you wish you had talked to just one more time?
Do you have things you feel you must get done - call them "obligations" if you like - before your time on Earth is through?
It may be religious in nature, it may not be. That is not for me to know or judge or to call out. Instead, I would like for you to take a moment and truly believe that you will be dead by midnight. Make a list of things that you wish you could take care of.
And then take care of them. Before midnight. And, if that is not possible, then start the process of taking care of those things.
Oh, I know. You are sitting there thinking, "I have time" or "that's ridiculous" or "I don't have time" or one of a myriad of excuses not to do it. Do it anyway. Make the list. Share it with your closest friend or a relative. Let that person help you cross off each and every item from that list before it really is too late to cross them off.
If you were going to die, what would you want done before you left?
*This post partially inspired by a sermon I heard on May 25, 2014. The sermon, of course, was focused on forgiveness, telling that one person about Christ, and being prepared for what comes after death. You will notice, I took great pains to avoid such discussion because when all is said and done, one's religious beliefs have little to do with taking care of the things that weigh one down when the Reaper comes knocking at death's door.
May 23, 2014
May 22, 2014
May 21, 2014
May 20, 2014
May 19, 2014
May 18, 2014
May 17, 2014
May 16, 2014
May 15, 2014
May 10, 2014
May 9, 2014
Work Life: A Three-Hour Tour... USB Driver Access Denied Error
Had to post this in case I run up against it later (or someone else surfing the web comes across the same problem).
Had a user with a new USB flash drive. Insert the flash drive (Win7, 32-bit) and Windows would not recognize it on her machine. Other machines, drive worked fine.
When manually attempting to update the driver in Device Manager, system would return an "access denied" error.
Googled various similar situations. Advice ranged from wiping Windows out and reinstall to copying USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.DNF files from DriverStore directory on the hard drive. Tried System Restore but it would fail with "access denied" errors. Tried resetting permissions on various registry entries, system files, etc. None of that fixed our issue after an hour of troubleshooting. Went home to sleep on it at end of day.
Tried to run Combofix, but got a "permission denied" error accessing the registry.
Decided to try Tweaking.com's All-In-One fixer. I ran various permission fixes, etc. Though that seemed to reset certain things, USB stick would still not install. But, it DID let me run ComboFix.
I waited to run ComboFix because I had been poking around MSConfig, per a forum suggestion for similar problem, and saw something weird in there. One of the services set to run was something called "SystemK." I checked it out and it is a program called "Settings Manager" from Aztec Media. It is also listed as malware. So, I took the easy way out and found it in the list of programs I could uninstall and I uninstalled it.
Then, I ran Combofix. I rebooted after Combofix, even though it did not tell me to. I wanted to be sure any services that were fixed and/or removed were still not running.
After I booted back up, I plugged in the flash drive and it failed. But, I went to Device Manager and told it to search online for drivers and that fixed it this time!
The system would not open the "What do you want to do" box, so I typed "Autorun" in the windows search box (when you click the start button) and reset to defaults. Now, that was working again.
Total time on task: 3 hours
Could I have wiped the system clean and reinstalled faster than that? Yes. But then I would have had to reinstall all the user's software (including things like Insight360, specialized mathematics instructional software and emulators, etc).
A weird side-effect? PDFs were no longer associated with Adobe Reader. That was an easy fix, though - just tell Windows what to use to open PDFs.
Hope this helps somebody out there.
Had a user with a new USB flash drive. Insert the flash drive (Win7, 32-bit) and Windows would not recognize it on her machine. Other machines, drive worked fine.
When manually attempting to update the driver in Device Manager, system would return an "access denied" error.
Googled various similar situations. Advice ranged from wiping Windows out and reinstall to copying USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.DNF files from DriverStore directory on the hard drive. Tried System Restore but it would fail with "access denied" errors. Tried resetting permissions on various registry entries, system files, etc. None of that fixed our issue after an hour of troubleshooting. Went home to sleep on it at end of day.
Tried to run Combofix, but got a "permission denied" error accessing the registry.
Decided to try Tweaking.com's All-In-One fixer. I ran various permission fixes, etc. Though that seemed to reset certain things, USB stick would still not install. But, it DID let me run ComboFix.
I waited to run ComboFix because I had been poking around MSConfig, per a forum suggestion for similar problem, and saw something weird in there. One of the services set to run was something called "SystemK." I checked it out and it is a program called "Settings Manager" from Aztec Media. It is also listed as malware. So, I took the easy way out and found it in the list of programs I could uninstall and I uninstalled it.
Then, I ran Combofix. I rebooted after Combofix, even though it did not tell me to. I wanted to be sure any services that were fixed and/or removed were still not running.
After I booted back up, I plugged in the flash drive and it failed. But, I went to Device Manager and told it to search online for drivers and that fixed it this time!
The system would not open the "What do you want to do" box, so I typed "Autorun" in the windows search box (when you click the start button) and reset to defaults. Now, that was working again.
Total time on task: 3 hours
Could I have wiped the system clean and reinstalled faster than that? Yes. But then I would have had to reinstall all the user's software (including things like Insight360, specialized mathematics instructional software and emulators, etc).
A weird side-effect? PDFs were no longer associated with Adobe Reader. That was an easy fix, though - just tell Windows what to use to open PDFs.
Hope this helps somebody out there.
May 6, 2014
May 4, 2014
May 3, 2014
May 1, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)