The Paradoxical Commandments

These "Paradoxical Commandments" are often attributed to Mother Teresa because apparently she had a version of them hanging on the walls of her children's home in Calcutta, but they were actually written in 1968 by a 19-year old Harvard student writing a booklet for student leaders:

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you [may] get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
[Recently an 11th one was added:]
The world is full of violence, injustice, starvation, disease, and environmental destruction.
Have faith anyway.

These commandments echo the words of Jesus when He said:
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil (Luke 6:35).
I have to add here, that in admiring or following teachings such as these, we must be careful not to develop a martyr complex – a psychological condition in which pain, misfortune, and mistreatment in the face of "doing good" is somehow made to feed one's ego and make one feel "special."  This is not healthy.  We just need to think more deeply about our reasons for doing things, and realize that we need to do what's right because it is right, even if no one else will recognize or appreciate us for doing it.  What it really important is not so much what we accomplish but what we become by our labors.  Here it is appropriate to add the final words of the Mother Teresa version:
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

Ezer Kenegdo - a "Helpmeet"

“Rabbinic and Christian commentators alike have taught that the creating of Eve from Adam's rib is a figurative account designed to teach us the proper relationship between man and woman. She is not created from a head bone to rule over him, nor from a foot bone to be beneath him, but rather from his rib to be equal to him, by his side, under his arm for protection, and close to his heart—to truly be an ezer kenegdo.” [Source]

Windows 7 Start Menu Tips

I'm finally using Windows 7.  I like Windows 7, it's Office 2007 that's hard to get used to.  To me, performance-wise it seems clunkier than Office 2003.

Here are some things about Windows 7 that I have a hard time remembering, so I'm putting them here:

Location of your user-specific Start Menu items:
%APPDATA%MicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms

Location of Start Menu items for all users:
C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms
(C:ProgramData is the same as %ALLUSERSPROFILE% on my computer)

How to add shortcuts as pinned items to the Start Menu:
Create a blank text file on your desktop.  Rename it with an .exe extension.  Right click on it and choose "Pin to Start Menu."  Go to pinned items on Start Menu and right click on your newly pinned item, choose "Properties," and you can now edit the path to any executable you want, with arguments, etc. (even to locations on networked drives).
Additional tip: assign it a shortcut key combination and you can open it from the keyboard at any time!

Adobe Flash Player Vulnerabilities

Here's some important computer security tip I found in this week's SANS NewsBites (Vol. 11 Num. 97):

"Adobe applications like Flash are feature rich, but they are putting so much complexity into their applications they probably have a lot of vulnerabilities that yet to be found. In the mean time, for your home Windows systems, install Secunia PSI and keep your Adobe products up to date and never do online banking or stock trading with multiple windows open. I realize these are just stopgap measures. They don't solve the root cause problem, but Band-Aids have a purpose."

Office VBA: Installing Self-signed Digital Certificates

First you need to create a self-signed digital certificate by going to Start > Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Digital Certificate For VBA Projects (this is actually a shortcut to %PROGRAMFILES%Microsoft OfficeOFFICE11SELFCERT.EXE).

 

Next, you need to sign your VBA code project in the VBA IDE by going to the Tools menu > Digital Signature... and pressing "Choose" to choose the certificate you created above.

 

So far, this is relatively straightforward.  The problems come when you're trying to re-install certificates after an OS re-install.  Or trying to install certificates on someone else's machine.  Here are some clues I've found:

 

1. The actual certificate files are stored in %APPDATA%MicrosoftSystemCertificatesMy

 

2. There's a snap-in called Certmgr.msc which helps you manage certificates.  You want to drag your self-signed certificate into the Trust Root Certification Authorities > Certificates folder.

3. When you open a MS Office file that has signed code in it, you want to try to "View Certificate" and "Install Certificate" if you can.  Or "Always Trust Macros From This Publisher".  Here is a good link on some resources to help you.

 

I'll continue to be on the lookout for more information about backing up and restoring certificates before and after a machine reinstall.

Outlook Contact List Problems When Moving To Another Machine

This is probably not of interest to any of you.  I'm just posting it here because it's a problem I frequently face at work and I want to remember where the link is to solve it.  Here it is.

 

Basically, when I reformat a computer or move one of my users to a new computer, I migrate their Outlook .pst file that contains all their mail and contacts.  However, unless I follow the steps in this link, they cannot add addresses to emails from their Outlook contacts.

Windows Command-line Tool: SubInACL

One of Windows' strengths in the ability to apply very granular, detailed permissions to your file system and shares.  However, this makes for some fairly complex permissions settings.  One of Windows' weaknesses is its command line (which had been more than remedied with PowerShell, I think).  But I found a tool today that enables me to take ownership of files and folders from the command prompt.  It's called SubInACL.  It looks like the ultimate Windows command-line ACL tool.  (CACLS.exe is just a joke.  It can only do the simplest of things.  And the /T option doesn't descend down more than one directory deep.)

 

Here's the command I used to take ownership of everything in the current directory:

subinacl /file * /setowner=me

Meet Our Newest Addition, "Nibbles"

Almost four years ago for my birthday, my family got me a betta fish I named "Herman Schnauzer."  He was a good fish, but this last week he took his last breath, and went to the happy swimming pool in the sky.  He almost made it four years with us.

This week at work, I've caught two mice!  One with the amazing, humane, "Mice Cube," which I highly recommend.  No one I've ever talked to has ever failed to make a catch with this trap.  This was my second with one.  But yesterday, we found the little toddler mouse whose mother we did away with the day before.  We found him wandering around under the desks in the daytime, the poor little guy.  I put a Cheeto out on the floor and he came out and grabbed it and ran back under the desk.  So I named him "Cheeto."  He came right out in to the open again, apparently not that afraid of all of us in the office who were watching, and I caught him with a cardboard box.  He was such a tiny, adorable, little mouse, I brought him home and was going to keep him; but the internet convinced me that it's not exactly safe to take a wild or house mouse as a pet.

So today I stopped by the pet store.  We still had Cheeto in his box, and I was thinking I would buy him a friend, and they had these cute little dwarf hamsters at the pet store.  So I bought one and brought it home.  The dwarf hamster is small but still over twice as large as Cheeto.  I ended up setting Cheeto free in our backyard.  And the hamster we named "Nibbles."  The pet store people agreed she is a girl.

This is her sleeping in the bottom tier of the Critter Universe Great Wall.  She can't jump at all, so she can't even make it up to the higher levels.  Cheeto would've done it no problem.

As I get older I think I'm realizing that I like animals, smaller ones generally, more than I realized.

Strong Passwords and Online Safety

This article is a must-read for everyone who wants to work safely on the internet.

Personally, I use Keepass to keep all my passwords saved on my computer in an encrypted format.  And I use LastPass together with my browser to automatically fill in passwords on websites that I regularly surf to - however, I do not allow LastPass to save any passwords or login information for any of my financial sites.  I enter that using Keepass's autotype feature.

I know it's convenient to have your browser store "cookies" so that websites remember your information from visit to visit, but this is the setting I use in Firefox right now so that cookies are not saved after I close Firefox:

Problems After Restoring a Cloned Hard Drive Partition

I've never had this problem before, but then today was the first time I had restored a disk partition image from another partition on the same disk.  I could not login (it was giving me an error about my paging file being absent or too small - which shouldn't matter because Windows can and should create a new one automatically).  I tried a lot of things, including running FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the recovery console.  I also ran CHKDSK, which did fix a few important errors, but it wasn't until I followed these instructions down through step 6, then after hive is loaded, delete all entries in the HKLMSYSTEMMountedDevices registry key (except for default), then reboot.  Windows will rebuild the key automatically at next startup.  The rest of the steps aren't necessary.

In short,

1. CHKDISK

2. Boot to some kind of CD-ROM or USB based live OS that has a tool to edit the registry.  You can use Bart PE or Ultimate Boot CD.  I actually used the "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor" tool on the UBCD4WIN.

3. Load the %systemroot%system32configSYSTEM registry hive and delete everything in the HKLMSYSTEMMountedDevices registry key

4. Reboot

Additionally, sometimes I have also had to edit the registry key for Windows' userinit.exe settings in order for my log in to work. These instructions are helpful.  In a nutshell, edit HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrent VersionWinlogonUserinit so that it is just "userinit.exe" instead of "C:WINNTsystem32userinit.exe" (without the quotes in both cases).  (I think even changing it to just "userinit" will work too.)

Mount USB Drive in System Rescue CD

From the forum: 

You can run "fsarchiver probe simple" from sysresccd-1.1.7
to identify all the filesystems

 

Once you know the device,
(probably /dev/sdb or something like that) just

 

mkdir
/mnt/usb

then

mount /dev/sdb (or
whatever) /mnt/usb 

The Book of Mormon

I love the Bible.  It is the word of God.  I am also thankful for the Book of Mormon.  It is also the word of God.  How much poorer I would be without passages such as these:

   I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them ( 1 Nephi 3:7).

   Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy ( 2 Nephi 2:25).

   For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do ( 2 Nephi 25:23).

   Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life ( 2 Nephi 31:20).

   For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father ( Mosiah 3:19).

   For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? ( Mosiah 5:13)

   And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.
   And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
   And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities ( Alma 7:10-12).

    Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.
   Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day ( Alma 37:36-37).

   And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall ( Helaman 5:12).

   And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them ( Ether 12:27).

    Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
   And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
   And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things ( Moroni 10:3-5).