Distraction Therapy can be a wonderful thing...

What VOID Pheonix Means

You are very hyper. You never slow down, even when it's killing you. You're the type of person who can be a workaholic during the day... and still have the energy to party all night. Your energy is definitely a magnet for those around you. People are addicted to your vibe.

You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life. You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you. At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row. You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace. People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality.

You are influential and persuasive. You tend to have a lot of power over people. Generally, you use your powers for good. You excel at solving other people's problems. Occasionally, you do get a little selfish and persuade people to do things that are only in your interest.

You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person.

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

You are incredibly sexy and sensual. You have a naughty vibe that no one can ignore. You have an unquenchable desire. And you are unrestrained in your passions. You have a tendency to be unfaithful. Whether you fight it or give in to it is up to you.

What does YOUR name mean?

Vista and McAfee Woes

Talked about forever, rumors and promises mixed together, and finally SP1 came out as a regular update. I took a deep breath and held it; the anxious tension making my heart race and my palms sweat. What have I to fear? My reasoning self-assurance was of no comfort. Then I clicked the update button. Not long after I discovered the need to breath; this was going to take quite some time. I waited, watched, and dutifully did what I was told. Trust? Not really but, I do have faith in Restore Point. That was a good idea well implemented.

At first glance, everything seemed to be alright, which is suspicious in itself. This is Windows Vista: temperamental at best; a nightmare more often than not. Why must they insist upon reseting all of my desired settings to their own ludicrous defaults? Only I know what is best for me and my PC, not Microsoft! Even my Hotmail account was dysfunctional for several days, and I didn't know about it until all of the backlogged messages burst through at once. What has that to do with SP1? Who knows, maybe it's just a coincidence. Why are there no "lemon laws" for software, particularly operating systems? Ironically, I went to msconfig to lock out all future updates; now I won't be tempted to allow the tyrant "one last chance".

Realize that all of my security applications were disabled for the install, as recommended of course. So, the first discoveries occurred immediately following restart. As I attempted to re-secure my system. My replacement choice for the resource hungry McAfee Security Suite included ClamWin AV which would no longer load due to some esoteric error which I did not think to record. With no suitable alternative at the ready, I was forced to re-install McAffee. Now, which of the remaining security applications must remain disabled to avoid internal bickering? Ah yes, the Comodo firewall I had been training for weeks. And naturally, the on-access scanner added due to the lack thereof within ClamWin.

Due to a previous issue with the McAfee "Quick Clean" which required a re-install, I knew that SpyBot would be reported as incompatible and "...must be un-installed prior to..." This is simply NOT TRUE! They can be taught to play nice with each other and make a very nice team; each one senses and reports a little differently in accordance with their parameters. Sometimes they report together but, generally one or the other finds something amiss. Therefore, I left SpyBot and TeaTimer unloaded while I got McAfee back on-line. Next was Comodo Anti-Malware which would have reported and stopped the install but, works wonderfully in the background otherwise.

Somewhere along the line KeyScrambler got knocked out; MetaCrawler flawlessly pulled up the necessary page for a quick and painless re-install. What I did not know was whether there would be issues with CCleaner and Total Privacy 5 as they were added to the mix without McAfee's presence. Proper set-up with each cleaner is essential to both proper operation and clean start-ups and shut-downs. CCleaner is set to run at start-up as soon as it is loaded, then shut down; this works out fine because McAfee loads first and keeps control until it is finished. TP5 is set to load to the system tray in anticipation of an eventual shut-down; Vista recognizes and waits for TP5 to finish prior to actual shut-down. SpyBot has a delayed run option which is wonderful as this application takes even longer to load and run than CCleaner. The two of them fight over resources when started together which makes boot-up even slower than waiting three minutes for everything else to finish.

As a final tweak I have disabled every available splash screen except SpyBot. All of the others will appear in the system tray should I be wondering about progress. The final indicator of imminent start-up is the three minute SpyBot timer; this will take several minutes to update and run then, I'm good to go once again. Everything is now updated, cleaned, and standing at the ready...

"In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time." -Thomas Carlyle

Staying on Course - To DO or NOT to do?

My plans and actions are in a continual state of flux; there are SO many interesting ideas deserving of follow-up. There are innumerable refinements to be made to existing projects. These may be due to a new ideas or additions to the social development mix; they might also be old ideas deleted in theory yet, not quite securely erased in practice. The abundance of potential distractions is enormous and serves as a constant threat to my "big picture" goals. These distractions also serve as fodder for future research and development projects. I thrive and prosper on the manipulation, the management of these distractions. Staying on course, deciding what to do and what not to do is no easy task. How then, shall I accomplish these two competing and necessary aspects of both my personality and my business?

Creative expression for me breeds new insights; the "coming together" of what I am doing with those Random Brainstorms with which I am blessed. For this reason I keep a pen and notepad at my desk, and at my bed side. Not always is my computer ready to pull up the Random Brainstorm file I began in Notepad some time ago. There are times when my computer pursues its own agenda regardless of my need of the moment or my painstaking configurations.

I am occasionally bothered further by what is known as "writer's block", a malady which can render the creative spirit somewhat bewildered and basically dysfunctional. It is then that I stop trying to produce that literary masterpiece and jump into one of many necessary maintenance projects, or go scampering off down Cyberville Lane searching for whatever I might find. Sometimes a distraction is exactly what I need to refresh my internal desktop and loosen up the flow of creativity.

Today I was pondering the subject of today's post. What wants to be let out? What needs to be shared? To get away from the issue and allow intuition to guide me, I set about adjusting the tags for these blog posts. I became side-tracked repeatedly since I was in a free-flow mode and eventually was drawn to an as yet unused icon placed upon on of my development toolbars. Squidoo Lenses then became the focus of my attention.

As I surfed through a few Lenses an idea began to form. How to best utilize this phenomenal resource in the development of my social network. Reading through their guidelines and suggestions furthered my distraction and resulted in enough notes to fasten together several loose ends and produce new material for a post in my development series. The ah-ha! moment struck me as I was making a celebratory cup of coffee. You have now experienced the precise
formula I use to stay on course and I have crossed off two items from today's written To Do list!