You need to have a DSL connection at least to follow the tutorial

Apple’s 3rd generation iPod Shuffle unveiled a feature new to most portable music players. The iPod Shuffle 3rd generation not only comes in sleeker and slimmer design but has the capability to voice-over the name of songs, artists, or playlists too.

Read more…

Henry Louis Mencken once said, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I don’t necessarily agree with this quote, because it leaves room for much error and interpretation. For example, if I can’t swim, I can’t very well teach it either. But I digress…let’s get to the matter at hand.

Today, I entered myself into the arena of the teaching world. I submitted my application for New York Teaching Fellows and one of the questions posed got me to thinking about our future youth. The question asked was, “what is the greatest challenge you expect to encounter as a teacher in New York City? Considering this challenge, could a teacher ensure high academic achievement for all students?” There are so many ways to answer this question, but I chose the most political route I could think of, the answer for which is posted below. I would love to know your thoughts.

The greatest challenge I expect to encounter as a teacher in New York City is its students. Having spoken to a lot of these very same students, through family settings, church or out in public forums, I realize they have a general and utter distrust of all things authoritative. As a result of the public education system or New York, I was a lot like the students of today, so I can understand where their defiance comes from.

As a teacher in New York, you must first understand who you are teaching; get to know your student base, your respective audience and their educational challenges. Not every student in every classroom is going to learn the same subject the same way. Not to say they can’t learn it, but how one individual absorbs knowledge is different for another individual. For example, I grew up in a household where math and English excellence were highly encouraged and enforced. Our teachers were our parents and caregivers. They taught us all the best way they knew how, through application and use. However, not all of us [children] adjusted to the lessons the same way. While I was overly efficient in math, English was not that interesting to me. To my siblings, it was the reverse. They couldn’t understand math’s purpose, when calculators were so abundant. The problem was their minds couldn’t equate how two or more numbers justified an answer; to them it was irrelative to where their goals and dreams would take them.

Considering this challenge, I believe the right teacher can still ensure high academic achievements for all their students. It’s a matter of patience and persistence. There is a constant learning curve in these classrooms. Teachers have to adapt to the world around them, the outside influences that have an impact on their students’ performance and sometimes the lack of reinforcement in the home; much of which will have a bearing on the outcome of any given lesson. Through application and use, I believe the right teacher can endear their students to becoming more proactive in their education and justly, their futures.

My idea and approach to teaching is simple. I believe that affording the students the opportunity to discuss their desires, fears and issues through mentoring, will give them an opportunity to overcome their individual barriers. As an educator, we have a responsibility to those students placed in our care. We are providers of more than just an education; we are caregivers for the disenfranchised, for the distrusting, for the misguided, for the achievers, for the dreamers, for the future, for all the students in these New York City schools. We must be their saving grace as well as their safe haven for learning. We [teachers] are here to enable their dreams!

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars.

Based on a true story, ‘The Noticer’ tells the story of a mysterious old man known simply as ‘Jones,’ who seems to have the ability to turn up when needed most. In the midst of a crisis, Jones is there to provide ‘perspective.’ Jones is ‘the noticer,’ an individual who notices what is happening in the life of ‘the other’ and provides a little bit of perspective, thereby helping ‘the other’ to understand, grow and move on.

‘The Noticer’ is an easy read that warms the heart. It leaves you thinking how easy it can be to provide a little bit of perspective and make a difference in ‘another’ person’s life. It certainly encouraged me to identify opportunities for looking out for ‘the other.’

However, when viewed from my own Particular Baptist perspective, as heart warming and encouraging as the book is, it is unable to provide that spark that will enable a person to be an effective noticer – that is the realm of the life changing gospel. Yet, in the hands (and mind) of a renewed believer, this book may very well be a vehicle on the road to greater usefulness in being more other-centred than self-centred.

You may also find it useful to check out ‘The Noticer Project’ online at:

http://www.thenoticerproject.com

This book was provided to me for review as a member of the ‘Book Review Bloggers Program’ at Thomas Nelson:

http://brb.thomasnelson.com/

Houses on four wheels in a popular way named are travelling. Vehicles of this type are constantly fashionable and often used during weekends and holidays and leave. They enable  free travelling in the circle of the family, acquaintances or friends. They are creating almost household conditions of the travel and convenient stopping oneself in chosen places. Underbodies  he is mainly an underbody of delivery trucks and burdening in European countries cannot cross them 3.5 tone, hence on vehicles of this type driving licences having the B category can point persons. On the market at present a wide assortment is being come across . They are new, straight from the tape and relatively expensive, as well as used, of which the – price depending on the – state is usually lower, more accessible, what many persons can let themselves such an expense thanks to. For the ones which cannot afford the purchase even used , there are special points, in which it is possible to rent, and more precisely saying to lend  of trips for the period planned. Mainly  have the fluctuating length from about five to seven metres and depending on these dimensions are equipped from two to eight places assigned to sleep. Inside  also has kitchen positions with the kitchen and the refrigerator, places allotted to the rest, the shower and the WC. More luxury and produced for special orders, often according to own ordering projects, they are equipped with all devices and they have the luxury interior decor therefore they provide with real comfort travelling. In spite of, that  in world are already known and used from quite former, in our country an interest in them and the availability on the market are at the stage of the development. They appear completely new , however there is a considerable number of old, sometimes having even a quarter of a century vehicles, of which prices are lower, however the state requires the thorough renovation.

I stood at the doorway waiting to bring in the Jell-o for the game to see who could eat it the fastest through a straw.  My eyes watched the room from afar.  Looking at the wide range of emotions on the kids’ faces and seeing their reactions to counting stickers.  When I looked closer, I saw and felt hope.  These kids live at Hope House.  A House that can be filled with Hope.  An expectation of things to come, the potential for changed lives filled the room.

Suddenly, my attention turned to a cry from outside the room with commotion.  I turned to see what happened.  Katleho (above) sat on the floor crying.  I asked what had happened to find out that he had fallen forward with his head hitting the floor first.  A bump already popped out and a previous scar from another fall stood out.  My heart reached out with my hands as I tried to hold his hand.  The caretaker tried to drag him to his feet by grabbing his hand, but I went behind asking if I could carry him into the kitchen.  I picked him up, not noticing the wetness, and sat with him on the floor.  I asked the caretakers about Katleho’s seizures and if he was taking his medicine along with if he was up for adoption.

Desperately, I wanted to take him home with me along with all the other kids.  I wanted to hold them in my arms and give them the one-on-one attention they crave.  Yet, more than that, I wanted to show them that I believe in them.  I believe they can.  I don’t want to say, “I can do this for you.” I want to empower them and overwhelm them with love. To feel the weight of the glory of God and the weight of His love for them.

1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything”

Bill Mackey is a leadership strategist at Go 2 Leadership Development Training, http://www.leadershipland.com He is available for training, seminars, and keynote speeches. He can be reached or 1.877.704.1976.

Is Dashboard disabled on your Mac computer? I know mine was on my MacBook which was provided by my school. It wasn’t blocked, it was just disabled. So I have created a fix for the problem! It’s a little app that enables dashboard for you! you can download it here! Simply launch it, click ok and then that’s it. It’s enabled! Pretty simple right? Thought so.

Download this app here, enjoy!

If you have lost your focus in life, look to the lessons of photography: bring more light to your subject or reduce the speed.

The rich and the poor alike go barefoot.

The masses will follow a fool idea from the sound mind before following a sound idea from the mind fool.

The fool accept gratitude without humility.

If you want to make an impression, be riveting; if you want to shape, be flexible.

Water fits in a vase only by conforming.

Sooner the ice to melt than the water to freeze.

The freeze that comes before the thaw is Autumn; the thaw that comes before the freeze is Spring.

A good author not only gives new ideas, but enable new ideas.

Enable iPhone Tethering … Now. No jail breaking required.

Windows Mobiles can be configured for Active Sync. Active Sync is enabled for all users by Default in Exchange 2007. For Security reasons its recommended to disabled all users and enable only for the required users

Below power shell enabled and disabled Active for all the users in the exchange Organization

get-Mailbox -resultsize unlimited | set-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$False

get-Mailbox -resultsize unlimited | set-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$True

Below powershell command to enable and disable active sync for given set of users in the text file

Get-content C:\users.txt | set-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$True

Get-content C:\users.txt| set-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$True

Below powershell command to get the list of users who ActiveSync is Enabled and Disabled

Get-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$True

Get-CASMailbox -ActiveSyncEnabled:$False

To be successful when facing multiple tasks, often on multiple projects, more employees at all levels will need to delegate some of their activities and responsibilities to other organizational members. This means that employees are going to have to be give certain amounts of authority to make decisions that directly effect their work. Even though delegation was once perceived as something that managers did with lower levels of management, delegation will be required at all levels of the organization—in essence, peer delegation, or using influence without authority.

In addition to being required to take on more responsibilities, employees will be expected to make decisions without the benefit of the tried-and-true decisions of the past. And because all these employees are part of the process today, there is more of a need for them to contribute to the decision-making process. In most organizations, the days of autocratic management are over. To facilitate customer demands and fulfill corporate expectations, today’s employees need to be more involved. Group decision-making enables these employees to have more input into the processes, and greater access to needed information. Such actions are also consistent with work environments that require increased creativity and innovation.

Another phenomenon of involving employees will be an emphasis on work teams. The bureaucratic structure of yesterday—where clear lines of authority existed and the chain of command was paramount—is not appropriate for many of today’s companies. Workers from different specializations in an organization are increasingly required to work together to successfully complete complex projects. As such traditional work areas have given way to more of a team effort, building and capitalizing on the various skills and backgrounds that each member brings to the team.

Involving employees allows them an opportunity to focus on the job goals. By giving them more freedom, employees are in a better position to develop the means to achieve the desired results.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

This has a become a big thing for our project, how are changes managed to the core student data and how are those changes communicated to staff who use that data? I had a conversation with a member of lecturing staff who noted that TheSIS (The Student Information System) had gone through some recent changes, and were unsure as to why those changes had taken place, and that the  changes had caused some new issues with data that they put into the system. Usually these “issues” with data are sorted at a local level and may not reach faculty meetings. So how many people hit the same thing? How often do problems arise? What problems are they? In an informal discussion it is easy to pull out some issues, including handling APEL decisions after exam boards have met (in this example TheSIS gives the learner an “R” grade – meaning re-sit!). We have been talking about a flexible and responsive curriculum but now we also need to think about flexible and responsive data sources.

A friend once said, “Teens may look and act like they don’t need parents any more but they need you now more than ever.” 

If that’s the case, I’ll be on my toes for the next ten years, trying to (barely) stay one step ahead of my kids.

What are my options when I’m at the end of my rope?

Dr. Townsend imparts his words of wisdom:

1.     Be the Grown Up

• Keep teen’s future in mind – use current circumstances to equip and prepare your teen for adult life in the real world
• Be loving but direct
• Tolerate teen’s anger — As humanly possible, listen, contain your child’s feelings, understand what he is saying, and clarify whether you deserve his anger.
• Don’t get hooked into fights. – “We’re finished talking about this for now.  I’ll bring this up at another time when you’re not so upset.”

2.    Make Connections

• When in doubt, connect with your teen – don’t argue.  Make a connection.

3.    Model Respect and Responsibility

• Deemphasize control — allow your teen to choose and experience consequences.  Allow your child to experience responsibility.
• Normalize “No.” – Say “no” when it’s in the best interest of your teen.  Help your child get used to reality.
• Be soft on preferences and style, and hard on disrespect and selfishness — give your teen room to dress differently but be strict about how he treats you and others.

4.    Seek Help and Support

• HALT — when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, don’t threaten your teen with consequences.  Wait until you have the support, energy, or the resources you need.
• Plug into safe people (friends and therapists) who understand — call for support and wisdom right before or after the problem occurs.  Relax.  We deserve it!

Can’t do this alone.  I’m all for mutual support!

Life — it’s a journey! 

Development activities ought to reflect the situation and circumstances of a company, its business objectives and its key priorities. For example, there is little point in a company building hypothetical team skills without addressing the following:

• The purpose of the team. For example, a bid team might require specific bidding skills such as defining value in customer terms.
• Where team members are located. People in virtual teams may be widely scattered and they may need special training.
• The role of groups and teams in the management of change, the management culture and management style must be supportive.
• The clarity of the goals given to teams, and the relevance of their priorities to business objectives. People need to understand the broad boundaries within which they operate in terms of goals and priorities.
• The discretion given to teams, and the extent to which people are given the required freedom to act.
• The commitment of senior management to team work, and especially cross-functional and inter-organizational team work. They must be dedicated to ensuring that decisions are taken as close to the customer as possible, and people are enabled to do what is necessary to add value for customers.
• Prevailing attitudes, such as the extent to which people feel part of teams. Empowered team work should be pervasive, rather than the isolated experiment.
• The management cadre. Managers should counsel and coach, value diversity, and foster and encourage teamwork, collaborative activities, self-development and group learning.
• How open people are, and the degree of trust and confidence they have. People need to feel they are able to take initiatives without being paralyzed by fear of the consequences.
• Existing performance within teams, the tools shared within teams, and the approaches and support in terms of technology and process available to them. For example, there should be relatively open access to relevant information.
• Rewards and performance management. This should be supportive of, and should recognize, team work, the acquisition of team skills and the exhibiting of role-model behavior.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

To disable Dr. Watson

//

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit.exe in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

   NOTE: Steps three and four are optional, but they necessary if you want to restore the default use of Dr. Watson.

3. Click the AeDebug key, and then click Export Registry File on the Registry menu.
4. Enter a name and location for the saved registry file, and then click Save.
5. Delete the AeDebug key.

Registry entries for debugger programs are located in the AeDebug key in Windows. The Dr. Watson program is installed by default in Windows, and is configured to run when an application error occurs (with a data value of 1 for the Auto value). The default values are: Value Name = Auto
Type = String (REG_SZ)
Data Value = 1 or 0. (Default is 1)

Value Name = Debugger
Type = String (REG_SZ)
Data Value = drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g

To enable Dr. Watson

//

1. At a command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER: drwtsn32 -i
2. Double-click the .reg file you created in steps three and four above.

User Account Control Settings can get pretty annoying. Here is how you turn them off – or turn them back on.

My Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Accounts -> Change User Account Control settings

Restart required.

The following function will enable a textbox control:


Public Sub enabledtextbox(ByVal myCollection As ControlCollection)
Dim myControl As Control
For Each myControl In myCollection
If TypeOf myControl Is TextBox Then
CType(myControl, TextBox).ReadOnly = False
End If
enabledtextbox(myControl.Controls)
Next
End Sub


This function will disable the textbox:


Public Sub disabledtextbox(ByVal myCollection As ControlCollection)
Dim myControl As Control
For Each myControl In myCollection
If TypeOf myControl Is TextBox Then
CType(myControl, TextBox).ReadOnly = True
End If
disabledtextbox(myControl.Controls)
Next
End Sub


“Teens seem to appreciate and respond to adults who won’t judge them, who love them, but who are also willing to confront them.” (J. Townsend)

No wonder I’m glued to this book! 

A two year old can share his piece of mind.  Author and psychologist, Dr. John Townsend imparts his wisdom and expertise on how mature, understanding adults carry themselves:

• Parties — with your teen, define the problem (alcohol, drugs, sex, troubled youths), set ground rules, and follow through on consequences.  Furthermore, contact the other parent.  Your child doesn’t go to parties until the parent is contacted.  Ask your child’s friend’s parent, ”Can I help?”, “Are you going to be at the party the whole time?”, “Is X or Y coming?”  The more parents require teen parties be safe, the more likely they will be. 
• Peers — we can’t be with our kids 24/7 but we want them to be safe.  So, what tools can we give them?  Here’s one example: “I’m not trying to control you.  I care about you.  You can spend time with X in a group but not alone.  I will restrict your privileges if you choose to do so.”
• Phone — life comes first.  Ground Rules: Use the phone after finishing homework and chores, use the phone as an answering machine (except call from parents), limit phone time, limit the number of cell phone minutes used, require and role play phone etiquettes (e.g., “Hi, this is Julie.  May I speak to Pam?”)
• Runaways — it’s a premature way to leave home.  Possible Causes:  Home problems, undeveloped coping skills, substance abuse, sense of entitlement.  Possible Solutions: Get your teen home, get to your teen’s heart, require responsibilities, follow through on consequences, give as much additional structure as necessary, and change whatever you need to change.

Whew!  Parenting — it’s definitely for grown ups!  We can only parent to the level of our maturity.

• Sex — confront any sexual activity you know about.  Establish consequences – if necessary, take away your teen’s freedom to socialize.  Discuss masturbation (not physically harmful), consequences of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies.  Let your child know you love and accept her, and you want to help her find help, hope, and a new start (if she is in way over her head).  
• Silence — Possible Causes: Withdrawal from an intrusive parent, limited ability to describe experiences and emotions, fear of emotion, depression, passive punishment.  Possible Solutions: Discuss with your teen his reason for silence, require dialogue (“You don’t have to tell me everything about your life but I do need you to talk to me — at least when I want to know what you’re doing.  If you choose not to talk to me, you’re telling me you don’t take your responsibilities for being in our relationship seriously, and there will be consequences.”)  

“Being responsible for adolescents tend to expose our weaknesses in ways few experiences do.  Parenting is all about character.  When you work on character issues, you are also working on parenting issues.  As you get healthy, so does your parenting.  So get in touch with people who are mature, loving, and truthful — and use what you learn.” (J. Townsend)

Yes sir!