Month: December 2008

My Favorite Inspirational Books

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Here is a list of my favorite inspirational books. All of these books are about surviving terrible true lifetime periods, seeing better days in the end, becoming stronger human beings because of these terrible events and are very educational to read. I think about these true life stories when I am going through hard times in my life and find hope that my life events are temporary and I will see better days.

1. Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown. This is a book I read as a child. Since I was also growing up in a similar ghetto environment as Claude and he became a successful lawyer, it inspired me to dream big like he did. I did pretty well as I am now a successful college professor these days.

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2. Mayada, Daughter of Iraq by Jean Sasson. I recently read this one and I now appreciate this country so much more. Whenever I get stressed out these days, I think of what she went through and the many people in Iraq and all of a sudden my life looks and feels so much better.

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3. A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer. This one also gives me lots of hope when things are going wrong in my life. It also re-affirms that people can overcome terrible past life events, even abuse and still become productive members of society. He wrote this book to make people more aware of what the signs of child abuse are and where to get help.

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4. Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia by Ingrid Betancourt This was the most inspiring book I have ever read. Wow, Ingrid is a real life hero. This women did so much to make things better for her country and put this priority ahead of her marriage and children. She was close to winning a presidential election when she finished writing this book.

Epilogue:

After this book was published, Ingrid got abducted in real life on Feb. 23, 2002 by a political terrorist group in Columbia and still remains in captivity to this day. I think of her and the family she left behind every day.

Update:

Ingrid and 14 other hostages were rescued on July, 2nd, 2008. The Colombian military tricked the terrorist group into giving up the hostages and at the same time, took two terrorist camp leaders with them and turned them over to the Colombian police. I am just ecstatic about this!!

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5. Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir . Malika was almost royalty but one day something went very wrong and her and her entire family were thrown into an old castle which was converted as a prison never to be seen or heard from again. Fortunately, a member of her family escapes and thus this book was written. Because of this book, a lot has changed as far as how Morroco now treats its criminals.

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6. Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America by Francis Bok This is a very inspiring book about the atrocities that are happening to people in Sudan and the story of a person who escaped. Because of Francis Bok, the United States is now aware that slavery has never ended in that part of the world and is doing something to help.

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7. Sickened : The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood by Julie Gregory, This story was so educational. It explains everything about this terrible mental disease and why it is so hard for doctors to notice when these cases are happening. Again, this is a story about a survivor that is now trying to change things for the better, trying to bring more awareness about this condition so that people can intervene and hopefully save more children from being victims of this syndrome.

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So, what are some of your favorite inspirational books? Have any one of them inspired you to live your life differently?

Solving the Annoying Sparebackup Popup Problem

My son recently bought a new Gateway computer that unfortunately had Vista installed on it. I tried to upgrade his computer to Windows XP but there weren’t any XP drivers that worked with his new integrated Sound and Network cards. By the way, I am using the word, upgrade, here on purpose and it is not a typo. Laughing

He bought the computer from Circuit City and they preinstalled an online automated PC Data Storage software called,”Sparebackup”, found on this site: Sparebackup . You are probably wondering how I came to the conclusion that it was Circuit City and not Gateway which installed the software, well the following site hints that this may be the case: Tech Support Agreement site .

This software was configured to automatically start up during every boot. It would open up MS Explorer 7 once a day regardless of whether you were using it and display a popup advertisement reminding you that, “your Hard Drive will fail and urging you to use their service”. It did not matter that my son had the popup blocker activated, as it would bypass the blocker. I suggested that my son deactivate Java in his Windows Explorer 7 options and even this did not stop the problem. Needless to say, this was very annoying.

My son asked me for help. Usually, the first thing I do before offering anyone help is to Google the problem. This is how I came up with the possible Java solution which unfortunately did not work. However, the following sites looked promising:

Sparebackup Online Storage Site

GateWay Computer Support

Computer Help Forum

All three sites gave exactly the same solution however what they failed to mention is that you cannot uninstall a program that is running and this specific software is pre-configured to not let you quit the program. When you followed the instructions on the first and second site, a Windows message would appear informing you of this and stated that the programs will automatically be terminated by Windows. However, apparently this software was written to also bypass this Window’s feature.

I would then try to manually quit the program by right clicking on it from the Windows Vista Taskbar and left clicking on the EXIT button that appeared but it would not stop running. Here is a picture of the Window’s Vista Taskbar:

So after a few tries at uninstalling the program using the instructions provided and failing to achieve my goal, I decided to take a new approach.

I started the computer in safe mode and followed the instructions which again did not work. I then remembered my old friend, “MSCONFIG”, from Windows XP. I did not know whether it was still available in Windows Vista so I tested my idea by using the run command and typing in the program name. To my surprise, the program is still there and came right up. This is a picture of what it looks like:

I clicked on the STARTUP tab and found that this program was listed. I clicked on the little square to the left of it to get rid of the check mark and then clicked on the APPLY and OK buttons. Next I re-started the computer. I was now able to follow the instructions on how to remove it shown on the first and second site listed above.The problem is now resolved.

Another possible solution to end this program that I did not try was pressing the CTRL + ALT + DEL key combination which would bring up this dialog box:

Now click on,”START TASK MANAGER”, it will appear and looks like this

You would then click on the PROCESSES tab and find the name of the process you want to terminate. Select it and click on the END PROCESS button on the bottom of this window.

As I previously stated, I did not try this solution. This is because a lot of times, the name of the process does not match the name of the program that you are trying to terminate. Hence, if the name is different, you would not know which process to terminate. Also, sometimes there is more then one process that the program is running and if you do not terminate all of them, the program may still run.

I really hope this helps someone. Shame of these sites for not informing people how to properly uninstall this program. Shame also on the Sparebackup company for employing coercive marketing techniques.

My Special Thanksgiving Story

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I got married 23 years ago to a wonderful man who is still my husband. We have two great sons and I have spent every Thanksgiving weekend with him since then. Some years, we also had our special dinner at his mother’s home who lives just 2 hours away from our home.

For most of our married life we have had a heavy financial burden which most people refer to as a mortgage. Therefore, I was never able to travel to spend this holiday with my side of the family whom live in another state.

Likewise, most of the people on my side of the family also had big mortgages and were not able to visit me. My mother’s only income is Social Security. Therefore, the last time I saw my mother and sister was 5 years ago. I had also not seen my other sister for 10 years. Recently, this situation has changed as my husband and I finally paid off our mortgage debt.

So, this year, I woke up on Sunday the week before Thanksgiving and decided that it was time for a visit. I got on the Web to make my flight arrangements. I called my niece, whom recently moved back to the town where my mother and sisters live and asked her if she had room for one more person for Thanksgiving.

She asked me why and told me she was expected at my mother’s home for dinner at 2:00 PM. I told her that her schedule was perfect since my flight would arrive at 1:00 PM. She was very excited to hear the news and immediately offered her home as a place to stay. I quickly accepted and asked her not to reveal my plans as I wanted to be a surprise guest. She promised to keep my secret and to pick me up at the airport. So far, everything seemed to be going great and I felt so happy.

After I got off the phone, I started to tell my husband all about my new Thanksgiving plans. He was very shocked at first but finally stated that it was a great idea. He said that he would manage just fine along with my sons and that they would go to a cafeteria to eat dinner. Needless to say I felt very guilty at first but finally concluded that I deserved to spend this day with my mother and sisters for the first time in 23 years.

The day finally arrived. I got on two flights which went very smoothly and got there on time as scheduled. My niece picked me up at the airport and we went directly to my mother’s home. I had butterflies in my stomach and was kind of worried that my mom would have a heart attack upon seeing me since she is eighty plus years old.

When we got to the house, my niece told me that everything looked perfect as she noticed that both of my sister’s cars were in the driveway. She said for me to follow her so I could nonchalantly walk into the home right after her. I did exactly that. My niece had a key to my mother’s home so she knocked on the door and quickly let herself and her family in. I casually walked in right after them.

The first person to see me was my middle sister whom I last saw five years ago. She gasped as soon as she recognized me and then said,”oh my God”. This reaction then caused my youngest sister who I last saw 10 years ago, to check out what the fuss was about. She also had the same response.

My mother then walked into the room to find out what the commotion was about and suddenly noticed me. She started screaming with joy and had tears in her eyes. Wow, what an incredible moment this was in my life. Everyone was hugging and kissing me. The feeling I had was just wonderful and I truly felt blessed. It was just so great to see my family members again. My mom said, “it was the nicest Thanksgiving present she could ever get”.

I stayed in town until Sunday morning and then flew back to Fl. I had the most amazing time and I can hardly wait to do this again. Now that I no longer have a financial related excuse, I will be doing this more often. As a popular TV commercial implies, family memories are just priceless, for everything else there is MasterCard. Here are some pictures:

My mom and I when I first got there.

My Mom and I when I first got there.

My two sister and I.

My two sisters and I

My middle sister and my mom.

My middle sister and my mom.

My family clan and I.

My family clan and I.

The women in my family clan and i.

The women in my family clan and I.

The men in my family clan and I.

The men in my family clan and I.

The nephew holding up my niece's daughter.

My nephew holding up my niece’s daughter

My fireworks during the Cleveland city Christmas parade.

The fireworks during the Cleveland city Christmas parade.

Posing with my family members on the last night of my trip.

Posing with my family members on the last night of my trip.

Epilogue:

Concerning the possibility of my mom having a heart attack, my nephew in law told me an amusing story. He related that when he first moved back into town, which was pretty recent, my mom invited him and his family to her house. She then picked up a Tae Bo exercise tape and asked my niece and nephew to participate with her in her exercise routine.

Thinking that my mom would only do ten minutes of the tape, my nephew in law and niece agreed to join in. Well, my niece was the first one to quit after only 20 minutes, my nephew in law was the next one to quit. To everyone’s shock and amazement, my mom completed the whole exercise routine. So, I guess I should not have worried and I am so happy to know that my mom is so physically fit.