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“Unanswered Prayers”

September 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever prayed for something, and when you didn’t get it you felt like your prayer had been ignored by God? Well, most Christians have felt that way at one time or another. 1 Peter 3:12 says “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” If that be the case, why does the Lord allow our prayers to go unanswered sometimes?

Well, the answer is, he doesn’t. God always answers the prayers of His children – it’s just that sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes we ask God to give us something or do something for us (or for somebody else) that simply isn’t in His will, therefore he cannot grant that wish. After all, God knows what is best for His children, even when we do not. Many times we are spared from unnecessary suffering or hardships because our Heavenly Father had the wisdom and compassion to tell us no.

Other times, the answer might not be a simple yes or no – often it will be “not yet”. In Romans 8:28 we read, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”  You see, God has a master plan for each and every one of His children, and some of the things we ask for might very well fit into that plan, just not at the point in time in which we ask for them.

As a young child, I would occasionally ask my mom for an expensive toy, and her reply would often be “wait until your birthday” or “wait until Christmas”. And sure enough, when the appointed day rolled around, the toy that I had wanted so badly would be waiting for me when I got out of bed that morning. Her answer to my request hadn’t been yes or no, it had been “not yet”.

Unlike my mom, God doesn’t “answer” our prayers with words, He answers them with deeds – or the lack thereof. But rest assured, God always answers the prayers of His beloved children – always! We just have to be prepared to accept the answer He gives us and always remember that He knows what is best for us. Our kind, loving and supremely wise Heavenly Father always has a good reason when He says “no” or “not yet”. You can count on it!

Filed Under: Devotions

In remembrance of…The Telephone Book

February 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

Modern technology has pushed what used to be one of the most frequently used items in any home - the telephone book  -  to the brink of extinction (well, at least to the brink of irrelevance.

Although most kids born in the last 10 years don’t realize it, much of our daily lives used to revolve around that raggedy old book with all the names and numbers in the front and those weird-looking “yellow pages” over in the back. If we needed to find an old friend’s phone number or “search” for a local plumber, we pulled out “the book” and let our fingers do the walking. And trust me, if they had a telephone, and back then some people didn’t, you were virtually guaranteed to find them listed.

But my, how things have changed. These days if you’re one of the few who still use the phone book, good luck finding someone’s name and number listed in it. Years of being interrupted by telemarketers at dinner time and the ever-present prank calls by the kids down the road led most folks to request unlisted numbers soon after those “features” became available. Of course all of those unlisted numbers made the printed phone book pretty much useless for its primary purpose, so fewer and fewer people kept using it. Today, most folks just keep one around to look up a business in the yellow pages on occasion.

But now even the yellow pages are becoming more irrelevant as each day passes by. Need to find a dentist in Macon, Georgia? Simply do a Google search for “Macon, Ga Dentists” (substitute your own town or city) and you’ll immediately be presented with a long list from which to choose, complete with phone numbers, addresses and even maps to their locations!

Want to find the phone number for a friend who lives in another state? Well, you can if their number is “listed”. Simply visit one of the many popular “Whitepages” websites, type in your friend’s name along with the city and state in which he/she lives, and you’re in business. Several “matches” might come up if your friend has a common name, but all you have to do is call everyone on the list until your friend answers the phone (you do have free long distance on your cell phone, right?).

Back when I was growing up it was a big deal when the new phone book showed up in the mail each year. Some folks would spend hours leafing through it just to find out which of their friends and neighbors had gotten a phone (remember, not every household had one back then) and to see if there were any new business listings in the yellow pages. Those days are now gone. Homes with land-line telephones are becoming fewer every day, and cell phone numbers aren’t listed in “the book” at all. And with fewer businesses all the time paying for an expensive ad in the increasingly irrelevant yellow pages, the reasons for keeping a phone book on the shelf at all have pretty much evaporated.

What got me thinking about all this was the shiny red phone book that arrived in the mail the other day. We haven’t had a land-line telephone for years so we haven’t been receiving phone books, but for some reason we got one the other day. I guess the phone company just wanted us to have one for old time’s sake. Thanks CenturyLink!!

Filed Under: Technology

The best highlight from the 2011 Super Bowl

February 7, 2011 By 1 Comment

 

This video needs no introduction…

 

Filed Under: Things I like

The most amazing meteor I have ever seen

February 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’ve been a “stargazer” ever since I was a young boy. I really don’t know why but the night sky fascinates me to no end. Well, last night I received a real treat. I was sitting in my car outside a local grocery store when I just happened to look up and see the brightest and largest meteor I have ever seen fly over the town of Abingdon, Virginia. All I can say is that must have been one humongous space rock because the light pollution over that part of town is so intense that a typical meteor would probably not even be visible at all from where I happened to be sitting.

The entire meteor episode only lasted for a second or two, but it was remarkable nonetheless. I hope somebody somewhere just happened to have a video camera running at the time because it sure would make a terrific news story!

Filed Under: Things I like

Forward / Back / Pause buttons missing in Windows 7 Slideshow

January 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I recently took the plunge and upgraded my PC from Windows XP to Windows 7, and over all I think it’s one of the best moves I’ve ever made. But there is one glaring annoyance that has me completely baffled. Why on earth did Microsoft decide to remove the Forward, Back and Pause buttons from the Windows 7 Slideshow app? Moving to the next photo in the slideshow is easy: Simply click on the picture or wait for the next image to cycle onto the screen. But to return to the previous photo or pause the slideshow altogether requires the user to right click on the photo, then click either Back or Pause.

The guys and gals up in Redmond are well known for making arbitrary and often senseless changes when “upgrading” their products, but this change takes the cake. What were they thinking?

Filed Under: Technology

Global Warming alarmists grasping at ever thinner straws

January 10, 2011 By 1 Comment

On June 24, 1974 a now-famous article in Time magazine quoted a number of “experts” who were predicting that the earth was heading into a new ice age. And the evidence they presented was impressive indeed: Unprecedented droughts in some parts of the world, the largest floods since Noah in others, chaotic weather events far and wide and a decades-long cooling trend over the entire planet. And the worst part? The horribly destructive cooling trend appeared to have no end in sight!

If all of that sounds surprisingly familiar to you, it should. Why? Because the very same “body of experts” who predicted back then that we were all facing a grim future of bitter cold, ice and famine are now sounding the same shrill alarm about the perils of “global warming”. In other words: same problems, different cause.

The term “global warming” was jettisoned after the “experts” lost all credibility due to the revelations of the fraudulent research and collusion they were practicing (not to mention the public’s ability to simply look out the window and see snowfall after snowfall piling up on the ground). But you have to give those folks credit – they simply will not give up. And why should they? After dropping the label “global warming” and replacing it with “climate change”, how could they possibly be proven wrong? After all, the earth’s climate has been “changing” for eons, and it’s certainly not gonna stop any time soon. But here’s a news flash for the alarmists: Climate changes are perfectly normal occurrences in nature, and there is nothing we could do to prevent them (even if it was in our best interests to do so, which it isn’t).

The fact of the matter is that the earth’s climate goes through cycles of heating and cooling, heating and cooling, heating and cooling… We have had at least two ice ages that we know of, and probably more. And there will likely be another one coming sooner or later. What caused all of that ice to form in the first place? Global cooling. And what caused most of it to melt? Global warming. In other words, climate change!

A particularly humorous episode that brings the folly of all this global warming nonsense to light occurred not too long ago. It seems that an airplane that had been missing in Antartica for decades has turned up beneath a patch of melting ice. The climate change experts were all over it of course, claiming that the fact that enough ice has melted to reveal that plane proves that the earth is heating up. But when you think about it, all this episode really proves is there was just as little ice sitting on that part of Antarctica decades ago as there is right now. Otherwise, the plane could not have been sitting where it was – it would have been sitting on top of all that ice, not under it!

The reality of “climate change” is that it is indeed real – and 100% natural. Our planet’s climate is in a constant state of flux, heating up and cooling down, then repeating that cycle at various intervals. The activities of man have nothing to do with it. But the very existence of the “climate change” industry (funded by millions of dollars per year in grant money) depends on making the public believe that we really are causing it. And perpetuating that fraud has become a pretty difficult thing to do in recent times. The straws the “experts” have left to grasp at are becoming ever weaker and fewer in number.

Filed Under: My thoughts on...

The folly of blaming God for our problems

January 5, 2011 By 2 Comments

Most people, even those who are not Christians, are familiar with the Genesis account of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. If you are one of them you can skip past the following passage and simply read my comments below if you wish. For everyone else, here is the saddest story every told:

 

Genesis 3

1 – Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 – And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 – But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 – And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 – For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 – And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 – And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 – And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 – And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 – And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 – And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 – And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 – And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 – And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 – And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 – Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 – And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 – Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 – In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 – And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

21 – Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

22 – And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

23 – Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 – So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

 

That folks, in my opinion, is the saddest story ever told. Before Adam and Eve willingly disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree they were perfect, sinless, and upright in the eyes of God. And as such, they were given the right by their Creator to live forever in what was surely the closest thing to Heaven that any human since would ever experience on planet earth.

Before their fall into sin, Adam and Eve were blessed with lifestyles the likes of which the rest of us can only dream about. First of all, they didn’t have to work for a living. All they had to do was walk through the most magnificent garden in the history of the world and eat of the bounty that awaited them. There was no tilling of the ground, no planting seeds or pulling weeds. All they had to do was pick whatever they wanted and eat it. And no doubt everything growing in that garden tasted absolutely great!

And in their perfect state, Adam and Eve were also completely pain-free. They would never get sick, or even die for that matter. Like God Himself, they could live forever in what was quite literally a perfect world. But alas, it was not to be.

When Eve allowed herself to be deceived by satan (who presented himself in the form of a serpent) and Adam joined her in eating of the forbidden fruit, they immediately lost their state of perfection. At that precise point in time they became mere mortals just like you and me. Instead of living a life of ultimate luxury that would never come to an end, they suddenly found themselves facing death – but only after having to struggle just to survive through the very short and difficult lives that all sinners must live.

Now comes the really bad part for everyone that came after them: Not only did Adam and Eve bring pain, sorrow and death to themselves by disobeying God, they passed the curse of sin on to their decendents as well. Except for Christ, every human baby ever born came into this world a sinner. As God in the flesh who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Jesus wasn’t subjected to this horrible birthright. But all the rest of us were. Like it or not, we are all sinners regardless of how “good” we think ourselves to be.

As sinners, it is we humans who have to accept the blame for the bad things that happen to us in life, not God. Some people think that since God is all-knowing and all-powerful that He should simply protect us and shield us from harm. Sorry, that’s not the way it works. Adam and Eve indeed had that ultimate form of divine protection before they fell into sin, but by disobeying the only directive that God had given them they forfeited that protection for all time. And not just for themselves, but for all the rest of us too.

When God created man He gave him the ability to make his own decisions, and unfortunately one of the very first decisions he made was a poor one. In a nutshell, God is not to blame for our problems. We are.

But as sad as this story is, it does have a happy ending. Although that one original sin back in the Garden of Eden took away mankind’s right to live forever in a perfect world, the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us on the cross at Calvary restored it. But the restoration isn’t automatic; we have to accept it in accordance with God’s plan of salvation. Would you like to be forgiven of your sins and live forever in a perfect world, never again to suffer or die? Well, you can. Click here to find out how.

Filed Under: Devotions

USB 3.0 devices are finally on the shelves

January 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Well, it was certainly a long time coming, but a decent “crop” of USB 3.0 capable devices are finally sitting on the shelves of technology stores such as Best Buy and hhgregg. Virtually all of the USB 3.0 gadgets that I have seen thus far have been hard drives, which makes sense because mass storage devices naturally benefit the most from USB 3.0′s lightning-fast speed. While I have yet to see even one PC for sale that came from the factory equipped with USB 3.0 ports, I expect that to change rather quickly now that the “dam” for the devices themselves has finally broken.

The devices to show up next supporting USB 3.0 are likely to be Cable and DSL modems, routers, switches, USB WiFi adapters, large capacity thumb drives and other devices that transfer and/or store lots of data. I took a walk through Office Depot this morning and noticed that ALL of their PCs had been deeply discounted, which leads me to believe that they are making room for the next generation of PC’s, all sporting USB 3.0 ports. Well, one can hope.

Filed Under: Technology

How to export Thunderbird settings and emails

December 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Note: This post details the procedure that I used to migrate my email accounts, settings and data from Outlook Express running under Windows XP to Thunderbird running under Windows 7. It should work for you as well, but if it doesn’t such is life. Use this procedure on your own PC at your own risk…

As I mentioned in this post yesterday evening, I finally got around to upgrading one of my PC’s from Windows XP to Windows 7. Since I knew before I began the upgrade that I would need to install Mozilla Thunderbird because Win 7 doesn’t come with an email client, I did a bit of research to try to determine the simplest upgrade path from Outlook Express to Thunderbird. Well, much to my surprise I discovered that Thunderbird can import all settings, emails, etc. directly from an existing installation of OE, but not from a file. This presented a problem because in order to upgrade from XP to Win 7 I would have to format the hard drive – which of course would wipe out the existing installation of OE. What to do???

Well, I thought the process through, and after a bit more research I developed a plan of action. This is what I did to transfer everything from OE under Windows XP to Thunderbird under Windows 7 (It’s a 2-step process but that’s just the way it goes):

1 – I downloaded and installed the latest version on Thunderbird from the Mozilla website.

2 – I then started up Thunderbird and clicked Tools > Import. On the next screen I selected Import Everything and clicked Next. After the import was complete I had everything working in Thunderbird pretty much as it worked in OE including all stored emails, all email account settings, address book entries, etc.

Next came the tricky part. Inexplicably, Thunderbird doesn’t offer an Export function that would make it quick and easy to save all the data mentioned above to a file that could be imported back into the new Thunderbird installation on the new Windows 7 platform. Who knows why such a critical feature was left out of the package, but it was. But I figured out a way to “export” the data manually. Here is how I did it:

After a bit more research I discovered that Thunderbird stores EVERYTHING in a singe file named xxxxxxxxx.default (the x’s are placeholders – the actual filename will vary from system to system). It was easy to find this file on the hard drive by using this process:

1 – In Thunderbird, click on Tools > Account Settings. At this point you will see a “Local Directory” path displayed in the right-hand pane. This path tell you where the xxxxxxxxx.default file is located on the hard drive.

2 – In Windows Explorer, navigate to the file by following the “Local Directory” path you found in the step above. Once you find it, right click on the xxxxxxxxx.default file and copy it either to a thumb drive or an external hard drive. In fact, to be safe you might want to copy it to both! You’ll NEED this file in order to restore your settings, emails, etc. after upgrading to Windows 7, and after the Win 7 installation program formats the hard drive you will have zero chance of recovering the file at that point.

After you have verified that you have a copy of xxxxxxxxx.default sitting on a thumb drive and/or external hard drive, you can then begin the Windows 7 upgrade process. Just insert the Win 7 upgrade disc into the drive and let the installer do its thing. After Windows 7 is installed and working, install an anti-virus program before you do anything else (this should always be the first thing you do after installing Windows). Then, download and install Thunderbird. Once Thunderbird is installed, follow this procedure to “import” the data saved from the Windows XP installation of Thunderbird:

1 – Load Thunderbird and enter the server information for one of your email accounts. If you have more than one email account it doesn’t matter which one you choose. This is just a temporary entry anyway. This will create a brand new xxxxxxxxx.default file for the new Thunderbird installation.

2 – Click Tools > Account Settings and look at the path listed under “Local Directory”. Somewhere in the path you will see the name of the xxxxxxxxx.default file you just created by entering an email address. Write down this EXACT filename. Now open up your thumb drive or external hard drive and rename the old xxxxxxxxx.default file to the EXACT name you just wrote down. The file MUST be renamed before moving on to step 3.

3 – Navigate to both of the following folders and copy the xxxxxxxxx.default from the thumb drive or external hard drive to BOTH of these folders (in other words replace the existing file with the one on the external drive):

c:UsersusernameAppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles
c:UsersusernameAppDataLocalThunderbirdProfiles

Note: username is a placeholder in the paths above. The actual username you will use in your path is the username you selected when you set up your user account during the Win 7 installation process.

After replacing the existing xxxxxxxxx.default file with the one from your thumb drive or external hard drive, restart your PC. After it boots back up, start up Thunderbird. If all went as expected you should see all of your old emails, account settings, address book entries, etc. in Thunderbird, ready for your immediate use.

Note: Again, this post details the procedure that I used migrate my email accounts, settings and data from Outlook Express running under Windows XP to Thunderbird running under Windows 7. It should work for you as well, but if it doesn’t such is life. Use this procedure on your own PC at your own risk…

Filed Under: Technology

Installing Windows 7 on my HP Pavilion a630n

December 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

Well, I’ve been running my trusty HP Pavilion a630n desktop PC for ages now, and Windows XP started acting up several weeks ago. Since an extensive diagnostic routine resulted in a clean bill of health for the hardware, I decided to make a fresh backup and re-install Windows from scratch. But before I got around to doing the re-install I happened upon a killer deal on a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. I debated with myself about the logic of installing Win 7 on such an old PC, but figured what the heck so I bought it and took it home with me.

I got up bright and early and verified my backup, then inserted the Windows 7 installation DVD into the drive. Up popped the installer routine, and since there is no direct upgrade path from Win XP to 7 I clicked on “Custom Install” which began formatting the hard drive and installing the new OS.

In typical Microsoft fashion, the machine restarted a number of times during the install, but all went well and when the process was finished it booted right up into Windows without a hitch. Well, actually there was one little hitch: There were no sounds coming from the speakers.

After verifying that the speakers were in fact stll connected to the sound jacks correctly, I loaded the Device Manager and took a look. Sure enough, the Realtek audio circuitry was diabled. The reason given was that there weren’t enough available resources for the audio hardware to initialize. Of course I was skeptical because all of the hardware had worked just fine for years under Windows XP. I suspected that the old audio driver was incompatible with Windows 7. I paid a quick visit to the Realtek website where I downloaded the latest driver, and after installing it on the machine and rebooting the sound worked like a charm.

I had known all along that a couple of my older software packages would’t run under Win 7, but I was disappointed to discover that Photoshop Elements 4 would’t run after the upgrade either. But that’s ok. It IS version 4 after all and the current version is all the way up to 9! It’s time to upgrade my photo editing software too I suppose.

Oh, I should also mention that Windows 7 also comes without the Outlook Express email client which meant that I had to download and install Mozilla Thunderbird (which works great by the way).

All things considered, the upgrade from XP was extremely beneficial. The system is now rock solid, and the speed increase was dramatic. The XP installation required a full two and a half minutes to boot up into a usable state. The same PC under Windows 7 boots up in about 65 seconds. The machine also runs a lot faster in general, including surfing the Internet.

In a nutshell, the upgrade breathed new life into an old PC, and maybe I can squeeze another year or two of productive use out of it? I guess time will tell.

Filed Under: Technology
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