Friday, December 01, 2006

Leader's Insight: There's Something About Joseph

What leaders can learn from the Nativity about the high cost of righteousness.

by John Ortberg, guest columnist

Because we live on this side of Christmas, we want to rush to the end of the story where everything turns out okay. We miss the anxiety in a young woman's announcement, "I'm pregnant" and the tension on a man's brow as he parses the right decision. You might even be tempted to think Joseph was slow spiritually and should have figured out what was going on a lot sooner. But if you do that, you miss the whole point of what Joseph is learning, and of what we can learn from him—that there's some amazing stuff going on around Christmas besides how Jesus got here. You miss out on how God is already beginning to redefine what true righteousness is.

Matthew 1:18–19 tells us: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly."

Joseph, Scripture says, was a righteous man. There's a rich history behind this idea. The Hebrew word for a righteous man is tsaddîyq. Joseph was a tsaddîyq, and this means he was known for his uncompromising obedience to the Torah, the law of Moses. (For some of this concept I'm indebted to an article by Scott McKnight, a New Testament scholar.)


Read more at CT Leadership Journal

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Leader's Insight: Under-Communicating

Why aren't people listening to what I think I'm saying? Conclusion of the series The Three Legs of Trust.

by Angie Ward, guest columnist

In several earlier columns, I pointed out the three legs of trust: character, competence, and communication. All three are necessary to gain and maintain credibility as a ministry leader. But of the three, communication often seems to be the least recognized as a component of trust.

By communication, I don't mean the communication of God's Word from the pulpit. I'm talking about leadership communication, the kind of communication that can help or hinder your church's attempts to row together in the same direction. Whether at the visionary, missional, strategic, or tactical levels, good communication is crucial to ministry effectiveness and to your personal credibility as a leader.

Years ago, when my husband and I signed the contract to purchase our first house, our real estate agent told us, "Congratulations, you're halfway there!" We didn't realize that agreeing on a price was only the first step of the process. Next, we had to find a lender, arrange for an inspection and appraisal, work through the entire loan process, and secure insurance, not to mention manage all the documentation needed to actually close on the house.

In the same way, many leaders fail to realize that reaching a decision on an issue is not the end of the process, but the beginning. The communication (or lack thereof) that follows is just as important as the decision itself.

How can you tell whether your communication is effective? There are several indicators that can help you evaluate this element of your leadership.


Read more at CT Leadership Journal

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

5 Moral Fences

Fact: Some kids like to play "near the edge," and some kids don't. I always did! Whether the "edge" was rock jumping into a cool mountain lake or "bumper jumping" moving cars to slide along an icy winter street, the potential of peril invigorated me.

But "when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Cor. 13:11). I was a pastor and in seminary when the moral failures of the late '80's hit the news. In addition to the big names, I heard a shocking number of similar tragedies from my own circle of pastor/friends.

One Sunday night in 1987 I remember crying all the way to church. I was terrified. I asked over and over, "How does this happen? Could this happen to me? How can I protect myself, my family, and my ministry from the devastation a moral failure would cause? How can I keep myself pure when men better than me are falling like flies?"

As I prayed it through, I figured that those who fell morally must have disregarded the warning signs. They didn't go from Spirit-led to stepping off the cliff in one day. They must have crashed some social barriers before their slippage became sexual.


Read more at CT Leadership

Thursday, October 19, 2006

10 Interesting Things You Can Do With Google Videos

Unless you are staying in an underground cave for more than a year without an internet connection, there's a healthy chance that you have at least watched, if not downloaded, an online video on Youtube or Google Videos.

The online video sharing space has exploded in the recent months with the entry of new players like Metacafe, Blip.tv, Revver, Yahoo Videos and so on. Millions of video clips, technology shows, music albums, movie trailers are available on these video sites for online viewing or they can also be downloaded to your hard drive for offline viewing.

The downloaded video files are generally in FLV format (Flash Video) which is an Adobe standard for video compression. It has fast becoming the web standard for delivering online video (replacing Apple QuickTime, AVI, Windows Media and Real rm formats) because Flash Video can be viewed inside Macromedia Flash Players which is shipped by default with most web browsers. [Flash Video Editing Guide]

A lot of us know how to download Google Videos or Youtube videos from the internet but what do we do next ? Can we make the FLV video files searchable ? How do you edit FLV files ? All your questions and concerns are answered here:

Read more at 10 Interesting Things You Can Do with YouTube or Google Videos

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Websites that changed the world

Amazon used to be a large river in South America - but that was before the world wide web. This month the web is 15 years old and in that short time it has revolutionised the way we live, from shopping to booking flights, writing blogs to listening to music. Here, the Observer's Net specialist charts the web's remarkable early life and we tell the story of the 15 most influential websites to date.

Johannes Gutenberg took the idea of printing by moveable type and turned it into a publishing system. In doing so he changed the world. But he did not live to see the extent of the revolution he had brought about. If you'd told him in 1468 - the year he died - that the Bible he had published in 1455 would undermine the authority of the Catholic church, power the Renaissance and the Reformation, enable the Enlightenment and the rise of modern science, create new social classes and even change our concept of childhood, he would have looked at you blankly.

But there lives among us today a man who has done something similar, and survived to see the fruits of his work. He is Tim Berners-Lee, and he conceived a system for turning the internet into a publishing medium. Just over 15 years ago - on 6 August 1991, to be precise - he released the code for his invention on to the internet. He called it the World Wide Web, and had the inspired idea that it should be free so that anyone could use it.

Read more at The Observer

Monday, September 25, 2006

Expand The Functionality Of 'My Computer'

If you frequently use the 'My Computer' window, then you should expand the functionality to your liking. You can add Administrative Tools, Printers and Fax Devices, Scheduled Tasks, Network Connections, Recycle Bin, and My Network Places to the window by using this tweak.

To do this, follow the next steps:

To open the Registry Editor, click on the Start button on your taskbar, then click on Run and type "regedit" and click on OK to start the regedit utility.

Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace.


Create a new KEY and choose one of the values below:

{D20EA4E1-3957-11D2-A40B-0C5020524153} for Administrative Tools
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} for Printers and Fax Devices
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} for Scheduled Tasks
{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} for Network Connections
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} for Recycle Bin
{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D} for My Network Places

Reboot and the changes will show up the next time you open the 'My Computer' window.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1562/expand_the_functionality_of_my_computer

Friday, September 15, 2006

112 Windows Run Commands

Wanted to Browse fast in windows. Remember these commands.
This will really save a lot of time of your. There are many
commands which you might have never seen or never knew.
There are certain properties of windows which you hardly know
exist in windows. Here is a list of 112 run commands.

Windows Run Commands
Accessibility Controls access.cpl
Add Hardware Wizard hdwwiz.cpl
Add/Remove Programs appwiz.cpl
Administrative Tools control admintools
Automatic Updates wuaucpl.cpl
Bluetooth Transfer Wizard fsquirt
Calculator calc
Certificate Manager certmgr.msc
Character Map charmap
Check Disk Utility chkdsk
Clipboard Viewer clipbrd
Command Prompt cmd
Component Services dcomcnfg
Computer Management compmgmt.msc
timedate.cpl ddeshare
Device Manager devmgmt.msc
Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)* directx.cpl
Direct X Troubleshooter dxdiag
Disk Cleanup Utility cleanmgr
Disk Defragment dfrg.msc
Disk Management diskmgmt.msc
Disk Partition Manager diskpart
Display Properties control desktop
Display Properties desk.cpl
Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected) control color
Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility drwtsn32
Driver Verifier Utility verifier
Event Viewer eventvwr.msc
File Signature Verification Tool sigverif
Findfast findfast.cpl
Folders Properties control folders
Fonts control fonts
Fonts Folder fonts
Free Cell Card Game freecell
Game Controllers joy.cpl
Group Policy Editor (XP Prof) gpedit.msc
Hearts Card Game mshearts
Iexpress Wizard iexpress
Indexing Service ciadv.msc
Internet Properties inetcpl.cpl
IP Configuration (Display Connection Configuration) ipconfig /all
IP Configuration (Display DNS Cache Contents) ipconfig /displaydns
IP Configuration (Delete DNS Cache Contents) ipconfig /flushdns
IP Configuration (Release All Connections) ipconfig /release
IP Configuration (Renew All Connections) ipconfig /renew
IP Configuration (Refreshes DHCP & Re-Registers DNS) ipconfig /registerdns
IP Configuration (Display DHCP Class ID) ipconfig /showclassid
IP Configuration (Modifies DHCP Class ID) ipconfig /setclassid
Java Control Panel (If Installed) jpicpl32.cpl
Java Control Panel (If Installed) javaws
Keyboard Properties control keyboard
Local Security Settings secpol.msc
Local Users and Groups lusrmgr.msc
Logs You Out Of Windows logoff
Microsoft Chat winchat
Minesweeper Game winmine
Mouse Properties control mouse
Mouse Properties main.cpl
Network Connections control netconnections
Network Connections ncpa.cpl
Network Setup Wizard netsetup.cpl
Notepad notepad
Nview Desktop Manager (If Installed) nvtuicpl.cpl
Object Packager packager
ODBC Data Source Administrator odbccp32.cpl
On Screen Keyboard osk
Opens AC3 Filter (If Installed) ac3filter.cpl
Password Properties password.cpl
Performance Monitor perfmon.msc
Performance Monitor perfmon
Phone and Modem Options telephon.cpl
Power Configuration powercfg.cpl
Printers and Faxes control printers
Printers Folder printers
Private Character Editor eudcedit
Quicktime (If Installed) QuickTime.cpl
Regional Settings intl.cpl
Registry Editor regedit
Registry Editor regedit32
Remote Desktop mstsc
Removable Storage ntmsmgr.msc
Removable Storage Operator Requests ntmsoprq.msc
Resultant Set of Policy (XP Prof) rsop.msc
Scanners and Cameras sticpl.cpl
Scheduled Tasks control schedtasks
Security Center wscui.cpl
Services services.msc
Shared Folders fsmgmt.msc
Shuts Down Windows shutdown
Sounds and Audio mmsys.cpl
Spider Solitare Card Game spider
SQL Client Configuration cliconfg
System Configuration Editor sysedit
System Configuration Utility msconfig
System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately) sfc /scannow
System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot) sfc /scanonce
System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot) sfc /scanboot
System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting) sfc /revert
System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache) sfc /purgecache
System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x) sfc /cachesize=x
System Properties sysdm.cpl
Task Manager taskmgr
Telnet Client telnet
User Account Management nusrmgr.cpl
Utility Manager utilman
Windows Firewall firewall.cpl
Windows Magnifier magnify
Windows Management Infrastructure wmimgmt.msc
Windows System Security Tool syskey
Windows Update Launches wupdmgr
Windows XP Tour Wizard tourstart
Wordpad write

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~sansor/commands.html