FrameMaker Single Master Template Procedure

If you use FrameMaker, you are probably aware of how much trouble you can get into when you have a set of separate templates for a book. But most people struggle with it anyway, not knowing how to get around it. I hope you will enjoy learning about a procedure I came up with many years ago for creating a single master template for all your different templates for a given project; say, the title page, table of contents, chapters, appendices, and index templates for a book. Using this procedure, you will take a set of separate template files for a book and create a single master template out of them. I am providing the instructions as a high-level list of steps; I assume you know FrameMaker well enough to know how to access the various commands.

The benefit of this procedure is that when you are done, you will have a single master template for your book. When you make a change to this master template, you can freely import that master template into all files in your entire book, so that each file in your book will be up-to-date with the latest version of your template, without worrying about messing up anything.
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MS DOS DEL versus ERASE

Long ago in the MS DOS days. I recall being told that there was a difference between the DEL and ERASE commands. One just deleted the directory entry for the file (and therefore the file could in theory be restored), the other actually erased all the data from all the sectors that file was stored on (better for security).  However, although it would seem that intuitively DEL would do the former and ERASE  the latter, I also recall being told that the commands were not intuitively named, though that source wasn’t reliable.

Doing a Google search has turned up a plethora of sites on these commands, but all the ones I checked claim that both commands do exactly the same thing. Can anyone help me out here with the correct information on these two commands? Thanks!

Nutella

I’ve loved Nutella for as far back as I can remember. However, for a very long time, I have avoided it because it was made with partially hydrogenated fats (now more commonly referred to as trans fats), which I’ve known since the 1970s were Bad For You. (More.) I do not know why it has taken the rest of the world to catch up on that one—that information was freely available to any nerd anyone who read Science News.

Anyway. I have recently discovered that Nutella has been reformulated to that it no longer uses partially hydrogenated fats. I think I heard choirs of angels singing when I discovered that fact. They use modified palm oil now, which is perhaps only mariginally better, but I’ll take that margin. (My cholesterol levels have always been quite healthy, thankyouverymuch.) So, lately, I’ve been having Nutella as a dessert almost every day—Nutella on brownie bites, Nutella and crepes, or just Nutella on a spoon. I’m not picky.

My beloved has expressed a concern (tongue firmly in cheek, of course) that, with my new enthusiasm for Nutella, perhaps there is some kind of addictive chemical or other in it, and that it is all probably part of a plot for Alien Domination.

To which I say, if this is part of some alien plot, then lead me down that garden path.

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Burnt Cookies

This is just a quick question/rant, and I sincerely would like to have someone answer it. Why do people donate burnt cookies (or burned other baked goods) to bake sales? I am talking about cookies that are completely black on the bottom, not just a little darker than they should be. (And even those should be kept at home for the family, not donated to a bake sale.)

I mean, seriously. They have to know those cookies are burned beyond edibility, and they also have to know that people won’t eat burnt cookies. People especially don’t like paying for burnt cookies in all innocence and trust that they were paying for a good product. It is so disappointing to purchase a tasty-looking cookie or brownie or whatever, and then when you unwrap it and bit into it, you find that it has that chalky, charcoaly burnt taste and texture. So you just throw it away, which the original baker should have done in the first place. (Well, in our household, it would be composted, so at least it wouldn’t be a complete waste.)

Anyone have the answer? Yes, I know that they usually have committed to supplying five dozen cookies or whatever. But for heaven’s sake, if these people burn some of the cookies, why don’t they just bake some more? What makes them think it is okay to donate inedible food? Don’t they realize they did not, in fact, meet their obligation after all, even if it looks like they did?

And then I have to ask myself, why didn’t I ever just take the cookies back and ask for good ones? Because I was being polite, I guess. But it is so totally not polite to foist burned food off on someone, and it doesn’t serve anyone to let them get away with selling inedible food. They might as well have had lumps of charcoal out—that would have been more honest. The next time I get burned cookies at a bake sale, I am going to take it back to them and ask them nicely to give me unburned ones. There is no possible other right response to that but to apologize and make good on the error.

The Issue of Faking It

Some people fake it, not necessarily all the time, but some of the time. At least, they only fake it some of the time at first. Unfortunately, the more they fake it, the more they lose the ability to know what is real and genuine, and then the more they have to fake it.

I am not talking about sex. I am talking about psychics. I sometimes come across Web sites expressing disappointment in some psychic or channeler or other, and I think it is time to talk about it. Of course, I already cover some of this topic in my article here, but I am adding to that information to specifically address the issue of psychics who fake it and the repercussions that such actions have.

The biggest issue is that people expect psychics to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. In addition, if the psychic is a channeler and especially if the psychic is a trance or whole-body channeler, there is an expectation (very often on the psychic’s part as well) that the psychic must be completely infallible and will never make a miscall or show any signs of being a human being and must have access to supernatural information all the time that they are channeling. And that not a trace of their humanity or human fallibility can leak through while they are channeling.

When the inevitable happens and the psychic is found out to be human, and fallible, and capable of making mistakes no matter how deep their trance is, then there is the tendency on the part of others to become deeply disillusioned and to say that the psychic had to have been faking it all along, and that the entity must not really exist, and that, in fact, no psychic is genuine and there is no spiritual realm at all. Or at least, there are no spirits who wish to help us.

This is a sad and desperate and often very angry and trapped-feeling place to be for the ones who have been disappointed. So how does this come about? And how can one move from that place of feeling victimized to a place of more centered wholeness?

The first great misunderstanding that both channelers and people who listen to channelers have is that the channeler has nothing whatsoever to do with the channeling in any way, shape, or form. The mistaken belief is that channelers have no input regarding the messages being channeled, and that they are just some kind of cosmic radio tuned to Station Entity.

This is not true.

EVERY channeler is an active part of the channeling process, and therefore has a lot of input on what the message is. Even when “unconscious,” they are participating in a process of translating the message that is being given to them. That message goes through their own filters and preconceptions just as much as it would with a conscious channel—perhaps even more so than a conscious channel, because a conscious channel, at least a very aware one, can set aside filters and preconceptions more readily so as to create a translation that is closer to the truth.

Common sense tells us that nobody is infallible, not even the Pope. So why do we set that common sense aside when getting involved with a psychic? One answer is that sometimes we just want to communicate with a being who is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-seeing, and we also want it to be true that the person through whom that all-wise being is communicating is likewise as all-wise and all-seeing and, most importantly, all-truthful.

But, put that way, we see instantly that of course that can’t be true. Yes, there are all-wise and all-knowing beings, but they cannot override someone’s free will. Their message may be (and almost certainly is) crystal clear and 100% accurate and truthful from their side, but they can only work within the structure of the channel’s abilities, choices, and limitations. So if that person chooses to translate the entity’s words in a particular way, there is nothing the entity can do about it.

One classic example is when a person, speaking as an entity, says that that entity can and will only ever speak through that one channel. This is a misinterpretation or mistranslation. What the entity is saying is that the connection between them and the channel is unique. If the person chooses to translate that as “the connection is the only one ever that can be made,” that is their translation, not the actual message. No matter what any channeler says, of course the entity is not limited to speaking to only one person. That is as ridiculous on the face of it as saying that only certain people or only one person can speak with God, and everyone else must listen to that person for God’s wisdom and guidance. Of course that isn’t so. Of course God can and does speak with each one of us. Some of us have a hard time listening or believing, but that doesn’t alter the fact itself that God speaks with us. And when we do listen, our connection with God, our relationship, is unique. There is no other like it ever, nor will there ever be.

So, this is one big problem. I always encourage people not to leave their self-will, common sense, or self-trust at the door when I do readings, and I encourage you likewise to trust yourself as much as you can. Know that you have it in you to tell what is true and what isn’t, and don’t put psychics—or anyone else, for that matter—on a pedestal from which they must, inevitably, fall.

The next problem is that some psychics take their mistranslations a bit further. Because they know that others expect them to always be psychically “on” and able to get information, and because they know people expect them to be accurate all the time—and even perhaps because they think this is true of themselves—they feel a little bit of fear or even a thrill of panic when they don’t “get” something psychically.

When I am doing a reading and someone asks me a question and I don’t “get” anything, psychically speaking, I tell them so. I know this surprises and disappoints some people, but from my point of view and according to my ethical standards, I have no other valid choice. I cannot lie about it and make something up. This is mostly because I have a deep aversion to dishonesty. It is also because I know that a lie isn’t going to help that person. And finally, it is because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that as soon as a person starts lying about their psychic abilities, they start to shut themselves off from those abilities. It becomes a vicious circle—one time, they get no psychic information, so they lie and make something up, something that sounds plausible. And they get away with it because others are so willing to believe that they will ignore their own red flags and doubts. The next time the psychic information doesn’t come, they lie some more. As this continues, they become less and less able to detect the real psychic information, and they are lying more and more, at which point they are faking it pretty much all the time.

However, not all psychics know that lying will lead to a loss of their abilities. So they lie. And because everyone always knows when a lie has been told, even if they don’t let themselves be fully, consciously aware of it, a certain amount of discomfort is introduced. The listeners will even try to help the channel—because we are all helpful people, or most of us, anyway—and will try to explain how the lie can be so. But it is a lie, and so it can’t be so.

It isn’t fair to blame the psychic solely for this. If a person has put that psychic on a pedestal, and the psychic fell off, then, well, the person might want to take a look inside themselves and see who they really are most angry at and disappointed with. So they made a mistake about the pyschic. So what? They can learn from it and move on when they are done stewing about it. But it serves no one to stew about it until it festers; instead, the task at hand is to work through all those feelings of anger, sadness, disappointment, betrayal, and so on until they come to a place of peace about it. And I would suggest that part of that place of peace will be accepting oneself for being human and fallible, and allowing others to be likewise, and knowing that ultimately it is okay.

Free and Easy Environmental Help

I am sure you have heard the expression “reduce, reuse, recycle.” That is a short-hand expression used by the environmentally hip to indicate the order in which you can and should act in regard to material things in order to help the environment.

  • Reduce means to reduce how much you contribute to the waste stream. For example, use cloth diapers instead of disposable ones, or use a reusable steel bottle instead of buying water in plastic bottles, or buy products in bulk instead of in wasteful packaging. It also means to buy less, period. Just think of disposable anything as unacceptable (with very few exceptions), and you have a guideline that will help you a lot.
  • Reuse means to take an existing item and use it again, possibly for another purpose. For example, take an old ceramic whatsit and create a planter out of it, or cut up old sheets to make napkins or curtains.
  • Recycle means to take an item, crush it or melt it or whatever, then make something new out of it. For example, a lot of plastic bottles and bags are recycled into a large number of things.

I am here today to tell you about one excellent way to reuse things. It is called freecycling. Here is how it works. You sign up for your local freecycling group. Then, when you have something you no longer want, something that you can’t or don’t want to sell because it isn’t likely to sell or it is too much trouble to sell, you post it as an offer on the freecycling list. Members of the freecycling group who are interested send you email, and you give it away to whomever you want.  (Thus, they are actually a freeusing group, since what they do is take existing items and reuse them, but I guess they thought freecycling sounds better.)

Or, let’s say you are looking for something–anything–and you don’t have money, and you think someone might have one they no longer want. You post your wish to the list and wait for the offers to roll in. Of course, you may not get it–I’ve seen some pretty gutsy requests, such as for high-ticket kitchen items (one person asked for a KitchenAid mixer AND a VitaMix blender AND something else expensive; another person asked for a car, and yet other people have asked for laptop computers), but hey–it’s worth a try, right?

There are more details, but that is basically it. Last year, I reorganized my DVD collection by removing all the disks from those bulky containers and placing them in a much more compact set of binders with sleeves. DItto for my CDs. I didn’t know what to do with the containers, though. I sure didn’t want to put them in the trash, but I was also pretty sure they couldn’t be recycled. I posted them on my freecycling list, and got an astonishing number of people interested in taking them off my hands. The lucky winner was the member of a band; they were making DVDs and CDs and were glad to get a lot of cases for free. And I was glad to see them stay out of the waste stream, at least for a little while longer.

Another time, someone wanted a pressure cooker. Turns out I had one I wasn’t using, and so she got it.

I’ve given away an expensive (but almost certainly unsellable) mattress topper, a broken teapot, an old VCR, an old DVD player (though unfortunately the person who picked up those latter two items inadvertently revealed that she and her husband had a handy little business selling every such item they got through the freecycle network), and a number of other items that have been kept out of the waste stream thanks to freecyclers. I haven’t needed to ask for anything yet, though I hope that if I do, I will have as much luck getting things as I have giving them away.

If you want to join, go to http://www.freecycle.org/ and find your local group. I suggest that you sign up to have the emails sent to you in digest form rather than individually, but you may wish to see them individually to get a faster crack at the freebies.

George Washington’s Farewell Address

When George Washington decided to not run for office again, he wrote a farewell address in which he urged people to be wary of threats to their peace and liberty. He was remarkably prescient in warning against special interest groups who might influence Congress and ultimately co-opt our government for their own.

On page 10, he warns against “overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

Pages 12 through 16 are particularly apt. I urge you to read those pages at least, if you don’t have time to read the whole of it. Here is page 14 in its entirety:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Read that carefully, bearing in mind the immense power that big-business lobbyists can wield, then send a letter to your elected representatives with a copy of that page and urge them to resist such influences.

On pages 16 and 17, he speaks of the dangers of becoming overzealous in considering one party (and therefore its adherents) to be superior to another.

It became a tradition for the US Senate to read the farewell address each year. A different senator is chosen to have the honor of reading the address to the Senate, after which he or she signs a leather-bound notebook. Initially, the signaure was just an acknowledgement of having read it; later, it became tradition to add notes or comments. This page provides links to actual scans of a number of those comments; just taking a look at the handwriting alone is interesting, but so also are the comments themselves.

Help Soldiers in Iraq

I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t support our soldiers in Iraq, no matter what their opinion is of the war itself. Here is one way you can help our soldiers: Project Boresnake.

Cake Humor

I stumbled across these two Web sites and ended up laughing harder and harder as I perused them.

http://cakewrecks.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate/

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

RFID-Blocking Wallets and Passport Holders

Newer passports and an increasing number of driver’s licenses and credit cards have an RFID chip embedded in them. Setting aside some larger concerns about privacy and safety, these chips have data on them that makes it very easy for thieves to steal your identity.

According to a video report done at the 2008 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, a person can buy a reader for just a small sum of money that will take all the data from your RFID chip, allowing them to use your card as though it were their own.

So what to do? There are a number of choices for protecting your data. The least expensive solution is to make your own RFID-blocking wallet with duct tape and aluminum foil.

If the duct-tape-and-aluminum look is not your style, there are a several companies selling products that will do the job as well:

One place that sells a few of these products, sometimes for a discount. Also try Amazon.com.

None of these links get me anything, in case you are wondering; I have nothing to sell here and will not profit in any way. I am simply sharing the information.