RSS Herald

Clara sent me an update yesterday.  I’m posting parts of it here for you.

“The huge team of doctors up here in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, all put together by the “leader” Dr. Matthews, have done their level best to “fix” me. But our hopes, due in part to the complete lack of help or treatment earlier, have been squelched quite a bit. They have determined positively now that there is no way at all that any radiation can be used. My lung capacity, both lungs together, is down to only 47 percent. You will recall that, on the right lung two years ago, the middle lobe collapsed and has never recovered, so that side has since run on two cylinders, so to speak, rather than the three God gave us. Now here on the left side, we people are made with two lobes in this lung. I have large tumors at the top of each lobe, plus we’ve found some small ones here, there and yon, plus this time some lymph nodes are involved, as well. Any use of radiation will harden the lung tissue giving me even less ability to breathe. Trust me, it’s bad enough as it is. We had decided, therefore, to insert a permanent port in my upper chest to use for chemotherapy that Dr. Matthews wants to try. It’s our only hope for easing the breathing, if nothing else. Although it’s not a good thing, he’s going to try to “hit ‘em hard” as he put it to see if he can slow down the growth and also hopefully kill a lot of the cancer with the chemo drugs. If it turns out I can’t tolerate it, we’ll just stop the treatment. Then I’d just be given “comfort treatment and meds while I wait. I am still praying that God will take care of me and, if it’s His will, that He’ll still heal me.

But nothing’s easy at the moment, wouldn’t you know it? I had broken a molar just before I left for up here but had no insurance to fix it. About a week ago, it started hurting and I was feeling lousy and began having much more trouble breathing. Turns out that molar became abscessed, as well as the one next to it. I had to see a dentist as an emergency patient at 8 o’clock last Monday morning. It was Sandy’s dentist who took me in the minute we called her, not even knowing me. When she heard about the cancer issues and then looked in my mouth, she was upset ‘cuz the abscesses were deep and I was on no antibiotics, plus my wheezing was bad. She called an oral surgeon who sent me from her office to his, all this before 9 o’clock am, same day! He peeked in my mouth and was surprised at how swelled my gums were from the molars’ infections and had to pull the molars right away. Oh, it hurt!!! The pressure eased a bit, but not the pain. He, then, put me on antibiotics and then sent me straight to the lung guy! There they could hear the infection in my lungs, so I got put onto an additional antibiotic as well as a large course of prednisone. My breathing is loud and rattley and bugs me, but I’m hoping it’ll clear up more by Monday so I can get the port and start chemo treatment against the cancer.

I’m starting a “CaringBridge” site but haven’t had energy to work on it much. I’ll keep you posted. By the way, I have to be out of my house down there in Bloomington, Indiana, (oh, that makes me so sad) by April 15th, I think, so I may need to call on some of you for help. I definitely need help with maybe selling some of my things, maybe with packing, I don’t know. I do know that I can’t bring everything up here, but most of my stuff … I don’t know. There is so much good stuff there, lots mostly new, lots never even used, and I need to come up with money for so many things – including final expenses. I have a really hard time talking about that for some reason, I guess because it depresses me so much. I did get most of the insurance issues taken care of up here, I hope. Anyway, my sister Colleen is supposed to help me with a list of items in the house and let me know what I have and don’t have. I’ll send it on when she does.”

I think Clara needs our help more than ever now.  Please send your cards and notes to her at:

Clara Fyffe
C/O Pastor Jeremiah Fyffe
145 Park St.
Sheboygan Falls, WI 53085

Thank you in advance for your caring support.

Kathy Ritchie, Editor

Due to the passage of Colorado House Bill 10-1193, Amazon has dumped all of its Colorado based affiliates/associates.  Effective the day the letter was written, which is today.  No notice.  Overstock.com has also threatened the same thing.  Read the bill here.

What this bill did is to hurt the income potential of small businesses and internet business throughout Colorado, but Colorado lawmakers have a legitimate right to collect sales tax on purchases by Coloradans.  Why should the big internet retailers get out of paying so much tax? And in this economy, I can certainly understand this new law.  I don’t have to like it, and being able to earn something from affiliate relationships helps my personal economy.

To be fair, the same type bills were also passed in NY, and RI, and have so far held up in court.

I disagree completely with Amazon’s no notice firing of all Colorado affiliates for something they have no control over.

This is the only notice from them I’d received. No one I’ve spoken to received anything else except a termination notice in their inbox this morning. Not only is this unprofessional, its unfair.

While I won’t boycott Amazon as many are urging, (I get my Kindle books, and Video downloads), I won’t send any more traffic to them.  As of today, I won’t feature Amazon anywhere on my sites.

You can be sure other online retailers will follow Amazon’s example.

Following this post is the message Amazon sent its affiliates today.

Thanks,

Kathy Ritchie, Editor

Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.

You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.

Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.

We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.
Best Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team 

What I mean to say is that there are certain traits that will hamper the success of a virtual assistant.

For instance, I recently received a call for coaching a potential virtual assistant. We decided that it would be better for her to call me after hours, for her and me. I arranged a time, and at the appointed time…. no call.

When next she called it was again during business hours, and again, we determined it would be more efficient for her to contact me after hours. I like to try and arrange it so that these types of calls don’t interrupt my family time, so I’ll set them up generally when Michael is working. So, at the appointed time, I waited… and again, no call. Until after 9pm. Which, let me tell you, I’m worth nothing after 8pm… generally thinking about getting to bed and sleep by about a quarter to 9, so calls after 9pm are way too late.

I did take the call but suggested she call me today, before noon. I waited around specifically, took my phone with me everywhere in the house so I wouldn’t miss her while I did laundry and other stuff… No call. Finally, nearly 1pm, and I am on the phone with my sister talking about a project we’re both working on and I get the call from the prospective virtual assistant.

I didn’t take the call, and she didn’t leave a message.

I would have to say, if you cannot

1. Keep to the schedule.
2. Follow through with something you said you’d do
3. Let everyone else dictate your schedule, to the point that you cannot even advise someone that you cannot make this appointment/deadline/call – or whatever….

You probably shouldn’t become a virtual assistant.

Thanks for listening!

Kathy Ritchie
Editor

As you’ve read in previous blog posts, my friend Clara Fyffe is fighting cancer. She was diagnosed (this latest time) back in July 2009, and its taken until now to begin treatment. All because she fought for a second opinion on what was a death sentence. While its still very serious, its not as imminent.

It took her son Jeremiah and a patient advocate to get the doctors to begin thinking about Clara first. She is after all the patient. Finally, Her son has her living with he and his family in Sheboygan Falls, WI, and already an entire team of doctors, in all the necessary fields, are on the case.

I’m thrilled for her! And its a true case of answered prayers. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers, I know it was the combination of all the voices, both heard and unheard, that brought this about.

I spoke to her yesterday and she sounds so much better already! Excited to be there, happy, and less scared. Thank Heavens.

To write to her:

Clara Fyffe
C/O Pastor Jeremiah Fyffe
145 Park St.
Sheboygan Falls, WI 53085

Thank you again!

Kathy Ritchie
Editor

I wanted to post an update on Clara Fyffe here for everyone.

Clara Fyffe, one of my greatest inspirations, who has persevered through so many trials and is facing her biggest one yet. She has lung cancer and has had different diagnoses/prognosis. One doctor says only a matter of months, and the other says perhaps a year and a half. Now, they seem to be arguing with each other instead of fighting together to save her. Go figure. Still, she is an amazing woman and I’m so proud to know her. She still is so funny and makes me laugh. Clara you’re my hero!

I just spoke with her, and finally her treatment begins today. She is still very much alone there, with her family seemingly otherwise occupied, except for her son in WI. I am requesting you please send her thoughts and prayers, and if you feel like it, cards and letters.

Her address again is:

Clara Fyffe
532 Blackfoot Drive
Ellettsville, IN 47429And her phone is 812-935-8008.

She isn’t on the computer much these days, it’s too painful to sit at the desk for long.

If you would like, you can email me your letters and I’ll send them to her when I send along the next batch of goodies.

Bless you all, thank you for keeping her in your thoughts.

Kathy Ritchie
Editor, RSS Herald

Computers drive me nuts. Sometimes, if I wasn’t so tied into them for my career, I might just be tempted to throw them against the wall.

Last evening, Windows installed an update. Today, I rebooted, and suddenly couldn’t log in, the message: “The User Profile Service Failed, the user profile cannot be loaded.” came up.

This was the SECOND time this has happened. The first time, I did a system restore and fixed the issue. This time, system restore wouldn’t work. So, I was forced into a very complex fix… all because Windows did an update. Go figure. Thank Heavens I have a laptop and that the network still worked – but I could have logged in using my cell phone as the modem so that’s not a huge issue, I was able to search for the best solutions for me.

I’m uploading my fix, so in case you have the same issue, you can fix your system. Please note, its complicated, and intimidating. But it can be done!

Special thanks for Ken – former support engineer, for his posts at socials.answers.microsoft.com, as well as vistax64.com and tomstricks.com.

The User Profile Service service failed the login, user profile cannot be loaded error

First, try system restore. I logged in using the safe mode, and since my profile didn’t load, I was routed to the ‘default profile’. There, I tried a system restore to the most logical point, before the latest update for windows.

When/if that doesn’t work you’ll need to go deeper so to speak. See below:

Did you know there is an administrator profile that is in the background of Vista? It may be disabled, this is how to enable and disable it.

1. Go to your Start menu and in “Accessories” list, open “Command Prompt” by right-clicking on its icon and choosing “Run as Administrator”
2. When the Command Prompt window appears, enter the command net user administrator /active:yes
3. When done, log out from your current account.
4. The Administrator account should now be present on your log in screen.

To turn the build in administrator account off, do the same except the command will be
net user administrator /active:no (Be sure and do this only after you have restore your user access!!!)

Then:
Log on to Windows Vista computer with another administrator profile. (Use the one you just enabled using the steps above.)

Start Windows Vista registry editor (regedit)

Go to to the registry key: Local Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Profile List

Go through the profiles to find yours. You can use the ProfileImagePath to identify your profile

The key to your profile may have a “.bak” appended to it. There will be another identical key except for the bak.

Rename this key and rename yours removing the “.bak”

Change the State property to 0.

Log off and log back in using your profile. It should now work.

Now, if you aren’t sure, this is how to get to the UPPER Level command prompt (I did this in SAFE mode):

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type cmd
3. Right click on cmd (at top), and click on Run as administrator.
NOTE: To open a regular non-elevated command prompt window, just click on cmd instead.

I hope this helps anyone who has this issue.

Best wishes!

Kathy Ritchie, Editor