Fidelis: Birthpangs Book 1 by: A.R. Horvath

Fidelis:
Birthpangs Book 1
A.R. Horvath
ISBN 9780979127618 Softcover
ISBN 9780979127601 Hardcover
Suzeteo Enterprises

Fidelis is the best speculative fiction I have read since the early 80's. Reminiscent of Heinlein's writings with the skills of a master wordsmith, A.R. Horvath has created an amazing world and looks to a possible future that is dark and brooding. He creates a world in which the United States has entered a second dark ages after a military defeat. The writing is superb, the characters believable and engaging. As you read you become transported into the events by Horvath's skill with the pen for he draws you in and captivates you. His storytelling is masterful.
We follow Fides as he goes from being a young man trying to look after his family and working as a skilled laborer to being a warrior serving a cause greater than any he could have imagined. As he journeys across the remnants of America he journeys into a faith he never dreamed of nor wanted. The book deals with big questions: faith, doubt, manhood, integrity, purpose in life, bravery and above all else, truth. It does so in a futuristic setting, however is written in such a way that the characters as they struggle with these issues seem to be real, not just a story for entertainment but a story to help us learn to ask the right questions in life.This book has been compared to Stephen King's The Dark Tower, or as a cross between it and the Left Behind books by LeHaye and Jenkins. However, to me it is more similar to C.S. Lewis's The Dark Tower or a darker version of Lewis's space trilogy. It also reads much like James Axler's Deathlands yet with more depth. Reading Horvath is like reading science fiction by Asimov, Bester or Heinlein, with the narrative power and creativity of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien. It also contains strong military themes like those found in Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant, Orson Scott Card's Ender Series or Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books. This book is an amazing work of fiction. Both the writing style, and story itself will captivate and enthrall. This book is moving to my all time favorites list and it will take something pretty awesome to knock it down a notch on that list. So pick up the book and join Fides on his journey, both across a continent and into faith, and you too may be challenged to look inside and find the strength to struggle with faith and to ask yourself the tough questions. I for one eagerly anticipate the rest of the books to come in this new series.

(Note: a review of book 2 soon to follow.)


Books by A.R. Horvath:
Birthpangs Series
Fidelis
Spero

The Annals of Myrtle and the Blood King Series
The Warden-Watch

Books as Anthony Horvath:
Chronos and Old Facts
The Golden Rule of Epistemology and other essays
We Choose Life
Polite Company and Other Stories
The Knight in Black Tuzedo
Mordecai's Dilemma
For No Reason at All
Roots and Fruits
SUperfan
Author Profile and Interview with Anthony Horvath

Computer Tools, Tips and Tricks

Over the next few weeks I plan on writing a series of articles about computers. These will be written from the perspective of an IT Professional who constantly receives requests for help from friends and family. What I hope to do is outline and provide ideas for some tools, tricks and tips that will help users keep their machines clean and healthy and functioning better. Some of these tools I have been using for years and some are new to me through working in the field or through friends and colleagues. In this piece I will take a quick look at a number of tools, then over the next couple of weeks write a more in-depth step- by- step piece on each of these.

RegCure
AdAware
A-Squared
MalwareBytes
AVG
NoteTabPro
iGoogle

Part of how I see my role in IT is to help educate end-users so that they can do as much as they can for themselves. To that end, when I am working on someone's machine I explain what I am doing and why. This series will aim to help computer users learn from these experiences. Most of these software programs have a free trial version or scaled-down version for home/personal use but also have a more advanced version you can use buy if you want the extra features.

AVG

First and foremost it is important to have good virus software and to keep it up to date. Most software on the market will automatically update and let you know if it has not. AVG is great software and I have been using it for years. Once I was a huge Norton fan but it became more expensive to upgrade/renew each year than to buy a new version but for older machines the new version often took too many resources. AVG has always had a free home-use version; it is good software that runs efficiently without eating your system resources. The free version is good, the full version is great. AVG also has the ability to scan from a menu - you can right click an item or file you downloaded and scan it before opening it.

RegCure

This utility you can run for free but will have to buy eventually. It is fantastic. It will clean up stuff you are not even aware of. The system registry on a Windows-based machine is what allows the hardware and software to work together. This is a document that almost every program you install writes to. What Regcure does is remove the stuff not needed such as lost paths, empty registry fields, uninstalled program stuff and more. I know IT guys who run this every day to keep their machine running faster. Now on a side note, you will almost never get zero entries in this software. Because the registry is dynamic and always being written to, it will almost always find a few items to remove.

AdAware & A-Squared

AdAware and A-Squared are both very similar but do their jobs in a different way. They check for tracking cookies, malware and spyware. Both have free versions and are easy to install, update and use. I usually load both updates and set both to run, then walk away from the computer, go have supper and when I get back both scans are done and my machine is healthier. I always run a deep scan - it takes longer but checks everything on your computer not just the common items. AdAware has a paid version but it uses more system resources and runs all the time in the background. A-Squared has a nice function of being able to scan from the menu, so you can right click an item and scan with A-Squared to check it before opening or installing.

MalwareBytes

This program has come to be invaluable. It will remove almost any virus we have encountered either at work or on systems for friends or family. It is free to download and try and you can pay to upgrade to a pro version. Tip for this one is to update it twice after you install it. The first time it updates the software, the second the definitions it uses to scan. Malwarebytes has removed the UPS Virus, the XP Antivirus 2008/09, Antivirus Vundoo and many others. This is an excellent product. If by chance you exposed your system or know it is infected, this is the tool for you.

NoteTabPro

This little application is a fantastic utility. I use it daily at work and at home. I use it most to edit posts for my blog. I compose in MSWord, to be able to use spell check and grammar check, but if you cut and paste from Word you end up with all kinds of extraneous MS code in the paste. It can also be used for checking HTML, XML and CSS files. It is small, quick and extremely efficient. It's like Notepad on steroids, yet uses hardly any resources or space on the hard drive. I have barely tapped into the features of this utility in the 2 years I have been using it, but have recommended it to a few people who all rave about it.

iGoogle

Over the last year as I have become more mobile, I have come to find this to be an awesome tool. One reason is that Gmail now supports checking other email accounts and even sending from them. I have GMail configured to send from 8 accounts and it receives the messages from them also. iGoogle is a customizable webpage with gadgets galore to add to it. You can have your Gmail, news feeds, even Google calendar and many, many more. You can currently choose between the classic tabbed view or a sidebar navigation. I have moved to using this almost exclusively for mail and scheduling. Plus I have all my news and sports feeds on one tab and then a separate tab for using the Google reader to stay up on all the blogs I read. If they ever start charging for this service like Hotmail once did, I will be toast but currently, in my opinion, it is the best free service on the web.

Articles in this series:

Computer Tools, Tips and Tricks
RegCure
AdAware
A-Squared
MalwareBytes
AVG
NoteTabPro
iGoogle

(Note a variation of this article first published in Imprint 2008-11-28.)

Peace and Strength! Yours, learning to be Steven R. McEvoy

http://mcevoysmusings.ca My Homepage
http://bookreviewsandmore.ca My Blog

CompTIA IT PRO, A+ ITT, A+ DT, A+ RST, Network+
Microsoft MCP, MCTS Business Desktop Deployment, MCTS Vista Configuration, MCITP Enterprise Support, MCITP Consumer Support, MOS,

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."
- Leo Rosten

From the Journals

As I have mentioned before not only am I an avid reader I am an avid writer. I am currently on volume 35 of hard back journals. I use the Blueline A19 series 192 pages each they are 9 1/4 " X 7 1/3" or 235mm X 184mm. I have varied the color but green is dominant. Recently I went back through looking for my Myers Briggs results and found it in the 3rd one I pulled from the shelf. While doing that search I found a number of short book reviews that I wrote back in the spring and summer of 1999 while doing a children's literature course at the University of Waterloo. Now when journaling I write a 1 page summary of each book I read. However often it is more how the book affected me and what changes or observations I have discovered about my self from the books digestion. So I have decided to pull this collection out and clean them up a little and post them here. Some of these were favorite books when I read them but I was not reviewing formally then so this is a way to promote those books but not sacrifice the time to go back and reread them. Therefore over the next few months you will see posts every few days of some of my earliest reviews.

(Note yes I stole the title of this post from Eric Scheske who has been running a series of posts pulled from old journals.)

Quiz: What Does Your Taste in Music Say About You?

What Does Your Taste in Music Say About You?

Your musical tastes are reflective and complex.
You are intellectual to the point of being cerebral.

You are very open to new experiences, and even more open to new ideas and theories.

Wisdom and personal accomplishment are important to you.

You are naturally sophisticated. You are drawn to art, especially art by independent artists.

You are likely to be financially well off... and not because you were born that way.

My Top Ten List of Favorite Bands/Performers is:

Evanescence
Bif Naked
The Wyrd Sisters
Holly Cole
Chris Lizotte
Ozzy Osborne
Paul Gross
George Thorogood
David Wilcox
Beethoven
AC DC
Bach

Hat-tip Jean at Catholic Fire.

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

Where you have gaps in your knowledge:

No Gaps!

Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge:

Philosophy
Religion
Economics
Literature
History
Science
Art

Hat-tip Jean at Catholic Fire.

What Type is your Blog?

ISFP - The Artists

ISFP (for my blog)

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.
Analysis
This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

ISTP - The Mechanics

ISTP (for my website.)

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

I do not remember the last time I did the Myers Briggs test but I do recall one category split almost 50/50 and one had a 99/1% split. I will have to look it up and see if I can find it. I went back and here are my results from the last time I did this in April of 99

E - 60% / I - 55%
S 75% / N 55%
T 55% / F 50%
J 55% / P 25%

So test as E/I S T/F J. It only took my 3rd journal out of 35 to find it. Which is funny based on these results making my writing in both categories a P. I know this will just show how precise I am I did some testing and it only check the title page, so I tested each month of my archive and got:

ISFP - The Artist - 19
ESFP - The Performer - 14
INTP - The Thinkers - 5
INFP - The Idealist - 1

For those not familiar with Myers-Briggs Types: the letters stand for:

Extraversion - Introversion
Sensing - INtuition
Thinking - Feeling
Judging - Perceiving.

(Hattip to Jean at Catholic Fire. You can check out your own here at the type analyzer.)

Knights of Columbus Book of the Month Club

The Catholic Company has more new stuff on the go. Now they are promoting their Joint venture the Knights of Columbus Book of the Month Club if you join you will receive the monthly offering at a 20% discount. Each month members will have the opportunity to join Supreme Knight Carl Anderson reading insightful, informative and faith-filled books and have the option to participating in an online discussion about that month's book. The discussion at the end of each month is led by Mr. Anderson and his guest's - authors and authorities on the subject of the book that month.

If you join before the 10th of a month you will receive that months book if not you will receive the next months book. There is even an online archive of old discussions.

This looks like a great tool to help you grow your faith. So Drop by and check it out.