Chapter 5 The 4Rs Repair, Replace, Reconfigure and Re-boot.

Technology has shifted with the advent of the ubiquitous digital camera. There are 4,212 people at Disneyland right now, inserting tiny little SD cards into tiny little cameras and pressing: <FORMAT?> <YES?><NO?>

Format is no longer a dirty word. It has crept into our everyday tech-vocabulary. As commands go, it has become benign:

Insert Card / Format / Point and shoot.

Before HD, when the average user encountered the command: FORMAT? It gave you pause. You knew that you were running with scissors. You knew, (usually from experience) that if you reformat a disk, you were going to lose all data. In every operating system on the planet, when you enter the command: <FORMAT> the system will return a second command: ARE YOU SURE? If you have been this far down the rabbit hole, you know where this can lead. If you hit <RETURN> the data on this drive is

lost. You will be sitting with Alice and the Cheshire Cat having tea. Wont that be nice?

Neuroscience has been playing around with formatting for years. My childhood memories are filled with stories about my paternal grandfather who was a psychiatrist. In the early days of electro-shock-therapy, they were re-formatting a whole bunch of hard drives without much precision or concern for accuracy. They were wiping hard drives clean with a fire hose. And while this had a certain charm, the method seems a little clumsy. I think the same holds true for a host of designer drugs that are soon to hit the market allowing you to selectively reformat portions of the drive. A team of researchers at the University of Montreal are working on a drug that suppresses bad memories without effecting good ones. And Im sure it comes complete with a ride in a Johnny Cab.

There are two approaches. You can take an external or an internal approach to troubleshooting and repair. External repair requires that we pop the case and get dirty. It is the simple 4R approach. Repair, Replace, Reconfigure and Re-boot.

This users-guide takes a non-invasive approach. Through system diagnostics and performance evaluation, and by running a few

simple TSRs (terminate, and stay resident programs), we will return the system to factory spec. Once the system becomes stable, benchmarking will be performed on a regular basis to insure optimal performance.

In the last chapter, we started to exploit the similarities between email and mEmail. Once you have compartmentalized the process, and start to apply some of the best-practices for maintaining a cool running system, you start to gain some control over the programming.

Here is the command sequence that we have developed for any incoming mEmail:

Step One Read Subject Step Two Authenticate Step Three Check Date Step Four Evaluate, Store or Delete

For every incoming mEmail, we are establishing an action that is an analogue to the best practices for housekeeping on your PC.

So far, when a mEmail comes in, we read the subject line, make certain it is from a known source, check the date and

disposition appropriately. Logically, after a mEmail has made it this far, we are going to have to send a response. The next step is: [Step 5 Respond]

In order to reply, you have to set-up a mEmail account. No, seriously. You are literally going to set up a new mEmail account with gmail or hotmail. The first thing you must do is select a user name. Take time with this step, it will be the first time you are sending commands directly to the server.

If possible, consider using your whole given name. At the end of your name, add the suffix prime. This will designate to the incoming mEmail server that the message be stored in the boot sector.

Example: Given name: Donald Francis Warrick mEmail address: donaldfranciswarrickprime@gmail.com.

OK, the dirty little secret is out, my middle name is Francis. Lets give it a minute. Before reading further, please take a

moment to go online and set up your prime mEmail account.

Once you have your online account set up, it is important to know that sending messages to this account will re-write your running code.

The process works very much like updating FLASH memory on a PC. The FLASH memory contains the information that is used in POST (Power-On-System-Test) and establishes the link between hardware and software in the system BIOS (Basic Input Output System). Any email sent to this address, will over write the previous BIOS.

Stand up. Stretch. Breath.

It is best to put a little space around this idea before we proceed.

With this simple step, we are connecting the inside and outside systems in a new way. This is the first step in returning the system to optimal factory specification.

We have already established that a high percentage of the mEmail in your inbox is spam. Not just ads for Viagra, or the occasional pop-up, the messages in your inbox are complaints. Complaints about almost everything. Here are some examples:

1. Its cold. 2. The coffee isnt made . 3. The weather sucks. 4. The toast is burnt . 5. My dog has fleas.

I have a name for the sub-routine that creates this clutter. I call it Complain-Brain. There are times when I wake up with this sub-routine running. Without you knowing it, this code can run in the background all day long. Complain-Brain is just the process label that I have attached to the sub-routine in my head. Your labels may be different.

The Complain-Brain sub-routine can leave your inbox full of malware. We can resolve this issue simply, by writing a mEmail MACRO to change the code.

Once you have created your mEmail account, cut and paste the following into an email to yourself. You can refine your document to reflect the sub-routines that you wish to modify.

Program Change Request ************************************************************ To: donaldfranciswarrickprime@gmail.com Fr: Don Warrick Re: PROGRAM CHANGE REQUEST Date: 5/19/2012 First boot: 10/15/1957 Entry Number: 1 ************************************************************* Process Label: COMPLAIN-BRAIN Code Type: Sub-routine File Location: Boot Sector Years running: 55 Attribute Voice: My Father (Note: this is a boot sector sub-routine. Running this subroutine causes system fault/error.) ************************************************************* Resolution When <VOICE> = <COMPLAIN-BRAIN>, <go system idle> <Move to bottom stack> <Allow all new data to overwrite> This is a permanent command. You are affecting the Operating System, once sent, this operation cannot be undone. are you sure you want to proceed? If so, hit send. <SEND> please print this page for your records.