Symptoms – attempting to repair the network connection, but Windows could not finish repairing the problem because the following steps couldn’t be completed, Renewing IP.
Attempting an ipconfig /renew receives the following message: The RPC server is unavailable.

The problem can often be worm related and can be fixed by simply running a winsock reset in the command prompt.

netsh winsock reset or netsh w r

From Microsoft:

One of the components of the Internet connection on your computer is a built-in set of instructions called TCP/IP. TCP/IP can sometimes become damaged or corrupted. If you cannot connect to the Internet and you have tried all other methods to resolve the problem, TCP/IP might be causing it.

Because TCP/IP is a core component of Windows, you cannot remove it. However, you can reset TCP/IP to its original state by using the NetShell utility (netsh).

More. . .

After signing in to https://eopen.microsoft.com and going to the Software Assurance tab, I’m clicking on Home Use Program. Under Home Use Program, I have two Licensing IDs, one of which was returned.

I click on my active license to access the Benefit Summary. Under Activated Benefits, I have “Home Use Program” and “E-Learning – Applications”. The HUP shows “On Hold” as its status, and the E-Learning shows “Active”.

The HUP keeps switching to On Hold by itself. I have repeatedly changed the Benefit Status from “Held Awaiting Reactivation” to “Active” and clicked Submit. I’m not sure of the timeframe, but days or weeks later it is “Held Awaiting Reactivation” again.

 As of now I’m still waiting on a solution but will update the post if anything changes.

• If there is an alignment issue w/ the printers:
  • Open the printer and make sure the labels are feeding through the black alignment guides. These guides should be lightly touching the edges of the labels. The majority of alignment problems are caused by these guides being too loose. This can be fixed by adjusting the “teal wheel” to bring the black guides closer to the labels.  The labels should not be able to move side to side in the alignment guides.
    • After closing the printer lid, press the flashing green button to reset the labels.
  • You can print test tags from the Check-In app anytime by pressing the Menu button in Check-In and selecting “Print Test Tag.”
• If the printer pulls the label back in slightly after printing:
  • The Cutter function in Check-In has been inadvertently turned on. (This is a feature of a different printer model). After signing in to the Check-In app, press Menu and choose “Turn Cutter Off.”
• If none of the above steps resolve the issue, the printer may need to be recalibrated.
  • Hold the Feed button down. It will blink 1 time, then it will blink 2 times, then it will blink 3 times. After it blinks 4 times, release the button. A few labels will feed to auto-calibrate and the printer should then be ready to begin printing.

Dan Heath – Author, Consultant, and Co-founder of Thinkwell

Chip Heath – Author, Consultant, and Professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business

Bright spots – what is working? Go with the bright spots. If we have 9 ministries, and 2 are dying, & 5 are fine & 2 are thriving – Dan says focus on the thriving 2. Those 2 are proof that success is possible. Find out what works. Forget the TBU – true but useless.

There is a clear asymmetry between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution.

Start out high on the peak of Hope and end high on the peak of Confidence. But in between the 2 peaks there’s a valley called Insight. Insight will not come easily but must be endured.

The growth mindset – people who view their skill sets like muscles – they can be improved through work. There is also a tolerance for failure built into that mindset. Failure is a NECESSITY. Failure can be an early warning sign for success. Some people should be empowered to fail.

How actually does a leader get better at leading?

You have to learn to get better. Be a reflective practitioner.

Where you really learn leadership is out in the arena, but it’s not simply that.

• Continually read & learn. Education is key.
  • Not every reader is a leader, but every leader is a reader.
• It’s easy as a leader to confuse motion as progress.
• When you’re done dancing on the dance floor, go to the balcony and observe.
• Our best leaders are the ones with enough self confidence to remove themselves from the “cockpit” for periods of times

Nixon was the best strategist I’ve ever met.

Someone who can see farther back can see farther ahead.

Ford was the most decent president I’ve ever worked for.

Clinton was the most resilient. He was always willing to get back up.

Reagan was the best leader in the White House since Roosevelt. He was a principled man and had a contagious optimism for life.

Nixon had these demons that he could not control.

Gerald Ford could be a little naïve and could be taken advantage of.

Reagan’s problem was his detachment. Reagan would sometimes let others take the wheel.

Clinton clearly had cracks in his character. He should have come clean and ask for forgiveness.

We all have flaws. We all have a light & dark side. The challenge is to integrate the two. You have to have your flaws under control enough that they don’t derail you.

Leaders with great teams get the best results. The days of the lone ranger leader are over.

If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.

Leadership is about trust & communications w/ the goal of persuading, not dictating to, people to meet goals.

Speeches take place w/in a context, never a vacuum. Who the speaker is speaks as loudly as what the speaker says.

Harvard research shows that if the speech goes longer than 30/35 minutes, 25% of people fight sleep & 50% of people engage in sexual fantasies.

Physical fitness often represents internal fitness. Flabby bodies, flabby minds. (IMO – often true but not a rule).

During a church service, Gergen hopes to find inner peace. Also hopes to learn something.

Dave Gibbons – Founder and Lead Pastor – Newsong Church, Irvine, CA

The Two Greatest Commandments – Love God & love you neighbor.

God has called us to develop a church that is contrarian. This isn’t easy. In fact it’s difficult.

Third Culture = painful adaptation. The mindset and will to love learn and love even in the midst of pain & discomfort.

Characteristics of The Third Culture Leader

• Focused upon the fringe. More on the misfit than the masses. Typically it’s the misfits that lead, not the masses.
  • Vision typically starts at the center, the leadership, & moves outward.
• They have a different set of metrics
  • Failure is success to God
    • Your weakness & failures are gifts from God
  • Weakness guides us more than our strengths
  • Relationships trump vision
    • We don’t need more visionaries but “relationaries”
  • How Dave’s life changed
    • Priority shifts – move from programs to leadership development
    • The best discipleship happens w/ life on life
    • Design/space shifts
• Obedience more than passion
  • 4 acts of obedience
    • Deep collaboration
    • Communal living
    • Prayer
      • More than prayer, the church doesn’t believe in the power of the Holy Spirit
    • Sacrificial love for the outsiders

Aid vs. Trade

Andrew Regarsira – Founder of Good African Coffee

14,000 African coffee suppliers http://www.goodafrican.com/

"There is no country in the world that has developed through handouts. Why is Africa different?"

Between 1970 & 2000, Africa has received $400 billion in aid. Aid is really not aid. It’s poorly structured, it’s insincere & it’s conditional. It results in remote control of Africa from overseas donors.

Aid undermines the integrity of donor countries. It creates chronic dependence.

Leveraging Your Past

Wess Stafford – President & CEO of Compassion International

In the last 4 years, CI staff has doubled in size

pain is catalyst for passion, integrity, and application of personal gifts. Wess knows this pain firsthand. Beaten as a kid in African boarding school on average 17 times/week, he and his 50 friends kept silent of the horrors for years.

We were so “poe” we didn’t have a zip code.

Last year 187,000 accepted Christ through CI. 50,000 of them were Africans.

What’s your cause? Does it move you to tears? Tears of sorrow or tears of joy. What is it that moves you passionately?

Forgiveness may not mean

• . . .forgetting, or that it was okay
• . . .release from consequences of actions
• . . .reconciliation.

Forgiveness does mean giving up the right for revenge. You will not forget what you will not forgive.

80% of people know Christians personally – barely 25% of those see a difference in the Christian’s lifestyle.

9 out of 10 Americans have a belief in a spiritual being.

82% of young non believers have been to church at least once.

What’s failing – God’s message or our methods?

“Church has become a weekly convocation for the converted and the content.”

Our materialistic culture has left people empty & jaded and needing something genuine.

The world is becoming more turbulent faster than organizations are becoming more resilient.

Success is a self correcting phenomenon.

A critical skill – The ability to change & morph as circumstances warrant. Unfortunately it usually takes a crisis to make this happen.

We need to change the way we change.

How do you become an enemy of entropy?

4 key imperatives for outrunning change

1  Overcome the temptation to take refuge in denial. Every org is successful. . . until it’s not. 

The 4 typical steps of denial – Dismiss, Rationalize, Mitigate, Confront.  This pattern is typical to board rooms and bedrooms.

When an organization can’t see the future, it’s because the future is unpalatable.

Face the facts & question your beliefs. Make sure you’re listening to the renegades.

Do we welcome or stifle dissent? Learn from the positive deviants.

The future has already happened, but it’s unequally distributed.

2  Create more strategic alternatives.

The oak tree doesn’t know where the fertile ground is. We’re so anxious to find that one giant acorn instead of focusing on the small ones and increasing our impact.

3  You’re very unlikely to create new options unless you’re willing to deconstruct what you believe.

Look at your programs and ask what hasn’t changed in years. Have they not changed because we’ve explored options and found nothing better, or is it because it’s the “way we’ve always done it?”

“The longer you’re in the trenches, it’s easier to mistake the edge of your rut w/ the horizon.”

Is the challenge finding great leaders, or making great organizations that can successfully run w/o superhumans at the top?

Our organizations were never built to be adaptable. It’s not enough to be focused now we have to be malleable & experimental.

The web is the most creative & adaptable thing humans have ever created.

The Facebook generation doesn’t want to work for a Fortune 500 corporation, and they don’t want to go to a church that feels like one.

The early church was spiritually powerful & organizationally weak. Today that is often reversed.

We will not be able to fundamentally change people until be get fundamentally better at changing our churches.

In terms of the economy, the normal we all knew and loved is out the door. Rogue waves & storms often provide perfect conditions for new opportunities. In times like this, leaders often hear whispers from the Holy Spirit – this is why you’re a leader – this is why you’re in this position. It can create the strongest bonds when we occasionally face the occasional rogue wave.

Storms require constant action at the helm.

Four Lessons:

Philosophical. October 08 – Stock market lost 25% of value. Hundreds of Willowcreek members lost jobs.  A large giver called Bill & said he couldn’t give his $2-300,000 Christmas gift. This was a rogue wave. The leadership team decided that no matter what happened, they would challenge the church to be the church – no matter what. This was not a business or naive decision. Do we still believe the local church is the hope of the world? Yes – to our core.

New series at Willow – “What we can learn in a downturn.” God will prove himself to be faithful. I hope you learn the beauty power & potential of your church. To those who are in a bind – let the church help you. Humble yourselves during your time of need. To those not affected by the downturn – step up and be the church in prayer & generosity.  In a matter of weeks a business man stepped up and gave a check that made Bill pee his pants.

People aren’t coming to church for a mild dose of God. “All killer, no filler.”

Kingdom Economics lesson. The math makes no sense from a human perspective. Walk more by faith than by sight. Revenue goes down but the needs go up. Planning becomes more like guesswork. If you lose track of the financial part of ministry, you’ll bring embarrassment. Hybels asked Jack Welsh – How do you lead through a crisis? In a crisis, cash is king! (Jack Welsh)

Healthy cash reserves gives leaders what they need in a time of crisis – time. Cash gives you time! We tell individuals this every day – have 6 months of savings in case you lose your job. It gives you time. So why does the church or businesses not follow this rule too?

The bucket exercise – if revenue drops 50% which activities would we stop doing? Put those activities in bucket C. If we dropped 75%, put those activities in bucket B. If we absolutely would not stop doing a particular activity no matter what put those activities in bucket A. This is incredibly clarifying.

If you have to cut staff, cut staff. But give people time, be honest, and be generous.

Look at your resource pie – Willow is moving to a budget of 50% staff, 10% Wins of the Spirit, 15% ministry budgets, 15% facility/utility/etc.

Relational Lesson. Habakkuk 3:2. “I want to see God transform tons of people in OUR day.”  God usually does his great work through people. People who are totally yielded to Him. God wants those who are “full on” for Him. Hybels is asking his staff tough questions. Are we hiring “full on” people and giving the tools & opportunities to reach their fullest potential. Jim Collins new book – How the Mighty Have Fallen. Staff read it & then asked the tough questions. How many absolute key seats are there in your organization? If there are X number of “key seats” in your organization, how many of those seats are filled w/ the right people. They found 85% were. What is the plan to get the right people. Are we developing backup people for those key people? These tough questions take tough leadership will but must be done.

Personal Lesson. Hybels was at a board meeting and he asked someone “how was your day?” The guy unloaded – 50 hr/week job plus because of economy he’s doing another full time job. Hybels said “I’m a little worried for you.” Later that night the Holy Spirit told Hybels “I”m a little worried for you.”

Hybels realized his life is unsustainable. “The pace at which I’m doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me.”  He was slowly falling back into a depleted position.

The Replenishment Bucket – Romans 8:6 – when you’re in sync w/ the holy spirit it leads to life and peace. It brings peace instead of anxiety. Many people, because of the rogue waves, are at the bottom of the bucket. This requires self leadership. “Reinvent adequate replenishment strategies for the new reality.” There are involvements, commitments & opportunities that you need to get out of. Know what fills your bucket. Hybels has doubled the miles he’s running, watching diet & days off. He’s also changed how he’s starting his day. He used to be in the office everyday by 6 – before all the other staff. Lately the temptation to ignore his early morning devotions in favor of his job responsibilities was huge. The temptation for leaders is to work 24/7. Realize if you’re virtually powerless, like an alcoholic, to avoid temptation. Now he starts his day more gently in a room at his house w/ no leadership temptations. When you listen to god slowly he speaks more often. After devotions he works on his sermon. THEN he goes to the office.

The best thing you bring to the table every day is a filled up bucket. Everyone around you benefits from this in profound ways. Your colleagues will feed on this. Shake up your routines. Fill up your bucket.

What do you followers see when they look at you these days. Do they see a full bucket? Or someone who’s exhausted or fearful?

God is still capable of doing great things in our day, but are you living like you think he doesn’t?

God wants to do great things in our day and with your leadership.

This information and more is available directly from Microsoft KB 875357.

Identifying the ports

1. Start the program and try to use its network features. For example, with a multimedia program, try to start an audio stream. With a Web server, try to start the service.
2. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
3. At the command prompt, type netstat –ano > netstat.txt, and then press ENTER. This command creates the Netstat.txt file. This file lists all the listening ports.
4. At the command prompt, type tasklist > tasklist.txt, and then press ENTER. If the program in question runs as a service, type tasklist /svc > tasklist.txt instead of tasklist > tasklist.txt so that the services that are loaded in each process are listed.
5. Open the Tasklist.txt file, and then locate the program that you are troubleshooting. Write down the Process Identifier for the process, and then open the Netstat.txt file. Note any entries that are associated with that Process Identifier and the protocol that is used.

If the port numbers for the process are less than 1024, the port numbers will probably not change. If the numbers that are used are greater than or equal to 1024, the program may use a range of ports. Therefore, you may not be able to resolve the issue by opening individual ports.

Adding the port exception

1. Click Start, click Run, type wscui.cpl, and then click OK.
2. In Windows Security Center, click Windows Firewall.
3. Click the Exceptions tab, and then click Add Port to display the Add a Port dialog box.
4. Type a descriptive name for the port exception and the port number that your program uses, and then select either the TCP or UDP protocol.

5. Click Change Scope.

6. View or set the scope for the port exception, and then click OK.

7. Click OK to close the Add a Port dialog box.

8. To verify that the port settings are correct for your program, test the program.

Using Logging

You can enable logging to help identify the source of inbound traffic and to provide details on what traffic is being blocked. %Windir%\pfirewall.log is the default log file. To enable logging, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type firewall.cpl, and then click OK.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. In the Security Logging area, click Settings.
4. Click to select the Log dropped packets check box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK.

Note Outbound successes are not logged. Outbound traffic that is not blocked is not logged.

Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) enables IT administrators to remotely manage roles and features in Windows Server 2008 from a computer that is running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1). It includes support for remote management of computers that are running either a Server Core installation option or a full installation option of Windows Server 2008. It provides similar functionality to the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack.

Windows Server 2003 support

Only the following tools support the management of Windows Server 2003:

• Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools
• Active Directory Certification Authority Tools
• DHCP Server Tools
• DNS Server Tools
• Terminal Services tools
• Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools
• Group Policy Management Tools
• Network Load Balancing Tools

Install RSAT

To install RSAT, follow these steps on a computer running the final release of Windows Vista with SP1:

1. Download the RSAT package from Microsoft Web site.
2. Double-click the downloaded package to start the Setup wizard. Follow the instructions in the wizard to complete the installation.
3. Open Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off under Programs and Features.
   If you are prompted to provide permission by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the remote administration snap-ins and tools that you want to install, and then click OK.
5. Configure the Start menu to display the Administration Tools shortcut. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Right-click Start, and then click Properties.
   2. On the Start Menu tab, click Customize.
   3. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, scroll down to System administrative tools, and then select Display on the All Programs menu and the Start menu.
   4. Click OK.
6. For a complete list of tools included in the RSAT final package, installation instructions, and other help topics, see Remote Server Administration Tools Help in the Administrative Tools list on the Start menu.