Random Thought Number 1023

Random Thought Number 847: I’ve figured out how to deal with my seasonal affective disorder. No more depression for me. This year I’ll remain in panic mode in anticipation of the depression. That’s progress, no?

Random Thought Number 621: So when extraordinarily creative and successful people like Steve Jobs leave their mortal coil, must we assume that they had ADHD? Just wondering out loud because it seems that some people make that assumption. (Attila the Hun was extraordinarily creative and successful. Was he an ADHDer too?) The real question I have is this: when ADHDers make this assertion about someone’s ADHDness — whether or not it is true — are they really saying something about the person who they assume has ADHD or are they really trying to say something about themselves? I don’t mean this in a mean or pejorative way but anyone who has ADHD or lives with an ADHDer knows that ADHD is debilitating. It is not manna from heaven and it is not a gift from the gods. It simply “is” and it “is” something that you have to confront – whether you embrace it, curse it, or try to ignore it like a mosquito – every single moment of your life. When you are awake, when you sleep, when you have sex, when you weed the garden, when you drive your car, you have to deal with your ADHD. The only known escape from ADHD is death. Short of death, you have to live with it and deal with it. So, again, I ask the question, what are we ADHDers really saying about ourselves when we assume that someone famous has ADHD?

A Message From Our Sponsor: The person providing the best answer to the question, “What are we ADHDers really saying about ourselves when we assume that someone famous has ADHD?” will receive a free Slap Chopper. Contest ends 11:59PM on October 1st, 2011. Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

Random Thought Number 768: I’m confronted with the same problem that I had in 2007. I believe that Adderall is helping me to feel normal but I have no clue what “normal” is supposed to feel like. How will I know “normal” when I see it and live it? I’ve never seen the world (or myself) the way others see the world (or myself). Is the medication making me “normal” when I decide to stop writing and cooking and growing vegetables and, instead, throw myself onto the sofa, flip on a football game and yell at my wife for not bringing the beers fast enough? Is that what “normal” is?

No? That’s not it?

Oh.

I get it.

“Normal” is supposed to be about accomplishing your goals in life. Interesting.

So what happens if those goals are unrealistic and, therefore, are never achieved? Are you still “normal”?

Random Thought Number 933: Remember that “mess” that I described in Random Thought Number 1023? Well, here’s a random thought based on that random thought. (Still with me?) That mess is the externalization of the internal mess in my head, a result of going off of Wellbutrin and Vyvanse. Though getting off of those medications has put me in touch with my inner porn star, it has also resurrected the internal AND external Chaos of the ADHD weltanschauung. Those medications, it seems, only masked and suppressed Chaos and once they were out of my system the Chaos was back.

Perhaps it was naive to think that I could circumvent physics (the Conservation of Chaos assures that chaos cannot be created or destroyed). But it is disappointing to see that the years of Wellbutrin/Vyvanse induced “normalcy” did not have a lasting effect.

Random Thought Number 621 (cont’d): We’re really trying to make ourselves feel good in the same way we identify with a sports figure or team in order to make ourselves feel good. Through some sort of magical transference “their” good fortune – hitting home run number 500 or winning a world series – rubs off on us. We all want to feel like we’re a winner, so we identify with winners.

By the way, there’s a theory that says that some people vote for president, not based on who is the best candidate, but based on who they think will win.

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What is PWSafe?

PWSafe is a “safe place” to store all of your usernames and passwords. You only need to remember one password – the one required to open PWSafe – and then you’ll have access to all of your usernames and passwords. The cost? It’s free. There is a paid version that costs just $9.99 that allows PWSafe to be used on a thumb drive, aka USB stick; USB drive; disk-on-key. This would allow you to use the same password safe on your desktop computer and your laptop or netbook.

PWSafe in Operation

When you start up PWSafe for the very first time, you will need to create a database that will store all subsequent usernames and passwords. You then protect the database with a password that you will be prompted for each time you start PWSafe or when you minimize the application and it “locks” itself. But that’s the only password you’ll need to remember.

Opening up PWSafe

As you add more usernames and passwords, you can organize them into groups and subgroups if needed. This makes it easy to quickly locate a particular username/password. PWSafe has a search capability in case you don’t remember where you put particular information.

Note: Though this software is made for storing usernames and passwords, you can store other important text-based information too. For example, whenever there is a problem with my phone service I need to provide my account number which is printed on the latest bill. One problem. I never save the bills. After I pay them, I shred them. So I have entries in PWSafe with utility account numbers and other vital information (social security numbers; bank account numbers, etc.).

Your information can be stored in logical groups/subgroups

When you add a new entry into PWSafe, you can designate a group (entries do not have to be in groups), such as Amateur Radio. You can decide not to put an entry in a group but you must give the entry a title. The “Generate” button will generate a password for you which you’ll need to copy/paste into the relevant registration page.

PWSafe allows you to put in the URL for a particular website and go to the URL directly from PWSafe. This feature is more important than you may realize. For example, your bank may have a URL like http://firstnationalhome.com. If you mistype that URL, you may be sent to a phishing site that looks like the real website. This feature helps to eliminate that problem. (US-CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) notes that “Malicious websites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (e.g., .com vs. .net).”)

Example of an entry screen. You can group information, add notes, URLs, generate secure passwords or supply your own password.

PWSafe in Action

To use PWSafe you:

a) Start up PWSafe (duh!).

b) Go to the website that requires the username/password.

c) Find the correct entry in PWSafe and copy the username (if you don’t remember it) by right-clicking on the entry and then clicking on “Copy Username to Clipboard.” You then paste it into the website. The same procedure is followed to copy/paste the password. (See screenshot below.) Alternately, you can use its Autotype feature.

Autotype!?!

PWSafe has a great feature called Autotype. I use it when I log into this blog. First, I go to the log in page for this blog. Then I find the username/password entry in PWSafe that is for the blog. I do NOT use any copy/paste procedure. Instead, I press Ctrl-T and, voila, PWSafe fills in the username and password AND it sends the enter key code to the browser and logs me in. But wait! It gets even better! If you have provided a URL in your entry, you can click on the Browse to URL + Autotype feature which will automatically take you to the website and it will log you in. What could be easier than that?

Why Bother Using PWSafe When You Can Store Usernames and Passwords In Your Browser?

Though you can store usernames and passwords in your browser, there are still a few reasons why you might want to use PWSafe.

1. PWSafe allows you to store any type of important information, such as account numbers, social security numbers, etc. You can’t do that in a browser.
2. Each entry can have a corresponding note. For example, you can have the username/password for a particular website and, in the notes section, you can have the responses for any security questions used by that website.
3. If you share the computer with others, anyone who has access to your browser has access to your usernames/passwords. (Some browsers let you password protect the ability to retrieve usernames/passwords…but some do not.)
4. You don’t have to worry about losing usernames/passwords in the event of a web browser upgrade that has gone awry.

Ok…So How Do I Get  A Copy of the Software?

That’s easy. Click here to download the latest version of PWSafe.

You can also get a version that will work with your iPhone or iPad. It uses Dropbox to synchronize your safes. See: http://app77.com/pwSafe/ h/t to Jorge Vasquez for bringing this to my attention.

An Important Digression

PWSafe is a pretty useful piece of software. It acts as a central repository for all kinds of information and requires that you only remember a single password to access the information. That’s probably the main reason why I use it. I always know that I can go to PWSafe to find all kinds of important information that goes beyond usernames and passwords, like my stupid telephone company account number or the response to a particular security question. Of course, I also use it to generate secure passwords but, let’s be realistic, what’s the likelihood that my nosy neighbor will try to guess my password? Quite honestly, it is unlikely that will happen. Not impossible. Just unlikely. What is more likely is that I will be part of a larger attack against a cluster of websites with my particular website being part of that group. (It is also possible that the FBI may inadvertently take down my site. See: FBI Seizes Web Servers.)

However, having been a web developer for quite a few years, I’ve seen various forms of automated probing and attack software. This software will scan web servers – where your website may reside – looking for various vulnerabilities. For example, it may search for common types of files that web developers may inadvertently forget to delete and that allows access to database files, etc. Someone trying to crack into a site may use a dictionary attack which is, essentially, software that uses a dictionary of words (along with various algorithms) to generate thousands of commonly used passwords. It is also possible that, instead of cracking my password, I may fall victim to a phishing scheme or my information may be part of thousands of usernames/passwords that are simply stolen through social engineering¹ or other means. For example, I have been doing online banking since the days of DOS and dial-up modems. I have never ever ever had any information lost or stolen. But I recently had all of my debit cards cancelled because of a security breach at Michael’s Arts & Crafts stores. The PIN pads at numerous Michael’s stores were hacked and anyone who made a purchase within the past six months or so was vulnerable. (The full story is here.) So despite all of the precautions I have taken, along with those of the banks I have used, I was still the victim of hackers.

The bottom line is that while you may not be the intended target of a particular attack, nonetheless, you don’t want to make things any easier for a would-be thief or an overly curious co-worker. While there is nothing we can do about PIN pads being hacked (though it would be nice to see legislation that makes organizations accountable for these kinds of screw ups), PWSafe can help you with the important task of creating secure passwords and, most importantly, being able to find those passwords when needed.

FYI: Those looking for a potential new career may want to read this: How Attackers Steal Passwords

1. What is Social Engineering? “Social engineering is principally concerned with manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information in order to access electronic or physical data. Hi-tech protection systems are completely ineffectual against such attacks, and most employees are utterly unaware that they are being manipulated.” Source: Social engineering attack allowed consultant to access company’s data room and steal passwords

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I receive emails from many of my blog readers and I’ve decided to use the opening of this post to respond to a number of them. To those who have been wondering if I have been leaving her satisfied or wanting more, the answer is, “satisfied.” Therefore I have no need for those enlargement pills that you keep telling me about. To those who would like me to get involved in the lucrative trade of mining molybdenum, I regretfully decline your generous offer of a partnership. I don’t think business partnerships should be based on a random drawing of someone’s email address. Finally, to those who have been wondering why my blog posting output level seems to have dropped, the answer is “I’ve been busy.” Most of my effort has been aimed at building up a steady stream of business because I’m simply tired of the continual cash flow problems that plague entrepreneurs. And as I have announced in earlier posts, I no longer dwell on my ADHD as the major problem. Instead, I try to understand the nature of the problem at hand and try to arrive at a solution. For example, I realized that I was having difficulty working on several projects simultaneously (a very typical ADHD problem). The solution was to schedule my day in greater detail, breaking the day into chunks of time with different chunks designated for different projects. Now this is a solution that anyone – ADHD or not – may arrive at. However, since I haven’t completely forgotten that I have ADHD, I’ve added some transition time so I can clear out my head before going onto the next task.

Mont Ventoux (Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mont_ventoux_summit.jpg)

This new-found approach to problems is a result of my evolving relationship towards my ADHD. Having gone through the ADHD-version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I began with magical thinking (ADHD is a gift) to ADHD as a curse (the “evil” form of magical thinking?) to the highest stage where ADHD is no longer the center of my personal universe. Perhaps I reached level OT VIII? During this transformation and Petrarch-like ascent to the top of Mont Ventoux, I entered a whole new world, a postADHD world that provided a fantastic point of view. However, I am beginning to wonder if the transformation and ascent has been part illusion. While I no longer rock back and forth mumbling incoherently about my ADHD not that I ever did…but you get the picture, and I no longer put on a cape and run around the house exclaiming the virtues of my ADHD superpowers now that’s something I used to do!, I realized that my meta-morph-osis, my ascent, has become a game of ADHD Whac-A-Mole. As I went through the ADHD Hierarchy of Needs and my relationship to ADHD had changed, an old friend from childhood popped up. My anger issues were back.

Is dealing with your ADHD really a game of Whac-A-Mole? (Image source: http://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2008/09/game-for-helen-whac-mole.html)

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a limited repertoire of emotions and that anger has been the predominant one. But the anger issues that have resurfaced are not the good kinds of anger issues. Question: What are the “good” kinds of anger? Answer: anger that is motivated by indignation is the “good kind” of anger. I usually use the word “passionate” when discussing this type of anger, such as my being passionate about politics. I will argue vociferously with those of opposing viewpoints and, as I found out early in life, one best have all their facts lined up when doing so. I’ve also learned that many people aren’t really interested in facts because they aren’t really interested in dialogue that ends in a new understanding. Many people believe they ALREADY have the right point of view and anyone who believes something contrary to their beliefs is a meathead. They are anger issues that are all out of proportion to the particular frustration at hand and which often result in explosive anger. This anger has been aimed at those bastards who have parked in my parking spot after I spent hours shoveling snow to make a spot for MY car. There’s also some anger aimed at myself, such as when I forget something that I should have noted in my calendar, and some anger aimed at my HappyLight why did they give it that name? Whenever I say it I feel like one of those Krishnas wrapped in a bedsheet jumping up and down and chanting about  Harvey Krishner which seems to have a diminishing effect on my other F!#*!KING gift — Seasonal Affective Disorder — since it just cannot compensate for a week of gloomy, dark days. A part of me wondered if I am also HSP, since I seem to be the only one in the house who can hear water dripping from forty feet away, who notices the qualitative change in light from day to day and season to season, who cannot tolerate certain sounds (and if my F!*!KING parrots don’t shut up I’m going to make parrot fricassee!) but I refuse to read the book about highly sensitive people (what a shitty name! Every time I say it in my head I can hear the schoolyard taunts) because I don’t want another F*!#@KING acronym attached to me. Some of this anger may be justified, but when the anger does not subside, when it intensifies through its own feedback loop, then it becomes an anger issue. Coincidentally, the next local CHADD meeting will be focusing on anger management. I’ve rehearsed in my head how I will behave during that meeting. When all is quiet I will jump out of my seat and scream, in my best Howard Beale imitation, that I don’t have anger management issues and I’m not going to talk about it anymore. Then I’ll quietly sit down. So while I may have gone through the Hierarchy of ADHD Needs, I may not have made it to the top of Mont Ventoux.

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Dr. Vinnie Goombatz

Dr. Vinnie Goombatz (aka Dr. Vinnie), the organized crime doctor for the disorganized mind, offers his advice for ADHDers who are mob-connected. In this podcast he answers questions about how to handle a large project, aka, a big job.

Have a particular ADHD question that you would like Dr. Vinny to answer? You can send it to “drvinny at jeffsaddmind dot com.” Dr. Vinny may use your question in a future podcast. Remember…your questions become the property of Dr. Vinny and Jeff’s ADD Mind. If you got a problem with that, take it up with Fat Tony. Ciao!

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What Does This Software Do?

It indexes your emails, files (Word Documents; text files, etc.), music files, digital images, videos, contacts and even the history in your browser. It then allows you to quickly locate those files.

Why Do I Need This Software? Windows Already Indexes Everything.

It’s true that Windows indexes everything. However, indexing is one thing, locating a file quickly is something else and that’s where Copernic shines. The amount of time it takes to find something using Copernic is negligible. Put in a search term, press the enter key and there are the results. Compare this to the Find function in Windows. First tell it the file type. Then tell it if you want Windows to search your entire drive or only selected drives/directories. Then put in the search term. Then go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, check the morning mail and, hopefully, by the time you are done with your other chores, maybe…just maybe…it has found your file. With Copernic, you put in the search term and get the results immediately. I’ve found the software to be so fast, reliable and easy to use that I’ve turned off the Indexing function in Windows and I no longer use the Search functionality in Microsoft’s Mail program.

How Much Does It Cost?

The personal version of Copernic Desktop Search is free. The professional version, which will index your networked drives in addition to your local drive, is $34.95.

Copernic Desktop Search In Action

The screen shot below shows a typical search using Copernic Desktop. I put in the search term Zoë Kessler. Along the top of the Copernic toolbar I see how many items it found: 461 emails; 25 files; 88 entries in my browser history. I can click on an icon, say, emails, and sift through the results.

Results of using the search term "Zoe" (Click on image to enlarge)

Filtering By Date

In the screen shot below, I searched for “adrian miller” (a business colleague) and then filtered by date. I wanted to see only the emails that were sent yesterday.

Filter search results by date (Click on image to enlarge)

Replying To An Email

Once I have found the email I am looking for, I can click on Reply within Copernic (see the red circled area) and it will open up a “Reply” message in my email program.

When you find your email you can click "Reply" from within Copernic. (Click on image to enlarge)

Where’s George?

I knew I had some pictures of George, our quaker parrot, but I wasn’t sure which directory they were in. I used Copernic to locate the images. It showed me thumbnail images, the directory the images were located in and, if I wanted to, I could open the folder where the images reside.

Results of a search for a particular digital image (Click on image to enlarge)

The Bottom line?

The basic software is free and if you don’t like it after a few weeks, just uninstall it. But I’m pretty sure that once you see how quickly you can locate a file on your computer, you are not going to uninstall this software.

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Adult ADHD has a serious downside. It effects every aspect of your life. Even worse, you cannot get rid of it. However, just because you are stuck with it forever that doesn’t mean you can’t reduce its impact on your life and this is where Sidney Parker Holt’s ADD Simplified: Strategies for Minimizing the Effects of Adult ADD and ADHD can help. Holt provides field-tested techniques for handling aspects of daily living that can, quite frankly, drive you nuts. He offers suggestions on such tasks as organizing documents, to-do lists, electronics accessories, handling money, avoiding morning stress, and more. He discusses the need to establish a bedtime ritual, the (negative) effects of social networks and, my favorite, why you should take a nap each day.

Holt’s book is written in a deceptively simple ADHD style: the suggestions are easy to understand (no need for lengthy rumination) and to the point. At times you think he’s sitting next to you, offering suggestions. In the chapter on how to avoid morning stress he writes:

I’m not trying to sound like a strict stepmother, but TV in the morning does not help. Watching TV while you’re having breakfast is not only unhealthy, it also takes more time and does not promote family bonding. Just leave the TV off; you’ll catch the news later.

For the paperwork-challenged (the very definition of ADHD!), he suggests using colored folders based on a color scheme that assigns a meaning to each color. For example,

…blue folders for documents related to the house, white folders for documents related to official paperwork (taxes), a green folder for all medical documents….

Open shelving with colored boxes

But Holt warns that using more than five different colors increases the likelihood that you’ll forget the meaning of each color (“Hmmm…the canary yellow folder is for….?”) The color coding doesn’t have to end with the use of file folders. Holt has an open-shelved filing cabinet (available at your friendly Ikea store) for which he purchased colored fabric boxes (also from Ikea) for the open shelves. Particular items are “assigned” to particular colors/boxes. Color coding also works in the virtual world. Software applications, such as Microsoft Outlook and Google Mail (Gmail), allow you to color code your emails so that, for example, priority emails may have their subject line in red.

One color that some of us have difficulty with is U.S. dollar green (those from other countries will need to make the proper color substitution). The problem manifests itself in the purchase of unnecessary items. Holt suggests a three-step process, kind of like stop, drop and roll, to control that urge. For example, before buying that 42 inch wide screen television (after all, it IS larger than your current 40 inch wide screen), stop yourself right there. Are you being impulsive? Perhaps. So wait a week and then examine your “need” for that purchase. You still think you need it? If yes, then wait AGAIN and see if that need still exists. It is likely that the need may fade away. If it doesn’t fade away, then you’ll like this sage advice:

Read at least two positive and two negative reviews before you decide whether to purchase the item.

Like all books that offer suggestions for the ADHDer, some suggestions may not be applicable to your lifestyle (“Do I really need a Leatherman tool?”) and some you may not agree with at all (“I won’t replace my physical books with e-book versions…I like taking a pen and scribbling in the margins of a book”). Still, there are so many good ideas on reducing clutter, creating organization, using various types of to-do lists and more, that you’re bound to find a dozen or more suggestions that will fit your lifestyle and that you’ll want to incorporate into your daily life to minimize the effects of your own ADHD.

NOTE: Discussion about this review is taking place on Facebook.

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Have you ever heard a man say, “I have the gift of prostate cancer! I can’t pee straight, sh*t straight, or get an erection! This is the best gift a guy could ever have!!” Not likely you’ll hear a man say that. Instead, you’ll hear how he is figuring out how to get around the shortcomings, how to have a “normal” life without prostate cancer becoming the focus of his life. Of course, its effects are not going to completely disappear, but it doesn’t have to be the center of his existence.

I’ve done the same with my “gift of ADHD.” It is no longer the center of my existence and I feel 400% better for having done so. I can concentrate on my work because I now see my ADHD as some sort of an annoying mosquito. I swat it and it zips away for awhile. I hear its buzz as it comes closer and I duck or swat or whatever I need to do to keep it away from me. Sometimes I don’t hear its buzz, it bites me and then, after a few expletives and a chuckle, I’m back at my work. That’s it! THAT’S the secret sauce to living and thriving with your ADHD. Reduce it to the size of a mosquito and keep fly swatters around — calendars; reminders; physical exercises, etc. — so you can reduce its annoyance and get on with the other 98% of your life.

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One day I accidentally left the BlackBerry in “Quiet” mode. Instead of beeping when an email arrived, it just blinked at me with it’s little red light. OMFG! Why didn’t I do this sooner?! I’ve been having very productive days by leaving it in Quiet mode and, every once in a while, like after thirty or more minutes of work when I need to stand up and stretch a bit before sitting back at the computer, I grab the Blackberry and look through the emails while I pace around the home office. Sometimes I will stand and stretch and NOT grab the BlackBerry, so several hours can go by without looking at any emails! You know what? Even though I am not reading and responding to emails the moment they arrive, I have not seen any increase in domestic terrorist activity, any increase in the homicide rate nor any increase in the frequency with which I have sex. (This last one is very disappointing.) But I feel less stressed, I’m more productive and the hurry-up-do-it-now psychosis has noticeably diminished.  So I highly recommend silencing your BlackBerry. It will improve your daily work routine. It will make you less stressed. It will improve your productivity. However, it may not improve your sex life.

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To believe otherwise is to conflate your creativity with your ADHD as if one depended on the other. When you are diagnosed with ADHD late in life you just can’t imagine life without your ADHD and, therefore, you assume that your  other qualities, like creativity, will suddenly diminish if your ADHD symptoms diminish. I can tell you that that hasn’t been my experience as of late. Admittedly, there are still things that I don’t do and should do but there are plenty of things I am doing – both the boring stuff and the exciting stuff. Most importantly, my creativity has not diminished. In fact, it is flourishing because now creativity turns into action which turns into a completed project (a post, a video) which spawns even more creativity. It is the medication along with a support system (therapy; exercise; friends and relations) that makes it all possible.

So, ADHD medication does not ruin creativity.

This post was inspired by a comment I had left on a blog post and the serendipitous event of finding the phrase “Does ADHD Medication Ruin Creativity” in the list of search terms used to find my blog.

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