Show Me, Don't Tell Me

Wow. My Grade 9 English teacher continues to be right. She was the first person to tell me "Show Me, Don't Tell Me," in the context of writing essays and debating issues.

Looking for a good recap of 2007 (which includes a bit of well-deserved bashing of Microsoft for Vista and Sony for the PS3), I found this article contrasting religion and atheism, and how to achieve common ground between the two camps. It concludes with 'Lead by Example', which is really just 'Show Me, Don't Preach At Tell Me."

So, while I don't have a lot of opportunities to run afoul of zealots (other than those in my immediate family, I suppose), I'm adding 'be more tolerant of others' beliefs' and 'lead by example' to my 2008 resolutions. Well, that and to get off my butt and get biking more.

Cracking NT passwords

Scenario: Desktop system that's been running linux for about a year, with an oft-ignored WinXP NTFS partition on it for those rare Windows-only tasks.

Problem: So oft-ignored, I've forgotten my XP login password.

Solution: A number of options exist, but I was looking for a simple 'boot into linux partition and then hack such-and-such file'. Didn't find anything like that (and my old'ish linux install doesn't have write-to-NTFS support anyway), so I decided to try a boot CD solution, trusting that if source is provided it's probably not some trojan exploit thingamabob. First one I tried was Peter Nordahl's Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, cd070409.zip, which worked like a charm.

Sidenote: I then updated XP using Windows Update and the machine ground to a halt for a few hours, ultimately having to be shut off because it wouldn't shut down properly. Several reboots later it's working again, but that's pretty much standard for Windows. Gah.