An introduction.

The living room was lively. The air, thick. You could feel it. You could taste it. It sensed you, too, with a warm welcome.

We had all done fantastic things. Impossible, we were told. Impossible until that very voice was hoarse & dry & cracked & could talk no more. We were tired of hearing it anyways.

But since that room was so alive, so filled with chatter, of stories yet untold, we danced. We danced to stories yet to unfold, yet to be sung.

And if you were watching, you'd have seen that curious girl sitting, staring madly at the fireplace as it danced anew, for she had just lobbed an inferno into the fire. Her friends glanced at eachother, wide-eyed, their cheeks bulging until they could withhold their explosive laughter no more.

Twelve feet higher. On the other side of the ceiling a girl, danced. She danced as the moonlight caressed her face, her flowing hair. She even glowed a little, her eyes radiant. Her friend was there. That mysterious hood swayed as he swung her arm overhead in swing, perfect with the beat only they could hear. They were victorious. They had witnessed. The world was so busy trying to change them – to twist them, to bind them – that they had changed the world. Then they sat, in unison. They sat on top of the world with their legs hanging free. They watched the stars – skin not touching, just sweatshirts brushing – as the moon turned harvest.

Tolkein had the right idea.

When I was a kid, I loved mythology. Hell, I still do. All those Egyptian & Greek Gods. The crazy stories. The quirky characters. For some reason they went out of style, and all of a sudden a single God took their place.

From polytheism came monotheism; that is: from many Gods came one God. A single God with split personalities is atrocious, in my mind. It's like converting analog music to digital – you diminish the quality of the music, and some of it is lost in translation.

But Tolkein had it right. In The Silmarillion, he wrote of Eru Ilúvatar, The One Father of All. Eru had within his mind the multitude of characters that were the Ainur. Some of the most famous included: Manwë, Melkor, Aulë, Yavanna, & Ulmo. Manwë was the second-greatest, but most benevolent. Melkor, the greatest, was later renamed Morgoth, the Dark Lord; obviously, he was the most malevolent. You may recognize his chief minion from The Lord of the Rings: Sauron. Then there was Aulë. Well, nobody cares about Aulë. Yavanna was awesome. Ulmo ruled the sea; you just don't mess with him. I'd argue that Ulmo is actually the greatest of the Ainur, but John & Chris Tolkein say it just isn't so. Sigh.

As I said: Tolkein had it right. Instead of evolving polytheism into monotheism, he identified that within one God there was indeed a multitude of Gods. Polytheism within monotheism, if you will.

Take Ctrl of your keyboard! (Part One)

I was raised by techies. One of the "rites of passage" was to ignore the mouse as much as possible.

Using the keyboard, I had to find a way to Minimize, Maximize, & Restore windows.

A key of keys:

# = Win Key

^ = Ctrl Key

! = Alt Key

+ = Shift Key

By pressing #Tab in 98 & XP, you could navigate a cursor across the taskbar windows. #+Tab would navigate backwards, as most + prefixes do. Once the cursor navigates to the window of your choice, you would press the "file" key to open the window's menu. From there, you'd press:

x to Maximize

n to Minimize

r to Restore

#Tab & #+Tab has a different function in Vista: it pulls a 3D "Alt-Tab" feature. To get the same function as in 98 & XP, in Vista the trigger is #t & #+t (the letter t).

{ Enter AutoHotkey }

Now I simply use:

#q to Maximize

#a to Minimize

#s to Restore

the active window.

AutoHotkey is a:

Free keyboard macro program. Supports hotkeys for keyboard, mouse, and joystick. Can expand abbreviations as you type them (AutoText).

To follow this tutorial, you will need to:

• use Winblows (er, Windows 95+)
• download & install AutoHotkey
• give me all of your GP or your HP

Now that AHK (AutoHotkey) is installed, let's do this!

Review – then download – this text/AHK file: minMaxAndRestore.ahk

Execute the file.

Play around with #q, #a, & #s.

If you like it, toss the file in your Startup folder. Everything in that folder should automatically launch once the user (you) logs on.