USB Flash drives and hard drives are very popular nowadays. They are handy, portable and used anytime when needed. It is very practical to own one especially when you need to carry your back files so you can access them anytime.

These devices by default can be removed without the use of the “Safely Remove Device” icon on the system tray. However, some devices sometimes use disk caching to improve performance. It is necessary to use the “Safely Remove Device” icon when a device use disk caching so as not to lose important files.

But have you ever experienced safely removing your usb flash drive or hard drive then an error flags like this:

“The device ‘Generic volume’ cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later” in Windows XP or this:

in Windows Vista or Windows 7

Even you close all application, close all windows but when you try again, this annoying error message remains. This is because there is a hidden application still accessing your drive in the background.

To resolve this problem, follow this simple systematic procedure:

1. Download this free utility from a third-party website at this address:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Do not worry, this file is safe and approved directly by Microsoft.

2. Open the file from you download directory. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, right click and choose “run as administrator”

3. At the main window, click “Find” and choose “Find Handle or DLL”

4. A window will appear, type in the box the drive letter of your USB mass Storage Device. For example, if your USB mass storage device is designated as drive “H:”, then type “H:” at the box provided and click “Search”

5. A list of processes will appear on the lower part of the window, find processes that are labeled as “Handle” under the TAB “PID”

6. Once the processes are identified, find the handle showing only the root drive letter of the USB storage device, for example, “H:”

7. Double click the drive letter of the handle, and it will show the process using the drive on the main window.

8. Right click the process, and choose “Close Handle” and choose “YES”. After it close the process, close the Process Explorer.

9. Try to eject your USB storage device at the system tray.

10. Congratulations, you have successfully ejected your USB Mass Storage Device!

By Francis Scudellari

Careless he falls into ritual pose
Do dropped, down before this mothering knot;
Her gathering brown limbs, machine-carved smooth
In hollow, molded arc, to cradle him;

His knees nudge close, drawn by a heavy pulse,
Curiosity fed by seeming cord;
Hesitant he fingers the glassy skin,
Conceiving ways through this liquid portal;

Pressed tips against her bulged belly aglow,
Electric blue halos ripple round each;
Touch-transmitted urge: to be reverse born,
Head-first pulled again into womb-like warmth;

To lie, fetal curled in a bubble’s bath,
Washed in white noise, Technicolor shadows;
His senses bombarded numb, readied when
He’s unquestioning tossed, back to the world.

ABOUT THE POET AND THE ARTIST:

FRANCIS SCUDELLARI of CAUGHT IN THE STREAM (Abstracting Art From Life), is an artist extraordinaire. He draws/paints, writes short stories and poems. His poems have a particular enigmatic appeal that leaves the reader a wide variety of wondrous interpretations.

His artist’s hand reminds me of Gadamer ’s hermeneutic approach to literature and arts – that of an interplay between the artist and the receiver; that the representation the art implies, should not be taken as is , but as a part of the union of what the artist wants to symbolize and the receiver’s personal experiences . The “space ” between the two is merged. This then produces a new meaning for each viewing individual/receiver – to his work of art.

The poem above is for the drawing posted below. Observe how you would relate the wonderful poem to his drawing. You would experience what I have cited above – the merging of your perception and of his – a dynamic interplay. That is what ” true art” is all about!

Visit his blog and be amazed at his unique brand of art and literature.

Thank you Francis, for the honor.

By: FRANCIS SCUDELLARI

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

FRANCIS SCUDELLARI of CAUGHT IN THE STREAM (Abstracting Art From Life), is an artist extraordinaire. He draws/paints, writes short stories and poems. His poems have a particular enigmatic appeal that leaves the reader a wide variety of wondrous interpretations.

His artist’s hand reminds me of Gadamer ’s hermeneutic approach to literature and arts – that of an interplay between the artist and the receiver; that the representation the art implies, should not be taken as is , but as a part of the union of what the artist wants to symbolize and the receiver’s personal experiences . The “space ” between the two is merged. This then produces a new meaning for each viewing individual/receiver – to his work of art.

A poem about this drawing is posted above.

Were you able to interpret it in various unique ways?

Visit his blog and be amazed at his unique brand of art and literature.

Thank you Francis, for the honor.
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A Guest Post by: KYRENE

I firmly believe that you must not wait ‘til you’re senile before you return to your childhood … yet, no, that is not the reason why I watch cartoons up until now.

I often equate heaven with pictures of a problem-free, worry-free and guilt-free life which makes me wonder, haven’t I had my slice of heaven some time ago in this realm? “For from the mouth of a child comes out real worship” …

Growing up, I have allowed that piece of heaven to slowly shrink away by allowing myself to learn so many things while losing the time for the things I knew beforehand. Reasoning took the place of innocence, a roster of “things-to-do” took over the “things-to-hope-for” and a handful of “things-to-gain-knowledge-of” relegated a truck-load of wonderful things I already possessed to a concealed corner.

Having experienced a really awful and life-changing loss a couple of years ago with a “disaster-appearing-normal”, I was told to keep myself busy in order to forget the pain. I took the advice to the maximum level … often to the borderline of “insanity-causing busy-ness”. A piece of heaven got chomped out of me everyday …

One night, I had a dream that I was again talking to this person I haven’t seen nor heard from for nearly a decade. He was, at one point in my life, very important to me. Can the word “important” even do justice to what he and I meant to each other? We knew “everything” about each other, from the trivial to the crucial, the mundane to the exotic, and the communal to the most personal and intimate core of our beings. He and I shared a bond that the mature and rational mind cannot fathom. I lost touch with him when adulthood was shading its days and in due time, I have learned to live with the loss. After all, there were a lot of people who were willing to take his place … it was a place of nobility in my heart and of a grave importance in my soul. Unfortunately, I made a severe mistake of bestowing charge of that place to the “disaster” I talked about in the previous paragraphs.

After that vivid dream, I searched for him on the internet (thank God for modern technology) and found a way to contact him. Two days hence, he called me up and took me on a trip down memory lane … a road I have refused to travel of late. He is apparently even busier than I am. He has four very adorable children, a business and a new girlfriend to help him cope with the divorce he went through with his wife who left him for another man. He is still into the same stuff … sports, music and food. While I, have turned into someone I myself don’t even recognize.

With each question commonplace in catching-up conversations that he asked me, he reinforced the nail in the coffin of “I-am-not-living-the-life-that-I-want”.

His simple “What do you do?” made me ponder about all the dreams I have not pursued (some by choice and some out of a seemingly “no choice” situation). He asked “What keeps you busy” … and I became aware that everything is keeping me busy that I don’t even have time to do the things that I love – assuming that I still remember what I love.

Do you still draw when you are happy? Do you still dance in the morning as you go about preparing to leave for school (then as a student and now as a teacher?) Do you still roller-skate when you are angry? Does it still take you an hour to take a shower? Do you still play the piano at night when you are feeling down? Do you still write when you don’t understand what you are really feeling? Do you still buy birthday presents a month advance? Do you still wake up in the middle of the night to reach for a bar of Snickers? Do you still read voraciously? Did you finally open the bookshop you have always wanted? Are you still my damsel in distress? Do you still possess that smile – the smile that launched a thousand ships in my heart? His voice sounded like a distant echo of the shouts that have long been welling up in my heart that are now just starting to reach my brain. He said I sounded the same – sweet voice … sweet words …
Free Image Hosting and Photo Sharing

I haven’t drawn a single picture since the “disaster” struck, leaving me in a chaotic state incapable of grasping the notion of being “happy”. I have trouble sleeping, thus, trouble getting up in the morning, robbing me of the luxury to dance around and take hour-long baths in the morning. I have not found an alternative to roller-skating to dissipate my anger.

Having no chance to skate makes me carry a chip on my shoulder biting off the head of practically anyone who comes my way when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
The feel of the ebony and ivory keys of the piano is so foreign to the tips of my fingers which have now grown accustom to the feel of my laptop’s keypads. Oftentimes, my gifts to people are accompanied by words like “belated” or “sorry for being late”. I don’t keep those fattening Snicker bars near my bed anymore and a book shop is not financially rewarding. I seldom flash the smile that launched ships that sailed away with people I love. I still am a damsel in distress … but not his … not anyone else’s. I am in constant distress devoid of a knight in shining armor. I loathe being sweet … because I have a friend who loathes my sweetness – some kind of friend he is!

So here I am … writing … because as you have guessed, I do not comprehend what it is exactly I am going through right now.

A firm believer that all things happen for a reason, I have since then, questioned myself why the Lord has caused our paths to cross again. “All things work out for the good of all those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”. The realization didn’t come to me like a big ball of blazing fire – instantly and noticeably. It crawled upon my being like the benefit of exercise – painstakingly slow, inconspicuous and needed to be reinforced by the opinion of others before it became apparent. It involved stages and the stages took me to horrendous depths …

He and I, going back to how close we were, is NOT an option … the geographic distance and the time elapsed with all the what-have-you’s in between makes it improbable.

But if there is at least one purpose why he has journeyed into my life again is perhaps not for that fleeting moment of joy which I will just end up missing as we put down the phone … it is most likely to hold my hand as I return to my childhood – a second time, a third time and each time I need to – to regain my slice of heaven while I prepare myself for the real one when my mortal body seizes to be. I need to go back to that piece of heaven …

I need to go back to that piece of heaven … when I still believed in romance, in love … in all the things that do not last but bring exceeding fulfillment. I need to believe in something I cannot see … to dream about things simply for the ecstasy that dreaming brings … when dreaming is not for sleeping – and sleep can be interrupted by bars of chocolate without the worry of gaining weight. I need to forget disappointments and the indelible scars they leave … I need to let go, to trust, to treat everyday like a fairy tale waiting to happen or to end in a happily ever after … I need to live – to live like a child… to venture without worrying about things being economical or financially wise. I do not want to be this adult that merely exists. I want to go back to the time when my biggest problem was which stuff toy I will choose to hug for the night without hurting the other stuff toy’s feelings, not like now when I am capable of hurting real people’s feelings. I need to go back to a time when I pretended to talk on my toy phone content with the imaginary conversation going on in my mind … not at all expecting a real phone call or a real conversation from a real person. I was spared from problems and all the serious talk. I was told what to do … I complained about it all the time. But now, I am always involved with the problems and the serious talk and how I wish someone would tell me what to do instead of me deciding for myself … which is now the new thing I complain about all the time by the way. I need to hang on to that ignorant bliss of believing that people you love will not hurt you nor leave you. I need to … I need to … as if saying it will magically whisk me back to the past …

This article was originally published in the Allimed – the official publication of the College in which the author served as the Moderator.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The author is a young, successful academician, presently pursuing her doctorate degree. She has a zest for writing and writes whenever her multifarious tasks give her a chance to. Thanks Kyrene, for allowing me to post your article.

By: KEN ARMSTRONG

Normally, my ‘stupid-stories’ are about things that happened to me in the dim and distant past. But the story which I’m going to tell you now actually only happened a little less than six weeks ago.

It still hurts me, both emotionally and physically, to think too much about it. Still, I hope you get a little smile from reading it.

That’s the whole point really.
* * * *

In my job, I sometimes have to go out into fields in the countryside and check out their boundaries. Six week ago, I had one such job which took me into the green green depths of County Mayo (Ireland, of course).

It was a lovely sunny afternoon as I drove out and met the very nice lady who owned the land. We had agreed to meet her elderly neighbour down the field so we both pulled on our boots and headed off together down the grassy slopes.

Soon enough, we came to a fence. It was made of barbed wire and interspersed with tall wooden posts. We had to get past it. The lady – let’s give her a name, let’s say… Mary! Right, well, ‘Mary’ inched her way through a tiny gap and left a fair scrap of her nice tweed jacket on the jagged edges of the wire.

I had my best and loudest red jacket on and I didn’t fancy tearing it so I decided to go ‘over the top’. My plan was to climb on top of one of the large wooden poles that made up the fence and then simply jump down the other side.

It didn’t work out that way.

I got up on to the pole all right. There was only room for one foot on top of it so I balanced there, one leg bent back, arms outstretched. I reckon I must have looked a bit like the Karate Kid except in Welly-Boots.

So for one graceful moment, there I was – perched in the countryside on my pole.

All was well with the world.

Then I went to jump down the other side of the fence.

Perhaps it was because Mary chose that very moment to shout, ‘Be Careful,’ at me.

Perhaps she caused the very air to become negatively charged with her concern.

Perhaps it was all simply destined to fail from the moment I mounted my pole.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

I launched myself from the top of the pole but the act of my launching caused the poorly anchored pole to fall away backwards behind me just as I departed it.

This transformed what should have been a simple leap to the ground into a graceless swan dive out into rural space.

Bear in mind I was about six feet off the ground when I parted company with the toppling pole. It felt like a long long way to fall.

On the way down I found time to realise that my chin was going to be my first point of contact with the Earth.

In a last-ditch attempt at vanity, I drew my head back to save my beloved chin.

I threw my arms out behind me too, so as to further take my lower jaw out of the impact zone.

It worked. I hit the ground chest first, head up, arms back.

I think it really was quite a remarkable show.

Mary ran up to me. ‘Are you all right?’ she gasped, “Are you all right?”

I was winded. I was as winded as a winded person can ever be winded. There was no breath in me.

But I could tell that Mary was deeply concerned. The way I was curled up clutching my chest, the poor lady was probably thinking that I was having a heart attack.

So I squeezed an answer out on my last dribble of air.

“I’m fine.” I wheezed, “Fine…”

Did I mention that Mary was ‘hard of hearing’?

Mary was as ‘hard of hearing’ as the post from which I had so recently sailed forth.

She shook me a bit.

“I said are you all right?” she wailed.

I recovered, after a while. I sat up and reassured Mary that I was indeed fine.

“I WAS ONLY WINDED!!” I said, “DO YOU HEAR ME? WINDED!”

In point of fact my stupidity had earned me two cracked ribs. But I wouldn’t know that until much later. For now, I pretended to have no ill effects at all.

It was critical that I regain some of my professional manner so that I could continue on and complete my job on a calm clinical way…

…as if!

(Really, I should end this story now – I’ve written enough words, I think. A story which has, up until now, been fairly embarrassing for me to tell is about to become completely mortifying. Still, I can’t stop myself from telling it. God help me I can’t!!)

On the way back up the field, after completing our little boundary-check, we came to the same fence again.

I had reinstated the pole as best I could so the fence was once again an obstacle to be overcome. Mary went through it exactly as she had done before.

I still wanted to save my jacket so I went with ‘Plan B’.

I walked to a point midway between two posts, pushed the barbed wire down and stepped over the top of it.

I do this all the time, it’s not a problem.

But this time, when I threw my leg over the fence , I got my first inkling that all might not be quite right with my ribcage.

A sharp pain wrenched through me.

I let go of the barbed wire in shock and the evil wire shot up and snagged me around the place where my trouser-legs tend to meet up.

I hasten to explain, there was no ‘anatomical’ difficulty here – I had baggy waterproof pants on over my ‘regular pair’ (of trousers, dear, of trousers) so I wasn’t in danger of any fate worse than death.

But I was left in a dreadfully uncomfortable position. One leg was on the ground, the other leg was dangling in the air on the other side of the fence and my trousers were totally snagged as if on the barb of a fish hook.

Try as I might, I simply could not free myself from the fence.

Not to mention that I had two newly cracked ribs.

Okay, I mentioned it.

Mary watched me struggle for what seemed like twenty-five minutes and then she apologetically asked. “Can I give you a hand?”

I had no choice.

Dear Mary got down on her knees in the field and, at face level with my snagged trousers, she tugged and wrangled and finally got my errant crotch free again.

As I told you, her elderly neighbour had agreed to walk down the field that day and meet up with us for a chat…

…he never showed up.

For these small mercies, we can only give thanks.

@Ken Armstrong 2008

About the Author:
It is a dream come true for me, having one of my most admired writers – Ken Armstrong of Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff - write a story, which is now featured in this post. I had thought it would be difficult to invite him as he is already a proven and known persona in the writing department in his own niche in Ireland – having published plays and short stories for the theater and radio, but – he so gladly obliged. The good author’s feet are still rooted firmly, on “terra firma”!

For more of Ken’s interesting and amazing stories visit his blog at:
Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff.

At your expense Ken, I can’t help but laugh. Thanks for the honor. Hats off to you!
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