The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Home Life Wednesday, July 20, 2016 D- 7 Tech Solutions by Scott A. Hartley Family Talk by By Dr. James C. Dobson Is premarital counseling necessary? What every computer user must know about software updates net edition yeah, it's that fast! Z M www.PressDispatch.net/Subscribe It's The Press-Dispatch. No matter where you live. Delivered every Wednesday morning! Add it for $5 to your current print subscription or stand-alone for $35/year. REAL ESTATE AUCTION Saturday, July 23 • 9 a.m. EDT 1/2 mile south of Winslow, IN on Hwy. 61 S., turn W. on 375 S. Hill's Auction Center WM Keith Hill IN #AU01020879 (812) 789-6367 or Jason Keeker (812) 354-2419 8+/- ACRES Parcel #1= 5+/- acres w/beautiful home site, city water, electric, septic, pasture, all fenced and city gas available. Parcel #2= 3+/- acres w/nice country home, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, barn, workshop and fenced. Contact Keith for terms and appointment. Auction service Owners: Mark and Brenda Keys www.hillsauctionservice.com Personal Property 2 Angus Cows; 2009-17' Keystone Travel Trailer Camper (1 Owner); 2011-18' Better-Bilt Car Trailer; 2010-Dodge Caravan V6 (1 Owner); 2009-yamaha Rhino, 4x4 (1 Owner); 2000-Delta Stock Trailer; Ford 8N Tractor, 3pt. Bush Hog 5'; J.D. X 500 Riding Mower (205 hrs.); Craftsman Radial arm saw, tile cutter, drill press, portable air compressor, welder, power washer, 2-Hay rings, feeders, Water tanks, 3pc Leather Living room suite, 2-Flatscreen TVs, 2- upright freezers and chest freezer, G.E. Refrigerator. By Dr. James C. Dobson www.drjamesdobson.org Question: You recommend premar- ital counseling for engaged couples. Why? My fiancée and I have spent hours getting to know each other over the past year, so why should we both- er with the time and expense of coun- seling? Answer: Every year an astound- ing number of marriages disintegrate and leave deeply wounded people in their wake. Why is the casualty rate so high? One reason is the tendency for young men and women to marry virtual strangers. The typical couple spends much time talking, as you and your fiancée have done. Still, they don't know each other as well as they think they do. That is because a dating rela- tionship is designed to conceal infor- mation, not reveal it. Each partner puts his or her best foot forward, hiding em- barrassing facts, habits, flaws and tem- peraments. Consequently, the bride and groom often enter into marriage with an ar- ray of private assumptions about life af- ter the wedding. Major conflict occurs a few weeks later when they discover they have radically different views on non-negotiable issues. The stage is then set for arguments and hurt feel- ings that were never anticipated dur- ing the courtship period. For this reason, I strongly believe that each engaged couple, even those who seem perfectly suited for one an- other, should participate in at least six to eight sessions with a competent marriage counselor in order to identi- fy the assumptions that each partner holds and to work through areas of po- tential conflict. Some couples discover that they have unresolvable differenc- es, and agree to either postpone or call off the wedding. Others work through their conflicts and proceed toward marriage with increased confidence. Either way, getting better acquaint- ed before marriage is strate- gic. If by doing so we can re- duce the tragedy of divorce by even five percent, it would cer- tainly be worth the effort. Noted counselor and author Norman Wright is perhaps the guru of premarital counseling, having written and spoken ex- tensively on this subject. He discussed his views on my ra- dio broadcast some years ago and made several significant observa- tions. 1. Couples should not announce their engagement or select a wedding date until at least half of the counseling sessions are completed. That way they can gracefully go their separate ways if unresolvable conflicts and problems emerge. 2. Couples need to think through the implications of their decisions re- garding children. For example, when an engaged man and woman indicate they intend to have three children, each three years apart, they will not be alone at home for twenty-six more years once the first child is born! Cou- ples often are stunned at hearing this. They then proceed to talk about how they will nurture their relationship and keep it alive throughout the parenting years. This is a healthy interaction. 3. Spiritual incompatibility is very common in couples today. The man and woman may share the same belief system, but one partner is often rela- tively immature while the other is well seasoned. In those instances, couples should pray together silently for three to four minutes a day, and then share their prayers out loud. 4. Another frequent source of con- flict is the continuation of parental dependency in one or both partners. This problem is more likely to occur if an individual has never lived away from home. In those cases, addition- al measures must be taken to lessen the dependency. Living arrangements are changed so that the per- son cooks his/her own meals, does the laundry and exercises independ- ence in other ways. Pa- rental overprotection can be a marriage killer if not recognized and handled properly. 5. Many loving parents today are paying for premarital counseling as a gift to an engaged son or daughter. I think this is an excellent idea and may be the greatest contribution mothers and fathers will ever make to long-term marriage in the next generation. In addition to premarital counseling, another wonderful way to eliminate the unpleasant surprises of early-married life is a program called Engaged En- counter. Offered by many church de- nominations, it is a weekend retreat during which fiancés learn to commu- nicate and understand each other bet- ter. Having participated with Shirley in a Marriage Encounter program based on similar concepts, I can attest to its value. For us, that weekend was a high- light of our lives together. Help young brides and grooms be- gin their marital relationships on the right foot. Premarital counseling and Engaged Encounter are two great ways to start. Without specific effort to overcome the barriers to understand- ing, the honeymoon can be a blind date with destiny. There is a better way! From Dr. Dobson's books, The Com- plete Marriage and Family Home Refer- ence Guide and Love for a Lifetime For additional help and encourage- ment, visit: http://drjamesdobson.org. FARM Down on the DOG DAYS ARE GOOD FOR PLANNING By Hans Schmitz Extension Educator Gibson County Purdue Extension The dog days of sum- mer are a great time for planning. Planning and celebrat- ing our 4- H youth, but the focus of this article is planning. The mid-July to mid-August time frame is usually the hottest time period of the year and can be a little on the dry side more often than not in recent years. As a re- sult, outdoor work is re- actionary. Midsummer is time for weed pull- ing or rescue fertilizer, switching pastures a lit- tle more often or turn- ing on the soakers. For those involved in plant- ing things, now is not a good time to plant. Warm season planting windows turned bad in June, and late cool sea - son planting windows will not open until Au- gust for most vegetables. For those involved with animals, surviving the heat is more impor- tant than reproduction or our uses for those an- imals or products, so our layer hens reduce their egg laying, breeding an- imal reproductive viabil- ity is lower, and meat an- imals tend to gain a lit- tle less weight during this time. For these rea- sons, agriculture reacts to potential weather-re- lated situations, and the agricultural markets do the same. Wheat may still be hauled to the el- evator, but most ag mar- kets tend to start react- ing to market reports of future yield predictions. Because of those re- ports, now is a good time to slow down and predict ourselves. Yield checks on corn will be feasible in a few short weeks. Planning for grain mar- keting purposes can be done now or in the near future. Input options and variety selection for 2017 will begin soon, if not al- ready underway. Know- ing we are only weeks away from harvest in the garden may mean a fall crop or cov- er crop can be ordered soon. Those vege- tables not yet harvested may be too robust to keep for imme- diate eating, al- though many reports of un- der-performing gardens this year may mean that grocery lists will need addendums — and a lit- tle more home budgeting never hurts. Livestock operations can never af- ford to stop planning, but the maintenance, re- duction, or expansion of the herd can more read- ily be accomplished when calves are not hit- ting the ground or in be- tween summertime hay cuttings. All that planning that needs to be accom- plished in the summer doldrums means a win- dow for education opens up. Beginning with the Conservation Break- fast on August 3 at Dick Clark's in Princeton, a few more meetings will show up in the sched- ule, allowing us to take a step back, reflect on the spring, and prepare for what is next. For Gib- son County, what is next still seems to be Emer- ald Ash Borer. Although recent media have stat- ed that the pest has not yet been found in Gib- son County, this state- ment will have to be re- tracted within days, if it has not already by the time of this print- ing. Landowners need to scout their property for ash trees and make plans to remove or pro- tect the tree if it's valued. For more information on summer planning, con- tact Hans Schmitz at the Purdue Extension office via hschmitz@purdue. edu or 812-385 -3491. UPCOMING DATES August 3: Soil and Water Conservation Dis- trict Breakfast will be at Dick Clark's in Prince- ton. Keynote Betsy Bow- er of CERES Solutions is slated to discuss cover crops. Contact Tabitha at 812-385 -5033, ext. 3, to pre-register. By Scott A. Hartley Technology Columnist Ever had your computer disabled by a nasty virus infection? Many of your family, friends and neighbors have. Our phones continuously rang and a steady stream of clients poured in with infected computers the first week of this month. All of the PCs had active virus pro- tection software installed and work- ing. So what happened? What allowed these viruses to overtake these ma- chines? The answer was the same for every single person: they had not installed critical updates for several software programs on their computer. Unlike the early days of computer vi- ruses, pornographic or salacious web- sites are not the primary source of in- fections. It can be an innocuous web- site like Facebook, MSN or Yahoo. It can come from an email sent to you by a friend or relative. Everyone who browses the Internet today knows better than to not have antivirus software installed on their computer. But the problem is, we think the an- tivirus software is THE single source of protection against our computer be- coming damaged by hackers and virus- es. The fact is, it's not. You HAVE to keep your computer protected by installing critical updates for Windows and other programs on your computer. You've most likely noticed — and ignored — when programs like Ja- va, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, or iTunes alert you an up- date is ready to be in- stalled. These updates contain important chang- es that improve the perfor- mance, stability and secu- rity of the program. Installing these software updates is critical to keep- ing your computer protect- ed against crippling virus infections and stolen per- sonal information. CITES Security, a division of the technology department of the Univer- sity of Illinois, clearly describes the damage that can be done when you neglect to install updates for your var- ious software programs: "Just visiting a compromising website with a vulner- able version of Internet Explorer can allow attackers to access your comput- er and install software that steals your personal information. Being infected like this is known as a drive-by down- load. The software that infects comput- ers through this vulnerability collects information, including user names and passwords for various sites, including bank and email accounts." Kaspersky Lab, a computer secu- rity company, discovered that the un- patched software most targeted by web exploits — think, virus writers and hackers — are: Java – 56 percent, Adobe Reader – 25 percent, Windows and Internet Explorer – four percent, Adobe Flash – three percent, Android Root (for mobile devices) – two per- cent, and other – 11 per- cent. So what do you need to do? Install the updates when you're prompted! Most people, however, hesitate doing these up- dates because of the justi- fied fear it could be a fake program waiting to infect your computer. Two solutions exist to solve this problem: 1) let your computer professional take care of the updates for you. At Calibre, we have a service that auto- matically installs all the critical up- dates via the Internet on a regular ba- sis. This completely eliminates your worry about clicking the wrong thing or messing up your computer. Or 2) Do it yourself by regularly visiting http:// www.ninite.com to manually download and install updates for common pro- grams. Bottom line, keeping your computer updated — in addition to using effec- tive antivirus software — will greatly reduce the risk of your computer be- coming infected with a virus. Scott Hartley is the President/CEO of Calibre Computer Solutions in Prince- ton. For more computer tips, informa- tion, and free software tools, check out our website at http://www.calibrefor- home.com.