Is Your Holiday Financial Stress Meter Pegged?

Are you in Holiday Financial Denial?  Are you looking at a pile of receipts that is stressing you out knowing tomorrow is Christmas?  Don't forget the after Christmas sales.

The odd thing is I didn’t even go over my gift budget this year.  If I didn’t spend all of the money I planned to spend on gifts why would I be stressed about money.  The simple answer is “annual bills”.

This time of year, many major organizations send out invoices.  As an investor I have a Real Estate License.  Every week for the last three weeks, I have been sent a gentle reminder that I owe my board dues, local association dues and oh by the way, they would like another $80 for the political action fund.  

Note to the National Association of Realtors.  You might save a ton of money on the reminders if you didn’t have January 1st as your due date and made it more sensible like June 1st. Why?  Well April everyone is worried about Taxes, that is out, May they are booking vacations, that is out, October, the holiday plans start, November and December the holiday spending begins.

The Realtor associations aren’t the only ones.  Every group I belong to wants money on January 1st.  It feels like the day after Christmas I have to clean out my accounts and send checks to everyone at once.  In fact, I am going to write more checks this week then I wrote the rest of the year because I won’t let any of these groups “auto bill”.  

The one that got it right was the Vail Corp.  In order to get the best guaranteed price on Ski Passes, I am on auto renewal with them.  They took the deposit in June, good, and then charged me for the rest in late October, pretty good. By the time the slopes opened, my annual pass was paid for and I wasn’t having to stand in a long line to pay nearly twice as much for my new pass.

I think at our board meeting we are going to try and figure out how to change our customers plans so that January 1st, there isn’t an invoice, Maybe even May 1st to let them recover from their tax bill.  

What do you think.  Would you rather get billed 10% more each month and not have an invoice in December that is due January 1st?

Are You Doing Your Homework To Succeed?

Doing "homework" is something most people try to stop doing the minute they leave school.  That is exactly why most people don't "make it".  The reality is that "homework" is probably the second most important key to success right after "purpose".

This week I had a great conversation with Alan Pietruszewski about acting, and the level of effort and training required to become even a good actor, let alone great.  Much like flying jets, you just can't walk in and do it well.  Alan is a friend and a mentor of mine.

As an actor, I know I have been very lucky and fallen into some great deals.  That did not mean I was the best I could be or even what the director wanted.  More than once I am sure they felt like they were "stuck" with me because I was the only choice they had.  Alan teaches a class for actors who are vets.  I haven't taken the classes but I am fortunate enough to get some one on one time with him on occasion.

Along the lines of learning how to do your homework, a book I recommend to everyone is "Boyd".  It is the story of the man that changed how we fight wars, and yet few even knew he existed.  Boyd's signature statement was, "I am ready, I did my homework".  If you don't do your homework, you aren't ready for any job.  Even McDonalds' has training to make sure the right number of pickle slices end up on the bun every time.  

Doing your "homework" was the focus of AlanPietruszewski's last class.

Doing your homework is the first step in a commitment to excellence.  I am very fortunate to live in an area of very successful people.  I can do homework in business just by talking to my neighbors and friends.  I can do this because I made a conscious decision to be a little "house poor".  I buy the least expensive house in the most expensive area I can afford.  I do this because I find that being low man on the financial totem pole, affords me many more opportunities to learn and grow.  

Being the big fish in a small pond is garbage thinking.  You can't grow if the pond won't support you.  I remember once hearing that a certain fish can only grow so that it is 1" for each gallon in the tank.  The bigger the tank the bigger the fish could get.  I want to be that fish and so should you.  

Starting out as the smallest fish in a big pond gives you many more opportunities to learn and grow.  It also makes it easier to do your homework.  Your potential is unlimited, so why limit it by living in a small pond?  Yes a big fish might eat you, but you will only get eaten when you give up the fight.  Lets face it, big fish are lazy and will just go after the next fish, they really don't want to fight.

Living where I am now, there are dozens of business owners, lawyers, doctors, accountants, and even a musician or two.  All of them are successful because they did their homework and keep doing their homework.  One guitar player has a studio in his house. I haven't met him yet, but I met his guitar coach while out running.  Several platinum albums and he still has a guitar coach every week.

His coach told me that he plays four or five hours every day.  That is doing your homework.  You owe it to yourself to live the best life you can, and that means doing a little homework today and every day, so that tomorrow is a little better than yesterday.  

If you make the most money and have the biggest house in your area, who would you learn from, who would you be inspired by? More importantly,  who is inspiring your children, people on MTV or real people they know?  Live among the people you want to be like, not among the people that will hold you back.  

When you do a little homework every day, you get a little better at being you every day.  That "you" will quickly rise to the top of any field.  Don't you owe it to yourself?

NetGear Ready NAS v. Buffalo Terrastation? What is a NAS Anyway?

If you are thinking about a NAS drive, Buffalo Terrastation v. NetGear Ready NAS appear to be among the best choices.  I have written about both of these in the past and have overall been happy with both, but which is better?

To add more confusion, my recently acquired ReQuest F3 Server and IMC and Request Supports the NetGear Ready NAS 1100 and LaCie 2Big and 5Big Drives, and I'll briefly cover all of these for you, but first, what is a NAS?

NAS is short for Network Addressable Storage.  Basically it is a big hard drive that you can put on your home network and share with other computers.  Sort of like having a mini cloud server in your house.  You can buy direct NAS meaning they have one hard drive and if it fails you lose it all, or you can get a RAID ready NAS and if one drive fails, you can replace it and not lose a thing.

I prefer NAS over cloud services for data storage and archiving for a couple of reasons.  First, the tech industry is littered with the remains of great ideas from great companies that are no longer used, and that is hiding the bigger problem of the long gone tech companies.  What happens to your photos and music when the company changes gears or goes under?  With a NAS you only lose your data if you lose your house and even then, my NAS is on the list of ten things to take with me right after wife, dogs, wallet and car keys.

The big difference between the Buffalo Terrastation and the NetGear Ready NAS NV+ became apparent quickly this week.  I have had some difficulty with permissions on my Ready NAS ever since going all mac in the house.  My ReQuest Server says the response time is too slow for audio or video, which is odd since it's cousin the ReadyNAS 1100 is supported by ReQuest.

So I dusted off the old Buffalo Terrastation which looks really bad after the TSA unpacked it and tossed it in my luggage.  Amazingly broken and dented, it still works.  I bought the NetGear because I was mad at Buffalo for not offering an empty case for sale, and telling me to buy a new NAS.

When I plugged in the Buffalo, the mac network found it and logged on quickly.  No read/write errors or permission problems at all.  I think this has to do with the security on the NetGear side, but I don't know and honestly I don't care.  I know the Buffalo Terrastation works, and it has always worked fine as my ReQuest Server NAS drive even though it isn't supported by ReQuest.

After telling the new ReQuest F3 the IP address of the Buffalo Terrastation and rebooting, the Request found all of my movie and music files.  The only thing it would say about the Netgear was "test failed".

If you need to access your data anywhere, try a DDNS service so you can get to your home server securely from anywhere like.   The WD MyCloud Server could be a great solution, but I haven't tried it yet.  If someone has, let us know how it works.

My configuration is RAID 5 on both the Netgear ReadyNAS and the Buffalo Terrastation.  I don't like loading music and I don't like losing data.  For me RAID and NAS is way easier than "the cloud".

Do You Use "Purpose" In Your Decision Making?

Having "purpose" in decision making is easier said that done.  Do you let emotions effect your decisions?  If you do, why?  Do you even know when you do it?  The truth is that we can see it in others more easily than we can see it in ourselves. 

Every day I bet you see people that can't make a decision.  Ask them where to eat, and nobody will step up with a decision.  Ask them what they want after they get there and I'll bet you hear "You go then I'll decide".  Are you that person who always "lets" others go first?  Don't be.

Eating out is a simple example of how people let fear and emotion get in the way.  Nobody wants to offend anyone else by picking the wrong place to eat.  If everyone else is eating salads, the indecisive will go along instead of getting the steak and lobster they really want.  Why?  Fear.

Fear of offending someone.

Fear of not belonging.

Fear of being ridiculed or embarrassed by the choice.

You are probably thinking it sounds funny that we have "fear" about where to eat and what to eat, but people do.  When I embarked on a very strict no carb diet to lose 30 pounds last year, I realized how often people put off their decisions to go along with what other people were doing.  

I never asked anyone else to eat "low carb" or "no carb" but amazingly I didn't see bread or pasta on the table for over five months.  I lost the weight and changed my eating habits for good, and it has made ordering that much easier. 

In this case I had a genuine purpose that was important to me.  I needed to lose weight because of a knee problem that was developing.

New Years resolutions fail for this exact reason.  The resolution isn't that important, it is missing a very solid "what's in it for me".  Let take a smoker, who decides to quit and look at it from the "what's in it for me" perspective.  

1. If I quit, I won't smell like cigarettes.  Is this really important to them? probably not, they haven't been bothered enough by it so far.  

2. If I quit, I won't need smoke breaks.  Is this important?  In fact quite the opposite, the smoke breaks may be an escape that they lose.  They might feel like they are offending the other smokers by not joining them.

3. If I quit, I'll save money.  This is a good one, but if there isn't something to save for, it won't matter.  

4. If I quit, I'll be healthier.  This is the one that might work.  If they have a genuine purpose to live healthier, they might quit smoking.  If they just like the idea of living healthier, it isn't a purpose and it won't help.

The real point here is that we all have "ideas" and things that sound good to other people that we agree with.  Those things are not your purpose or my purpose, they are just ideas.  Like my electric car, being petroleum free is a very interesting academic discussion.  The reality is, most people don't care, so it won't happen.   In my case my purpose was advancing my economic flexibility by reducing my monthly costs.  That was very important to me so I did get the electric car.

If you can map out your purpose clearly, decisions come easy because all you need to do is ask, does that fit my purpose.  When it does, you do it, when it doesn't you don't.  Life is that simple, we just complicate it trying to please others and fit in, instead of being who we really are. 

If you can answer a few simple questions for you, your life and your work, the rest gets easy.  The hard part is deciding exactly what you want from this journey we call life.

And before we get there, here is the great irony, we all respect and admire people that make decisions.  We might not agree with them, but they are the people we look to.  Why not become that person?

These questions should help, if you can answer them you are on your way to making better decisions.

Where are you going?  Not today, but what does your future look like?  This is the "vision" of your perfect life, a dream you will actually live and achieve.  Most people I talk to can't tell me what their dream is anymore.  Life has sucked it out of them.

What are you doing to get there? Are you making progress every day,  Are you training to be the best you that you can be so you can get where you are going?

How do you contribute?  What do you do that adds value to the rest of the world so they will help you get there.  What is it that lets you make the decisions and lead the way?

What's in it for you, I mean really?  This can be anything and is the toughest and most important question to ask.  When you really sit down with most smokers, they can't find a reason that matters to them.  It is normally about "they say I should quit".  When you ask dieters why they fail, it is similarly about comfort.  When I lost 30 pounds, I was in a new zone.  My comfort level changed, my wardrobe changed, and change can be tough.  This is the most important question.  If there isn't anything in it for you that you really want, you aren't likely to achieve much more than the norm.

When you define your purpose, you gladly take the road less traveled without fear or worry.  Where will you road take you?

Do You Need A CD Server or a DVD Server?

As Sony gets ready to launch 4K content, the big question is how do you get all of that data to the consumer?  They are offering a 4K Media Player, but is that enough?  Can a Blu-Ray Disc go one more level or will it get as big as the old Pioneer LaserDiscs?  For now do you have enough DVD's that you would like a server?

iTunes and iCloud are a great choice for most people, but if you have a large collection of CD's, it isn't always the best choice.  It is pretty easy to build your own iTunes server at home, but what if you like DVD music or have a large movie collection?

A few years ago, while I was working full time in the residential technology business, my house was overkill.  Every toy you can imagine and then a couple just because I could.  Of all the toys I had, none was more used than my ReQuest ARQ and VRQ system.  I stored over 600 CD's of music, downloaded another 10 hours worth from the iTunes Store and loaded up over 150 DVD's.  

To keep everything legal when I sold that house, I kept the NAS drive that stored all of the music and movies.  Regrettably I had to sell the rest of the gear with the house.   In case you didn't know, there is a legal way to back up DVD's to a NAS drive and play them back in your own house.  After the housing crash in 07' devastated the residential technology markets, a few tough survivors remained.  ReQuest made it through and built some really cool new technology along the way.

This week I finally acquired the latest versions of the VRQ and the ARQ from ReQuest.  I am the beaming owner of a ReQuest F3 and IMC.  I didn't get the MP V2 yet, but I may upgrade next year.

By itself the F3 is a very cool audio and photo server.  With my very simple setup, I can still play two different streams of music from my F3.  Actually I can do many more.   The Mac Mini in my wifes office has Rocket studio monitors and I have an even nicer setup at my desk.  Using the web interface, we can each stream different music to our desks.  

My home audio setup is very simple, using Amex Reward Points, a Denon AVR-X2000 two zone Audio Receiver was inserted into the heart of my home electronics system.   The Denon gave me 5.1 surround in my Main room and another zone out on the patio by the spa.  

Adding and IMC (or an MP) to the F3 lets me store DVD's for easy access.  One reboot and the F3 found the NAS drive on my home network and indexed all of the music and movies in less than 15 minutes.  This is way better than digging for a DVD when I am feeling nostalgic and want to watch "Smokey and the Bandit."

Admittedly, the ReQuest IMC will occasionally ask that I insert the DVD to prove I own it and didn't rip a rental.  That is fine with me.  Also the new IMC and MP have the option to play Blu-Ray discs, something my old system lacked.  Sorry Sony, that is one less PS4 you are going to sell.

The widgets are pretty cool with a weather display, and stock market display available anytime I am not watching a movie, or on the iPad I use to control the system. 

This is where I get to introduce the greatest improvement of the ReQuest system, Maestro.  For an additional $149 plus tax, I get to use iPads and iPhones to select movies, search music and set up playlists.  Way cooler and easier to use than the several thousand dollar Crestron controller I had in my old house and way less expensive.

The one piece that is missing is the lighting control.  With a Crestron home system, and Lutron lighting, the ReQuest integration was very clean.  Currently I have an Insteon retrofit lighting control because it was less than half of the price of Lutron.  Since we have MobiLinc on our iPads we can control the lights from the same iPad, we just have to change apps.   Maybe I'll get motivated and build a widget for the Insteon Lighting for the ReQuest.

Keep in mind these are both apps that my wife uses every day.  She even can program and change lighting scenes on her iPhone without any help from me.  This is the first system in five different houses that she has ever created a lighting scene.  It is really that easy.

One piece from ReQuest I don't have is the Blu-Ray changer, I only have a dozen Blu-Ray discs and because of our normal sitting distances, I am the only one who can see the difference.  When the 70" is hung on the wall and the 50" moves to my office, I might change my mind, or maybe I'll get lucky and ReQuest will send me one for long term review.  Until then I still put the disc in the slot to watch HD blu-ray movies.

Given how close the capabilities of my current house are to my last house, and how much better it is than the four houses before that, I have to say that home technology is ready to move mainstream.  The difference in installation cost between this house and my last one will buy a new Factory Five 818 kit. 

If you are an audio buff, or a video buff, you should look at the ReQuest system.  It will change how you listen to music and see your TV forever.  If you have always wanted real home technology and thought you couldn't afford it, now you can.  If you could afford it before, now you can and you can get a cool car as a bonus with the extra money!  That is what technology should do for you isn't it?

Which is Better, Verizon or AT&T?

After 35 days now with Verizon, I think I know who is better between Verizon and AT&T.  35 days ago, I left AT&T for two simple reasons,  Unfortunately I did it during a very busy time for me.  This made for a great test though.  You need your technology to work most when you are busiest don't you?

The reasons for leaving AT&T were a slightly better price at Verizon, and  I knew it worked in my house.  Every time my AT&T phone rang, I would run to the window or out the front door and hope to catch the call.  

When your income depends on catching calls, this really shouldn't be an acceptable scenario.  Several times I stopped by the AT&T store to complain and try to get  a "femto-cell".  A femto-cell is a little wifi box that lets you talk on wifi in your house.  My sales skills failed me and after two years of trying, I still had no way to take a call in my house.

I did find a V-Tech home phone that connected to my cellular, but then I started missing texts.  I felt like I couldn't win with AT&T.

Sprints price and unlimited data plan looked great on paper, but I quickly found that all of the cellular companies have these complex pricing plans for phones and data plans, and I knew that Verizon would work.  A salesman that came to my house had a Verizon phone that made calls without a problem in my house.  

Since I couldn't tell if Sprint really was any less expensive, I went with what worked and chose Verizon.  

The First 15 Days

Of course upgrading from the iPhone 4S to the 5S was a nice change.  The iPhone 5S is significantly faster, and takes better pictures.  The data speeds really didn't look much different though, even on WiFi at home.  That surprised me a little.  I have used complex websites to do some anecdotal testing with my neighbor who is still on AT&T.  Standing out front, both phones download the sites at about the same speed.

One problem I have with the iPhone is it's insistence on using WiFi.  The problem for busy people arises when you enter into a "free WiFi" area that you have used before.  The phone goes stupid until you "renew lease" on the WiFi and sign up again.  That should be an automatic option for the "remember this network".  

Day ten though I was caught off guard and suddenly the value of Talk and Surf became a problem, partially due to the WiFi issue.  Getting off of an airplane in Reno, running to the office, I received a call from a casting agency in Los Angeles asking for my availability for a commercial the next day.  When I tried to access my calendar I couldn't.

I have learned to never say yes, without looking at my calendar.  I let other people add events for me, so I need to see it before saying anything.  Here was the first failure for Verizon.  I couldn't talk and surf without renewing my lease since I had been to Reno just two weeks earlier and used the free WiFi.  While I was trying to figure out how to get WiFi to work, the casting agent got bored and told me to call her back.  By the time I stopped, renewed my lease and checked my calendar and called back, she found someone else.  Good work lost.  Lucky for me I have plenty to do. If acting was my main job, that could have been an expensive call.

On Day 15 it happened again, I couldn't talk and surf at a critical time.  More work lost.  I had no idea that I was using data so much when I talk.  You don't realize how many apps need a data connection until you turn it off.  I was no longer thinking that Verizon was the clear winner, AT&T might have a chance for me to switch back at this point.  Oddly, AT&T hadn't called or written even once to ask why I left or how they could get me back.

Day 20 I was in LAX, five bars, and I couldn't get any data, cellular or otherwise to work while sitting on the airplane during a delay.  Another Verizon customer said this was quite normal at LAX, and AT&T still had not called.  Day 24, the same thing happened at LAX.

Day 30 - Trade back day.

Here is where I blew it.  Day 30 was Black Friday.  The last day I could switch back to AT&T and not pay a HUGE penalty at Verizon.  That is what you call really bad trial period planning.  There was no way was I standing in line to trade back from Verizon to AT&T, and since AT&T hadn't called or written even once, I decided to stay home, avoid Black Friday and put up with Verizon for 23 more months.  

Here is where it gets weird, and I have to ask who is running marketing at AT&T.  Day 32, I started getting daily "specials" from AT&T.  They should know the fee to switch back now  is over $700 for two iPhone 5S phones.  Why would I switch back now?  Day 15-29 are the key days to get back a disgruntled cellular customer, and I didn't hear a peep.  Once the bill is set in stone, then they write?  

To make it even more interesting, AT&T started sending me marketing surveys on day 40 with a series of "did you know" questions trying to lead me back to AT&T.  Why are they beating around the bush?  Why didn't they call me on day 21 and say "How is that Verizon working, and what do we need to do to get you back".  My reply would have been simple, "It isn't, and a femto-cell will seal the deal".

At the end of the day, without question for anyone on the go, the ability to talk and surf is critical.  As much if not more so than coverage in my house.  If you own a business, are in sales, marketing or any form of self employment, AT&T is the winner.  If you work in an office, have good WiFi at home and don't travel much, Verizon is the winner.  It's that simple.

What is the best New TV deal for 2013?

Since I am getting the same questions about buying TV’s this holiday season, I decided to give everyone my personal choices and some quick tips.  Because the pricing is going to be all over the board this holiday season, what I will tell you is what I like, why I like it and how it compares.

One of the picture qualities I am hearing more and more about is the “soap opera effect”. I don’t have another name for it and I have seen it a couple of times now.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to “tune” or “calibrate” the TV so I am not 100% sure what causes it.  

Right now I have a Toshiba 50” which isn’t even on my radar but was a smoking cheap deal last year at Costco.  It will eventually move to my office and be replaced by a 70”.  I say eventually because things are changing so fast, and there is another remodeling project that will happen at the same time.

Something odd that has happened is the disappearance of Cinemawide TV and the appearance of 4K or UHD TV.  In order to watch a movie and see everything the same way as the theater, you need the Cinemawide Screen.  If you don’t get one, an 80” screen will have black bars at the top and bottom making it effectively a 75” screen.

You can of course stretch the picture to fill in the black bars, bet then you lose something.  You aren’t watching what the director so painstakingly created for you.  I was hoping Cinemawide screens would have done better,  Since TV is in 16:9 format and that is most of what people watch at home, that the 16:9 TV’s would be the most popular though.

Going Shopping:

If I were out today on Black Friday 2013 looking for a new TV, here are my thoughts:

I really like the Sharp Quatron 3D series for the 60” 70” and 80” screens.  All of the big stores have good prices on these units.  If you can make your room very dark, they have good black levels and excellent color saturation.

One of my tests is the movie “Men In Black”.  If the suits look grey or washed out in the night scenes it means the TV can’t keep up.  Sharp is the winner here for LCD and LED TV’s.  Plasmas are better, but at that size they are heavy and expensive if you can even find on.

The surprise value for me is Vizio.  In the past their picture quality was noticeably different then the Shart and Samsung.  Now Vizio looks very close to the Samsung and Vizio is a bit less expensive than the Samsung in many cases.

There is a low end Ultra HD brand, Seiki, that has a Ultra High Def or UHD 50” TV for under $1000.  The higher definition is cool if you sit very close to the TV and have good eyes, otherwise who cares.  At that price I have to wonder about black levels and color quality, so for now I am saying avoid it.  If they send me one to demo, I’ll let you know.

Sony of course always looks good, and there are some deals out there because they are now turning their focus on UHD/4K TVs.    Picture quality wise Sony is usually on par with Samsung and Vizio.  Sony’s electronics and cases are usually higher quality and a better finish which is why they usually cost more.

The last question is refresh rates.  All TV’s are 60hz unless they say otherwise.  If you are a gamer or serious movie buff, 60hz won’t cut it.  Your body is also running at 60hz so you subconsciously can see a bit of flicker in the screen.  60hz means the screen is refreshed 60 time every second.  Your eyes capture about 60 images every second.

For gaming, 120hz is the minimum, and 240hz is better.  For 3D, 120hz is also the minimum, and I haven’t seen a 60hz 3D TV yet.  Check the box.

For TV’s in guest rooms, kitchen or anywhere there is light most of the time, Go for the best deal.  I wouldn’t tell you to skip the $98 32” Black Friday Deal at WalMart for a quick Kitchen TV or kids room TV.

If you are thinking about using a TV as a second monitor, then get a better brand, and use one that is also a computer monitor maker like Samsung or Toshiba.  HDTV’s sometimes look funny as a computer monitor if you get a cheap one.

So that moves us to “smart tv’s”.  Personally I use Apple TV.  The interface for Netflix on Apple TV is better and I can run it through my stereo first.  The options with “Smart TV’s” are ok if you are going to use the TV speakers and nothing else.  Eventually I will buy a ReQuest Media Server with a Media Player.  ReQuest Media Players are hands down the best way to watch movies and online content.

I also like the ability to to put stuff on my TV from my iPad and iPhone.  If you have a Samsung Galaxy, then a Samsung TV makes a lot of sense. 

So there you have my favorite list, and you can adjust the order to fit your budget and whatever Black Friday deals you can find.

So there you have it, don’t worry about “Smart TV”, get Apple TV or even Google TV for now unless you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, and the summary is:

1 Buy a TV no bigger that the distance you sit from it.  If you are 6 feet away, don’t get anything bigger than 70”  60” would be the best for image quality at 6 feet.

2. Sharp Quatron with four colors is the best picture for non plasma

3. Sony, Samsung and Vizio if you get a smoking deal are all good.

4. TV’s under 40” go with the deals

5. If you get a big TV don’t forget the Monster HDTV tune up or some other home calibration kit.  That is money well spent.

Oh yeah and if you don't have a big enough truck, Amazon delivers.

The Windows “One Experience”, Is It?

So is the Windows “One Experience” a move forward or backwards?  After a serious look at the new computers, tablets and phones powered my Microsofts single minded operating system, I have to wonder if Gates needs to pull a jobs, and take over the helm again.

Steve Ballmer has clearly been a better choice for Microsoft that Gil Emilio was for Apple, but it might be time to rethink the plan.  By the way, I still own my Microsoft Stock.

So what is going on at Microsoft? 

Starting at the little end, I looked a the windows phones.  iOs 7 on the iPhone 4 was a deal killer.    My Windows 7 desktop PC died, and my wife's died about a week later.  Like any good writer, I went on vacation for inspiration.

The phones with the windows OS were great.  The Nokia with the 41 Mega pixel camera was a little odd shaped, but it did take some great photos.  The tile interface is pretty cool and the apps are great.   I could get used to the one view update on the tiles.

Moving up the totem pole I looked at several windows tablets.  I do like them much better than the Apple iPad even though I already had three iPads.  The tile interface again the winner.   Within minutes of picking it up, I was able to get it to do everything I wanted it to do, and that I use my iPad for.  As a home controller and interface this is a clear winner.  It even solved my issues with missing text messages on my cell while at home.  

Since going to iOS 7 on the iPads, I can’t leave my home controller running like a smart photo display.  For the first time since buying any Apple product, I need to ask for help.  That just isn’t happening, it violates rule number 5 which is “Buy no technology that requires support.”

I should probably put some of this into perspective.  I am on my 5th "smart house".  This one is quite a bit simpler than the fourth house and still way cooler and smarter than homes one through three.  In the past I spent as much as $9,000 for touch screen control of my home lighting and audio/video systems.  Now the iPad or Windows Tablet can do a better job for much less money.  Maestro by ReQuest is probably the best looking interface for any system period.

At this point Microsoft was on a roll, and we were creating a huge list.  By the way, I have the advantage of living near an Apple Store, Sony Store and Microsoft Store which are all in the same mall for technology shopping at its best (and most confusing).

Next was the Xbox 360.  During the review we started looking at the capability of the upcoming Xbox One.  The only feature it didn’t have was an HDMI extender, but the salesperson showed me two that work well, so I could hide my devices out of site.  Problem solved.  Microsoft still rolling.

The list was growing and I was eager to wait for an Xbox One so it was on to the desktops.  For years I have been running dual screens and multiple apps.  Most of the time running training or educational videos on one screen while working or writing on the other.  The first question I asked was, “Can I add a second screen?”

The salesperson was perplexed for the first time, and the answer appeared to be “no”.  The next question was attempting to use the screen to multi task and layer the windows, now called tiles.

After 15 minutes I gave up.  Sorry Mr. Balmer, rule number 5 is violated.  I can’t do what I want to do without help, and by the way, I have rule number 5 because only once in the last 25 years has anyone from any tech support ever been able to find the answer before I could.  Yes that was a Microsoft Engineer from Dallas and he was sharp.  

Since that day I have been watching to see if Microsoft figured it out, and so far I don’t see it.  Apple on the other hand with iOS 7 put just the right amount of multi-tasking in mobile while keeping the desktop environment practical, comfortable and very multi task friendly.  Then I discovered Parallels.  Left Screen Windows, Right Screen Mac.

The score right now:       

Apple - two iPhone 5’s, three iPad’s, two Mac Mini’s

Microsoft - One Copy of Windows Running on Parallels.

On the horizon, a 4K TV and a PS4?  Or a Sharp Aquos Quatron and Xbox One?  

Is Your Tech Guy Overselling IT?

#OfficeNetwork

How much technology do you really need in the office?  I am not talking about the stuff you see like your desktop computer, the tablet or your phone.  What I am talking about are web servers, mail servers, routers and hubs, and things you never see unless you are the IT guy.

Recently I spent some time with two different clients this month and was amazed at how much in house technology they had.  Both of these businesses have less than 15 employees full time in the office, and 10 employees out on the road.  Here are their setups starting from the wall to the desk:

Business 1 10 Users, 6 client interactions per day:
ATT UVerse Modem 15 Static IP Addresses
Juniper Router
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Required for software used in house
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Used for basic email functions
-Digital Tape Backup Drive - Used to Back Up Bothe Servers
10 Desktop PC's with 18" LCD Screens
All users have iPhones


Monthly IT average $3000

Business 2, 12 Users, 45 Client Interactions per day:
Time Warner Cable Modem - 50 Static IP addresses
Cisco Router
2 x Apple Airport
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Basic Email Functions
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Financial and Data Storage
-Specialty Server for software package
8 Desktop PC's with 20" screens
2 Desktop Macs
2 MacBooks
12 iPhones

Monthly IT average $2100

In both cases, I couldn't see any reason to have an in house server for email or basic functionality.  A network drive, sometimes called "Network Addressable Storage" or NAS drives, would have worked just fine.  The difference? About $3000 up front plus $500 a month in support.  Additionally neither needs the MS exchange server now that they have gone to the iPhone as the mobile platform.  Yes Exchange does a lot more, but they aren't using it.

The last monthly cost is the static IP addresses.  Business one needs it for a subscription service they have to purchase for each computer.  I am suspicious though that the vendor doesn't have an option for dynamic IP addresses.   The second business was hosting their website data on their server but not the website. It was a crazy system to support.  Additionally of the 50 static IP addresses only 5 were in use.

How would I set up businesses that size?  In fact just about any business can use this model if you have less than 20 desktop systems.  In fact now I see iPads with keyboards and proprietary apps and that whole setup is less than what I listed above.

Here is exactly what my two offices look like:

Verizon FiOS Router - WiFi off, set to Modem only Mode.
Apple Airport Extreme Router(s)
Netgear ReadyNAS Network Drive
Virtual Web Hosting with Email Service, 1and1 and GoDaddy are two good ones we support in our office.
Desktop PC or MAC as required.

This is exactly our setup, I don't use the Verizon FiOS Router for simplicity reasons, and in an all MAC business, you could use the Apple Time Capsule instead of the Netgear Ready NAS.  All of our email is stored on the servers at 1and1, as is our website.  We back them up to a DVD each month.  The NAS Drive is backed up weekly since that is where our customer records and financials are stored.

Western Digital even calls one option "mycloud", meaning you own it.  While I like virtual email and web hosting to save money, you should own your data in a physical sense.  That is why we use the NAS drive.  Our setup has all of the capability needed for both businesses and would have cost over $10,000 less.

Do you want to see your IT guy more often or do you want $10,000 or more in your bank account?

Did The Shutdown Kill The Tea Party? The Republicans?

There has been a lot of banter since the government shutdown.  The "furloughed" employees collected unemployment, protested and then get full back pay.  How is that for paid time off?  USA Today reported in the October 21st issue that some may get both full back pay and still get to keep their unemployment checks.  So what exactly were they protesting?

One prominent Democrat told the tea party to go home and said "It is clear they didn't come here to build anything, only to tear it down."  Well duh, the whole point of the tea party is to reduce taxes AND reduce the size and reach of the government.

Sadly the only losers in the deal were the tourists who couldn't visit some national parks and monuments and the taxpayers not employed by the government who are going to get the bill.

The Pentagon brought everyone back to work the minute the bill was passed to pay the furloughed employees.  One of the best decisions of the entire debacle from my view.  This way they cut their unemployment expenses that weren't budgeted for.

The one thing it did show us is what our politicos think are necessary services and which aren't.  Do you think they did without for a minute on either side?

So is the Tea Party Dead or are they Enraged?  Only time will tell.  Are the republicans in trouble? Maybe.  Some moderates may be in trouble as the divide widens.

In a time when we need to come together reasonably, we have two parties going to extremes and the main stream media playing it up to sell ad space.  Was the republican acceptance poll rating of 24% because everyone was trusting the democrats, or because the disenchanted republicans are being driven further to the Tea Party/Libertarian cause?

Your thoughts?

Does Your Volt Have Bugs? Mine Does...

Overall my Chevy Volt has been great for the last five and a half months, but is isn't perfect by any means.  This week has been a challenge, in fact the last three weeks have really been odd.

In previous posts, I talked about the issues with valet parking and auto charging when the alarm is set and the auto lock feature is on.   If you valet and autolock the car, they can't even get to the charger after the key is hung in the key rack.  

That is just one annoyance.  We also discovered that if you send an address to turn by turn, cancel before it loads and try and send it to the  "in dash Nav" it locks up the whole system.  I figured out how to fix it, but I am not giving that secret away.  Chevrolet says this bug will be fixed next time it is at the dealer for a software update.  Why can't the Volt by like my iPhone and update while I am asleep?

Speaking of the iPhone, upgrading to iOS 7 changed how the Volt and the iPhone get along.  The feature that allowed me to play music over bluetooth no longer works.  Pluggin in with a USB cable which didn't work before, now works brilliantly but my phone won't work on handsfree when the iPod mode is active via USB. What didn't work works and what did work doesn't.  

Another interesting issue that has popped up is related to the clock.  For whatever reason it can't keep time.  Each week it is almost a full minute off.  Why doesn't a GPS equipped car use satellite time?

This leads right to the next question.  How come a GPS equipped car can't tell if I am plugged in at home on an electric schedule or away and commercial chargers?  I shouldn't have to tell the car I am at home so it should charge between 12 and 6 or I am at a parking garage and paying to charge so it should charge now should I?  I paid for 4 hours at a blink charger only to find out I left the car in delay mode and didn't charge it at all.  $4.00 down the drain.  I don't know who was being more stupid, me or the car.

The single most annoying system in the Volt so far is the "anti collision" system.  There is a button on the steering wheel to turn it on or off.  I think it is a placebo.  With the system off, when you exit the freeway, it sees that you aren't following the lines and starts yelling at you.  Once on the offramp and in between the lines again it is fine.  Even with the system off, it will turn off the cruise control automatically.  While this doesn't sound like much, I have learned that I can get three to five more miles out of the battery in "L" instead of "D".  The problem is when the cruise control turns off and you are in "L" you are already in the first level of regenerative breaking.

On the highway, the guy behind catches up awfully quick for no reason.

Cruising on the freeway about once every 15 miles the car will "see" a potential collision and turn off the cruise control.   Most of the time I have no idea what it "sees".  Tonight I was in the second lane, with no cars on either side or in front of me for at least a quarter mile, and it beeped and flashed and turned off the cruise control as if I was about to hit another car.  All I can figure was fog on the camera lens as I got closer to the beach?

I can't imagine what the "big brothers" at Progressive are seeing if they get the data from a car like mine.  They must think Volt Drivers are high risk idiots trying to hit another car every 15 miles or so.  Thankfully I have USAA, and they don't try to raise my rates based on phantoms that the car thinks I am going to hit.

The last funny bug this week has to do with the lights.  The car has a new habit of going into night mode when I go through tunnels and not going back to day mode for well over a minute when we get back into the sunshine.  More than once I couldn't see a turn on the NAV screen because it was still dimmed into the night mode.  Sadly I am a GPS cripple, which means I can't find my way home from the corner without my magenta line and the checkered flag on the screen.  I turned the voice off because it interrupted my music.

Another funny bug, the tire pressure monitor will come on with a different tire each time I add air.  It will show that they all have 31 psi for example but one will be yellow.  Even when they warm up and all show 33 or 35 PSI it stays Yellow.  When I pump up to 36 they all turn green.  Within a week, usually in the morning, one will be yellow.  Over the last four weeks, each tire has turned yellow at least once.

I wonder if the guys at GM are laughing their butts off, or think I don't care for my car and am trying to hit everything in site?

So how is your Volt doing?  Don't worry Chevrolet, we still want another one.  Slate Grey if you have a spare sitting around.

Is Failure The Road To Success?

Several people throughout my life have said something like "Failure is the road to success".  I even noticed a little ad in the Wall Street Journal this week that used that quote.  So do we really need to lead a life of failure to succeed?  Does that make any sense to you?  How could you possibly want success if you knew that your life was going to be littered with failure.

Is this why so many people just accept where they are in life?  Doesn't everyone want to know how to be successful?  If not, why wouldn't they want to be successful?  Don't you want to be more successful than you are now?

Since a big part of my work now is helping other people become more successful, I started thinking about failure and its role in life after reading an article in the recent issue of INC magazine. A few of you will know my success principle of "Be careful who you listen too".  For those of you that don't know it, one of the principles I live by, one that I consider one of the keys to my success, is that I don't take advice from anyone who isn't doing better than I am at the thing they are advising me on.

Real Estate Agents are a great example.  A big chunk of them don't own a home, and a larger percentage don't own investment property.  So how can they give me advice on something I am pretty good at, and they aren't really doing?  My opinion is simply they can't.  I got my own license about two years ago to do better for myself and help anyone who is serious about buying or selling.  Don't call me if you are a "looky lou".

The recent INC magazine article was focused on Jim Collins of Good to Great fame and his work at The United States Military Academy.

Most of you know the United States Military Academy as "Westpoint".  Many who know about it consider Westpoint the college for the elite army officers.  The list of high achieving alumni supports this view.

According to INC magazine, Jim Collins learned a little about leadership while working with the cadets.  As the article points out, Jim Collins has spent his life researching organization success, not personal success.  Westpoint should have realized, that Mr. Collins isn't an expert at Military Leadership either, and as he learned these are very different things.

Another question I had to ask about the articles perspective; Is there a difference between organizational success and individual success?  Can you have highly effective organizations that we call successful without having highly effective or "successful" people running it?  I believe that one is required to have the other.  An organization can hold back great people, and a great organization can be destroyed by lesser people being at the top.  What I have read in Mr. Collins books lead me to believe that he agrees with my premise even though he doesn't directly say it.

My thoughts are that at the core of all great companies is great people.  Do you think you can build a great company with idiots?  This should be common sense right?

Some companies are better at collecting a higher percentage of successful people to create a more successful company.  Others do a great job creating successful people who in turn create successful businesses.  This was really the legacy of Jack Welch during his reign at GE isn't it?  He created a great management and leadership funnel, the people that made it through the funnel made great companies.

Tommy Caldwell, considered one of the worlds best rock climbers, is attempting to be the first person ever to climb the face of El Cap in Yosemite park un assisted.   This means he is going to do it with no ropes, no nails in the rocks, no hexectric nuts or link cams, just a man climbing a rock.  I am sure he gets to wear the shoes though.

So far he has "failed" four times, and according to INC, when Jim Collins asked him why he goes back after failing, Tommy Caldwell replied that he was getting better each time.  Tommy Caldwell didn't fail, he tried and improved. Just as the Japanese use Kaizen in business, Tommy Caldwell uses it in rock climbing.

Right there was the secret to crossing a long section of the road to success.  Failure is not the road to success.  Failure is failure.  Moving forward on the road is how you get you to success.  There is no other way.

Some of this may appear to be semantics, some of this is in "The Mind", and the reality is still that failure is failure and progress is progress no matter how you define it.  Success does not come from failure.  Success comes from moving forward no matter how difficult.

This point of view was a frustration I have had with many business improvement and self help books.  They would use the word failure when referencing attempts to move forward.  I really didn't address this issue correctly in the book So Now What?

As a competitive marksman, there were two competitions at every event, a team competition and an individual competition.  The best victories where when the team won, even though I wanted to win also.  In 1989, both happened, and it is the best victory in my career.  I won the overall event, and the team won the team event.  When that happened our margin was so big, I could have been third on my team and we would have still won.  Nobody carried the team and nobody held the team back, the entire team kept pushing that year.  There was never a failure, only opportunities to improve.

Thomas Edison had it correct when he was asked how it felt to fail at creating the electric light bulb 10,000 times.  He replied, "I didn't fail 10,000 times, the lightbulb was an invention with 10,000 steps."  It was an invention worth the journey.  The bigger the prize at the end, or the bigger the contribution, the more difficult the journey will be.  There are no short cuts.

Those who don't really want success will see the steps as too difficult and therefore a failure.  Failure becomes an excuse to quit rather than a step forward.  When you say to yourself that you have failed, you give yourself permission to quit and seek a new road.  You change your definition of success to fit your failures.  Failure is failure only if you don't learn from it and let it choose your direction.

This may seem like a very subtle difference in language and it really is.  How you view the steps will determine if you make it to your destination or not.  When you look at high achievers, they are still real people just like you and me.  The difference starts with how they view failure, and how big their goals are.  When things don't work and people laugh and ridicule, high achievers keep moving.  They don't quit.

So why do people accept failure as failure?  Simply put it is comfortable.  Since none of their peers have done it, they don't feel the need to do it, and not doing it keep them at a level they are comfortable with.  This can happen to anyone at any level in life.

The times in my life I wanted to quit are few but they happened.  I have lived through and proven both sides of this process of the mind as it relates to failure and success.  The most memorable for me was in 1990.   I was ready to quit Air Force Pilot training because of a letter stating that I did "not have the attitude conducive to fly a fighter".  It didn't say I wasn't qualified or I had failed, but I read it that way and I accepted the letter as failure.

Ready to walk away and return to my "comfortable" life, a friend, classmate and Air Force Academy Graduate, Mike Leonas, convinced me it was simply an opportunity to improve.  Thanks to Mike I ended up having a great time flying in the military for the next 14 years.

If you really want to get where you are going, get better with each attempt.  Get stronger at the core skill so you can push a little harder each time until you get "there" and can come up with a new place to go.  More importantly, as Mike Leonas showed me, surround yourself with friends who don't understand failure, and truly understand opportunities to improve.

The journey really is the thing.  Why do you think Richard Branson keeps building companies?  When he gets to one destination, he keeps moving to another one.  When Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he continued to move towards his destination.  When he came back, he brought Apple with him.  Life is about the opportunities to improve.

Think about Elon Musk starting a new technically advanced car company that only offers 100% electric cars.  He already had a successful business and was a billionaire, why risk it all to get into the car business and build a car that no one else builds?  Didn't anyone tell him about the Tucker Car Company? Clearly at that level, Constant Improvement works.

Failure is not the road to success, failure isn't even on the road to success.  The road to success is paved with little cobblestones of success and then taking one step to place the next stone.  Always pushing a little more each time than you did the time before and getting closer to the goal each time is the key.  Failure is when you quit, nothing more.  This is why a coach can be such a big help.

Making each step better than the last is the key to success.  Failure is how some people will define a step that doesn't end at success.  The problem, like Edison found, is that you don't know how many steps that will be.

As the proverb goes, You are closest to success, just before you quit.

Get better at what ever you do every day and you will be called a success before you know it.

IS Charging The Problem With Electric Cars?

One of the largest private companies that provided and managed chargers for electric cars went bankrupt.  This follows a string of smaller bankruptcies in the electric charging business.  So the question is simply; "Is charging the problem with electric cars?".

If the answer were simple, we would either stop buying electric cars realizing they are silly or we would all buy electric cars because they are a good deal.  Clearly the answer isn't easy, at least not for the Average Joe car buyer out there.  If you are rich, live in California and have $80,000 or so laying around, then the Tesla is a great looking viable alternative car.

If the Tesla is so great why doesn't everyone have one?  Well in simple economics, like buying a house, $80,000 isn't just lying around everyones house.  Also Tesla took a page from the Apple playbook and is controlling it's own charging network.  My Chevy Volt can't charge at any of the Tesla Supercharger stations throughout California.  Instead I add gas at the Chevron across the street and run my generator.

As far as other pure electrics such as the Nissan Leaf, they are utility limited by their range.  If you can't find a changer or don't have the time, charging isn't practical.  Networks like Blink set up chargers all over the country making it a bit easier to find a charger.  The problem was the economics.  Blink charged by the hour and rounded up.  They also kept charging after your car was topped off just because you were still plugged in.

Economically, Blink made it less expensive for me to run my generator on Gasoline.  As far as other electric cars, running around at an equivalent of 22 mpg makes no sense in a world of 40+ and now 50 MPG hybrids does it?  When an electric car commands a premium of $3,000 to $10,000 over simlarly equipped gas and diesel cars, it really doesn't make economic sence.

The Car Charger Group that bought the assets of Blink has a long way to go to profitablity.  For now I would say that charging is the problem for electric cars.  When you make charging economically viable, then the range becomes less of a problem and the cars sell better.

The big question is, can they do it?

So After 5000 Miles Is The Chevy Volt Still Cool?

Today I cross the 5 month mark living with my Chevy Volt.  It also crossed the 5000 Mile mark, so how is it doing?

My wife and I don't argue about it quite as much.  She could have driven it today and didn't, but that was more of a logistics problem.  I made the mistake of putting the big Bosch Wall Charger on the same wall where she parks her car.  I effectively made our garage and drive way only one car wide.

If it wasn't so hard to move the wire to the other side, I would move the charger.  Live and learn.

So how much gas have I used?  22 Gallons total, and I stopped paying for the crazy expensive Blink chargers too.  The best part was changing my home electric plan and programming the car to self charge when power is really really cheap.

So what other bugs and tricks have I learned?  To begin with I figured out that when I can't make it round trip on electricity alone to use the generator only at highway speeds.  This has kept my gasoline mileage at 50.2 MPG according to the trip computer.  This is way better than the 38 MPG on the sticker, and I am not hypermileing or putting along at 50 on the freeway either.  This is 50 MPG at California Highway speeds.

The other two bugs are the "auto lock", which I like but when I valet the car they can't charge it because it locks and the keys are put away.  So I guess this isn't a bug, just something to get used too.  The other thing is the "auto charge time".  Somehow the GPS should tell the car it is home.

When I valet the car and press "charge now", it only works until the valet moves the car and then it goes into delay charge mode again.  I have to reprogram the car every time I go to the airport.

So far those are the only bugs, the Chevy Volt is still fun to drive, and I really like the money in my wallet that isn't going for gas.  I know the state is going to find a way to get it someday, but for now.  I'll take it.

Is The Government Shutdown Fooling Anyone?

The Government is "Shutdown" and yet everyone is getting paid?  Wait a minute here, as a taxpayer if I am paying my taxes and the taxes are going to eventually pay the government employees, why aren't they at work?

I guess it makes sense that neither side is in a hurry to settle this, everyone is getting paid and a bunch of people are getting a paid vacation.  If I were one that had to come to work I would be pretty steamed.  So what is this all about?  At the end of the day it is about raising taxes.  My healthcare plan provided through my work doesn't meet the little window so I will have to pay more taxes.  Call it a healthcare fee, it is taxes.

I won't hide the fact that I am against "Obamacare".  As a military veteran, this is a socialist policy no matter what you call it.  Stalin would be proud of us.  At the same time people who are going to be "forced" to buy healthcare will quickly figure out the "tax" is cheaper and they won't pay either.

So is the "shutdown" fooling anyone?  This almost appears to be an exercise to test the apathy of the voters, taxpayers and residents of the United States.  The whole thing is just bazaar to me.  I have written my congressman and my senators, and I hope you have too.  

I don't care if you are for or against "Obamacare", you should write to end the stupidity of paying people to not work and saying they have "jobs".  Instead at least furlough them and let them collect unemployment like regular people.

Of course you should read all about the healthcare bill and decide if you agree with it or not, and then write your letters.  Is the debt ceiling important? Of course.  When the president was a Senator, he voted against raising the debt ceiling and called those who want to raise it "irresponsible".  Today he has flipped to the other view.  I expect this though, he is a politician after all.

For me, the debt ceiling is plenty high, and we don't need the health care bill to make it higher.  No business can survive this way, and so far in history, no government has made it either.  Someday this house of cards will crash. The question is when.  Not likely in the next three years, so President Obama,  knows he is safe.  

This is the land of freedom and opportunity.  Do you want to keep paying for the rest of your life, and do you want your grandkids to keep paying?  

The government shutdown is nothing more than political grandstanding on both sides.  Yes we need to address the debt ceiling, but paying people not to work isn't fixing anything.

So do you believe the hype?

What Is The Value Of An Idea? How Do You Sell It?

Just about every conference I go to where there are serial entrepreneurs and business owner the question about the "Value of an Idea" pops up in one form or another.  It usually isn't that direct.

Normally it starts out with someone approaching me and telling me their great idea.  They will spend several minutes elaborating on how this idea can be monetized and how they are going to get rich.  At some point the conversation turns and they say something like this, "So what do you think?  Do you want to take this and run with it?"

To begin with my answer is always a resounding "No".  The funny ones are the people who come back year after year.  Sometimes they are worried I will "steal" their idea.  One guy wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me anything.  Obviously I have no idea what his great idea was.

When this happened last week it occurred to me that all these people are really asking is "What is the value of my idea?"  They are also indirectly asking if it is good enough for me.

I have a couple of simple rules that I live by, mostly because I figured out doing otherwise meant I ended up working for free for someone else.  The first rule of course is "follow the money".  Anytime I see something crazy on the news or in politics, it is easy to follow the money to find the real issue.  Most people won't do the homework though.

The second rule is that I don't take financial or business advice from anyone making less than I do.  In fact, I use 5x as a rule.  All of my coaches make at least five times the money I make.  Yes the coach has a coach.  In one area the coach makes less than I do overall, but makes several times what I make in that specific area, which passes the litmus test.

So how does this relate to the value of an idea?  Basically if your track record is that of Sam Ginn, then I'll listen, and maybe want to get involved.  The first time I met Mr. Ginn, I wasn't following that rule and it cost me.  Instead I listened to me. The same was true when I met Sandy Lerner.  Two strikes is all I needed.

For everyone else, until you have proven that YOU can add value to an idea, it is just that, an idea.  Nothing more than electrons in your brain moving around in a way that only you can truly understand it.  Even if you have a working product, it may not have any more value yet.

The value of an idea has two main variables.  First is the number of people it solves a problem for.  The bigger that number, the bigger the potential value.  Second is a factor on which you are able to execute.  If your ability to execute on your idea is zero, and you know how to deliver clean water to everyone, guess what?  The value of your idea is zero.

Last year a friend of mine presented a nice little office product.  It was something he wanted and felt the world needed.  I looked at it for several days, talked about it with other potential users and asked if they would buy it.  The answer was no across the board.  The problem it solved wasn't a pain point with any of us, so the idea, while nice, needed to compete on price alone with existing products.  How fun is that?

Occasionally someone gets lucky and sees the value of an idea and buys it or rents it from the person who had the idea.  Bill Gates saw the value of PC-DOS and bought it, making himself among the richest in the world.   Ever hear of Seattle Computer Products?  Didn't think so, they created QDOS and later PC-DOS which is what Bill Gates bought to create MS-DOS.

To Seattle Computer Products, PC-DOS was a necessity for them.  They didn't see the real value.  What they did though was have a working product that someone could buy, and Bill Gates did.  Even PC-DOS was more than an idea when Microsoft took it over.

The genius of Microsoft was asking IBM for a very small cut of the PC sales at IBM in exchange for MS-DOS.  I am amazed at how many times people ask me to take over their idea and give them 50%.   50% of an idea that has no value is still $0.  The value isn't the idea, it is the execution.  The idea is simply the starting point.

That is why Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Ginn and Sandy Lerner can all give me advice anytime.  They know how to execute.  The value is 99.995% in the execution.

So what is the value of an idea? Nothing.  Absolutely nothing until you build it to prove it works to solve a problem or convince someone else of its ability to solve a problem.  Even then the value is still very close to .005% until you execute.

While it is true you can't execute without an idea, the idea doesn't solve a problem for one person without exection.  Solving problems is where the money is hiding.

Would You Like To Know Something I Wish I Knew Then?

This has been an interesting year for some people, me included.  The company that was my primary income declared bankruptcy, and became my secondary job in the same 12 month period.  How you do you stay on the road to success when this happens?

Some of my friends have pinned their lives on various other events this year over which they have no control.  Overall, my closest group of friends are all doing quite well when compared to last year and the year before.  Sadly a few have become emotionally invested in events that they have no way to control or benefit from.

Why is that?  The economic data says that people aren't doing better.  They might be back at work but relative to inflation, average incomes are down, the cost of housing is on the rise and most people are struggling to make ends meet.  So what is the difference between my friends who are doing better and everyone else?  Do you want to know?  I mean, do you REALLY want to know what success keys they have?

My question is for those of us that are a little farther along in life, what would you have liked to have really known 20 years ago?  What knowledge would have changed your life?  What would you do differently?  I will tell you there are two main things that I would have done differently had I been given the right information.  I have enough that I wish I knew to write a book.  If I do, will you want to read it?

My next question for the younger people.  Do you want to know?  I am not sure that I would have at the time.  My niece is more worried about her friends.  My nephew though, his is paying attention.

In my 20's, I was on a mission to do something, the problem was that I didn't know what that something was.  Even if I was given the right information, would I have done anything different?  I almost think I was given the information, and ignored it because it didn't fit my world.  What I needed was a real mentor, and I didn't have one.  I had some great coaches though.

This week I took a class with Marki Costello.  The Costello name comes directly from the "Abbot and Costello" comedy franchise.  In the world of Hollywood, she is part of the royal circle.  During the class I talked to a woman for two and a half minutes.

Marki said to "interview" this woman and only listen to what she was saying.  All of my questions were supposed to be related to what she said.   Sadly, I couldn't.  The coach in me was fighting to get out, and yet while I did what I was supposed to do, she just said the same thing over and over.  I listened and she never asked me for advice.  She just told me how she was doing it.  It was like looking in a time warped mirror.  I could hear myself 20 years ago and wanted to reach over and tell her to shut up and listen.  I wanted to set her straight, and show her why her life wasn't going where she wanted it too.  I didn't.

This leads to the first lesson and the first thing I wish I had known.  I don't mean known like I could tell my friends, but known like truly understood.  There are some people who really know what they want early on in life.  Jon Bon Jovi nailed it early on in life.  Me?  I was just goofing off with no direction.  This woman had four jobs, and hasn't made real success at any of them.  I have had four jobs and by most accounts I am now "successful" at all of them.   She hasn't truly hit success in any of them and can't focus on any one of them.  Sadly she is the only one in the way of her success.

It is funny that it worked out for me the way it did.  As a kid I used to watch Family Ties with Michael J. Fox because I was the entrepreneur in the household of "safe" people.  I used to read about interest rates, and how to make money in real estate all the way back to the 5th grade.  Before that I was on TV as a kid on "Romper Room" and early reality TV on ABC's Junior All Star program.

Safe people can be like my in-laws and work for the government and get a check on the 1st and 15th, or like my parents and become doctors.  My mom got a Ph.D. from Stanford and my Father was a Dentist who graduated from USC.  It is just a different version of "safe" income.  Their degrees were as reliable at getting jobs as the government was for my in-laws.  So what did I do?  I left home without finishing High School.

So would I listen?  I don't know. Do you want to listen?  I hope so.

The one thing I would change is the four job thing.  While I am having a good time now, the individual struggles with each job delayed growth in others.  Being in the top 10% of four jobs isn't nearly as rewarding as being in the top 1% of just one job.

My hindsight tells me that I focused on the wrong job first.  John Travolta became an actor first, pilot second.  I did it the other way around.  I spent many more years to become a professional pilot before I could start in real estate as an investor and Realtor while working to build my knowledge of business and marketing.  Finally I returned to acting part time a year ago.  So who makes more money?  John Travolta without a doubt.  Who works less?  I am guessing John Travolta.

I am not complaining about my life, rather I am pointing out that if I had known then what I know now, I would hope that I would approach things differently.   I could do all of the same things and by simply changing the order, I could have been more successful at any one of them or all of them.  If I knew then what I know now.

So my question to you is this.  If I sat down with my high roller friends who are pilots, actors, real estate investors and business owners, living in million dollar homes, would you be interested in knowing what they wished they had known then?  Would you change what  you are doing now if they shared that knowledge?

That is what I want to know.

Is iOS 7 A Trick To Force You To Upgrade Your iPhone?

Ever since I switched to the iPhone, I have been a raving lunatic fan, laughing at all who go with anything else.  Once in my life I worked for Apple as a contract employee so maybe this is expected.  I did try an Android phone, a Windows Phone, and even a Blackberry first.

The android phone didn't last a month. I couldn't use it and didn't have the time to learn it or figure it out.  The Blackberry worked great, so when my wife got an iPhone 3G, I simply upgraded my Blackberry.  At the time, no self respecting business owner would own an iPhone.  They were still "toys". 

Today I took a class from Marki Costello, and noticed that she still had a Blackberry. It made me realize how much more of my online life I was attending too because of my iPhone.  She didn't care about Twitter, Facebook or social media in general.  Like me she feels it is a necessary evil of her business.  In fact a good part of my business exists simply because social media has become a necessary evil to almost all businesses.

Leaving the class I had 25 emails, 10 messages and a couple of voicemails.  One of them was from an attorney asking for some technical assistance on a texting while driving case.  After this call, all I can say is don't do it.  It isn't worth it.

We walked over to Johnny Rockets for lunch and I started answering all of these messages.  Half of me was thinking how cool it was that I could do this and not be in the office, while the other half realized only two emails, one message and one of the two voicemails really needed my attention.  The rest would have never known if I looked at them or not.

Trying to respond to the only email that mattered just about gave me an aneurism.  I am sure that my thumbs were hitting ten or more letters and nothing would appear on the screen.  Then everything would appear all jumbled up.  This didn't happen with iOS 6.x  

When I tried to change apps from the main screen, the swipe motion opened an app just as often as it actually swiped the screen.  More annoying.

Then I attempted to get my voicemails, and the phone couldn't do it.  Five bars, er dots, and I can't get Voicemail?  45 seconds later, the screen changed so I could hit the play icon.  63 seconds later noise be can to emanate from the speaker.  I now believe that iOS 7 is a trick to get me to spend $500 each on two phones.  

In the past every upgrade to an OS from Apple gave you more and went faster.  iOS 7 is the first time I have regretted making a software upgrade.  It worked fine on my iPad2, and I needed to upgrade that for a software package I use regularly for work.  Thinking it would be easier to just have everything be the same I upgraded my iPhone.  Bad Dog.

Thankfully, my brilliant wife stayed on iOS 6 reminding me "It works, why change?"  The problem is her phone is now out of apple care and the home button doesn't always work when you leave the Apple Store.  Of course it works fine in there.  So it looks like two new phones need to get worked into the budget quick.  Ouch

I was excited to go buy my iPhone 4 and put my Blackberry to rest in a box in the garage.  Getting the iPhone 5, not so.  I feel like I was forced to choose between an upgrade of my phone, or changing to another phone that will take up all my time to learn how to use it again.  

The new windows phone looks great, but it doesn't work right out of the box, get all of my contacts, email accounts and set it self up just by plugging into my MacBook Air and connecting with iTunes does it?  Besides with two Mac Mini's, three iPads, two iPhones, an iPod touch and a Request Server with iTunes in the house, a PC phone just isn't going to cut it.

Never mind my Insteon Lighting Control is run by a little magic box with software running on the iPads and my iPhones.  

Apple has broken the code.  Like any great drug dealer.  The first iPhone was "free", and then for years they made it better, faster and cheaper.  The iPhone 4 was so far ahead of the iPhone 3 that the day after I came home with my iPhone 4 my wife ran out and got on the list.  I got an early release thanks to a good friend at AT&T.  Now that I am hooked, they know it and are selling me More More and More.  And yes I am still buying so don't be surprised to find me with a 5s which also means new chargers, new accessories, new cables, new docs.  This bill isn't going to be pretty. 

They couldn't just keep one silly little connector now could they.  I bet they are going to try and get me to by a iPad mini next, after all, with the iPhone 5, I'll already have all the accessories.

It's a trick (that worked) and that is my verdict.  What's yours?