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.