When you are down ...

because your home and stock account is worth a lot less and there are constant bleak news on t.v.....look at my friend's photos, not only are they beautiful but they make you appreciate what you do have.

PeterPhamPhotos

How I can read 10 business books in 1 hour

I've always had an insatiable appetite for business books or any books that can save me money, make me more money, save me time, or give me a competitive edge so I was about to order a handful of recommended books on Amazon when I ran across Bizsum.com which is cliff-notes for all the top business books on the market.

Instead of ordering a book, waiting for it to arrive, then reading it, this process is a lot quicker. I get the concepts and ideas in minutes because someone else already summarized it for me. They give you a 2 day trial to download in pdf format as well as 1 free month of new business summaries. This comes in handy on a flight to take a lot of pdf's and crank away at it. Perhaps reading fiction means actually reading each page but when it comes to business materials, this does the job for me as some business books are very boring but necessary like "How to read Financial Statements".

If only someone read all my college text books and gave me a 5 page summary. Then I would've graduated with several bachelor degrees:-)

My Life Revolves Around Gmail

I've just finished creating my top short 3 focus areas for 2009 as well as what I would like to acomplish by June 09 by using "tasks to do's" in gmail which is unlike gcalendar. It now sits and stares at me everyday until I get all these tasks all acomplished. I love google for keeping me straight....brilliant.

Gmail To Do's

Microsoft One Note 2007

Anyone who runs and office or has employees to share information with knows that a centralized place to store info is key to productivity. I've been storing infos on Excel but have switched over to Microsoft One Note 2007 this year and thinks it's the bomb.

1-Neatly puts all info's in one area including pdf's
2-easily accessible by any employees at their computer
3-you can grant access to certain people to make changes
4-there's no learning curve because it's so simple to use
5-has pretty color coded tabs like a real notebook

I don't think I'm ever going to look back at Excel for storing infos.

Picasa 3 rocks!

I've been using Picasa from Google to quickly edit and manage my thousands of travel photos. It's so easy to use even my mom can do it and now they came out with a newer, easier upgraded version 3. I love progress! By the way, my paperless office is still saving me zillions of time, paper, and toner.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

I saw this author and his new book on CNN. Since I've always been an avid reader of anything that gives me an edge to become a better person, I thought I'd read the reviews on Amazon.

1-Amazon is great: Sometimes the reviewers give such thorough reviews that I can just read the summaries and not have to get the book. I know nothing beats reading a book thoroughly but as much reading as I do each week, sometimes a nice summary is all I need to get the main concepts. That's why I love Amazon.

2-Successful people have a big advantage from their environments: I have to agree on this one. I've started out working at Target as a cashier at age 16..back breaking work from standing all day and dealing with nasty customers. I've always wondered how far I'd be in life if I had rich parents who passed skills onto me and if I had started out as an investment banker . Darn, I came from neither. So I guess I have to get back to hard work, making lots of mistakes, and learning from them. I'll be reading his other books though.

*By the way, I took Evelyn Wood speed reading course in college. Just in case you were wondering, I don't think it works really well and not worth the investment. Pretty much the concept is to train your eyes to look at words in "chunks". I do read fast though not because of the course but just training myself over time.

New Apple Mac Laptop

Beautiful piece of engineering...lighter, cheaper, more compact...13 inch is great for travel.

Apple.com

Obama v. McGain- A summary of issues

Here is a great summary of each side's stance on all the issues.

Yahoo News.

"God Grew Tired of Us"-Lessons I've Learned

"God Grew Tired of Us" is a must see movie! Why I haven't heard of it before is beyond me? It must have gotten lost among all the other popular action flicks.

"God Grew Tired of Us" is a movie that follows 3 Sudanese boys who came to live in America. They were called "Lost Boys" because they were among the thousands of little boys whose parents' were killed and fled accross the desert from Sudan to Kenya to Ethiopa.

Lessons I've learned:

1-Leadership and stepping up to the plate even when you don't want to: One of the boys, John, was always physically taller than other children at the age of 13 so they put him in charge of 1200 children at the camp. His duty included burying dead children so he became "purposeful" to others. He said God made him tall for a reason and that was to watch over others.

2-Work less, chase materials less, and have a life:We in the U.S. are rich in material wealth but they are rich in spirit. When the boys came to New York, they were awed by modern technology of a big city but they came to miss their beautiful homeland, the simplicity of cows, and swimming in the Nile river. I, for one, have to remind myself to stop chasing money and success and have more adventures in life. We thought we have it all here but not real happiness.

3-Make time for each other:These boys grew up living among thousands of each other and they shared everything and made up storytelling during nights when they didn't have food to eat to distract from their hunger. They call these nights "Parliamants" which were story-telling and giving everyone a voice to be heard. When they came to the U.S. they worked 3 jobs to make money and never had time for each other. Does that sound familiar? I was told I was popular because I know a lot of people, but I often wonder if I even have 3 good friends that I can count on. These boys are life-time pillars for each other brought by hardships that they went through. I live in Orange County,CA where you are as popular as the size of your boobs and the logo on your car.

4-Be optimistic: For every moment you feel down because you didn't get things your way, remember there are others who had it 1000x's worse. Stop focusing on your hurts and focus on others. These boys walked a thousand miles through the desert... no shoes, no food, no sunscreen, nowhere to go, and no hope so okay everything else in my life pales in comparison to that.

5-Help others, help the world, don't be too comfortable in your own yard: These boys were given the opportunity to come to the U.S. and what they did with this gracious gift was to learn to be leaders and formed forces with other "Lost Boys" to come back to Africa to uplift the country to a better place.

My friend Jimmy has been teaching English in Sudan for many years and he oftenly sends me pictures. I usually brief them because I'm too busy making more money. But now, it would be an absolute priviledge for me to visit Sudan one day as it will be on my "to do list" while I put chasing more money on my "to do less list".

Foreign Languages

I spent 8 yrs learning French and 2 yrs learning Spanish. I can read and listen pretty well in French but rusty when it comes to speaking it. I'm looking to brush up on it and perhaps pick up Italian too. This program has good reviews although pricey. I supposed if you compare it to 8 yrs of college, it's cheap.

RosettaStone

The Brilliant Minds Behind Google

Google just introduced GoogleChrome. I'm testing it now and have a feeling I'm going to have to load up on goog stocks. This company is always finding ways to rock the mass.

Chrome

Career and Having a Life

The #1 reason I am a stickler at keeping my home and work very organized is so I can "free up time" to pursue other fun activities. I run a business and want to have an active life too. It is easier to balance 50 things when everything is orderly. Here's how I manage clutter:

-Have as little out as possible: meaning nick knacks, decorating items. My desk has nothing except my computer and phone. Maybe boring but I get things done. My house has very little out also so there is less cleaning and less dusting. Less vision clutter makes me feel more zen anyways.

-Give away what I don't use "regularly": I feel lighter and giving it to someone with a bigger need makes me feel less guilty for getting rid of good items.

-Going paperless: my office is paperless. Need I say more? There's no getting up looking for files, misfiling, paper waste, toner waste, buying folders, buying paper. Oh, and being able to fax and email documents in seconds saves so much time.

-Incoming snail mail: is tackled in minutes and never piles up. I sort on my desk going clockwise "Delete, Delegate, Do, To read" (in line or on the plane).


-Incoming email: is tackled once a day too. I only have 3 in my inbox as we speak. "Delete, Archive, Do" folders. My Outlook email at work is the same except "wait for reply" folder is added. My ideal is to read emails once a week for personals. For work, it's gotta be daily.

-Email or fax: when dealing with clients, cuts down phone tags and I can list out exactly what I need from them. I include in the fax when the best time to call me is.

-Cut out mind clutter: I used to be glued to CNN. Now I just brief headline news on my IGoogle.

-Use grouping: for everything. I "group" my medicine cabinet into "morning items" versus "evening items". For example, morning items would be hair serum, sunblock, make up, deodorant. Evening items would all be "grouped" together too, face wash, floss, toothpaste. My cooking cabinet is grouped into "dry seasonings" & "wet seasonings". My fridge is grouped into "breakfast" items and "lunch" using the clear plastic $1 container so that with one scoop, I have all the items I need and don't need to revisit the fridge. As for cleaning up, everything gets put back in the plastic container and returned to the fridge "once".

-Carry-on for traveling: of course, I only travel with this one item so I can skip from country to country without baggage.

*Bottom line, when you are organized, it is so much easier to maintain that...takes less time and less efforts just as a fit body versus trying to lose 50 pounds. I've seen the other side of not being organized and that is just running around looking very busy but there is no progress of important accomplishments.

How to Accomplish Nothing In Life

I can almost judge a person's income based on their traits. Since there are so many articles on how to be successful, follow these if you want to look busy but run around in circles:

1-lack communication skills: they don't know how to listen without interrupting
2-they think they already know what you have to say
3-disorganized: they can't find anything and spend time looking for things oftenly leaving them to be
4-habitually late
5-make excuses for everything and love to blame
6-have no discipline for what they put in their mouth, exercising, or working
7-sit and discuss others instead of ideas
8-get into everybody's business except the business of making $
9-lazy: can't get their butts off the chair, their bed, their
10-don't work on improving their own skills, they'd rather be #9
11-emailing and chatting back & forth all day
12-not paying attention to details: like asking for address when address is provided in the evite.

*Now reverse all the above traits and you have someone who's making progress.

Learning to Swim....efficiently

Been wanting to learn how to swim and make it part of a lifestyle. Here's great info from Tim Ferris.

(Update 9-5-08: I finished watching the basic "Happy Laps" dvd, "Total Immersion" dvd and read the book. They are all well worth the investment for many more years to come. This guy swims around Manhattan in 9 hrs for fun. I've practiced once which means learning how to dip my face in the water and being able to go back and forth. Got a long ways to go)

Blog of Tim Ferris

How to Use Cell Phone as Modem for Laptop

If you have unlimited internet such as Vision on Sprint and want to use internet at a hotel without incurring costs:

HOW DO I USE MY A900M AS A MODEM?
I am passing along my step-by-steps for using your A900 as a modem. It works perfectly for me with a standard Vision plan and no Phone as Modem plan. I'm getting download speeds of 230kbps. Thanks a million to all for your help and suggestions!

Do not download Sprint's Connection Manager!

1. Download the modem driver package HERE

2. Run setup.exe and install it

3. Disable the phone's modem NAI by selecting MENU > # > 1 > 0 > 040793 > 9 > off > ok (On the A900, enter 040793 as the security code. On the A900M, enter the phone's MSL)

4. Restart your phone then connect it to your laptop via bluetooth or data cable.

5. Create a New Connection (using WinXP) by selecting Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network Connections > File > New Connection > Next > Next

6. Select "Set up my connection manually" > Next > Next

7. Enter the name of the ISP which will be "SprintPCS" and click on Next

8. Enter #777 and click on Next

9. Uncheck "make this the default connection" and click on Next

10. Check "add shortcut to my desktop" and you're done!

With the phone still connected, double click the SprintPCS shortcut on your desktop, click on Properties and make sure the SAMSUNG CDMA modem is selected.

While you're in Properties, why not tweek the settings a bit.. with the CDMA modem selected, click on Configure and set the max. speed to 921600 kbps.(TY Maze, from sprint forum)