Lose Your Job Now: 5 Tips to Get to Severance Heaven

You've schemed, you've scammed, you've plotted, but the elusive layoff has evaded you for the last time. Your desire to go to that spacious severance-package-in-the-sky needs to be fulfilled without further ado. How will you get upper management to see how pointless your position really is? Follow these five tips and soon you'll be packing your pictures.

1. Work in customer service.

Between voice-response systems, outsourcing to other countries, and form emails, who needs to talk to a person? See Exhibit A:

"Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for your feedback. At this time we are unable to . We highly value you as a customer and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We hope you will consider NeverDoingBusinessWithYouAgain, Inc. in the future.
Sincerely,
Generic Jenny"

With quality responses such as these, who needs to talk to a customer service agent?

2. Apply for middle management.

In the pyramid-scheme of employment, middle management is the most superfluous. You're the guy whose job it is to make sure that other employees are doing their jobs. If you work for a micro-manager, your boss isn't only making sure that you're doing your job; he's also making sure that your employees are doing their jobs. If your industry is in a slump, has put a freeze on hiring, and employee numbers are eroding due to attrition, why have 10 people managing 250 employees when previously they were managing 300? Is $60,000/year, benefits, paid vacation, and personal time really worth an increase of 0.002% in productivity? If you can do the math, so can upper management. Submit that e-application immediately.

3. Work in the telecommunications industry.

Between cell phones, cable internet, VoIP, and mergers, the telecommunications industry is all but dead. Countless individuals been talked into keeping a landline by their telephone company "just in case" their cell phone goes dead. These consumers will soon realize that their cell phones almost never go dead, and, if they do, they can always port to a different company with better coverage areas. With "naked DSL" (DSL service that does not require a landline) becoming available in more and more areas, landlines will soon be a distant memory. And the phone number the customers have had a cozy, intimate relationship with for the past 25 years? These landline numbers can be ported to cell phones, too! The heat of the home phone has fizzled.

4. Work somewhere for a long time. Remind people of this. Constantly.

Sure, there's a learning curve for every job, but somewhere between years one and two you'll hit that proficiency peak. After this point, you need something else, like incalculable business relationships or unique knowledge, to keep you afloat. If you don't have these, don't seek them. If you do, downplay these assets. Upper management will begin to wonder whether your 10 years of experience is really worth all the extra pay.

5. Work somewhere with a disproportionately high sign-on bonus.

If you're Larry Page or Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, or an actuary with dueling master's degrees in Actuarial Science and Mathematics, you deserve a hefty sign-on bonus. If you're flipping burgers at McDonald's or telemarketing at Geico, you don't. When a company with a "high school diploma preferred, but not required" policy is offering a sign-on bonus, it's because they're desperate for help during an uncharacteristically busy season. These companies are hoping that attrition will conveniently dispose
of these extra employees when customer volumes return to normal. If this doesn't happen, you're looking at your coveted cash cow of unemployment when they drop the axe.

The Cost Of Talking

With so many companies offering “the lowest call rates, and the best service" who do you believe and are there any additional costs hidden in the small print? Do they all give per second billing by email, full cost analysis, discounted BT line rental and personal account managers? On mobiles do they offer free connection, and line rentals from £4?

There has never been a better time to review the cost of your telephone charges and the service you are getting. Does it really match your company’s needs? The telephone has been with us for so long we just take it for granted, along with all the services available. Mobile phones too are an essential tool in our need to communicate.

We never give a thought to the length or cost of a call, it’s just another bill that arrives at the end of the month.

Yet how many of us look at the cost of this communication? So it is important to know you are on the best tariff and your provider keeps it that way as well as giving you first class service.

Can you think of a friend or colleague who doesn’t have a mobile phone?. There are now more mobile devices in the UK than there are users. You can now make video calls on your mobile watch TV & play games. Mobile phones are fashion statements too. You can flip, slide, swivel,& twist. plus with so many options how do you know which company, tariff, or phone is the right one to go for? And where is the business benefit from so much choice?

Can your current provider offer you VoIP? (Voice over internet protocol) a type of software and hardware allowing you to use the internet to transmit your calls and save a fortune in line rentals by reducing the amount of lines you need. Can they provide a full VoIP telephone system or a simple converter for your ordinary analogue telephone?

When was the last time you checked if you are really getting value for money with rates generally falling ?

Perhaps the question to ask is what does my business actually need from all it’s phones, both fixed and mobile?

If you need low rates, consolidated services and reliability, then these are probably the same reasons you need to speak to your telecoms provider.

Vonage Shorts Out, Under Armour Has Lofty Ambitions

Under Armour, Inc. (UAI) debuted on November 18, 2005 at $31. The maker of branded performance clothing is growing its brand recognition via the use of hip brand promotion that is trying to wrestle away interest from the traditional buyers of Nike (NKE).

Under Armour has targeted the youth and athletic market where it competing with the established and strong Nike brand. Under Armour has a projected five-year annual earnings growth of 22.50% versus 14% for Nike. But on the valuation side, Under Armour is discounting in significant premium growth over that of Nike. Under Armour is trading at 46.19x its FY07 and a PEG of 2.75 versus 14.27x and a PEG of 1.06 for Nike. Clearly, Under Armour will need to perform to its lofty expectations going forward; otherwise, the stock will sell off. Nike is a superior value play.

Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE/VG) debuted on Wednesday at $17, the mid-point of its estimated IPO pricing range of $16-$18. The provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an early entrant into the rapidly growing area of VoIP and presently has about 1.6 million subscribers but the company has yet to turn a profit. VoIP uses a broadband connection to make phone calls.

High advertising costs to acquire customers have hindered margins. Vonage is the current leader due to its early entry into the VoIP business but I see the company facing a difficult uphill climb as intense competition surfaces from major cable companies and the Skype service from eBay (EBAY).

The reality is Vonage has to spend extraordinary money on acquiring customers whereas for cable companies and eBay, there is already a significant customer base to market to. Vonage will soon realize this.

Hedge fund manager and the host of the hugely popular ‘Mad Money’ show on CNBC said Vonage is a “piece of junk,” which I have to concur with. And with Vonage currently trading down at $13, the market may also view Vonage as over hype and not enough substance.

Port Forwarding (what is port forwarding)

What is Port Forwarding

The term Port Forwarding is referred to the technique of forwarding a network port from one particular machine to another machine. This technique is usually applied when the receiving machine is behind a network router. By doing this, it enables users from outside the LAN (local area network) to reach a private user in the LAN itself. Now every machine on the internet has at least one IP address which is used to identify that particular machine or device. Every IP address is divided into many ports. The ports are there for the machines to communicate with each other, for example (computer A is sending some data to computer B), and therefore forwarding the port will also enhance the speed of the transmission between the two machines.

Now let's take a look at how the machines are connected to the internet when behind a router. The router is first connected to the internet which we will call it external IP. The router will then have its own internal IP address. (every machine/device will have at least one IP to identify them self). The router will then assign an individual IP address to every machine that is connected to the router. The router's IP address will then act as a gateway for all the machines that are on it's network. When a particular machine in the network wants to send data out to another machine in the internet, it will first pass through the gateway before the router sends it out to the recipient. The recipient however will not be able to tell who in the network is sending him the data as the internet will only show the external IP address here. Likewise, when another machine outside the network is sending data to a recipient inside the network, the data transmission will be transmitted to the external IP address and not directly to the intended recipient. The router will then decide which recipient should receive the data that is being transmitted. Fortunately, the NAT in the router will take care of most of the re-directing except for those programs which NAT are not designed to work with. This is where port forwarding comes into place. This simple process is just a way for users to tell the router which machine in the local network is the intended recipient and that the data should be directed to him. You will need to set up port forwarding rules for every port which you are using and any rules set up for a certain port will only work for that certain port.

One important factor to note is that a port can only be used by a program at any one time. For example, when computer A is using port 6000, it is using port 6000 on it's internal IP address. If you have set up a port forwarding rule for computer A and port 6000, the external IP address's port 6000 is also in use. This means that you can only use port 6000 on one computer on the network at a time. Using port 6000 on two computers at the same time would violate the one program rule, and your data would get messed up.

This generally sums up the term Port Forwarding. Any comments can be directed to www.voip.com.sg/voip_feedback.html

Repairing a damaged CD

Why compact discs get damaged. Compact discs are all plastic. Compact discs are even not sensitive to magnetic fields as in case floppy disks, which never used to retain data when even a slight magnetic field is crossed with floppies. Then what is the reason why CDs get corrupted?

CDs work on the principle of reflection of light. CD drives have a built in laser that is used to read data. When laser is focused on to the CD the beam get reflected to a point when there is some data on that are i.e. 0 or 1 the points where light beam lands back is different which symbolizes the bit value.

When something on the CD breaks the path of the laser light, something like dust particle or something else like a FINGER PRINT!!!. Finger prints are nothing but natural oil from skin that sticks to the surface in contact with the skin in a pattern of skin cells. This oil or say fingerprint helps in refraction of light and loss of data to the reading source i.e. laser.

When CDs don't run the reason is because something is interrupting the laser to read the shinny side of the CD. But I have important data what should I do now?

Most of the times it is because of dust or fingerprints, you need to clean the CD.
You can clean your CDs with plain water or a bit soapy water. And it is better to clean the CDs after some time. But this doesn't mean you should start putting your CDs in dishwasher or washing machine every week.

All you need to do is to wipe the shinny side of the CD with a clean moist cloth and try running it again make sure the CD is dry before you run it.

People say about using all different sorts of things to clean CDs like toothpastes, wax polish etc. but I would recommend you to buy some CD cleaning kit. But if you still want to go try, do let me know the results.

And one thing I must add is that DVD work on the same principle and are bit more sensitive to dust and fingerprints. You can also use the above mentioned procedure for DVDs. But you need to be careful with DVDs

Telecommunications With Broadband Satellite Internet

When you have a need for telecommunications, broadband satellite Internet is the only want to go. You need a high-speed connection to use the video equipment properly. If you have a DSL or cable hook up, you might find the telecommuting with video a little lapsed in time. You want real time conferencing without a delay. The newer equipment today for talking face to face with friends, a family member or business associate is important with the cost of transportation today. People want something that can keep them in touch that is reliable and fast.

Broadband satellite Internet is the only way to use video and phone equipment without worrying about delayed and dropped communications. Most of the equipment for Voip and teleconferencing today requires a high-speed Internet connection to work properly. The images and voice are transmitted over the Internet in digital form and converted back to image and voice when the recipient receives it. In order for this to work in real time, you need a fast connection speed. If you are using dial up, cable or DSL, you may see a lapse in communications that can be confusing for those sending and receiving the communication.

Many people are finding out that broadband satellite Internet is the only way to work from home in many areas that do not have DSL or cable available. If the work requires a dedicated phone line, Voip is the way to go for many. Unfortunately, if the person is using a slow connection the call can be delayed, which causes problems if you are a home phone operator. Although, not all calling centers will accept satellite Internet as a way to work, more and more companies are finding out that satellite is more reliable then other means of connecting to the Internet.

Networking is easier with broadband satellite Internet as well. People who network can use the same service as the main computer in the home. This means there is no extra equipment needed to network. You can have more than one computer hooked up to satellite Internet without any problems. If you need something fast and reliable, satellite is the way to achieve speed. Dial up is much to slow for the newer computers and networking, but satellite lets you achieve the speed you need and makes the computer perform the way you intended it to when you bought it.

Anyone who needs television reception and satellite Internet should consider one of the top rated service providers. The best way to select the best provide is to check connection speeds, download and upload times as well as reliability of the service. If you have access to the southern sky, with no obstacles in direct line of the satellite dish, you can start receiving high-speed Internet as soon as you call and set up an appointment for installation. Even some older computers will come alive with high-speed Internet. You just need the right service and reliability to use the Internet with speed.

Who Knew that Modern Technology would Eliminate Landlines on Campuses?

Montclair State University is mandating freshmen have a cell phone. This gives the school the opportunity to determine where the student is at any time. When this process began, the students were not really happy but, now, the students realize that this voluntary tracking system provides more safety. This gives the school a better way to contact students and maintain a line of communication.

Some schools are eliminating lines and jacks from their dormitories. Previously the schools were making money on these services. Since more and more students don’t connect the phones, this effectively eliminated income and became a cost for initial installation.

The University of Cincinnati has a voluntary program offering all incoming freshmen a free mobile phone. The phone features the school mascot, Bearcat, on the welcome screen. Some colleges are sticking with traditional phone service. Perhaps they are worried that cellular service isn’t as reliable.

In the future VOIP technology could be a viable alternative. Many colleges now have broadband access which would make this a feasible way to go.

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey is expanding its housing. The new housing will be equipped with a computer network that is wireless.

While the choices are many, it appears that colleges are making use of modern technology and looking to the future to make more innovative changes.