The Refresh Orlando Heirs

Best Places To Live, Enjoy Life, Start a Business, or Retire: A
Novel Approach. James Clayton Napier

“Hence the first principle in changing one’s character is to
seek another environment, to let new forces play upon our unused
chords, and draw from us a better music.” — Will Durant I was 17
and growing up in the Midwestern farming community of just under
1,000. My youthful intent, looking out over the cornfields of
Ohio, was to find my best place on the planet, move there, and
stay the rest of my life.

67 moves later (many of them short-term broadcasting
assignments), that best place has been a bit elusive.

Ask me about geography. I’m able to reproduce maps in my mind
after hundreds of hours spent looking for THE ONE PLACE that
spoke its “Yes” to me. What did I, back at age 17, expect to do
there once I located it? I would do the best work of my life:
writing, painting, taking long walks and receiving a thousand
breezy notions to guide my destiny.

Over the years I got out on the open road whenever I could and
explored the Oregon coast, Jekyll Island in Georgia, the Apostle
Islands off the Northern tip of Wisconsin, Lake Michigan’s
shoreline, Sequim and Port Townsend in Washington, all over New
Mexico, all over Texas, Florida, Missouri, South Dakota,
Colorado.

“Well, what now?” I asked myself. “I’ve traveled nearly
everywhere and still no location or city speaks to me in the way
I’d love to be spoken to. Surely, there’s an answer waiting for
me somewhere. There must be.” Being impressed with astrology in
general, I ordered one of those astro-cartography reports with
the planetary lines drawn across the map. I looked at my “good
lines,” such as the Jupiter line (for prosperity), the Venus
line (for pleasure), the Mercury line (for communication), the
Sun line (for vitality) and surmised, “This line-map is too
vague. I’ve been on all those lines and need a lot more guidance
than this is giving. I’ve been on that Venus line and felt
anything but pleasure while visiting Biloxi!” The
astro-cartography map left me mostly unsupported in my mission
of finding my place in the world.

Yes, of course, personal peace and psychological well-being are
an inside job. Inside jobs can be done anywhere and shouldn’t
depend on being in a certain place. Right? I also wanted to wake
up each morning, however, totally taken by the beauty of nature
around me. And my dream has always been to be a philanthropist
to others’ dreams. This requires earning more than a
barely-squeaking-by broadcasting salary.

While working in Texas I met Cait Benten, an astrologer who also
specialized in relocation. After studying at my birth chart and
relocating it to other latitudes and longitudes, she said, “Now,
look at this, James. Let me explain what happens to your chart
in either Bar Harbor, Maine, or Hot Springs National Park,
Arkansas?” She explained the ways in which each place softened
some of the most difficult aspects of my chart and gave more
potential for financial flow. Each place was different, of
course, but both were better in several ways than Cetral Texas.”

So, based on her advice, here I am — writing this article from
Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. The company I work with
is located in Phoenix, Arizona.

Perfect? No place is perfect, but I do sense many of the
difficult aspects of my birth chart, as pointed out to me, are
eased and opportunities are opening. Relocation astrologers —
not the kind who sell the “cheapy” reports — the real ones who
work with you personally and care about your life, are on the
cutting edge exciting developments in astrology.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow spoke about our human need for
money, security, home — a sense of place, community and
belongingness — our desire for love and appreciation, for
expression of our creativity and our desire for
self-actualization (becoming what we may be in this lifetime).

For most of us the prospect of a start in a new location
reinvigorates us.

I’d like to share with you my personal favorite definition of
security. “Security is not a place of ideological stability but
a direction inspired by curiosity.”

The teenage boy living in a rural Ohio community, of course, had
no idea his dreams & travels and moves (which were business and
family related), would turn out to be invisible threads leading
to relocation/locational astrology and a new way to make life
choices.

I wish you all the best in your life choices. Consider
relocation astrology if you feel stuck where you are currently
living.

Joseph Campbell, the great writer and lecturer told his
audiences, “Your sacred place is where you find yourself again
and again.”

Helping us find our best or sacred place to live, work, retire,
and enjoy our lives as we desire to enjoy them is what
relocation astrology is about. I suggest you look into it when
facing or contemplating a major life change.

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free,
and the world before me. The long brown path before me treading
wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself
am good fortune, strong and content I travel the open road.”
–American poet Walt Whitman, The Open Road

Life, indeed, is quite a journey isn’t it? Robert Lewis
Stevenson wrote: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to
arrive.”

I’ve done the traveling hopefully part. There is much to be
said, I can tell you, for ARRIVING and getting SETTLED IN!

One of the essential aspects of time management is scheduling.
In spite of increased automation and other high-speed devices,
we still seem to be having so much to do and so little time
left. But effective people know how to manage their time and
achieve their goals with minimum of stress. The ideal way to
make the most of your time is to schedule your activities and
maintain them.

In order to draw up a realistic Schedule for all your
activities, you have to first be clear about your immediate or
short, medium and long-term goals. The goals would cover all
areas of life - career, social, family, physical, religious or
any other areas. Once these are clearly outlined, you will have
to accord these goals priorities in terms of short, medium and
long. This calls for a lot of realistic understanding of the
existing situation and your personal commitment to achieve the
same.

Based on the goals, you can then schedule your activity. Your
broader goals should be assigned a clear time frame and you have
to then plan your action that will take you closer to achieving
them. The most common feature found in many of our daily
activities is that we spent 80% of our time on non-essentials,
while only 20% is accorded to the most vital jobs. This results
in non-achievement of our goals and a sense of frustration and
stress at our inability to attain the same.

You have to form To Do Lists for your daily activity and set
priorities for them. It is essential you assess the nature of
job and assign those work that can be delegated or outsourced to
others and concentrate on the vital areas that require your
personal action. Successful leaders always know when and how to
delegate or outsource jobs, while leaving them to concentrate on
the most critical areas of action.

Another very important element of Scheduling is blocking
appropriate time for any contingencies. With practice you will
learn how much to set aside for these. There are always some
unexpected elements that will demand more of your time than
originally envisaged. Of course you will not be able to guess
when interruptions will occur, but by giving space in your
schedule, you will give yourself the flexibility to react
effectively to issues as they arise, even as you maintain your
overall time schedule.

Thus an effective Scheduling would be one that is based on your
personal goals - short, medium and long - and To Do Lists-
daily, weekly, monthly - based on priorities. When both these
elements are clearly covered, you will have a well-set Schedule
for you to follow.

Needless to say, there are great varieties of diaries,
calendars, organizers, PDA or a software package like MS Outlook
or GoalPro 6 and the likes. However, a simple Mind Maps will do
the job of all these put together. That is because Mind Maps
provide a wide scope for inputting your goals, To Do List, Time
Schedules and much more all in one comprehensive Mind Map. You
could then create separate Mind Maps for Goals, To Do List, Time
Schedule Lists, etc.

Apart from providing you a complete picture, such Mind Maps
provide a sense of motivation and purpose behind your actions.
These Mind Maps thus serve as a record and mark your progress.
They help in providing connectivity amongst your varied goals
and actions and pave way for applying creative solutions and
approaches for achieving them. It is the simplicity and
vividness of Mind Maps that makes them such a useful device for
plotting your life and actions. You will learn that being
successful often means working smarter than just harder. Using
Mind Map technique not only takes you nearer to your goal but
faster and easier. Try it to know its effectiveness.

Let’s face it. In today’s modern world we like things fast. Fast cars, fast food, and especially fast computers. So when it comes to graphics on today’s PCs, we not only want them to look good, we also want them to perform as fast and as smooth as possible. Luckily ATI and NVIDIA have been engaged in an all out war for the past 5 years, fighting to deliver us faster and more innovative products before their competitor can. Needless to say, I’m in support of this war.

ATI was king of the high end graphics card race for a long time, until NVIDIA recently took a big step ahead of them with their GeForce 7 series. Not to mention that NVIDIA was almost a year ahead in the dual video card market with their SLI technology, leaving ATI even further behind in the race for the PC gaming market. However, ATI is striking back by releasing their much delayed R520 GPU (now dubbed the X1000 series) and offering their own dual video card solution, named CrossFire.

The CrossFire technology is very similar to SLI in that it allows your computer to use two graphics cards instead of one. In theory, this could accelerate your graphics processing power by two. In reality the performance gain, although good, is usually nowhere near twice the amount that a single card produces. Still, the main concern for high end gamers and enthusiasts is having every last drop of performance that is available, and with CrossFire, that’s exactly what you get.

The CrossFire has several distinct advantages over SLI. The main advantage is that unlike SLI, you don’t have to pair up two of the exact same cards. Instead you only need two cards that are within the same series. For example, owners of a Radeon X800 CrossFire Edition card can use any other card in the X800 series. If the slave card (the non-crossfire card) is of a lesser ability than the master card (the CrossFire card) it will automatically downgrade to the same ability of the slave. This should help encourage those who have already invested in a high end ATI card to upgrade to a CrossFire system, since they would only need to buy the appropriate CrossFire card to upgrade. However, buyers should be sure that their motherboard is equipped with ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire chipset, since it is a requirement for CrossFire.

The CrossFire technology also has a wider compatibility range than SLI. Wherein SLI only works with certain compatible games, CrossFire works on them all. In addition, the CrossFire supports four rendering modes, while SLI only supports two. The one notable mode introduced on the ATI cards is the CrossFire Super AA (Anti-Aliasing) mode. This special mode combines super AA and multi-sample AA and offers up to 14x AA in comparison to NVIDIA’s best of 8x AA. This makes games look more crisp and clear, instead of blocky and pixilated.

One of the biggest problems that ATI has to face is that a lot of enthusiast chose to go with SLI, instead of waiting for ATI to come up with a dual card solution. ATI lost a lot of potential market share by allowing NVIDIA’s SLI to remain unchallenged for so long. However, there are many loyal ATI fans that have remained vigilant, and will undoubtedly embrace ATI’s CrossFire.

So even though ATI bided its time, it looks as if it was well worth the wait. ATI not only offers a more powerful selection of video cards, but also a superior dual card solution. Still, SLI is well established and offers higher resolutions than the CrossFire. Although CrossFire may be superior in many ways, SLI is still a very strong competitor. So if you’ve been considering going dual card, now is a great time to do it. It’s much better than fast food.

Nicholas Spriggs at desktop-computer-guide.com is dedicated to providing up to date information in the computer and technology fields. For more information subscribe to DCG Ezine, or check us out at desktop-computer-guide.com/video-card.html

Brian McAfee 2838 Mason Muskegon Heights 49444 MI USA (231)
737-8726 brimac6@hotmail.com

What Is American Interventionism Really About?

By Brian McAfee

The war is, for the most part, over. Iraq has been liberated,
the country is in a shambles but Halliburton is on hand to
rebuild. Most of the troops are back home or on their way. With
apparently overwhelming public support, why were those Pesky
demonstrators out there? All across the U.S., in Europe, in
India, pretty much everywhere. After all, isn’t Saddam Hussein
the most evil man on earth, a blight on the planet? Well, yes he
is, as are Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Manuel Noriega. All bad
bad men, with one thing in common- 20 years ago we (the U.S.)
armed, trained and financed them.

Manuel Noriega was a well paid CIA man, “our man in Panama” as
it were. Heavily involved with cocaine trafficking, he was
convicted and imprisoned in ‘89 after a closed door trial,
leaving a cloud over the CIA of apparent involvement of drug
smuggling and involvement in the crack epidemic in our inner
cities. Osama bin Laden first surfaced in Afghanistan in 1979
with the U.S. armed trained and financed Mujahideen, a violent
group of Islamic fundamentalists. They overthrew the Soviet
supported government in Kabul and replaced it with a number of
successive theocracies notorious for their human rights abuses
and treatment of women and girls. They evolved into the Taliban.
The green jacket bin Laden has been seen in since 9/11 is a U.S.
military issue from the days of his partnership with the U.S.
when he was fighting against the other “Great Satan”, the Soviet
Union. The current situation brings us to the 50 year mark of
excessive intervention that has resulted in massive bloodshed
throughout the third world.

In 1953, the elected president of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh,
decided to nationalize his country’s oil supply, for the usual
reasons, infrastructure, health care, and education. This, of
course, outraged the U.S. and Great Britain who of course
thought the oil was theirs. After a short time it was. They
instilled the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who lived a life of
indulgence for the next 25 years. The SAVAK, the Shah’s secret
police which had close ties to the CIA, any perceived threat or
demonstrations for democracy were met with imprisonment, torture
and sometimes death. Under the guidance of the CIA, leftists
were the primary target for SAVAK and in 1979 when the Islamists
swept to power under the Ayatolla Khomeini, there was little the
Shah or SAVAK could do about it. They fled to the U.S. In ‘54
another elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, decided it would be a
good idea to nationalize some of the unused land in Guatemala,
one of the poorest countries in the world, the land though not
being used, was claimed by United Fruit a U.S. owned company
that was under the control of U.S. Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles. And, you guessed it, the elected president had to
flee. Guatemala has been run by a military dictatorship. Over a
hundred thousand poor and indigenous people have been killed and
our bananas are cheap.

In the Congo in 1960 the U.S. had a problem, there was a new
political leader on the rise, and he was concerned about poverty
and justice in his country. They had just come out of the racist
and colonial yoke. The CIA got on it. The next year Patrice
Lumumba was dead and the U.S. had another dictator in Mobutu.
Indonesia in ‘65 was probably an exciting place to be, colorful,
politically lively, a strong left and an equally strong right
and a charismatic if somewhat bizarre president Sukarno was
leading a fledgling democracy. Indonesia, even then, was a major
oil producer. Of course the U.S. government was concerned and
the CIA was quite active, a little too active, they planted a
story of an eminent communist takeover and gave the right wing
military a list of “communists” that they wanted dead. The
military and Suharto dictatorship exceeded the list by between
half a million to a million in one of the worst massacres of the
20th century. (Sukarno having been kicked out of the presidency
in the U.S. planned and sponsored coup). Ten years later the
Indonesia story takes another turn. East Timor, the newly
independent former Portuguese colony is under threat from
Indonesia. The U.S. gives a green light for a takeover to
Indonesia, giving them U.S. weapons and their blessing in a
state visit [Ford and Kissinger] as their plane is leaving the
tarmac the Indonesian military makes its move invading the poor
island made up of very poor Aboriginal people. The Indonesian
military being very cruel, over time killed about 200 thousand
of the island’s 800 thousand inhabitants.

A few years ago this story took another turn. In a vote East
Timor declared its own independence. The Indonesians violently
retreated off the island, burning and looting as they went. The
U.S. and Australian military were present to make sure their
former ally in crime left an interesting twist to this is that
prior to the U.S. and Australian assistance to kick out the
Indonesian occupiers, in a short article in an Australian
newspaper it was announced that oil and natural gas was found
off shore in East Timor territorial waters. [Over 400,000 were
killed in these struggles]

From ‘68 to ‘73 according to William Shawcross, a war reporter
and author of “Sideshow”, about the bombing of Cambodia the U.S.
routinely and indiscriminately bombed poor villages up and down
the borders of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The numbers of non
combatants killed are unknown because there was no census but it
is likely to be very high. Another tragic atrocity that few
Americans know about but resulted from direct and violent
interference in another third world democracy. In 1970 Chile
elected its first socialist president Salvador Allende. A
medical doctor, Allende’s first act as president was to make it
mandatory that all school children should be given milk during
the school day as he noticed a certain vitamin deficiency among
some of the poor children which impacted their learning. About a
third of the country lived in severe poverty and his ambition
was to rectify this and pay for the usual, infrastructure,
health care, schools. Chile’s major natural resource is copper
and Allende offered the main U.S. owned copper company,
Kennecott, the current [at the time] market price for the value
of the copper mines at the time, they said no and involved the
U.S. government, chief among them Richard Nixon and Henry
Kissinger. In short, the U.S. enacted an embargo, boycotts and
in the end when nothing worked out to their satisfaction a coup
was orchestrated out of Washington. Salvador Allende was
assassinated on 9/11/73. The U.S. supported the Augusto Pinochet
dictatorship in which over 3,200 were murdered by Pinochet’s
henchmen. Many that were murdered were women and about 25,000
more were imprisoned and tortured, all civilian leftists.

These examples of U.S. conduct and foreign policy over the past
half century are just a partial glimpse of the whole story. Our
conduct throughout the third world up to this point has been
very anti-democratic. Another aspect to this is a national
election that took place in Bolivia about five years ago in
which only 5% of the electorate voted, the reason for this being
the people had no influence in their own country. The IMF and
World Bank had taken control of the nation’s financing cutting
funding for education, health care and infrastructure,
privatizing everything possible, bringing foreign investors in
so they could attempt to profit off the backs of the poor. This
has been a long war on the poor of the world. A change in
attitude and conduct is needed. A change in which mutual
respect, mutual benefit and compassion are paramount. Almost all
of the aforementioned occurrences were preceded at home by
declaration that they were being carried out for “Democracy’s”
or “freedom’s” sake, none of which was true. I’m proud to be an
American but many of our political leaders should be ashamed of
themselves. Whether it were Nixon and Kissinger or are Bush,
Cheney and Rumsfeld they should do the right thing not the
avaricious thing. The current situation in Liberia may provide
an opportunity to do this. With America and Americans frequent
proclamations of “We are the greatest country in the world.” the
“Greatest democracy in the history of the world.” and “We’re
Number One.”. We should strive to achieve compassion as our
nation’s chief virtue, only then can we truly say we are the
greatest and number one.

I was elated to discover this detached house with a big garden that was available for rental in a quiet suburb when I was first transferred to another town to work as an engineer.

It was located at a cul de sac, the house being the last house in the row. I thought it was perfect..quiet, newly constructed and with a good neighbor who was a banker.

Without reservation, I rented the house and my family shifted in a week later.

3 months later, I almost lost my life. I was travelling as a passenger in a friend’s car when someone lost control of his car, and crashed into the Honda car I was travelling in, killing the front seating passenger. I was at the back and had a smashed face, and was warded in the hospital and had to stay another month for medical treatment.

But how is this related to the house I was staying in then?

In fact, I was never a fan of feng shui, the ancient chinese art of geomancy.

When I was warded in the hospital, my neighbor who was a banker and also a chinese scholar, visited me and began to spill the beans.

The house where I was staying was facing bad “chi” or an aura of bad atmosphere was emancing from the house that was facing directly opposite my house. The occupant of that house was a monk who works as a “chanter” who performs the chanting ceremony over the dead. This is a chinese practise for those who have died, the chanting being akin to prayer to make the way easier for the dead spirits to depart.

According to my neigbor, every day when this monk returns home, he brings along the bad “chi” from the dead, and which then emants out towards the direction of my house.

A shiver went down my spine when I heard this news.

In my imagination, I could almost see evil spirits following this monk and congregating at his home before fanning out in the direction of my house.

But what about my neighbor? How did he protect himself against this bad influence of “chi’?

“I hang out a mirror,” this chinese scholar said. This mirror when hung outside reflects and deflects the bad chi and mystically protects the inhibitants from ill effects and ward off evil. This is the ancient art of feng shui at work”, he added.

Three months after the accident I recovered fully without the further need for follow-up treatment at the hospital. I was not ready to remain a day longer in that rented house. I did not hang out a mirror. I had enough and the solution was to just shift house. We moved out!

I met my banker neighbor friend 5 years down the road. I asked how he was. ” I have never been better,” he replied, ” and my mirror has always done its job”.

Yes, we can protect our house, ourselves and belongings with the most sophisticated security alarm systems. But apart from this, where we choose to believe in the anciet art of feng shui, we need a simple mirror to be hung outside our house to ward off bad “chi” and evil.

Are you a believer of the ancient chinese art of feng shui?

Peter Lim is currently a Certified Financial Planner. He believes that while we are not fighting with flesh and blood, but against the principalities of the air when it comes to the realm of the meta-physical, we need to ensure the safety of our homes, businesses and property as well. Learn how to secure your own home with the best security alarm systems in the world by visiting his website http://alarm-systems.best-online-guides.info

This month’s article is one of the things I still find comes up as a frequent question, “what’s the difference between Viruses and Spyware”? so I will try and answer that here.

One of the biggest
slowdowns of a PC is caused by viruses, adware or spyware as it’s often called.
Before you can benefit from any other optimisation tips or improvements you
really need a system relatively free from those pests.

A virus is a piece of malicious software code
written to cause some kind of damage to a computer system or network or even
the Internet itself. Viruses spread, similar to their biological namesake, from
one machine to another and can spread havoc wherever they go. They are most
commonly spread by sharing files with others or through email attachments where
they can be set up to send themselves to all the addresses in your email
address book.

Adware is usually dowloaded and installed
along with some other program without your knowledge and unlike a virus doesn’t
spread by itself. Very often you click “OK” without reading the terms
and conditions and by doing so you agree to have the files installed. An
example is, you see a “free” program on offer that you think might be
useful and download it without thinking. Even some anti-spyware programs
install adware and the website earns money from the ads that are clicked
on.

The catch is that the extra files introduced
are used to determine things like your surfing habits and the data is used to
serve up popup ads or redirect your browser to a page other than the one you
wanted. Some of the programs can be used to install keyloggers which can send
back information about passwords and bank details etc. Adware is not a security
problem it is more an annoyance especially when you have ten different programs
trying show ads. The amount of computer resources it uses up slows your system
to a crawl.

Spyware is more malicious and evil intentioned
and is designed to steal something from you. It can be downloaded by visiting
the wrong types of websites or on the back of other files the same way as adware.
Spyware can often be hard to remove as it can continually recreate itself and
hide somewhere on your hard drive.

Programs such as trojans can be downloaded without you knowing about it and then used by hackers to gain
access to your computer at a later date. The name comes from the story of the Trojan horse where the
Greeks hid inside the wooden horse left as a peace offering and were wheeled in
to the fort by the Trojans themselves. Then at night the Greeks crept out of
the horse and opened the gates to let the enemy in. Trojans and adware unlike
viruses don’t spread themselves.

It is wise to run more than one spyware
checker as no one system gets rid of them all. You can never be certain you
have every one removed because new ones may not have been discovered and the
Spyware program doesn’t recognise it yet. I use the two free ones
“Spybot - Search and Destroy” and “Adaware 6.0″ both easily found on google and I also use this one available at

http://www.pcsandthings.com/c-spy.htm

which comes from a reputable company that specialises in removing
spyware.

Sometimes people say to me “doesn’t my
anti-virus software remove spyware”? Well the answer is most don’t and
even if it does I always find a specialist product works best. Beware also of
bogus spyware scanners available on-line which actually install their own
spyware once they have removed their competitors. Sometimes you run a free scan
and it finds all sorts of nasties but you will have to sign up and pay to
remove them. I have even seen it that they find things that don’t exist or try
to frighten people into believing they have lots of spyware when all they have
are advertising cookies.

Cookies are small text files that websites
leave on your system so that when you return they can customise the page that
loads or they can count you as a returning visitor. They are harmless and most
of them are useful. They can be easily removed by deleting them in your browser
settings.

So you need to be running a suitable and up to
date antivirus program and one or more Spyware checkers.

Make your computing experience a bit less stressful and help speed up your computer at http://www.pcsandthings.com

If you’ve been looking for a creative art project to do with the kids, look no further! I recently did a fun project with my daughter and thought I’d share the how-to for other parents who are looking for ways to keep their kids busy and creative all while making something useful for around the home!

What You’ll Need

A wooden step ladder
Spray paint (your choice of color)
Sponges (either cut into shapes of your choice or pre-purchased in shapes)
Letter Stencils (of your child’s name)
Craft Paint (your choice of colors)
Newspaper (the older the better)
Smock or old clothing for you and your child

Now you’re ready to start creating. A little preparation is needed before bringing your child into the project. Take the step ladder outside and put it on the newspaper and spray paint it, covering the entire step ladder thoroughly. Let it dry overnight and you’ll be ready to bring your child into the project the next day!

Bring the painted ladder to your work area (outside is recommended). Work with your child to sponge paint the shapes onto the ladder in the colors of your choice. Let it dry thoroughly.

Next, help your child stencil their name(s) onto the ladder. I’d recommend doing it on the side, and not the top, as the top will take a bit of wear if you plan to let your child use it. If it is to be a decoration for the porch of your child’s room, putting the name on top will be ok if you choose to do so. Let it dry.

Your child now has a ladder, personally designed by them, to use. Put it in the corner of their room and through their favorite stuffed animal or trophies or photographs on top. You can also use the ladder as décor in your garden or on your porch. More practically, you can let your child use it for help in reaching the bathroom sink or other out of the way place they need to get to on a frequent basis.

While you can buy a step stool in the store, making one with your child not only gives you an activity to do together to get in some quality time, but it also will serve as a reminder for many years of the time you spent together and may even end up as a hand me down to your grandchildren.

And remember, above all, have fun!

Chuck Greene is the owner and operator of a little ladder website called Ladder Fanatic. It is a testament to his unique (some may call it crazy) love of ladders – especially the Little Giant Ladder brand ladders. www.ladderfanatic.com

Title: “Why Leave Token-Ring?”
Copyright © 2002
Author: Andy Quick
Contact Author: mailto:andy@findmyhosting.com.
Publishing Guidelines: You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as a link to “FindMyHosting - Web Hosting Search” is included. For the link URL, please use http://www.findmyhosting.com Although preferred, no notification required.

Introduction

Why Leave Token-Ring?
Andy Quick

One day I was having a discussion with a telecommunications director, swapping stories about network projects we were each working on. “We propose to spend $100,000 replacing all of our token-ring local area networks throughout the system next year.”, he said. “Token-Ring is old, out dated junk that has reached the end of its life.” “So what?”, I responded. “Just because something is old doesn’t mean it needs to be replaced.” “Come on.”, he responded, “Token-Ring completely limits the ability of new applications on the desktop to take advantage of client-server and web-based applications. PC’s are useless on Token-Ring networks.” “I completely disagree”, I argued. “I’ll bet you’re about to waste some of your company’s money on this project.” Before you decide to make a blanket switch from a Token-Ring architecture to Ethernet, analyze the costs, benefits, and risks.

Show Me The Money

“What money are you saving by switching to Ethernet?”, I asked my colleague. “What’s the financial justification?”. “Like I said”, he responded, “Ethernet is cheaper and faster. Over time, our company will spend less on keeping the networks up.” Although this may be true, investing $100,000 without quantifying the benefits up front may mean you’re throwing money down the drain. We shouldn’t rely on our gut to make these types of spending decisions. Unfortunately, many technology professionals attempt to justify projects using qualitative benefits. Always strive to convert qualitative benefits into hard numbers. “That would be nice, but it would take forever to quantify the benefits” he said. “This is a strategic project. You really can’t put a value on this type of initiative.” I totally disagree. But rather than argue further, I decided to perform the analysis on the spot with the help of my colleague.

Identify Conversion Costs

Before you can determine whether switching from Token-Ring to Ethernet makes sense, you have to identify the costs of the actual conversion. Usually, these are easy to quantify. My friend provided me with the following figures:

Per PC, the conversion costs are:

Labor - $75
Cabling - $200 (they’re running category I cabling and need to convert to category 5)

Per floor, the conversion costs are:

Ethernet switch - $150 (includes labor)

Per site, the conversion costs are:

Intra-floor cabling - $200 (includes labor)

The next question I asked was how many sites, floors per site, and PC’s per floor were in the scope of his project. He again provided me with good numbers:

Site A - 5 floors, 20 PC’s per floor
Site B - 1 floor, 50 PC’s per floor
Site C - 3 floors, 17 PC’s per floor
Site D - 8 floors, 22 PC’s per floor

So the entire project cost would be calculated as follows:

Site A Conversion Cost = $200 + (5 x $150) + (5 x 20 x $275) = $28,450 Site B Conversion Cost = (1 x $150) + (50 x $275) = $13,900
Site C Conversion Cost = $200 + (3 x $150) + (3 x 17 x $275) = $14,675 Site D Conversion Cost = $200 + (8 x $150) + (8 x 22 x $275) = $49,800

Total Project Cost = $106,825

Identify the Benefits

After you quantify the conversion costs, quantify the benefits. At this point, my colleague didn’t have an answer off the top of his head. After a few seconds to think, he said “ethernet cards come built into the PC’s we purchase. There’s no incremental cost. If we keep Token-Ring around, we’d have to buy a new Token-Ring card for every new PC.” Now we’re getting closer, but we still haven’t justified this project yet. I asked him how many new PCs did he expect to purchase next year. He said about 100 and provided me with the following costs:

Card - $150
Toke-Ring Cabling - $250

Total cost for a new PC = $150 + $250 = $400

“See. I told you. This is a no brainer!” But then I asked him, “Of the 100 PC’s, how many were incremental vs. replacements of old PC’s ?” He gave me the following information, by site location:

Site A - 20 incremental, 10 replacements
Site B - 50 incremental
Site C - 10 replacements
Site D - 10 incremental

The $250 per PC cabling cost does not apply to replacements, so the costs would only be $150 for each PC replacement. You also cannot replace part of a floor, but you could have ethernet installed on some floors, and Token-Ring remain on others. I asked him to breakdown the PC count to a floor level:

Site A- 20 incremental are all on one floor, the 10 replacements are scattered throughout the other floors Site B - Only one floor in the building
Site C - 10 replacements are scattered
Site D - 10 incremental are scattered

Now the light bulb started to go. We figured out the costs of keeping Token-Ring vs. installing Ethernet on a site-by-site, floor-by-floor basis. We came up with the following costs (I didn’t bother describing the calculations. You could easily figure it out for yourself using the assumptions made earlier):

Site A - Token Ring ($8,000 for one floor, $1,500 for the others), Ethernet ($6,500 for the one floor or $28,450 for the entire building) Site B - Token Ring ($20,000), Ethernet ($13,900)
Site C - Token Ring ($1,500), Ethernet ($14,675)
Site D - Token Ring ($4,000), Ethernet ($49,800)

The light bulb was completely on at this point. The best approach to this project would be to phase in ethernet by converting one floor at Site A and all of Site B. Let’s compare what would have happened if my friend had gone with a full replacement vs. a phased replacement.

Full Replacement - Spend $106,000 to save $34,500
Phased Replacement - Spend $20,400 to save $28,000

My colleague was very thankful at this point. He realized that careful planning and analysis could ensure that his company’s money was being spent wisely. Clearly, there are other benefits of changing a LAN architecture that were not even touched upon. Router integration costs and application performance could also help drive the decision. Take the time to identify all of the possible costs and benefits of a Token-Ring to Ethernet conversion before starting the project. You could be throwing money down the drain!

Andy Quick is co-founder of FindMyHosting.com (http://www.findmyhosting.com), a free web hosting directory offering businesses and consumers a hassle free way to find the right hosting plan for their needs. Feel free to contact Andy at andy@findmyhosting.com in case you have any questions
or comments regarding this article.

Andy Quick is co-founder of FindMyHosting.com (http://www.findmyhosting.com), a free web hosting directory offering businesses and consumers a hassle free way to find the right hosting plan for their needs. Feel free to contact Andy at andy@findmyhosting.com in case you have any questions
or comments regarding this article.

So your children are bored? They want something to do? “No! Not that mum, something fun!”
Sound familiar?

If you’re lost for ideas then you’ve definitely come to the right place. There are plenty of things you can do with your children that are both educational and will keep them occupied for hours.

If your children are old enough why not take a camping trip? This not only provides them with an excellent opportunity to run around in fresh air and sunshine, but gives them an invaluable knowledge of survival skills. Have the children help around the campsite, collecting the firewood and preparing meals. Experiment with meals that you can prepare while out camping, for example cooking vegetables in the hot coals of a fire. If you’d prefer something a little closer to home you could help your children set up a tent in the back yard and camp there for a night. Play pretend games about being away from home on a camping trip.

An activity that will keep your children occupied for hours on end is gardening. Help your children to build a garden bed and choose seeds or seedlings to plant in it. Help them decide where to put their garden bed and what they would like to grow. Take them to buy their plants or seeds and show them how to plant them. Creating a garden bed is something that will also teach your children to take responsibility for a certain task. When they have their garden bed they will have to water it each day and pull out any weeds that might grow. Through gardening they are able to see the fruits of their labour, either by watching their flowers grow and being able to pick them if they choose to, or by watching their vegetables grow then harvesting and eating them. Creating a veggie garden is also a great way to get kids into the habit of healthy eating!

Other ideas for children are cooking, games, making gifts and doing other crafts.

About the author:

Phil Wiley is the author of the best selling book Mini Site Profits www.minisiteprofits.comand writes the free weekly Letter from Phil at www.ozemedia.com

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