Mindconnection eNL, 2008-10-19

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Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Miscellany | Thought for the Day

With a GPS unit from Mindconnection, you can take a trip and know exactly where you are. And, you can get directions to where you are going.

While CONgress charged you $850 billion and gave you nothing in return, you can buy the unit at right for just under $360 and really have something nice. We have other units, also. Check them out.

Page updated during review on 23JUL2009.

But something I noticed is the entire book is geared toward answering the wrong question. The author assumes that the input load to the brain is an outside variable. It's not. We, as individuals, have the ability to control the quality and quantity of that input.

You can read the review here for this issue's brainpower tip.

Following the cascade of bad financial news over the past few weeks, some readers have asked me for my advice on what to do.

Cathy from The Cathy Factor advises, "What you want to do is spend wisely."

(You can find some of Cathy's research work on www.mindconnection.com and www.supplecity.com, if you look through the article libraries).

The panicked reaction of many people has been to just stop spending. Such a reaction is akin to not eating because you're too fat. It's just not sustainable, and the results are unpleasant.

The problems that have caused this current mess have been with us for a very long time. Before the $850 billion bailout, we were already carrying a load of $9.4 trillion of federal debt. You see, we never paid off the Vietnam War. Or a host of other spendoggles that CONgress has foisted upon us.

• If you want to solve the nation's economic woes, let your misrepresentative in CONgress know you oppose any spending increases for any reason, and you want spending slashed. Period.
• If you want to solve your own economic woes, just review your budget and your priorities and adjust things as your good judgment dictates.

As the fallout from this mess continues to hit us, don't go into financial hibernation.  So, there's a major panic on Wall Street. Big deal. They'll get over it. No need for the rest of us to go into a tailspin.

If you get pink-slipped

Unfortunately, the ripple effect may cause some of our readers to lose their jobs. If you are working now, be thinking about how to prepare for getting your next job. Your single best preparation method is to be active in your trade or professional organization. That is how you meet and impress the power players who may get you hired. That assumes, of course, that you volunteer to help, do what you say you will do, and treat others respectfully.

Put your energy into getting that next job. Even if it's a consulting gig or temporary work. Getting involved in your industry is how you conduct effective networking. Any other kind of "networking" is a waste of time.

Remember that after the initial dead wood cut, layoffs are almost always done by spreadsheet. Most bosses disagree with the names on the layoff list, as usually it's their best performers who are targeted. These are the folks who earned raises by making it rain. But all the accountant sees is the raise and not the rain. This "interchangeable employee" mentality means there is little you can do to prevent being laid off.

And let that be a lesson to you in how you conduct your own finances: value and cost are two different things.

• If you store personal information on your computer, make sure you have adequate passwords and are behind a  firewall. Passwords need to be a mix of letters and numbers. Don't base them on names of people or pets.
   
• If you store personal information on your computer, create separate logins (accounts). When you normally log in, do so as a user with limited access that does not include access to the files that contain this information. If there's a breach while you're logged in, the person making the breach won't see those files.
   
• You may have read that antivirus software is essential for identity theft protection. It's not. Most of these programs are crapware that bog down your machine without preventing an infection anyhow. What does prevent infection is the practice of safe computing. Don't click links on unsolicited e-mails, don't open attachments from people you don't know (especially zip file, exe files, or doc files), and so forth.
   
• Consider any removable drive to be a potential security leak, especially the USB "thumb drives." If you keep confidential information on one, don't let it out of your sight. If the drive fails, smash it to bits before discarding and discard the pieces into separate containers at separate times to foil even a determined drive restoration expert.
   
• Don't file your federal income taxes electronically. The agency that allegedly protects your tax information is full of leaks, security holes, and crooks (source: GAO). Information is a bit harder to steal from a paper return than from an electronic one.
   
• Don't give your password to anyone. If someone else needs access to your computer, say for technical support, have a guest account that person can use.
   
• Don't give your username or account name to anyone. A person who has that information now has half the information necessary to gain access as you.

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1. It takes 850 peanuts to make an 18 oz. jar of peanut butter. It takes 535 nuts to spend $850 billion to only partially clean up a mess of their own making.
    

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