5 Simple Rules to Saving Money

Many of us would agree that saving money is an essentially important part of our daily activities yet, don't know exactly how to start and sustain it.

When I was a young kid, I was taught the value of saving money and the very traditional way of doing it - saving a few amount and putting it in a bank. That's it! There were no specific instructions or rules given on how to achieve this task and how I will manage to sustain it.

These 5 simple rules is what works for me and surely may work for you too. I wrote them here so I can always remember on how I did it and to help others who wishes to get themselves on track to saving wisely.

 

1. Set your purpose for saving money.

Just like with any other things you wish to do, you've got to have a roadmap on where you plan to go. Saving money is no exception and you should know where to put your money on and for what purpose.Knowing your goal and purpose for saving money also serve as an inspiration. It is an index to your faithfulness to save.

Some examples of purposes for saving money are: Retirement Plan, Children's College Education, Buying a house, and Emergency Funds.

 

2. Start now and just do it!

Just with any natural laws of Physics, it takes more energy to move an idle object. It is the same thing with habits, the hardest part is always to get something started.

The best time to get your savings habit (if you haven't done so), is to start NOW! One of the best advise I got on getting things done was from a Nike commercial that says: "Just do it!".  When I strongly believe on something that I know is right for me,  I just do it , take it head on and not ask too many questions- period.

So, instead of being critical about things while you waste time thinking, getting it started NOW and think as you move along is the best way to make things done.

 

3. Pay yourself first.

This is nothing new but rarely done. This means that before you pay the government (for taxes), your utilities or mortgage; you have to pay yourself first.

Most often than not, I hear families do it the other way around - pay the bills first then what ever is left will be for savings. This is a HUGE, HUGE mistake that is why many unsurprisingly, never save enough for their future.

How much should you be saving? A rule of thumb is to save between 10% to 15% of your gross monthly income - I save 17%. If your in your middle thirties and haven't really saved much, I suggest you to save as much as possible including some windfalls like bonuses or cash gifts. Catch up on the lost years that you haven't.

 

4. Do it automatically.

One thing I don't and never plan to do is budgeting. So you ask how I manage my savings without budgeting? I do it automatically!

Doing it automatically means 'automatically' deducting my income (be it for my insurance or managed funds) before it even reaches my hands. This way, I don't get tempted to use my money from other purposes I don't intend to buy. Discipline is something I don't have and so I work only with whatever income is left after deducting 'automatically' for my savings.

 

5. Do not keep it in a bank!

For many of us, we put all our savings in a bank where it only grows 1% per year. This is precisely the reason why I never put my nest eggs in them because you virtually inhibit your money from growing.

Be wise and put your money on managed funds or other investments where you have complete control on how your money is invested on. Many managed funds have at least an annual compound interest rate of 10% per annum.

Would you still keep it in a bank?

Initiating an Almost 'Paper-less' Office

I work in a health care insurance industry and in this business, paper works are undeniably enormous and quite unsightly too. Though the initiative of doing 'paper-less' has been floated before, no real plans were laid out and no real participation by the management has been committed.

We all clearly say that doing 'paper-less' provides many potential benefits, and cost is one of them. Whenever people encounters challenges on implementing this program, all of a sudden they withdraw and not talk about it. True enough, it is very challenging - so this is where the fun and excitement begins!

When we talk about a 'paper-less' program, it is synonymous to using a special software to manage all paper works for distribution and storage. There are many softwares (aka Document Management Softwares - DMS) available in the market but many of which are insanely expensive and will surely make you lock-in to their service - that is something we do not want of course.

For several years, I have had the opportunity to work on several different DMS's and I would say there are many good ones out there as there are many bad ones too. One thing to consider as well is the company that makes these software and we wanted to make sure that they will still be there even after two decades of use.

What are the qualities of a good DMS?

A good DMS must atleast have the following properties:

• Easily accessible: All employees must have a ready access the uploaded documents for retrieval and review so there will be no physical distribution of documents that will eat up their desktops.
  
• Sharing: Uploaded documents must have the capability to share it with others based on the privileges provided by the owner of the document.
  
• Accountability: This is done in two ways: 1) version control to monitor all changes made by every single user and, 2) document permission to set security restrictions to every document.
  

GoogleDocs & Spreadsheet - A good way to start.

To give you an idea on how our office is setup, we have 60 plus employees both in our insurance business and medical clinics which are located in other parts of the city. Yes, papers are used a lot so my challenge here is to significantly minimize paper usage as much as possible if it cannot be remove at all. Since we are using GoogleApps platform anyway (thank goodness for that), for our email, calendar and instant messaging service; we might as well maximize all other services like using GoogleDocs & Spreadsheets as our Document Management System (DMS).

Implementation Plan

Sometimes, the only best option to make a plan like this successful is not to give your employees any other option. ;) Really! Believe me it works all the time. Below is my way of implementing an almost 'paper-less' office:

1. Make a memo to everyone concerned telling them about your plan and when it will be effective. The schedules of training, transition and implementation must be clearly stated to avoid potential conflicts in the future.
   
2. Create a simplified guideline and policy regarding this initiative. This will help the transition to paper-less easy for everyone to follow.
   
3. Provide training sessions and learning resources. Since most of the things they need to know can be found on the Internet. I provided our employees links to videos and interactive tutorials for them to study. training sessions are provided only if there are some advanced questions to be asked. Doing this saves time and effort on my part.
   
4. Remove all MS Office or Open Office applications installed on every desktop. This will ensure that all employees will be forced to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets and that these documents will be saved in Google servers.
   
5. Disallow document saving in any local hard drives or USB drives. This ensures better security and protection in cases of theft, calamity or virus attacks.
   
6. Provide regular review and feedback sessions to measure success of the project plan.
   

I have given my staff relatively three(3) weeks for the transition. With that, I think that is ample time for them to adopt to the new system.

How are you implementing yours?

How do you recover after being fired?

When do you pull the plug and say it's over in a nice way? Hard as it may seem but sometimes when you have stretched your limit to give an employee several chances to shape-up, there are not much option left but ask the staff to leave.

I mentioned in my previous blog post that one very critical factor for a successful leadership is having a very very good members in your team. A team is as strong only as its weakest link. Of course we do not only stop there, it takes nurturing your employees to make them stronger and competitive.

I have been fired several times by my former employers for various reasons and I know exactly how it feels like to be rejected - really! But looking back, it has taught me life's valuable lessons and how I was able to pick myself up and learned from those adversities. Here are some very useful advice to those who has been laid off from work and hot to deal with them.

1. Change your outlook. Rejection is never easy but blaming yourself, your boss or the company won't help either. View it as a crossroad to new opportunities. Opportunities to learn and make new things. Seize this opportunity!
2. Start refocusing on things you should have done but can't while employed. If writing or consulting is a hobby that you do on the side, now is the time to go full time on them. Most successful business start up as a hobby and surely this is something you wanted to do all along.
3. Leave the bitterness behind. Who can't feel some bitterness after being laid-off? Every body does, but leave this negative feeling behind as you walk out the door and embrace a new life. Dwelling more more about it certainly will make your days ahead even more bitter and may put you in depression.
4. Keep busy. The only way to fight bad thoughts from coming back is to keep yourself busy. Do something healthy and fun like taking out the kids to a park, play basketball, a date with you girlfriend or wife. Just keep busy.
5. Avoid being alone. Ask for peer support. Be with your friends and ask them to accompany you during these hard times. Being alone will only increase the chances of you feeling sorry and blaming others or yourself.
6. Read the Bible. I guarantee you, this is the ultimate medicine. All concerns, fears and questions are answered in this sacred book! Just pick it up, open and read any page that opens up in front of you and behold - the answer is there. It's no coincidence God is speaking to you.

Turn your single PC into multiuser workstation.

One of the biggest challenges faced by every IT manager is asking additional budget for infrastructure even if it is reasonably justifiable. Even if the budget gets approved, it does take some time before it gets realized.

A case in point is requesting purchases of new PC desktops for new hires. Delaying it is not an option for very obvious reasons – lost productivity hours.

Userful(tm) has provided a solution to such challenges. It turns a single PC into a mutiple workstation. All you need is a dual-head video card, an additional monitor, keyboard and mouse and installing Userful software in your Ubuntu Operating System and voila! Every user works in its own independent session. What's even more amazing is that it runs surprisingly fast even with 512 MB of RAM.

The advantages of doing such set-up is clear and I have enumerated them below:

• Saves on electricity bills,

• lessens equipment purchases,

• maximise resources, and

• improve workforce productivity.

Userful comes in different liceses. 1) A FREE 2 user license and 2) paid multiuser, annually renewable licenses. Try the first option in your office and see if it works for you.

10 Things You Should Do After Installing Ubuntu On Your Laptop

I recently installed Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on my laptop and it went without a hitch. This OS is very responsive, relatively easy to use, very stable and has a remarkable user support. Ubuntu is undoubtedly an excellent alternative to MS Windows XP/Vista but new users coming from these operating systems may still find the transition quite drastic because of some minor annoyances:

• the menu on the top window,

• 'ugly' system default fonts,

• the Ubuntu brown theme isn't quite aesthetically appealing, and

• mouse 'skips' everytime touchpad is accidentally touched.

I have outlined some suggested things to install and configure to make Ubuntu experience feels “homey” for users coming form MS Windows XP/Vista. These suggested changes will absolutely make them go wow and not switch back to old Windows.

1. Install CompizConfig Settings Manager

   Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins.

   See Instructions

2. Install Emerald Windows Decorator

   Emerald is the sister project of beryl, and while they don't require each other to run, they are developed in parallel so they may work as close together as possible. Emerald project is a window decorator that provides the borders to your windows normally provided by Metacity or Kwin.

   See Instructions

3. Install MS True Type Core Fonts

   This package allows for easy installation of the Microsoft True Type Core Fonts for the Web including: Andale Mono Arial Black Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) Comic Sans MS (Bold) Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) Impact Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)

   See Instructions

4. Install Gnome Main Menu Applet

   A better alternative to Ubuntu's default drop-down menu. Clean, organized and it can get you around different applications within just two clicks of a mouse.

   See Instructions

5. Disable Synaptics Touchpad While Typing

   For many of us, our laptop touchpads get in the way of our typing quite often and can actually cause us to highlight or minimize things we didn't intend. So, this will help to alleviate that by making a small delay in the response of the touchpad after typing.

   See Instructions

6. Install & Configure WiFi Radar

   WiFi Radar is a utility for managing WiFi profiles. It enables you to scan for available networks and create profiles for your preferred networks. At boot time, running WiFi Radar will automatically scan for an available preferred network and connect to it. You can drag and drop your preferred networks to arrange the profile priority.

   See Instructions

7. Install Java Runtime Engine

   The Java Runtime Environment (JRE), also known as Java Runtime, is part of the Java Development Kit (JDK), a set of programming tools for developing Java applications. The Java Runtime Environment provides the minimum requirements for executing a Java application; it consists of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), core classes, and supporting files.

   See Instructions

8. Install TimeVault – A Version Control and File Restore

   By default, Ubuntu system doesn't provide a way to restore directory or file changes. Creating a backup of files and directories of files and restoring back to a specific version is a requirement every desktops should have. This is much like Mac's Time Machine or Microsoft's Previous Version.

   See Instructions

9. Backup and Restore Your Ubuntu System

   Should you encounter problems on your Ubuntu system it is always wise to provide a way to restore your system to it's last working state. This guide provides a practical approach to setting-up one.See Instructions
   

10. Know Where To Get Help
    
    Ubuntu's got lots of support. There were times I had problems on my installation and immediately searched the forums and voila – most of the things you need answered are there. If you need a more immediate support you can always go to #ubuntu IRC channel. Those guys there has been very helpful. Here's a link if you need some support:
    Ubuntu Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/
    IRC Channel: Simply download the Hgnome chat and go to #ubuntu channel
    
    

NB: These are a compilation of resources on how to outfit your Ubuntu Installation for laptops. Different users have different requirements but this is, I believe, are the essentials for common laptop users on Ubuntu.

How-To Setup RAID1 on Ubuntu OS

This short how-to provides a step-by-step process on setting up a software based RAID1 disks on Ubuntu system. RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is a computer storage schemes that divide or replicate data among multiple hard drives (array) and is designed to provide data reliability or performance or both.

RAID1 configuration is a mirrored set that duplicates data across several disks at once. Such configuration provides the following advantages:

• Fault tolerant from disk errors and single disk failures and
  
• Increased read performance. Atleast 100% for two disks in array.
  

Requirements:

• Atleast two identical SATA hard disks
  
• Optional one(1)SATA hard disk with same size as that of the first two for hot spare
  
• Ubuntu Alternate CD (x386/x64)
  
• A PC with CDROM Drive
  

STEP 1: Initial Setup

1. Insert the Ubuntu Alternate CD and make your CDROM the first bootable device.
   
2. Select [Text Only Installation] from the selection menu upon boot up.
   
3. Select the appropriate language of your choice and keyboard formats.
   
4. Upon reaching the hard disk partition setup, choose [Manual Partition]
   

STEP2: Partitioning

1. The Ubuntu Partitioner will detect the number of hard disk devices available in your computer. For our setup we have 2 disks with 250G each and this will be identified by your Ubuntu partitioner as: sda(SATA Device A) and sdb(SATA Device B) respectively.
   
2. Partition each device with the following configuration:
   

   
   

Device	Partition Type	Size	Bootable
sda	RAID	249.5 G	Yes
	RAID	0.5 G	No
sdb	RAID	249.5 G	Yes
	RAID	0.5 G	No

Note: Instead of choosingExt3 filesystem as what you would normally do when partitioning a non-raid drive, select RAID for all partitions allocated for each device.

3. Proceed writing to disk for changes when prompted.

STEP3: Configuring RAID

1. Select [Configure RAID] option
   
2. Select RAID1
   
3. Type 2 for the number of active devices
   
4. If you have 1 hot spare disk available, type 1 or 0 if non available.
   
5. Select sda1 and sdb1 which will be represented as md0 and used for installing root files. The equation for this will be: md0 = sda1 + sdb1.
   
6. Your done setting up the first multidisc device (md0).
   
7. Create another Multidisc Device
   
8. Type 2 for the number of active devices
   
9. Select sda2 and sdb2 which will be represented as md01. This will be used for swap space later. The equation for this will be md1 = sda2 + sdb2
   
10. Your done setting up the second multidisc device (md1)
    
11. Finish creating multidisc.
    

STEP4: Setup File system

1. Setup md0 device as Ext3 File system type and mount it as root (/).
   
2. Label it as root and flag it as bootable
   
3. Setup md1 device as swap.
   
4. Write changes to disk
   

That's it!

MSOutlook Fixes for Google Apps GMail

One of the initial challenges I encountered when adopting Google Apps (GA) to our workplace is connecting MSOutlook email clients to GMail. Depending on the MSOutlook version, the following are the observed side-effects of GMail-Outlook integration:


1. Initial MSOutlook connection problems.

If POP isn't working properly for you, please ensure that your
settings are identical to those listed below. Even small differences
may prevent Gmail's POP service from functioning properly.

If POP isn't working properly for you, please ensure that your settings are identical to those listed below. Even small differences may prevent Gmail's POP service from functioning properly.

E-Mail Accounts tab

Your Name:	(optional)
E-mail address:	(your Gmail address, including '@gmail.com')
User Name:	(your Gmail address, including '@gmail.com')
Password:	(your Gmail password)
Remember password:	(optional)
Log on using Secure Password Authentication:	disabled
Incoming mail server (POP3):	pop.gmail.com
Outgoing mail server (SMTP):	smtp.gmail.com

Outgoing Server tab

My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication:	enabled
Use same settings as my incoming mail server:	enabled

Advanced tab

Incoming server (POP3):	995
This server requires a secure connection (SSL)	enabled
Outgoing server (SMTP):	465 or 25
This server requires a secure connection (SSL)	enabled
Server Timeouts	(Greater than 1 minute, we recommend 5)
Leave a copy of messages on the server	disabled

Downloading Google POP Troubleshooting Tool will help you identify if you have your pop client is misconfigured.


2. Unusually slow downloads of attachments.

Make sure to download the latest updates of your MSOutlook version and UNCHECK leave copy of messages on the server option. In my case, this has somehow marginally increased the download speed of your mail attachment.