I couldn’t resist when I saw this. In my opinion, this is one of the best Dilbert’s ever.

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Well worth the daily laugh.

My seven year old son bought a Rubik’s Cube with some money that he saved. He wants to learn how to solve it but isn’t quite experienced enough to do it all on his own.

As the leader of this house, it falls upon me to figure it out and teach him (that, at least, is the excuse I use because I have always wanted to learn how to solve it).

So, I have been spending quite a bit of time learning how to solve it. I can solve it in about 3 minutes now and have all of the major patterns memorized. I am starting to learn some of the simpler patterns so that I can learn how to make it easier for him (plus, I think it is pretty cool).

I realized, as I was spending some time this weekend, that there are many lessons that can be learned from the Rubik’s Cube. Applying these lessons to life and business will help us get a lot more accomplished.

Here they are (or at least the top ten that I came up with).

1. If you spend six, ten or twenty hours on something, you can’t expect someone else to learn it in 10 minutes.
2. If you make the same decisions based on the same variables, you will get the same results.
3. If you make different decisions based on the same variables, you will get different results.
4. If you make different decisions based on different variables, you will get unpredictable results.
5. One small change to one small thing can have large ramifications on other things.
6. Messing something up is easier than putting it together.
7. After you have done it once, it will only get easier the next time.
8. Learning the patterns makes all the difference.
9. Nothing great was ever accomplished without a lot of time, patience and persistence.
10. If you give up, you will never get it done.

For so long, PETA has complained that eating meat is bad. The claim is that it is bad to eat beef for any number of guilt ridden reasons.

I have heard all sorts of arguments as why it is bad.

"People shouldn’t hurt animals."

"Cows emit too much CO2 and therefore are bad for the environment." (but killing them is bad ???)

"You aren’t civilized."

All of them are aimed at the guilt.

The fact is that you can’t guilt someone into doing what you want. They may feel guilty for a while, but if it is legal and generally accepted as ethical, guilt will never work. Guilt as a business model is never any good.

Finally, PETA understands that the way you change minds and hearts is by appealing to the financial sensibilities of people. It is the same problem that prevents me from recycling. So, PETA is putting their money where their mouth is.

They are offering a $1 million prize to the first scientist that can produce lab-grown meat in bulk.

While I think it is a waste of time and effort and will probably turn out like Tofurkey where only the people already interested in a vegetarian lifestyle will consider it as a viable food, at least they are trying something sensible to change behavior for a change. I don’t think that you can honestly expect a meat lover to say, "I love meat, but this lab grown stuff is so much better!" There is as much a psychological reason to eat meat as anything.

I’ll tell you this… nothing is going to prevent me from going to Goodwood BBQ and getting smoked chicken and ribs.

mmmmmm… BBQ.

I received an email from another VoIP provider that found my post on Why Not Packet8. The message was from someone from the management team at Phone.com (how about that for a great url?)

What impressed me was the even though they found my email from my blog and could have launched into a sales pitch, it was more of, "Hey, I noticed you have a problem here… let me know what we can do to help." I liked that approach.

So, I commented that I didn’t really understand why a softphone was such an issue. It doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, I have used it on a locally hosted VoIP system, so why in the world would it be hard on an internet hosted system. Alon Cohen, one of the partners was kind enough to respond. It has some great information that I asked if he wouldn’t mind letting me post. So, I have posted it at the end of my comments here… unedited.

I haven’t tried their service yet because they don’t have a soft phone, so for what I want, it probably won’t work. Their willingness to communicate with me was so compelling I think that I will try it out with a land line and let you know how it works. They did offer me to write something about a new product they are going live with in a few weeks (risky since I wasn’t so nice to their competitors). I think I will take them up on that when it comes out.

Any way, here is the content from Anon’s email. I think it contains valuable information about how softphones work and probably points out why I have some of the frustrations that I have.

I want to start by saying the so far Skype outdone all the others in terms of quality, even though I believe they have outsourced that from a German company at least in the early days of Skype. The above means that in spite of what I am going to write, the task of making a good Softphone is not easy but also not impossible.

The problem with a Softphone is that the environment in which it operates if very unstable with many variables. Unknown CPU power, unknown Mic and speaker gain parameters, unknown audio device, unknown audio device drivers, unknown load on the computer at any given moment, unknown amount of memory on the system, unknown internet connection quality, and so on. Sometimes people don’t even have a microphone but let’s leave those aside.

To really get a Softphone right you need to start with a good audio handling. For that you need a good audio system on your computer i.e. good microphone that does not pick up noises from the disk, good speakers and low delay audio drivers and hardware. Add to that a decent CPU power and you can start with the most basic requirement which is Echo cancellation. Without Echo cancellation you will be annoying the other callers or suffer constant feedback. I don’t accept a headset as solution for echo, it is just not convenient.

Echo cancellation or AEC takes significant CPU power and is delicate process, the CPU power is usually needed for a Wideband Codec (like the one used by Skype) low CPU power narrow band Codecs will be sufficient to make a call to standard telephony systems PSTN, but will not have any benefits when working with another Softphone on the other end.

The next step is dealing with internet connectivity, which instantly tests the Softphone jitter buffer capabilities which determines the latency of the call. I use at my house wifi N router with a 802.11 B Bridge for my VoIP hard phone and I am getting very good results, but wifi or hotel LAN are seldom reliable. Jitter Buffer handling technologies exist on any VoIP hard phone, and eventually deal with all the other problems like packet loss. Those technologies on a hard phone handle the network problems, on a PC however they need to also deal with many issue that the OS creates. Windows is not a real-time operating system and the last thing you want is for the OS to add artificial jitter to the pacts arrival times when the OS decides to access the disk or open outlook. Mishandling of the Jitter or large jitter translates to unacceptable latency and voice breakups.

All the above, translate to patents and royalties and cost for each copy of a Softphone. You probably see the same news we all see where each month another VoIP company is settling yet another patent infringement. The other cost aspect which is associated with Softphone is the usually the unlimited plans and high hacking probability which means additional cost associated with handling fraud.

As you can see all this is not trivial, and hence there are few good soft phones available – I am still looking. I hope that PC manufacturers will create some standard for the audio system that they can call VoIP ready and hence some of those problems will go a way and will make the task of developing a good Softphone much easier in the future.

Personally I often use skype and skype-out with my skype friends and when I travel.

As I joined Phone.com and got my own VoIP hard phone, I used that as my main communication tool from home, every time I dial, the speed and the sound quality are so significantly better that I simply don’t use PSTN anymore.

Since I always travel with my Cellular PDA Smart Phone, I use the Phone.com service to direct my office calls to my cell in case I don’t pick up at my desk phone. I also directed my home numbers (which I transferred to Phone.com using LNP) to my cell phone. I also use Phone.com to collect all my voicemails (which ever they come from e.g. office, home or cell) from my e-mail on my PDA Smart Phone, so all in all, the need for a Softphone is really reduced. It is possible that VoIP companies realize that and simply decide to invest fewer efforts on the Softphone business.

 

Corey Smith is the Chief Web Architect for Dealer Marketing Systems.

It is interesting… after my post on an MBA, I was doing some general web browsing and found an interesting site called InstantDegrees.com where you can get an "accredited college degree in just five days!"

"Wow," I thought. "I can’t believe I spent so many hours writing so many papers and sleeping so little when I could have just paid $155 for my MBA."

Here’s how it works. There are, evidentially, legal loopholes in the law that allow certain institutions to simply print your degree and additional credentials for a fee. Here is something I found interesting:

It is probable (although not guaranteed) that your degree will come from a country other than the country of your residence. If you feel that the degree you seek must come from a location near you or that you cannot explain your degree thru distance programs (which by definition mean that physical attendance at the institution is not required) then you should not apply.

So, basically, if I can’t successfully lie to my employer or potential employer effectively, then I shouldn’t apply.

Here is my favorite line from their FAQ page:

You must not forget that your degree is obtained by exploiting legal loopholes.

We are often asked what this means and the best definition, that neatly encapsulates the concept, is that an institution is legally formed and operating in such a way that it makes the granting of a degree legal, whereas this would otherwise be illegal.

So, to be clear. This should be illegal, but we have found a way to circumvent the law. Not only that, but the likelihood is that the school is not, never has been nor ever will be a school teaching any subject whatsoever. It is an organization created for the sole purpose of creating fraudulent documents.

Okay… I really don’t care that they are circumventing the law. What I care about is the idiot that thinks this is a valid way to get a degree. I am not sure that I would want to work for anyone that would be stupid enough to consider me as a valid employee if I could get through an interview with no education to speak of.

Here’s the deal. If I ever were to interview someone who had a degree from somewhere over the ocean or from a university that I had never heard of, I would ask a few questions about their college experience. If it was pertinent to the position, I would want to talk about the classes they took. I would want to know exactly what their experience was like.

If it wasn’t pertinent to the position, then there would be no purpose for me to see the degree in the first place.

Bottom line: There may be some legal gray area that allows this, but if an employer found out, he would be a fool not to fire the person. If I knew of anyone that used a service like this, I would make it a point to ensure that person’s employer knew.

Even with the legal gray area… there is no ethical gray area. It is ethically just wrong.
Corey Smith
Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free

I often get the question, "Corey, was your MBA worth the time and money spent?"

My response is always, "YES!"

In the past, I wrote about the value of a good education, but I still get a lot of people that want to try and quantify the value of an MBA degree in terms of dollars and cents. I don’t know that anyone can say that. I had a great career providing well for my family without an undergraduate degree. I had a great career providing for my family without a graduate degree. I have a great career now, but I don’t know that I can say it is directly related to my degree, but my MBA has opened a number of doors for me.

As an MBA, my experience has been that the only thing it can do is open a door. If you aren’t qualified because of your lack of experience or you did poorly in your education, it will show and your MBA will be useless. If you don’t have the ability to walk through that door, there is not much that you can do with your degree… regardless of the type of degree it is.

The best benefit of my MBA, from my perspective, isn’t that an employer puts greater value on me. The best benefit for me is the understanding I gain of how to manage a business. In my business that I now run (since earning my MBA) I know there are many things that I do differently than if I hadn’t earned my MBA. I am much better at management, delegation, finances, marketing and technology.

From a monetization perspective, I don’t think most employers have a scale that says if a person has an MBA, they get a 10% raise. Some might, but most don’t. When I earned my MBA, I found that there was no added financial reward directly from earning it. I was working for an employer at the time and got a nice card with a few signatures on it. My financial benefit has come in the business I run because I have a greater understanding of how to run a business. I understand better what businesses need. I can provide a better solution to the problems they face.

When it comes to other employers, my opinion is that a position is worth what it is worth. If your experience says you can do it, you should get the job. The problem is that sometimes it is hard to show your level of skill. The MBA degree provides a measure of credentials to what you say your experience is.

I do think that there is a perceived value for an MBA as well. When searching for a new job, both the employer and employee think that the MBA is worth more, so the offer may come in higher. However, you probably shouldn’t expect a pay raise just because you earned an MBA unless there is a specific policy in place. You will likely need to find a new job to realize an increase in pay.

You could do what I did… get an MBA then go out on your own and use that new education for yourself instead of for someone else.

Corey Smith
Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free