Adventure Phoenix

Over the past several years I have been following alot of open-source options to replace my linksys or dlink router’s factory firmware.  I soon discovered dd-wrt as my best option and installed v21.  I loved the simplicity of how their web-based admin works plus all the features they offer.

More recently I began to have serious problems with connecting to the internet.  It started soon after I added a 7th home workstation to my home network.  Yea I know, 7 computers is alot for a house but if you know anything about me, I’m a computer junkie.  I have specific computers preforming tasks, running my security system, tvs, etc…  My house is almost completely computer driven.  But thats another topic for another day.

After adding my new computer I soon discovered that pages like Facebook, NewEgg.com, etc… would time out on every third or fourth click.  I called Comcast thinking it was something with their system.  But they ran speed test & line quality checks to verify everything was running smoothly.  I even plugged my laptop directly into Comcast and did a speed test for my self and I downloaded well into the 28mb/s and uploaded well into the 7mb/s.  After a few days of playing around with settings across my network, I soon discovered a little setting in my firewall/router called ‘Maximum Ports’ which set a max amount of TCP/IP connections into and out of my network.  It was set to 512 but next to that was a small text that said default setting 4096.  I thought to my self for a second and said oh well lets try changing it back to its default.

Instantly my internet speed across all machines returned to normal.  After monitoring my router for a few minutes I noticed my active IP connections hovered around 800 sessions.  Thus this simple setting was my bottleneck.

Apparently when I upgraded from the first version of DD-WRT, the original default setting was 512 but now they upgraded that to 4096.  Regardless my wife & I are happy campers now with super fast internet.

What you can learn from this is that sometimes you just gotta try something totally unexpected and you might be surprised that the result actually works.

Best!

Most of you who know me will hear me reference personality types such as Owl, Turtle, Rhino, or the Bee but more recently I have expanded on my four friends. Back at the first of the year I hired a friend of mine to create the personification of my personality traits. I say my traits but honestly they were developed back 2200 years ago. All I have done is given them a different twist to what was already created in todays terms, standards and communication methods. This blog it to reference my first of four types, Hoot the Orderly Owl. My friend Hoot is one crazy owl however he is not your typical Owl.

But you might know him best as:

• being loyal
• being sympathetic
• being friendly & supportive
• being a good listener
• being a team player
• helpful to people around me
• being dependable
• being available in times of need
• liking things the way they are
• working hard behind the scenes
• disliking publicly given praise
• disliking conflict or change
• being patient with everyone

There are many other ways I can describe Hoot but you get my point. I will be releasing a personality profile test that will help you truly identify your personality type and I will also be introducing them to you over the next few days.

Today I ask you, How much of Hoot the Orderly Owl do you see in YOU today? Could you be more like him? Should you be more like him? How would this affect your relationships and your work?

Take some time today and think about what Hoot means to YOU!

With respect,

Jeremy R. DeYoung
Chief Architect – LunarFly, LLC
615.261.8201 – f. 866.478.2608
twitter.com <- Click to follow me
facebook.com <- Click to add me

Have you ever felt like your life is a series of unfortunate events?

I hear this phrase all too much in my friends lives. The other day a close friend told me her bank account has gone negative for 3 months in a row and there is nothing she can do about it. I honestly felt bad a moment of empathy for her but immediately realized that she chose to make the money she made. In fact, every great decision she has made has lead her down the path she is currently facing. It was honestly her best thinking.

Com’on think about it. Would you make a bad decision intentionally? Would you CHOOSE to take a wrong step, to make a wrong turn, to fall down, and the list goes on and on? Every choice we make is our best thinking at work.

What makes a person great is HOW they choose to see a bad situation!

On Monday night, my wife and I finished our 7th class at Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. For those of you who have never attended this class, GO NOW. DO NOT pass GO, DO NOT collect $200, stop what you are DOING a GO. Make this happen NOW. Seriously, this is a class that WILL radically change you live!

Anyways back to topic, Jess and I got home around 9ish, cleaned up a few things, did the dishes, wrote a blog, and we went to bed. An ALL too typical evening. Then around 4:50AM I started dreaming about my furnace burning. I remember this distinctly because I jumped out a bed, yelled FIRE, there is FIRE. JESS do you smell the burning.

I ran down stairs to see what was going on. The darndest thign happened. There was NO smoke. In fact, on my first and second floors, I couldn’t smell anything burning. However the house was irry quiet. Normally, I would hear my blowers and fans running to keep my house’s tempature balanced. So I walked up the three flights of stairs, heart still pounding and there is it again, I smelt smoke.

The funny thing was that my wife was still sound asleep. I yelled again and she just said, you’re dreaming, go back to bed. Frustrated at the smell getting more intense and now noticing that my top floor was extremely hot. About 84 degrees and the bottom two floors are in the low 60s I wondered if it was the furnace.

Then I remembered my dream. I ran downstairs again practically jumping over the rails and into the furnace room. I discovered my furnace had overheated. Yep, thats right, a device that generates heat overheated. Truly ironic in my opinion. At this time, I grabbed my cell phone and noticed it was 5:13AM. I knew my dad would be about to go for his morning walk so I called him. At this point, I noticed the blower wasn’t running anymore. When he picked up I explained that I think my furnace blower unit was melting and it no longer functioned. I asked if he would swing by and he said he would a few in an hour. I turned off everything in the house to prevent any more damage.

Well, around 6:30am he arrives (by the way, my parents live about 1.17 miles from me, I measured it .) and inspected the unit. He also agreed that it had melted.

Now, I don’t know about you but I started wondering how much this would cost. I jumped on the internet and started researching. I discovered that I might have to replace my entire furnace. Oh lord, fear set in at the fact that I might have to shell out another $2k on replacement of this unit.

Like most, I lost focus and immediately went to the side of fear. I have always been taught that F.E.A.R. is acronym meaning False Expectations Appearing Real. But when faced with a couple grand in unplanned expenses, those thoughts and memories seem to fad.

I called my repair man and he came out promptly. Good thing b/c it was the coldest day so far this year and my house was already at 58 degrees and dropping.

Between the time I called the repair man and when he arrived, I had a sudden realization. I remembered tha because I was in the Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University I had set aside several thousand in an ‘emergency fund’. Up until this moment, I had thought of an emergency fund a truly crazy. I mean, who honetly puts money in a box and keeps it for a day when an emergency comes. Its almost like hoping an emegency comes.

But I followed the advice of the class and put the money in my ’sock drawer’.

When the repair man arrived, he quickly discovered the problem. My blower unit for my house had completely melted into a hunk of plastic. So, I had him make the repair and then he gave me the bill. Ya know the cool thing about having cash in hand for an emergency? Well, when I got the bill, he had loaded up taxes and all kinds of fees. I told the guy I can charge this to a credit card which would cost him all kinds of fees. So I asked, would you cut out the tax and knock off 3% of the total cost if I pay in cash.

The guy smiled and immediately took the cash at almost a 13% discount. (tax in TN is very high!)

Everyone wins in that situation and CASH is KING!

So the next time you have an unfortunate event, I ask you to consider this. What really is going on? And HOW much of what is going on is FEAR?

With love and respect,

Until recently I have been just a casual user of Social Networking and I have always wondered about the power of networking and its application on business.

At the beginning of the year, I sampled with marketing with my sisters photography business and we had great success. Actually that is an understatement. We grew her network from a few hundred fans to well over 9,000 friends in a matter of a few weeks. With that being said, the simple amount of marketing we did had a tremendous results. She landed dozens of jobs and pretty much booking up her schedule.

Taking what I learned from MySpace I have tried to apply it to the world of Facebook with no result. I have tried on three separate occasions. I all but gave up and decided to try one more time with a new client. I tried a different approach where we sent out a newsletter promoting the fact that we had a facebook account. After just 3 days, we have grown from 1 friend to well over 500 friends. And as I write this blog, the number continues to grow! What makes this time different? Well, I was able to tie into an existing marketing method with Facebook. So far, the result has been impressive and we are already seeing some income result from the Facebook integration.

How can you use Facebook to your advantage? Well, first you need to tie into multiple sources of networking such as your website, myspace, facebook, twitter, among many other forms of social networking. The only true way to grow an internet business is to use the power of ALL social networks.

I challenge you to push forward in your endevors of using the power of the internet and social networking to your advantange. Take your time, research, and make the right decision at the right time. Remember, the key to Facebook and other social networks in creating a social environments for all your social networks!

Seeking all forms of Social Networking!

I know alot of you are not into technology as much as I am but I HAD to share this with everyone out there using any form of chatting software such as Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, among many others.

During my years, I have been a major fan of Trillin.cc as a powerful chat software supporting many different chat environments however recently I was introduced to Digsby.com which offers an amazing, simple, powerful and streamlined interface. I current have my facebook, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and Google Talk integrated into a single client.

Couple that with multiple customizable skins, chat logging, among many other powerful features. The developers are VERY responsive and willing to take everyone’s ideas into consideration with future releases.

As of right now, they only offer a Windows application but they are planning on Mac & Linux solutions very soon as well!

Openness to Technology!

Are you tired of paying ridiculous television cost to watch the shows each and every month? Have you ever asked yourself if there was a better way? A way that would radical reduce your monthly bill if not totally eliminate the need for spending to watch the shows you must watch.

During the last few months I have became obsessed about the idea of dumping Comcast and other TV related expenses. However I haven’t had much luck until a few months ago when I discovered AppleTV. At first I purchased a Mac Mini to watch my television shows. This was very exciting as it allowed me to completely remove my Comcast bill to the tune of $190 a month.

Shortly after I purchased an AppleTV box. This is probably one of the coolest devices I have ever come across. The basic concept of AppleTV is a tiny computer wrapped up into a very simple interface that works directly with your TV.

The quality is absolutely amazing. AppleTV took me about 2-3 minutes to set up and what makes things even more amazing is that AppleTV integrates directly with YouTube and Flickr. I can’t even tell you how awesome it is to sit in bed and watch my TV shows without a computer, a remote, just a small clicker device that controls the AppleTV. Truly remarkable.

For all of you out there that are wanting to eliminate Comcast and other TV bills…I highly recommend that you research and purchase the AppleTV box. I promise you will be much happier than you can even imagine. The savings in monthly bills alone should make you a believer but the simplicity to watch and buy what you what when you want it will radically transform your television experience.

Seeking great alternatives to pointless payments!

Over the last few months I have heard alot of talk about this so called ‘Recession’ but one thing I find interesting is that I haven’t seen any technical data to support this. Consumers sadly are fueled by the media. If the media promotes a negative approach to our economy, then a negative result will ensue. However, I would like to ask everyone to consider the last few months and the next 6 months as a new adventure in your creative experience and less fear driven because of the so called ‘recession’. I am HOPEFUL and excited about the future. What I see is NOT a recession but rather a cut back in crazy pointless spending without just cause. I see business owners take more interest in justifying the purchases. This next period of time will challege you to grow wiser in your decisions. It will require ALL business owners to consider the consequence rather than jumping without looking forward.

This will cause the future of our economy to become very strong and very powerful. As each small business owner that survives this period of time will have learned what not to do in times that are harder and apply that business concepts to the future.

I KNOW that mid-2009 we will have an economy boom like we have never seen before however it will be a ‘long winter’ for those who didn’t plan well. God calls us to prepare for all things. Store up during times of greatness and prepare for times of slowness.

Knowing that we are heading into a time of challenge, I am already seeing alot of companies become more intelligent in their business decisions. Some are choosing to pay my company in trade rather than cash. I know most would see cash as the best resource for growing a company however I predict that a small business to learns to work like a country doctor and accept ‘trade’ as an alternative payment method will become a business that grows stronger and greater during this next year.

I have truly taking this to heart and began with dozens of new clients that are seeking trade as a way to continue business. This does create a sitaution where I have built up trade that I will never use however over time I have found various ways to work out mutliple trade deals between 2 or even 3 different clients to accomplish what I was needing.

So I ask you to consider this…if a client turns down your proposal due to cash flow – ask them if there are mutual services that you could exchange to accomplish the project. This method will provide you immediate trade for whatever they are offering today and in the future the client will choose you over the next competitor as you were willing to work with them in times that were hard.

I have found your character and willingness to help someone else will always make your business succeed over your competitors!

With openess to trading arrangements,