The LuxMob Info Tags

If you are a young couple busy with young children with good lives and jobs, you are certainly not ready to think of your lives ending. But you do need to think about it.

Case in point - Terry Schiavo. She was just 26 years old when cardiac arrest put her in a persistent vegative state. The court battle over whether she’d want to live or die drove home the message that end of life issues know no age boundaries.

You need to talk about the issues. The problem is that if something should happen, emotions could take over and lead to something you may not have wanted if it isn’t in writing.

Why A Living Will Is Important

That’s exactly why a Living Will is something every adult should have. The definitive cases on the issue - Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan and Terry Schiavo all involved women in their twenties.

If you are not able to talk to yourself, the Living Will speaks for you.

Legally, it’s called a natural death declaration. It allows you to define what you consider a terminal condition and what you consider to be life sustaining measures, for example, CPR, antbiotics, and food and water.

Don’t Hide The Living Will

Once you create your Living Will, don’t put in a drawer. Talk to family members, give copies to all your doctors , friends and lawyer and take it with you on hospital visits. The more people who have a copy, the more effective it will be and the more likely it will be honoured.

You need to have this declaration; you hope you never need it, but it’s good to know it’s there. If something should happen, it won’t be a struggle between families.

A Living Will should also include a durable power of attorney for health care. It designates a specific person to make medical decisions for you if you can’t make them yourself.

Ivon T. Hughes of The Hughes Trustco Group is a licensed Insurance Broker. Author of The Life Insurance Handbook. - Get a FREE Copy TODAY!
Email: info@trustco.ca Web: www.hughestrustco.com

There is one very simple way to deal with your anger while going through a nasty divorce.

Divorce is a messy business. There is approximately a fifty percent chance you are divorced if you are over forty and reading this article.

Theories abound as it relates to the various stages one goes through while in the midst of a divorce. Some divorces can be easy and amicable, while others make War Of The Roses look like a Sunday school meeting on a warm summer day in August.

Having survived the first year of a separation / divorce, I can look back and see certain “moments” when I realized there was a fundamental change in the way I thought about a particular subject.

About five or six months into my rather messy divorce, I was having a particularly brutal conversation with my stubborn ex-wife. When I got off the phone I was feeling very upset and angry. Many unanswered questions swirled around in my head. How could she leave with the children? Why am I being treated like a deadbeat dad? How could this be so unfair?

Feelings of deep-rooted frustration constricted my chest. I recall looking at myself in the mirror and coming to the realization I had to get rid of the anger that was eating me up inside. The anger was killing me. If it didn’t kill me right away, anger would have put me in an early grave.

How did I learn to deal with the anger?

I learned to accept the fact that I was getting the short end of the stick.

There have been specific situations I have dealt with during the past year that have been completely unjust and unfair. The moment I learned to accept the mauling I was experiencing was the precise moment my life changed the most.

This philosophy is plain and simple to say, yet multi-faceted and complex to implement.

When you go through a divorce, both parties end up loosing. Unfortunately, the children often end up loosing the most. When you are faced with obstacles and barriers that seem so unfair during the course of a divorce, remember one thing – they probably are unfair. Chances are you are not being treated fairly.

We always do not get what we want in life. How we deal with the little surprises life has to offer us is the real measure of our character. During a divorce, some things will seem very unfair. Anger can be very useful but this emotion is best served left over during the main course of a divorce.

Yeah an ex might have screwed you but the important thing is to move on and forget about it. Recently I have spoken with a number of people with personal experience in divorce and separation. Most people have suggested to me, the parent with the most anger during a divorce ultimately ends up loosing. Children will be drawn to a happy parent rather then a parent filled with hate and anger.

If you have kids and are currently in the middle of a divorce, you would be well served to remember one small thing – don’t focus your energy on anger towards a ex, focus your energy on love towards your children. You will be much better off in the long run.

Gary Kelly is co-creator of the online dating website for golfers, http://www.DateAGolfer.com and http://www.PuttingForPar.com, a golf website specializing in personalized ball markers.

Introduction

Lawful Intercept (LI) is a requirement placed upon service providers to provide legally sanctioned official access to private communications. In the existing Public Telephone Network, Lawful Intercept is performed by applying a physical ‘tap’ on the telephone line of the target in response to a warrant from a Law Enforcement Agency (LEA). However, Voice over IP (VoIP) has enabled the mobility of the end-user, so it is no longer possible to guarantee the interception of calls based on tapping a physical line.

Whilst the detailed requirements for LI may differ from one jurisdiction to another, the general requirements are the same. The LI system must provide transparent interception of specified traffic only and the subject must not be aware of the interception. The service provided to other users must not be affected during interception.

Architecture Overview

Although the detail of LI may vary from country to country we can describe the general requirements and also explain much of the common terminology used. The primary purpose of the service provider network is to enable private communications between individuals; any LI functionality built into the network must not affect the normal service to those individuals. The interfaces between the PTN and the Law Enforcement Monitoring Facility (LEMF) are standardised within a particular territory.

LI deals with two ‘products’, these are:

• Contents of Communications (CC): exactly what it sounds like, the voice, video or message contents.

• Intercept Related Information (IRI): information about the source and destination of the call etc.

European requirements are often based on the ETSI standards. In North America CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) requires operators to provide LI capabilities. The network architecture and handover specifications are based on the PacketCable™ surveillance model, however the architectures are very similar.

Basic Elements of LI in a Public Telecom Network

There are three primary elements required within the public network to achieve Lawful Intercept, these are:

• An Internal Intercept Function (IIF) located in the network nodes.

• A Mediation Function (MF) between the PTN and LEMF.
• An Administration Function (ADMF) to manage orders for interception in the PTN.

Internal Intercept Function (IIF)
These functions are located within the network nodes and are responsible for generating the Intercept Related Information (IRI) and Contents of Communications (CC).

Mediation Function (MF)
This function clearly delineates the PTN from the LEMF. It communicates with the IIFs using Internal Network Interfaces (INIs) which can be proprietary. The MF communicates to one or more LEMFs through locally standardized interfaces: the Handover Interfaces (HI2 and HI3).

Administration Function (ADMF)
This function handles the serving of interception orders and communicates with the IIFs and MF though an Internal Network Interface.

Implementing LI within an VoIP Network

One of the primary problems faced when managing VoIP calls is the separation of the signalling and media streams. It is quite possible that the two streams may take completely different paths through the network. In addition, even when they do pass through the same device, it may not be aware of the relationship between the streams. Some devices within the network are however specifically designed to understand and manage the separate signalling and media streams – session border controllers. Typically located at the borders of the network, they receive Intercept Related Information from the signalling stream and Contents of Communication directly from the media stream.

Conclusion

It has become clear that VoIP services will be expected to provide Lawful Intercept capabilities to the same level experienced in the PSTN. The FCC in North America has mandated that both emergency calls and Lawful Intercept must be available. Whilst not all countries mandate this capability, any network operator building a publicly available voice or multimedia over IP service today will need to plan a network which is flexible enough to implement these regulatory services in the future.

Terminology

ADMF Administration Function

CALEA Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act

CC Contents of Communication

ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute

HI Handover Interface

IIF Internal Intercept Function

INI Internal Networks Interface

IRI Intercept Related Information

LEA Law Enforcement Agency

LEMF Law Enforcement Monitoring Facility

LI Lawful Interception

MF Mediation Function

PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

PTN Public Telecom Network

VoIP Voice over IP

References

ETSI TS 101 332 v1.1.1 (2001-08) Telecommunications security; Lawful Interception (LI) Requirements of Law Enforcement Agencies
ETSI TR 101 943 V1.1.1 (2001-07) Telecommunications security; Lawful Interception (LI); Concepts of Interception in a Generic Network Architecture

ETSI TS 101 671 V2.8.1 (2003-11) Telecommunications security; Lawful Interception (LI); Handover interface for the lawful interception of telecommunications traffic

PKT-SP-ESP1.5-I01-050128; PacketCable™ 1.5 Specifications; Electronic Surveillance

Further information on Lawful Intercept can be found in the White Papers directory at Newport Networks

Dave Gladwin works for Newport Networks and has worked in the telecoms sector for 25 years and VoIP for the last 10 years.

Startlingly enough, it looks as if the time will soon arrive when the USA will have to play catch-up with Cuba in oil exploration. The diminutive and destitute communist enclave that serves as Fidel Castro’s personal cigar plantation now realizes that it has enough oil reserves under its coastal waters to prop up its no-go economy for decades and, incapable of assembling the capacity to out the oil itself, the island nation has begun to license drilling rights to other countries, including China, the prospect of which alarms us, and Spain, the idea of which invites us to think of tapas.

In wisdom wrought from its neediness, the resourceful islet has also offered to license American oil companies.

Expectedly enough, the very prospect of Cuba scooping oil out of the ocean floor while America has outlawed it for decades has enkindled hot debate in Congress about the present wisdom of our self-imposed interdiction. The debate has rapidly blossomed into a gusher partly because America has even more proven oil reserves in its coastal waters, no doubt principally because it has even more coastal waters.

Persuasively enough in these oil-dear times, there seems to be enough of the black gold there to meet all of our energy needs for about 18 years, or long enough for all the leaders in the Middle East who we aren’t getting along with these days to go the way of leaders everywhere who, we determine, are irredeemably misguided.

Naturally, conservation societies have been galvanized into opposition by the mere prospect of an oil bit chomping into the emerald waters of our abundantly fishy coastlines in search of the liquid treasure below the reefs.

As the debate bubbles on, we can only consider a worst-case, best-case scenario. Worst case: we do nothing while foreign companies who don’t exactly have the most reverential reputations in ecological propriety drill away and, as time allows, send oil spills slithering onto our beaches. Best case: we race to catch up with Cuba and maybe even preempt the ill-advised entanglements that might otherwise drill down into our hemisphere.

Since we’re actually talking about drilling in our own backyard pond, we might also, one hopes, do it in ways that are less likely to lead to the shameful oil blights that fill us all with remorse and send fish and fowl off to tarry death – derelictions that strange countries in a strange land might less assiduously labor to avoid.

Tom Attea, creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway and has written comedy for TV. Critics have called his writing “”delightfully funny” and “witty” with “good, genuine laughs.”

Introduction

This article introduces the problem-solving model as a technique for managing performance issues that are more controversial, or that are not effectively addressed through coaching or feedback. Issues such as tardiness, being out of uniform, continual poor performance, and others are best handled by a direct, objective approach. By following the Problem Solving Dialogue Model taught in this article, you can feel confident in addressing these thorny issues with employees.

Problem solving sounds so simple. However, we know it isn’t as simple as it seems. Employees don’t behave as we hope they would. Problem solving conversations are the ones we all tend to — or want to — avoid. Why? Because we fear — or are concerned about — how the employees may react. In a minute we will find ways to overcome these challenging situations.

What you must remember is that it is important NOT to avoid these conversations as a result of feeling uncomfortable about having them. If you were the coach of a baseball team, you would want your players to give it their all. What they should be able to expect of you in return, is that other players on the team are performing as they need to. Why should the shortstop play his heart out if you let the pitcher or first baseman not play at the same level?

Key Points

Guiding questions are a significant tool when in a problem solving dialogue. Regardless of the emotional response of the employee, we must always focus on the problem behavior not the problem employee. It is not personal.

Two key things to keep in mind are:

• Always treat the employee with professionalism, dignity, and respect.

• You are responsible for the performance of your entire team. If you let
the lack of performance of any one person go unaddressed because you are uncomfortable dealing with it, you are being unfair to everyone else on the team. As a result, you would not be fulfilling your job responsibilities as a team leader. It is your responsibility to address any individual issues that are affecting the team’s performance or morale.

The Problem Solving Model

It is valuable to allow the employee to solve as much of the problem as possible. The more employees can solve their own problems, the more likely they are to carry through with the solution, AND the more independent they become.
In problem solving, the chances are fairly likely that the person will not be able to solve the problem without help from you. It is important that you recognize the performance problem and the reasons for the problem.

It is also important that you plan solutions to the problem’s resolution before you meet with the individual. If the employee engages in inappropriate problem solving — blaming, excusing, defending, looking to others for the solution — you need to be able to redirect the problem solving to a more productive vein. You may find that you have to TELL the employee what the acceptable solution is. Thoughtful planning and practice increase the chance of success as you manage performance.

1. Open the conversation/clarify the purpose of the conversation. It is important to focus the problem solving conversation early. It you want to discuss other things, save them for another conversation. Mixing other topics into a problem solving/corrective action conversation diffuses the impact of the conversation and reduces the likelihood of performance change.

Be up front and specific. “I want to discuss the missed deadline.” “I want to talk about your production numbers.” At the same time, express your confidence that we together can resolve this problem.

2. Clarify the problem. This is where you clearly define the problem. Use specific outcomes or observable behaviors. Avoid absolutes, generalizations, hearsay, or opinions. Be specific. Instead of saying, “you’re always late,” say, “you were at least 10 minutes late three times last week.”

Further clarify the problem by identifying the impact of the person’s behavior on:

a) The group (i.e., “others have to cover for you when you’re not on time.”)

b) The department or team (i.e., “our coverage numbers suffer”)

c) You (i.e., “I have to take time to conduct meetings like this when I could be coaching or doing other management activities.”)

d) The employee (i.e., “Your chances for growth or even continued employment may be jeopardized.”)

3. Make sure that you ask if the person understands the problem and the impact of the problem. Look for a verbal or non-verbal agreement. Getting agreement that there is a problem and that the problem has significant impact is half the battle!

4. Create solutions that are acceptable to you. It is better to ask for involvement and ideas from the employee at this stage since doing so increases the likelihood that they will implement the solution. However, the solution must meet YOUR requirements and standards! You may also find that the employee is not willing or able to come up with solutions. For these reasons, it is important that you have several solutions in mind before the meeting.

Solutions must include:

a) Specific steps: what will the employee do to correct or alleviate the problem.

b) Timeframe: corrective action discussions need to include some type of timeframe to mark the successful end of this intervention. “Okay, let’s start this tomorrow and try this for 30 days.”

c) Consequences: consequences must be clear and appropriate. Moreover, consequences must be present or behavior will very likely not change. “If you are late again within the next 30 days, I will need to issue a written warning which may lead to termination.”

d) Follow-up date and expectations: set a specific date and time to meet to review the progress and either act on the appropriate consequences or celebrate success.

5. As you and the employee are creating acceptable solutions, you will want to direct the conversation. If the employee is generating acceptable solutions, you will want to support and build on those ideas. If the employee is exhibiting inappropriate problem solving by blaming others, coming up with excuses, accusing you of being unfair, etc., defer or redirect the conversation by saying, “I would like to talk about that more later; right now, I’d like to stay focused on what you can do.” In some cases, you will simply have to tell the employee what you think the best solution is. Again, be prepared!

6. At the conclusion of the meeting, summarize the solution and express confidence in the employee to implement the solution. Then document the meeting and follow up accordingly.

Summary

We, as managers, supervisors, and team leaders, realize that it is our responsibility to ensure that EVERYONE on the team performs to their potential — and to the expectations of the job. Poor performers not only affect themselves and their specific jobs, their effect negatively impacts the performance of other team members.

While it is challenging, conducting an effective problem-solving meeting is made easier when applying the Problem Solving Dialogue Model.

(This information comes from Coaching for Performance, a module in Entelechy’s High Performance Management program. Check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at www.unlockit.com.)

Terence R. Traut is the president of Entelechy, Inc., a company that helps organizations unlock the potential of their people through customized training programs in the areas of sales, management, customer service, and training. Terence can be reached at 603-424-1237 or ttraut@unlockit.com.

Everybody has had one or two. You know, those little hole or indentations in the walls � behind a door, or behind a picture. If you live in a home, hang a picture, or have children � accidents happen! But repairing those accidents is easy. I kid you not � even yours truly, Little Miss Fumblefingers, has done it! All you need is a little spackle compound, a putty knife, some 150-grit sandpaper, and some peel n�stick wallboard tape.

Patching Peeling Paint:
a. Scrape away all the loose paint with a putty knife (A table knife will do in a pinch, but come one! Putty knives are cheap!).
b. Apply spackle to the edges of the remaining paint with the putty knife (that you just bought!).
c. Sand the dry patch with 150-grit sandpaper until it is smooth to the touch.
d. Paint with matching paint (always keep a little bit of your original paint color for small jobs such as these.)

Filling Nail Holes:
a. Using your trusty putty knife, apply a small amount of spackle to the nail hole.
b. Let the spackle dry.
c. Lightly sand the area with the sandpaper.
d. Dampen a sponge and wipe away the dust residue from the patch.
e. Before you paint, touch up the spot with primer.

Filling Shallow Dents and Holes:

a. Again with the putty knife, scrape away any loose plaster, paint or drywall paper.
b. Fill the hole with a small amount of spackle.
c. Using the smallest putty knife you have that will reach from one side of the whole to the other (to avoid making a dent with the knife edges), smooth out the spackle until even with the surrounding sheetrock.
d. Sand the area with sandpaper and prime.

Cracks in Plaster:

a. Scrape away any wall texture or loose plaster with a putty knife (do you know it makes a good pancake turner too?)
b. Use the wallboard tape to reinforce the crack.
c. Apply spackle to barely cover the tape. Don�t make the spackle repair too thick or the spot will just re-crack and you will be right back where you started!
d. If you must, apply a very thin second coat to cover the edges of the tape.
e. Sand lightly with sandpaper and prime. It might be necessary to re-texture if your wall is textured.

There you have it! Simple, isn�t it? Come on, admit it! So with patching holes and dents under your belt, you are ready for another challenge. How about replacing those kitchen cabinets? A new hardwood floor? Just check http://www.homeandgardenmakeover.com to learn how!

About the author:

Pamela Cole Harris has been a writer and designer for 35 years (Yikes, has it been that long?) Enjoy her tongue-in-cheek approach to inexpensive interior design at: http://www.homeandgardenmakeover.comand http://www.diy-homedecor.com

Once you know what your Unique Selling Proposition is as a musician (we covered this in the last issue), it’s time to ask yourself what kind of venue you want to be letting those talents out in. This is the process that will help you determine your “Perfect Performance Venue” so that you don’t waste your energy and efforts searching for performances in the wrong area!

Take some time to do this visualisation. It will only take a few minutes, but you can go on for as long as you want. Think about your performance, and imagine yourself performing somewhere. Now step back from that performance but remain in the venue. Look around, and absorb the setting, the area, the smell, the sounds, the size, the facilities. Is that the type of venue you want to be performing in?

Remember that a venue is very important. You may be so desperate to perform so you could just play anywhere, but what about performing when you’d really enjoy it?

Get a piece of paper and scribble down exactly how you want the venue to be, and what sort of venue you want. Then, from today, make a point to keep that list with you and read it over at several points in a day. Keep it safe with you, and keep it in the back of your mind when you’re doing something. Although you’re not focussing on it fully, it’s still there. Keep it there.

If you do this, you’ll begin to see all kinds of beautiful and superb venues in areas that you are in every day, but you just don’t open your eyes to it. You’ll immediately be attracted to it and may even work on getting yourself a gig there.

Remember, the Universal Law Of Attraction brings to you whatever you desire as long as you really get clear and decrease your resistance!

Kavit Haria is the Musicians’ Coach - a life coach for musicians. He is well-known worldwide in the music industry for his ability to work with musicians and help them achieve the results they wish to in their lives. Sign up to his free fortnightly newsletter at http://www.coachkavit.com