Research on locus of control shows real differences in behavior across a wide range of settings. People with an internal locus of control are easier to motivate because they believe the rewards are the result of their behavior. They are better better able to handle complex information and problem solving, are more achievement oriented, but are also more independent and therefore more difficult to manage. However, people with an external locus of control are harder to motivate, less involved in their jobs, more likely to blame others when faced with a poor performance evaluation, but more compliant and conforming and, therefore, easier to manage.

1. Extroversion. The degree to which a person is outgoing, sociable, assertive, and comfortable with interpersonal relationships.
2. Agreeableness. The degree to which a person is able to get along with others by being good-natured, likable, cooperative, forgiving, understanding, and trusting.
3. Conscientiousness. The degree to which a person is focused on a few goals, thus behaving in ways that are responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented.
4. Emotional stability. The degree to which a person is calm, enthusiastic, and self-confident, rather than tense, depressed, moody, or insecure.
5. Openness to experience. The degree to which a person has a broad range of interests and is imaginative, creative, artistically sensitive, and willing to consider new ideas.

Reference: The New Era of Management.

A recent trend in performance appraisal is called 360-degree feedback, a process  that uses multiple raters, including self-rating, as a way to increase awareness of strengths and weaknesses and guide employee development. The appraisal group may include supervisors, coworkers, and customers, as well as the individual, thus providing appraisal of the employee from a variety of perspectives.

Line authority means that people in management positions have formal authority to direct and control immediate subordinates. Staff authority is narrower and includes the right to advise, recommend, and counsel in the staff specialists’ area of expertise. Staff authority is a communication relationship; staff specialists advise managers in technical areas. For example, the finance department of a manufacturing firm would have staff authority to coordinate with line departments about which accounting forms to use to facilitate equipment purchases and standardize payroll services.

For example, an activity-based costing system might list the costs associated with processing orders for a particular product, scheduling production for that product, producing it, shipping it, and resolving problems with it. Because ABC allocates costs across business processes, it provides a more accurate picture of the cost of various products and services. In addition, it  enables managers to evaluate whether more costs go to activities that add value (meeting customer deadlines, achieving high quality) or to activities that do not add value (such as processing internal paperwork). They can then focus on reducing costs associated with non-value-added activities.

Reference: New Era of Management

Installing wine is very easy that it is all in your finger tips.

But the problem is removing it. It sometime very difficult to uninstall from your PC. And you will find out that the program is still in your computer even though you have already removed it. So, here is a very simple, but yet effective tool for you to remove “Wine”.

Please note that in the following commands there should be no spaces in the path, particularly between $HOME/ and .whatever.

• rm -rf $HOME/.wine

Also the uninstaller does not remove menu and desktop entries. To remove all Wine-created menu entries run the following commands.

• rm -f $HOME/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine*

• rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/applications/wine

• rm -f $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine*

• rm -f $HOME/.local/share/icons/????_*.xpm

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-9893ae50079ca7a959258f0bc9a17aaf2e69b391

1. Restart your computer, and then press and hold F8 during the initial startup to start your computer in safe mode with a Command prompt.
2. Use the arrow keys to select the Safe mode with a Command prompt option.
3. If you are prompted to select an operating system, use the arrow keys to select the appropriate operating system for your computer, and then press ENTER.
4. Log on as an administrator or with an account that has administrator credentials.
5. At the command prompt, type %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe, and then press ENTER.
6. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to a functional state.

Reference: Microsoft

• Start menu
• Run
• Type cmd.exe

Please type the following and press Enter in the command prompt -

• ipconfig/flushdns
• ipconfig/release
• ipconfig/renew
• exit

• Independence: When you own your own business, you do not have to follow orders or observe working hours set by someone else.
• Satisfaction: Turning personal skills, hobbies, or other interests into your own business can be very satisfying.
• Financial reward: Through hard work, the sky can be the limit. Countless small businesses have grown into large companies that have produced fortunes for their owners.
• Self-esteem: Knowing you created something valuable can give you a strong sense of accomplishment, thus heightening your self-esteem.

Cons

• Business failure: Many small business fail. You risk not only loosing your money but also the money invested in your business by others.
• Obstacles: You will run into problems that you will have to solve by yourself. You may face discouragement from family and friends.
• Loneliness: It can be lonely and even a little scary to be completely responsible for the success or failure of your business.
• Financial insecurity: You are not guaranteed a set salary or any benefits.
• Long hours/ hard work: You will have to work long hours to get your business off the ground.

Among the many services, Google Analytic and WordPress Stats are some of the top useful services. I at first, used the Google Analytic that you can see on the right column of my blog. That wigdet is showing just a 1% of what google offers. There are actually a lot more behind. You can actually see the number of new visitors, return visitors, page viewed, IP addresses, visitors’ locations, browser information, top referrals, ISPs (internet service providers) and so on.

As for the WordPress Stats, I currently cannot provide the full functions of what it is since I am new to this service. But it works very much the same as google analytic except no IP address, ISPs and browser information are not mentioned.

Anyway, it is really useful to have at least one analytic service. With that, you can track where your visitors are coming from and what your visitors are looking from your website or blog. By then, you can offer their needs and therefore the site become famous or popular. It is even more useful for e-commerce sites, since the developer can actually set their target markets and offers what the target market is focus on.

• where are we now? – check (monitor or evaluate)
• where do we want to get to? – plan
• how do we get there? – do (action)

The strategic plan is therefore the document which is the output of a strategic planning process and which serves to guide future directions, activities, programmes and actions. The outcome of the strategic planning process is the impact that the process has on the organisation, its activities and its environment, including the various stakeholders. Such impacts are then monitored and evaluated through the selection of appropriate indicators as part of the ongoing revision and readjustment of the organisation to its environment. Strategic planning therefore emphasizes the process of continuous improvement as a cornerstone of organisational activity in which strategic planning is linked to management and operational decision making, with the three key mechanisms required to achieve this being;

1. a planning framework which extends beyond organisational boundaries and focuses on strategic decisions concerning stakeholders and resources
2. a planning process that stimulates innovative thinking and provides a capacity to adapt to environments
3. an organisational values system that reinforces commitment to the organisational strategy.

Why Web FTP?

Answer is very simple. It is intended for those who cannot use FTP software (because of installation failed or other reasons). And Web FTP is simple but yet fast and secure.

Web FTP is strong?

To answer honestly, it is not. Through this application, you can edit, copy, move, download, upload files to your ftp server. But the uploading allows maximum file size of up to 2 MB only. It doesn’t even allow mp3 files. If you are uploading scripts and documents, it is no problem for you.

Why should I use?

Web FTP is for your second choice. If you can install and use FTP software, it is perfect. But if you are not able to use FTP software, I recommend Web FTP. It will allow you to edit your documents fast and secure and even to download and upload files. Navigation is not difficult, using it is easier than using an email. So, try it if you haven’t. I believe you will like it.

• Tax return laws generally prohibit any disclosure of information gathered on state tax returns.
• Criminal justice system laws generally have requirements about who can access particular forms of data gathered about you in conjunction with a law enforcement activity. This means that not all information is automatically public, but, of course, some may be. You are familiar with the “Police blotter” reports in your local newspaper, for example. These laws also generally require that information gathered about you in law enforcement activities be accessible to you, so that you can amend the information or correct it if it is wrong. The disposition of the case is usually required to be recorded, and most states require reporting law enforcement information in promptly standard formats. Some states, such as California, require that police blotter information becomes protected when it is no longer current.
• School records laws generally allow students and their parents to inspect school records and to challenge them if they are inaccurate or incomplete. Schools are limited in their ability to disclose information to third parties. This is why you must ask to have your transcripts forwarded when another education institution requires them.
• General fair information laws limit the data that a government can collect and keep. These laws usually allow you to inspect the data and challenge it if you believe it inaccurate. State governments may be restricted in their ability to disclose information to third parties.
• Election laws may limit the disclosure of voter registration data, making it available to candidates for election mailings, but not to a marketing organisation to sell other products.
• Motor vehicle registration laws may limit the disclosure of vehicle registration, identification card, and/ or drivers license data to authorized personnel.

Source: Protect your Digital Privacy.

As I said, if you move your machine around a lot, you know the pain of having to reconfigure the network settings (ip address, subnetmask, default gateway and dhcp etc..) so they can continue to talk on the network.

Otherwise, if you have a laptop that you need to use at work, at home, and at hotspot or wherever you want, being able to save and reload network configurations would be a real timesaver.

Hold on a sec! There are a few utilities on the market that allow you to quickly switch between different network configurations. Net Switcher (http://www.netswitcher.com) is one effective tool.

But did you know you can do the same thing using the Widows 2000 Netshell (netsh) command? Here’s how it works. First, you dump your network settings to a text file through the command line, as follows:

netsh -c interface dump > Networksettings.txt (or whatever name you want!). This command stores your current network settings in a text file named networksettings.txt.

Now, let’s say you have to reconfigure your machine’s network settings to repurpose the machine or move it to a different part of the network (maybe your work, or school..). Then, later, if you need to restore your machine’s original network settings, you can simply type the following command adn load back in the previously dumped settings:

netsh -f Networksettings.txt

***Note that the destination filename is not important, so you can effectively create multiple configuration files. You can create and name for each network configuration you need. For example,you can use work.txt for the office,  Home.txt for your home configuration.

Nice work eh?

In addition, the Gmail servers scan all incoming attachments and block executable files , even if they are enclosed in a compressed file format like .zip , .tar or .gz . Google also blocks any incoming messages with .exe files attached and bounces them right back to where they came from.

Since most people rarely, if ever , need to exchange executable files for legitimate reasons , this limitation shouldn’t be a problem for us . If we do want to send an .exe file , however , consider burning it to a CD and snail-mailing it to its destination , or posting it on a Web site .

Google is a cute name , but does it mean anything ? The thing that stands out most on the Google home page is the company’s colorful signature . Which raise the question : Why does this search service sound like it’s named after a Muppet ?

In fact , ” Google ” is an adaption of the word googol , which is the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes , and brings to mind the stupendously large number of Web pages that it searches.

Incidentally , the word googol was coined around 1938 by the 9-years-old Milton Sirotta , the nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner . 

Case Sensitivity

Does Google care if I capitalize my search words?

No . Some search engines , including these on many intranet ( private Web sites ) , are case-sensitivity , meaning they search for your therms based on how you capitalize the words . In a case-sensitive word , the query ” ALFERD HITCHCOCK ” wouldn’t find Web pages containing the term ” Alferd Hitchcock ” , ” alferd hitchcock ” , or ” aLfeRD HitChcOcK”.

Google , on the other hand , doesn’t care about capitalization . If you search for Pugs , pugs , PUGS , or even PuGs , you get the same results . So give your pinkies a rest and type your queries in all lowercase letters.

If a business wants to sell its products internationally , it had better do some market research first . This is a lesson that many companies – including some large American corporations – have learned the hard way .

Sometimes the problem is in the name . When General Motors introduced its Chevy Nova into Latin America , it overlooked the fact that No va in Spanish means ” It doesn’t go .” Sure enough , the Chevy Nova never went anywhere in Latin America .

Sometimes it’s the slogan that doesn’t work . No company knows this better than Pepsi-Cola , with its ” Come alive with Pepsi ! ” campaign . The campaign was highly successful in the United States , and Pepsi translated its slogan literally for its international campaign . As it turned out , Pepsi was pleading with Germans to ” Come out of the grave ” and telling Chinese that ” Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”.

Other times , the problem involves pictures and packaging . A smiling , round-cheeked baby has helped sell countless jars of Gerber baby food . So when Gerber marked its products in Africa , it kept the picture of the baby on the jar . When Gerber didn’t realize that in many African countries , the picture on the jars show what the jar has in it .

Even cultural and religious factors – and pure coincidence – can also be involved . Thom McAn shoes have a Thom McAn ” signature ” inside . To people in Bangladesh , this signature looked like Arabic script for the word Allah . In Bangladesh , feet are considered unclean and Muslims felt the company was insulting God’s name by having people walk on it .

]]> http://www.knowledgevilla.com/home/2009/10/the-wrong-stuff/feed/ 0 http://www.knowledgevilla.com/home/2009/10/honeypots/ http://www.knowledgevilla.com/home/2009/10/honeypots/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:34:03 +0000 admin http://knowledgevilla.com/?p=412 Rather than try to block a hacker (with a firewall) or find a hacker (with an intrusion detection system), some people prefer the more labor-intensive method of using a honeypot instead. A honeypot can serve two purposes. First, it can lure a hacker away from the important data on your computer and isolate the hacker from causing any damage. Second, a honeypot can allow you to study a hacker’ s methods and techniques so that you can better learn how certain attacks work and how you might be able to defend yourself against them in the future.

Honeypot typically run on a single computer that mimics the activity and breadth of an entire network, even down to emulating the details of a specific operating system, such as Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, or HP-UX. Although a honeypot looks and behaves just like a real network, it often offers several easily exploitable flaws to encourage the hackers to waste their time exploiting this fictional network.

To learn about the various honeypots currently used by businesses, visit these sites:

Tiny Honeypot http://www.alpinista.org/thp

Net Facade http://www.22.verizon.com/fns/netsec/fns_netsecurity_netfacade.html

Symantec ManTrap http://www.symantec.com

The Deception Toolkit http://www.all.net/dtk/download.html

Many honeypots are freeware and include source code so you can study how they work and even contribute some ideas of your own. A honeypot is valuable as a surveillance and early-warning tool. While it is often a computer, a honeypot can take other forms, such as files or data records, or even unused IP address space.

~ Contributed by spooky.

The wireless network world is not nearly this secure. In fact, it is not secure at all. Disassembling your network packets and transmitting them wirelessly means that anyone within reach can see them. A wily attacker could join or passively monitor your network from a mile away with a high-gain antenna, and you would never see him.

The drawbacks of WEP (802.11b)

The IEEE specifications for 802.11a/b/g all provide a form of encryption called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). WEP operates at the Media Access Control layer (MAC) layer or the Data Link Layer, between the physical layer (radio waves) and the Network Layer (TCP). Most WEP products implement a 64-bit shared key, 40 bits of which are used for the secret key and 24 bits for the initialization vector (IV). The key is installed at the wired network AP and must also be entered into each client.

Anyone who knows the secret key (unless you’re the only user on the network, this key is shared, so it’s not all that secret) can participate in a WEP network. Secret keys are generally either plaintext words or somewhat longer combinations of hexadecimal numbers.

There are two major problems with WEP:

• Encryption is handled at the Data Link Layer, so if you connect to a WEP network with your notebook, the communication between your notebook and the access point is encrypted. All packets are decrypted at the access point and sent from there in the clear.
• Other computers that also have the secret key for this WEP network can read all packets sent to and from your computer. The secret key is a “shared” key, which means that all devices that encrypt packets must use the same key, making the key even easier to deduce. Once you are connected to a WEP network, you can do the packet sniffing you want with a tool like Ethereal.

A team of cryptographers from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as several other groups have identified weaknesses in the way that WEP keys are generated and used, effectively making the number of bits in the key immaterial. Even though many manufactures have added extra bits to the key length, up to 152 bits, the longer key length provides minimal protection, because WEP is not a well-designed cryptographic system. I (spooky) will post more about WPA in next coming posts.

So why would you want to use WEP on your wireless network at all? Consider it a first line of defense. While it is definitely possible to crack its keys and gain access to a WEP network, someone who is looking for free wireless access will choose an open network when given the choice. However, you must take stronger measures.

Consider not using WEP at all. There are other alternatives that provide stronger encryption and authentication and I will discuss more about it. However, if you want an easy going setup, WEP is your way to go or you ticket. To keep your WEP network as secure as possible, keep these guidelines in mind:

Make your secret key difficult to crack. Once a hacker has captured enough frames from your encrypted network, he needs to run a tool to guess your secret key. There is no different from a hacker running crack against a password database. The more complex your key, the less likely a standard dictionary attack will crack it. Choose a long, complex key that utilizes non-alphanumeric characters. If you can, use hexadecimal strings. Use the longest key that your hardware will support. If you have access points and clients that support 128-bit WEP, by all means use it. However, some implementations of WEP have weaknesses that allow attackers to recover the key even without mounting a dictionary attack.

Change your secret key often. WEP key attacks rely on two methods: a dictionary attack or the collection of large amounts of frames data in order to deduce the secret key. Obviously, you provide less of a chance for an attacker to break your key when you change it often. However, this option becomes more cumbersome with large networks, giving you the classic key-distribution problem.

Use WEP in combination with other security measures. If your network uses equipment from a single manufacture, you may able to take advantage of nonstandard security features. Cisco and Proxim, for example, support rapid WEP key rotation and dynamic rekeying. If all of your clients can take advantage of these features, use them. You should also consider whether the various IP tunneling or VPN solutions will fit into your network infrastructure.

Several security measures that come standard with many access points are almost useless in protection your wireless network.

Disabling SSID broadcast

This creates a “hidden” network by causing the access point to suppress the broadcast of SSID information. In order to join a network with SSID broadcast disabled, the client must manually enter the SSID. If you don’t know the SSID, you can’t join the network. In reality, Kismet and other wireless network scanners can easily pick up the SSID by monitoring traffic from clients of the “hidden” network.

MAC address filtering

Most access points allow you to set up a list of allowed network cards by entering their MAC address. If the access point sees a MAC address that is not on the list, it will not allow that device to associate. So only authorized network cards can join the network. In reality, Kismet and other wireless scanners can easily pick up MAC addresses by monitoring client traffic on the wireless network. Spoofing a MAC address is very easy under Linux and other operating systems, allowing easy access to the network.  Also, wireless network cards can be easily stolen. The MAC address filter only authenticates a device, so anyone can use it.

IP address filtering

Similar to MAC address filtering, this technique allows you to set up a list of allowed IP addresses that can send TCP/IP traffic on the network. Other machines may be allowed to associate with the access point, but they would not be able to participate in any TCP/IP network. So only known IP addresses are allowed to communicate on the network. In reality, any network sniffer or analyzer, such as Ethereal or tcpdump, can easily find IP addresses in use on any given network. Spoofing IP addresses is even easier than spoofing MAC addresses.

Reference

• Security of the WEP Algorithm (http://www.issac.cs.berkeley.edu/issac/wep-faq.html)

~ Contributed by Spooky

From Profit-building strategies.

The business idea you‘ve been discussing with a friend sounds better and better. The next step seems obvious: “Let’s work on it together.”

A hand shake, a glow of good fellowship and you’re off. But do you have a winning combination? Perhaps. Unless the business relationship is carefully spelled out, you could end up losing money— and your friend.

Case in point: Two friends bought a piece of property. They got it at a good price and looked forward to a handsome profit.

Then an emergency arose.

One partner had to sell before the agreed upon time. The two had only vaguely discussed that possibility and started arguing about what procedures to follow procedures that should have been clearly spelled out before they applied for the mortgage.

The situation was finally resolved. But only after each partner had incurred needless legal expense and lost a longtime friend.

The situation can be just as touchy when using a friend’s professional services. “The fee seemed high,” said a publisher who hired a friend’s law firm to draft  a book contract, “ but I was reluctant to challenge it because I didn’t want my friend to think I was cheap.”

Without a doubt the publisher would have discussed the fee with a stranger and probably would have gone elsewhere had the matter not been resolved to his satisfaction. But since, he was dealing with a “friend,” he was silent. Now the friendship is clouded because he feels he’s been taken.

Beware when friendship distorts the “mutuality of respect and advantages” in the business relationship, warns Professor Stuart L. Meyer, who teaches courses in new ventures and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University Graduate School of Management .Once friendship gets in the way of business , you could find yourself facing many problems.

Like the publisher, you might not apply critical standards to a friend as you apply them to someone you know only through business. As a buyer, you might expect special price breaks from your friends; as  a supplier , you might expect unwavering loyalty from your friends.

This doesn’t mean you should never do business with friends. But you must exercise caution. As Professor Meyer implies, requirements of friendship must take second place to requirements of sound business practices.

Going into business with friends. The key here is to keep the channels of communication open. You can usually resolve potential conflicts if you anticipate and discuss them. People often break up because they don’t understand each other’s expectations or needs.

There is no substitute for the paper describing the deal between you and your friend. It needn’t be a formal contract; a letter of agreement is sufficient. But that letter should cover the scope of the project, time-table, and remuneration, where the work will be done, and procedures for settling disputes, such as appeal to a mutually respected third party.

If either of you deviates from the agreement— for example, there’s an unexpected delay in completion or an extra charge for some service or material—you should tell the other immediately. Never presume friendship lets you do something you wouldn’t do with a stranger.

One consultant always drafts a letter of agreement when he works with friends. “If they say, “We’re friends, let’s just shake on it,’ I tell them the letter will protect both of us. If they still won’t sign, I might not work with them.”

Can customers be friends?

Top sales people often say their customers are their friends. The kind of friendship they mean doesn’t include after-hours social contact. It’s cultivated during business hours only. If it leaves the office at all, it’s only as far as the lunch table.

Smart salespeople know that too much friendship in a salesperson-customer relationship can turn into a disaster.

Another expensive consequence of putting friendship first is that you may have difficulty doing what comes naturally—asking for leads, because you don’t want to put pressure on the friendship. Thus, an important source of possible new business could be lost.

All salespeople have occasionally differences with their customers over the size of orders, product conditions upon delivery, service or performance, payment schedules. A good salesperson works hard to resolve those differences. That requires bluntness and straight hard talking.

Lending money to friends.

When a friend asks for business loan, he or she is putting you into a difficult position. Lending money to a friend’s corporation is especially hazardous.

Wesley Geer worked for Oceans West Development Corporation. Ken Farquhar was his immediate superior, majority stockholder and president. One day Farquhar confided to Geer that he needed $2000 to meet the payroll.

Wishing to save his own job— and the friendsip –Wiseley gave the cash to Farquhar who then used some of it for payroll and the rest for other corporate debts.

Geer thought he’d protected himself when he asked for a promissory note with “both signatures” on it. Farquhar gave him his signature followed by  a dash and the name of the company.

Time passed, and Geer founded himself suing for his money. When he obtained a judgment against both the corporation and Farquhar individually, Farquhar appealed, claiming he’d signed the note as a corporate officer and therefore wasn’t personally liable for repayment of the note.

But the court found that the note was ambiguous. Farquhar hadn’t indicated he was signing in a representative capacity and Geer hadn’t seemed to it that Farquhar signed as an individual. In such ambiguous situations, said the court, the intention of the parties’ controls. The Supreme Court decided that Geer had intended Farquhar be individually liable.

Geer was lucky. Farquhar had wanted to sign as a corporate president, but he didn’t clearly say so. Had he made that clear, Geer would have had the almost impossible task of trying to collect from a failing company.

The message is clear. Protect yourself by being specific.

~ Contributed by spooky.

While we blame other people, we usually do little to fix the situation. So we keep the problem.

Fred says, “I haven’t got any friends. Nobody understands me!” That’s avoiding responsibility. While Fred blames everyone else, he’ll have a lot of lonely Saturday nights.

Mary says, “I know I’m miserable. It’s my mother’s fault.” That’s a recipe for more misery. Blaming your mother doesn’t help.

Whenever you fail at something, ask yourself, “Was I partly responsible for this? How can I make sure this doesn’t happen again?” These are questions successful people ask themselves.

It’s Not What Happens To You; It’s How You See It

Case 1: John Foppe was born with no arms. He holds a masters degree in communication and he gives presentations to companies and schools around the world. He never asks, “Why was I born without hands?” He asks himself: “What am I going to do about it?”

Everything you do with your arms – comb your hair, count your money, steer a car – he does with his feet. It’s fun to eat with John in a Chinese restaurant. While other diners are eating with knives and forks -figuring chopsticks are too hard – John handles chop-sticks like a champion – between his toes!

Says John, “I accept who I am. Without the challenges I have had, I wouldn’t be the same person.”

Case 2: Tony Christiansen is a qualified surf lifeguard, a champion swimmer, a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a speedway and racing car champion, a qualified pilot, a successful businessman and a father of three children. Tony has no legs. He lost them in a railway accident when he was nine.

Tony’s philosophy? Never say, “I can’t.”

So long as you believe something in your life is a disaster,
it will unfold as a continuing disaster.

Let’s say your Dad suddently announces to the family, “I’ve got a new job. We’re all moving to Peru!”

You say, “Oh no! I’ll lose all my friends. My life is ruined! Where can you get a decent hamburger in Peru?” As long as you think that your life is in ruins, you will be miserable.

Then one day you change your point of view. You decide, “This is an adventure most kids never get! I’ll get to learn Spanish. I’ll learn to eat different food! Maybe my friends can come and visit me!”

You change your attitude and it changes your life.

In a nutshell:

Every “disaster” in your life is not as much a disaster as a situation waiting for you to change your mind about it.

And what if you accidentally locked yourself in there for an hour? You’d be saying, “What smell?”

What’s the principle here? That we get used to whatever environment we’re in.

If you don’t smoke, and no one around you smokes, you never even think of smoking. But if all your friends smoke, and you hang out in smoky bars, you get used to it. Sooner or later you’re smoking!

If your friends tell lies, in the beginning it worries you. After a while, you get used to the fact that some people tell lies. Hang out with them long enough and you begin telling lies.

Hang out with miserable people, you become miserable – and you think it’s normal! Mix with critical people, you become critical – and you think it’s normal.

If you hang out with friends who are happy and motivated, then you become happy and motivated – and you think that is normal.

Don’t kid yourself that you aren’t affected by your friends.

If your family or friends are negative and miserable, then you will need to find some positive, happy friends. Somewhere in your life, you must have some positive company – or the pessimists will drag you down – and you won’t even know it’s happening.

In a nutshell:

Every day we are affected and infected by the people and attitudes around us. Sometimes we need to take action – or change friends – while we can still say, “Something smells around here!”

2. Customers are always right. Although you are doing right and they are wrong, you may need to apologize to them if necessary. The apology is not for them, but for you. It would help you build many good images during internship and even working in the real world. Because, you may likely to face with them one day by any chances.

3. Be approachable for any of the senior staffs in the office. They will not call two times just to teach you one simple thing but it could be unsolvable problem for you.

4. Be careful while communicating with customers. Because some of them know that you are new staff and they likely have intention of cheating on you.

5. Don’t wait until they call and teach you new things. Nobody is gonna call you personally just to teach you. You need to be smart to be able to learn from them. So, How??? See carefully when they are doing. On 3rd or 4th time, you may ask them to let you do and check after you have done that. If they don’t allow doing, don’t get angry first (coz if you do, you will know nothing). Help them on their works. Then you will familiar with what they are doing and have a draft idea.