Jake Ludington’s Digital Lifestyle

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I follow lots of searches on Twitter and happened upon one denying some guy his right to learn how to lie on a resume. His grievance is none of the search results for How to Lie on a Resume actually turn up any advice. He’s absolutely right, learning to lie on your resume is a tricky thing. The key to any lie is the truth it contains, so use your language skills creatively and you’re sure to succeed at lying on your resume.

Brandon has some great thought provoking phrases in what I would call the ultimate guide to lying on your resume. I don’t think that’s what he intended, so I’ll analyze a few of his gems as a great starting point:

Trying to downplay your lack of employment or temporary self-employment in your quest for a sales job, try this: “Worked with a constricted budget was careful to leverage sales”

Need a temporary PhD? A search engine won’t notice the period (or the rest of the word) when you randomly add the sentence, “Tested water Ph.Determined amount of chlorine to add accounting for the volume of water.” Bonus reference to accounting helps you rank better in resume search engines too.

Under-qualified for that Java programming position? Make up for it with clever keyword usage: “Played Elf Bowling and other Java games.” I’m going to co-opt this one and suggest that rather than admitting to playing games, you might state you did “scalability testing of Java applications through hours of rigorous testing.” This not only sounds better, it gets away from admitting to game play.

Notice that none of these things are outright lies, they are merely creative uses of language. Think of them more as positioning statements, not lies, however, if you are caught lying, it’s not my fault. You simply weren’t creative enough. ;) Go forth and update your resume.

Feel free to share your resume lies in the comments below.

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After seeing the Cash4Gold.com commercial with MC Hammer and Ed McMahon on the Super Bowl, I’ve seen Cash4Gold Instant Cash for Gold offers numerous times on various Comcast cable television stations. My initial reaction to the ads was why would anyone want to attempt to get cash for gold watches and gold jewelry by sending it through the mail? My next thought was how do people using Cash4Gold get a good deal? As someone who makes a living from an ad supported publication, I pay a great deal of attention to advertising in all mediums, much to the annoyance of my wife and her preference to skip commercials.

It seems likely the timing of the commercials is due to the lousy state of the U.S. economy, but I can also see scenarios where you might simply want to sell your gold jewelry without the hassle of taking it to a pawn shop or trying your hand at an ebay jewelry auction. Maybe you’re a guy who bought some jewelry for a girlfriend and she gave it back when you broke up – it’s not like you can just pass it on to the next girl you meet. I’ve used a similar service, cellforcash.com, to get some money for old cell phones. I didn’t get the same price for my cell phones I’d have gotten if I sold my cell phones on ebay, but I also didn’t have the hassle of dealing with managing the auction, shipping the phone, and then waiting to see if the person on the other end was actually happy with it. Cash4Gold seems like the same convenience for gold items, with a similar trade off cash for convenience.

How do you maximize your return when selling your cash for gold?

The best way to maximize your return with Cash4Gold.com is to read the fine print. When you send in jewelry, their terms and conditions state:

“Except for small diamonds, prices for Jewelry are based solely on the weight of your Jewelry and karat grade contained in your Jewelry, not on its potential value if resold intact.”

What that means to me is if you have precious stones in a jewelry piece, you don’t get paid for them by Cash4Gold, so you either need to accept that or find another way to sell your jewelry. They recommend theestatebuyer.com as an alternative for fine jewelry with precious stones, however, Cash4Gold doesn’t forward your stuff, you have to send it to the right place. Knowing where to sell your stuff makes all the difference in getting the best price.

Another thing to keep in mind is by sending in your jewelry, you are agreeing to sell it for whatever price Cash4Gold determines. In some cases, you might be better off to have them assess your gold before you commit to selling. To do this, according to their terms and conditions, you have to request the quote in writing or by phone at the time you send in your gold. You also have 12 days to send the check back and request your jewelry back, but it seems more proactive to get a quote before you have them send a check rather than jumping through hoops if you change your mind.

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I’m fairly confident I’m going to miss my weight loss goal of 30 pounds by 1 May 2009. I’m currently down 12 pounds from my starting weight, with 8 days remaining. While I’m sure there’s some “miracle diet” I could follow to drop 2+ pounds per day for the rest of the month, starvation doesn’t seem like a healthy alternative. I’m fairly confident I’ll finish the month of April with a total loss of 15 pounds.

What derailed me from my goal? I got sidetracked initially by the arrival of Robin’s parents. My eating habits were corrupted by morning breakfast options I don’t normally entertain, which put me over my daily calorie budget. That’s my own fault and I should have planned accordingly, but didn’t. Two weeks with a new baby has meant my primary focus of any spare moment has been on sleeping not exercise, which accounts for more of the delay. I am closer to my goal than I was 30 days ago, which is a good thing, but a refocus on eating appropriately and getting a normal exercise routine back should move things along. I’m targeting a new date of 15 June 2009 for the remainder of the weight to be gone.

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Since I’m mentioning my love of the RoboForm password manager again, I thought I’d take a moment and talk about why I don’t use a couple of free alternatives. I don’t pretend to be the world’s leading expert on password security. I do have over 100 passwords I keep track of and I some strong opinions about the most convenient way to manage them.

Each time I mention RoboForm I usually get several emails from people asking why I don’t use the password manager in Firefox or the extremely popular password manager LastPass. Both are free, both use encryption, so why aren’t either of them good enough for me?

Firefox has a solid password manager. I like it in situations where you have less than 20 online passwords to keep track of. I hit a point where I felt like there were too many situations where the Firefox password manager simply didn’t work effectively for my needs. If you use Firefox as your password manager and are happy with it, keep using it! The one thing you should do is set a master password to protect all your Firefox passwords. Not because someone might discover them, but because they aren’t protected with any kind of encryption if you don’t set a master password. If your computer is ever compromised, by a virus or a person, not using the Firefox master password feature means anyone or any software can read your Firefox passwords. The

LastPass is a tougher one for me to defend against. It has features very similar to RoboForm. LastPass works great. LastPass is free! And if you use their online password synchronization feature, you can access your passwords from Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. Many people I respect use LastPass. The one thing I don’t trust about LastPass is the thing that makes it great – online synchronization. I don’t like the idea of storing my bank password on someone else’s server. The data is encrypted on the LastPass server, so in theory it’s safe, but my credit card account is also supposed to be encrypted and that hasn’t prevented employee theft issues being reported at several banking institutions. The human wildcard of someone possibly accessing and using my data makes the convenience of LastPass to risky in my book. Paranoid? Maybe. For the record, I won’t use the new online version of RoboForm for the same reason.

For the time being, I’m sticking with RoboForm, storing data on a local drive I keep in my possession at all times.

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Robin and I were blessed with our new baby girl, Geneva Rachel Ludington, at 10:49pm on April 6. She weighed in at 7lbs. 12oz (or 3.5 kilos). Whether you are new here or have been reading me for a long time, this will likely come as a surprise, because I haven’t mentioned we were expecting.

It turns out I’m superstitious about these kinds of things. I got it in my head somewhere early in the pregnancy that talking too much about it online would cause some form of bad luck. Like skipping the 13th floor in a building, I have no logical basis for my reasoning. Since everything went smoothly, my superstition is reinforced by the idea that if I had talked about it something certainly would have gone wrong. ;) Now that Geneva is here, I’m taking a moment to brag like any other proud father.

We had a home birth, which made perfect sense because Wyatt, Geneva’s big brother, was also born at home. Robin didn’t fall into any of the categories that suggest a high risk pregnancy. I don’t have a hospital birthing experience to compare the home birth to, but I honestly can’t imagine doing things any differently. It was great to be able to settle back into our own bed for a frequently interrupted night’s sleep, with Robin’s parents and Wyatt just down the hall, rather than spending the night in a strange place. Geneva was never out of Robin’s sight at any point following the birth and I got to be actively involved through the whole process. I realize this is currently a highly controversial topic here in the U.S., so I may be opening a can of worms by bringing up home birth in this forum, but there are very few instances where being at the hospital for a birth is medically necessary.

If you happen to be thinking about a home birth or have a family member who is considering one, email me and I’d be happy to share our experiences in greater detail. I’m not going to offer any medical advice, but I can certainly offer my perspective on what additional material you might want to refer to in making an informed decision.

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In January 2008 I tested and disliked the Callwave voicemail transcription feature. From my own testing, the quality of Callwave Vtxt didn’t compare to the far superior PhoneTag (formerly known as SimulScribe). 15 months later, Callwave is ending free transcription as part of their enhanced voicemail solution. Here’s the notice I received from Callwave this morning:

Dear CallWave Customer,

Thank you for using our Vtxt service. It has been our pleasure providing you service and hope you have enjoyed it.

We’re in the midst of restructuring the services we offer and the free transcription feature is no longer cost effective for our company. We regret to inform you that effective immediately this feature is not available and you will no longer receive voicemail transcriptions. You will still receive your enhanced voicemail, the ability to screen you mobile calls, save mobile minutes, manage your messages online and import/export your personal contacts.

If you choose to terminate your account due to this change in service please call 866-470-1989.

Thank you,

CallWave Inc.

If you are currently using the voicemail transcription feature of Callwave, you might try PhoneTag as a replacement.

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As I indicated in my newsletter earlier this month, I’m giving away one Kindle 2 at the end of April. I try to come up with creative ways to give away these various hardware devices and this time is no exception. There are two requirements to participate:

1) You must be subscribed to my newsletter on 1 May 2009 when I announce the recipient of the Kindle 2.

2) Between now and 30 April 2009, you need to write about your favorite worthy cause in a blog post or some other public way. Talk about what the cause is and why they need help. Be sure to link to the Website of your cause. Many non-profit organizations are suffering during the economic downturn we’re going through. Raising awareness will make a difference. After writing about your cause, email me a link to where you wrote about it. The cause you choose is entirely up to you. It may be a fund raiser for a school in your community through Donor’s Choose; you might promote clean water for a community somewhere; you may raise awareness about a program to help people get food and medical care they need; or you may opt to promote something else entirely. If you do not have an online space like a blog, facebook or myspace page, or somewhere else to promote your cause, you can write about it in the comments below (comments will close 30 April 2009).

The recipient of the Kindle 2 will be announced in the 1 May 2009 issue of the newsletter.

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Something I read a few years ago led me to go on a quest to reduce the number of things I attempt to do simultaneously. If I need to concentrate, I close my email, shut down my IM clients, and focus on the task at hand because there’s a fair amount of science indicating people waste more time when they try to do too many things at once. How much multitasking is too much varies from person to person, but it creates a struggle for priority in your brain that often leads to wasted time figuring out where you are in each task. I can’t find the original article I read about the negative impact of multitasking, but this highlighted article from Scribd does a good job of pointing out how the brain works (or doesn’t). The relevant section starts on Page 4, but the whole article is fairly interesting.

The Multitasking Generation – Multitasking in the Digital Age (Highlighted)

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I was a member of this cult long before my friend Bre Pettis spelled it out in a manifesto. While I’m known to procrastinate on occasion, I’m far more likely to try stuff, see it succeed or fail, and move on to the next thing. In a nutshell that is the Cult of Done.

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

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I’m a size conscious guy, at least when it comes to gadgets. I want gadgets that don’t waste space, so I’m constantly thinking about how the size of gadgets compare to other things I use regularly, especially as it relates to things I travel with. From a travel size perspective, Kindle 2 is one of the most space conscious gadgets out there. length and width match up with a trade paperback almost exactly. The Kindle 2 is actually thinner than the iPhone. Comparing Kindle 2 to my HP Mini 1000 makes the Netbook looks fat, although I wouldn’t trade the productivity of the HP Mini keyboard for the sake of a more sleek form factor.

Kindle 2 vs. Netbook side view:

Comparing Kindle 2 to various book form factors really shows off how much Amazon thought about design. It puts hardback books to shame in a size comparison. Trade paperback size is right on. And those little mass market paperbacks may be smaller length and width, but I never really liked the hand feel of them. All in, the Kindle 2 is a great form factor for the size conscious traveler.

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