Virgin Mobile to Start Throttling Data After 2.5GB

Customers using their mobile devices to watch movies and listen to music on line might be in for a rude awakening starting in March, according to an email from Virgin Mobile. With more and more things being done on smart phones and tablets, it seems the industry is going backwards. It does not even allow them to pay for more data, since all contracts are for unlimited data.

Here at Virgin Mobile, our mission is to deliver an outstanding customer experience. Sometimes that
means making difficult choices in order to provide the best possible service to the greatest number of customers.

To make sure we can keep offering our Beyond Talk Plans at such great prices, we're putting a data speed reduction in place for anyone who uses over 2.5GB of data in a month.

How will it work?
Starting March 23, 2012, if you use over 2.5GB of data in a month on your Beyond Talk Plan:

• Data speeds may be reduced to 256Kbps or below for the rest of your month. During this time,
  you may experience slower page loads and file downloads and lags in streaming media.
• If data speeds are reduced, they will return to normal as soon as your next plan month starts.
• If you'd rather not wait for your new month to start, you can restart your plan immediately through
  My Account.

Will it affect me?
Keep in mind, 2.5GB is a lot of data. To give you an idea, it's about 400,000 Mobile Internet page views,
about 90,000(!) emails (without attachments), 91 hours of streaming music or 20 hours of video clips*.
This change won't affect you unless you use more than that amount of data in a month.

This will not affect your ability to text or make calls with your phone.

How will I know if my data speeds have been reduced?
If you reach 2.5GB of data in a month, you will receive a text message letting you know your data speeds
will be reduced for the rest of your plan month.

By putting this data speed reduction in place, we're making sure we can deliver the same quality service
you've come to expect from Virgin Mobile. We hope you understand. 

Thank you.
Virgin Mobile 

Bon Bons Delivered Fresh Daily, Naked Fan Boys and Other Lies

White House Photo-Public Domain

I was reading a post by Carrie Wilkerson on what it has taken to get to this moment in her business career. It's a story not filled with all flowers and rainbows, but real honesty of what it takes to build a business. For many of us who are really active on social media networks sometimes we can get the idea that all a certain segment do are fly around the world giving lectures to thousands of adoring fans and money just flows down from the heavens above.


News flash. The reason they can fly now is because they laid the groundwork. They did the tedious work, wrote the books, held the webinars, built their fan base while they were home. Their names didn't just drop from the sky, but good relationship building went into it. They blogged, did podcast, met countless people at events who just wanted  a "piece of advice."

They spent hours alone working with accountants, lawyers, partners, and clients. All that while trying to keep some semblance of a family life and not becoming strangers to their friends. You can say they actively worked towards their dreams.

Way too many are under the illusion that if they quit their job, set up a blog and yap on social networks then all the doors of prosperity will open with a flood. Uh, nope. Sorry, the get rich quick line is down the hall overflowing with fools waiting for that same thing. It takes work to make a dream come true. Mr "Four Hour Work Week" didn't start out there, he had to build his systems to get to that place. He had to have a team to help him. No work fairies, sorry.

So, if you are waiting for someone to notice you, might I suggest you will be waiting a very long time. Not meaning to hurt your feelings, but people hire people who are busy getting results. They don't hire the person with the open calendar. So, that blog you built might be indispensable if you actually filled it with information that people find valuable.

Before you follow the trend and hang out that "expert" shingle perhaps you might want to have your actions speak for your expertise. People are impressed by results not titles anyway. If you will spend the time doing the work you need to do, then you are well ahead of those waiting for that golden egg to roll to their feet.

As I have said often, if you want to be a writer, you have to write. Want to be a renown photographer, then you might want to take some pictures. The days of being an expert in a weekend are over. It's time to get to work and earn the right to give those speeches to your adoring fans. Not to swipe a line from Fame, but if you want a business, it costs, and this is where you begin to pay.

HERE'S AN EFFECTIVE "ONE-PERSON BUSINESS" TIME SAVER

But just because it was originated for a one-person business is no reason why any person, no matter how large their concern, can't adapt at least some of it to save time.
"I keep a complete set of books—but I never spend much time at them," said one business man. He drew from one of the upper drawers of his desk an ordinary page-a-day diary and a small file box containing a number of 3 by 5 cards. "Here are my 'books'," he continued, displaying these two items. "This diary is what I call my day book. The box contains my time sheets and ledger. When I started out several years ago I found that every minute a man takes for bookkeeping usually cuts into his income, for it reduces his productive hours. But I always have wanted to know just where my affairs stand at any time. So as a result I began to experiment, and finally worked out this method."

The engineer happens to have an office comprising in all perhaps not more than two hundred square feet. His only employee is a stenographer. His time is valuable because he draws his profit from the work he personally turns out. There are hundreds of offices of about this size and character, and for that reason the unusually interesting and helpful set of records which this business man has developed for his work will probably prove of general interest.

"I inherited the diary-day-book idea from my father, who was a lawyer," he says. "It affords, in my opinion, a much easier way to put down entries than the formally ruled day book, and what's more to the point, it encourages me to make more complete comments, for I have an entire page of the book to use daily. This completeness of my book of original entry has been of value to me in court on several occasions."

He opened it, displaying a page with several entries showing receipts and disbursements. On the margin he had printed with a rubber stamp all the hours from eight in the morning to six at night. "I seldom get down before 8 o'clock or stay after 6, you see," he continued. "When I start on a job I scratch my pen through the hour of starting—that's what these rubber-stamp figures are for. Then I write in, alongside, the name of the job. By keeping this upon every job I tackle I have a complete record on my time. I even mark the time I take for lunch. That isn't essential, of course, but I do it because it gives me an absolute itemized account of my working day."

In this man's card index, which is alphabetically arranged, the individual-job time cards are filed with the ledger cards—the ledger account first, and the time card whose entries are charged under that account behind it.

He posts his time from the day book to a time card. He totals these cards weekly, and multiplies the totals by the hour rate which he charges. This charge he places against the customer on the ledger card. This gives him an accurate charge against each job.

Ledger entries have to be made only at the first of each month. Statements go out at the same time. Since the time cards are already in the file box behind the ledger cards, it is a simple job to make the entries. This man keeps one ledger account here for general expense, and his experience shows that most of the day-book entries go into it, unless these entries can be charged to specific jobs. He says that his system has been worth hundreds of dollars to him.