There’s been a similar feature since XP to share connections, but this required you to use two different NIC’s and only supported peer-to-peer network. This software fixes both issues.

Software: Virtual Router – Wifi Hot Spot for Windows 7 – 2008 R2

Info: Share Wireless Internet Connection In Windows 7 Without Ad Hoc

From the scripture of Mark Douglas in The Disciplined Trader:

As a result, I sincerely feel that success in trading is 80 percent psychological and 20 percent one’s methodology, be it fundamental or technical. For example, you can have a mediocre knowledge of fundamental and technical information, and if you are in psychological control, you can make money. Conversely, you may have a great system, one that you have tested and has performed well for a long period of time, yet if the psychological control is not there, you will be the loser.

Steps I’ve recently taken to increase my mental control (since we all seem to default to focusing on technique):

• Meditation, both “empty your mind” and “visioning”.  I took a quick $7 lesson from a local mind+body shop.  Still working at implementing it daily.
• Monitor/schedule my sleep.  A Tim Ferriss trick is to use a timer rather then alarm for sleeping so I am focusing on my sleep deposit/debt.  This works better if I don’t have a required wake time for a job (I don’t).  Lack of sleep causes me to be more moody and thus more emotional.  Goal is eight hours, so I often start “going to bed” at T minus nine hours.
• Monitor/schedule my eating.  Food is the most powerful drug we take multiple times a day (unless you live in a hospital I guess).  Smaller meals more often keeps my blood sugar (the brain’s food) more level and thus my mood (emotional state).  I also stay away from sugar and manufactured carbs which spike the blood sugar (but not yet conquered caffeine).  The theory and application of this is found in The Zone Diet, which is designed to keep the body/mind “in the zone” of optimum energy by controlling what you eat.
• Don’t trade when I’m focused on finances.  If I need to pay next months bills with my "planned winnings” then I’ll trade from emotion, rather then if the money has no near-term impact on my lifestyle.  Even once trading becomes my only income my plan has me withdrawing once-for-the-next-six-months and eventually to once-for-the-next-year so my lifestyle is unaffected by my day to day market success.
• Plan, plan, and more sticking to the plan.  How many times will I trade a month?  How many times will I practice in a month?  How much cash will I use each time?  How many trades in a row loss will cause a “real money hold” period? What charts will I use? What stocks will I use?  When do I get out of the trade “when it’s not working” and “when it’s working”?  What do I consider “it’s not working”… and on and on.  The more details I have documented and the more I review it… the more I tend to be less emotional on entry and exit of a trade.

Image used with Creative Commons License from Jeff Power’s on Flickr

Imagine spending your time doing all the things “you always wanted to do” but didn’t have the time, money, or energy to do?  What if the belief that a job is the safe way and retirement at 65+ is the only way… is actually a lie?

In 2003 I started asking myself these questions, and have found the answers.

I’ve learned in the last 5 years that this is indeed possible and first has to start with  believing it can happen.  I mostly did this with books, some classes, and support from my Wife.  Without any skills in either real estate or the stock market we are quickly coming to a turning point in our mindset and abilities that will allow us to do just that.  I imagine this blog will change along with me, since I am quitting my job and phasing out my technology career.  I’ve had people tell me this can’t be done, at the same time I’m doing it.  I’ve had many moments I thought it was moving too slow and would never happen, or that I didn’t have the magic skills to make it work.  But for the moments that it seems to take forever, I’ve had moments (like now) that a huge leap forward has taken place and now realize within a year we’ll both be living the way we started to dream 6 years ago with one simple book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  It may not be the perfect book, but it lit a spark of hope, and after reading that book we had only one rule we weren’t willing to break:  once we started to act on these dreams, we would never give up… never.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Don’t get hung up on the real estate concept, but focus on the mindset. This is the book that was recommended to me by a friend 4+ years ago and got me started. When I read it I spent most of my spare time working my job and watching TV, etc.. 4 years later I spend most of my free time planning and working toward leaving the job for good.

Mastery. Once you understand the path to it (I had to read it twice), you tend to be calmer and content with the plateau of ‘work’ in getting good at something. Plus, it allows you to draw similarities between your path to mastery of Google hacking and the path of a Ninja, and that’s always fun.

The Secret. I have the DVD and audio, and have listen/watched them a total of 12+ times, and is still on my iPod. I have many big and exact examples of how the law of attraction has worked for me and mine.

Success is not an Accident. Still implementing this one, but is hard core work if you take it seriously. I expect it to give me laser focus on my life goals and projects by the time I’m through it.

Getting Things Done. Don’t just read this. Take a year to implement it. Trust me. Companies may start to prefer it, CNN boasts about it, and heck even Leo Laporte recommends it. After several methods including paper/Moleskine, Outlook, and Remember The Milk, I have stuck with My Life Organized because it’s digital, runs anywhere and keeps in sync, and I can take it with me on my Windows Mobile phone.

I’ve been a Zone diet fan for almost a decade, but always fell in and out of the discipline of controlling my hormones via controlling my macronutrient levels of food intake.  Recently, I started to consume all sorts of information about CrossFit methodoligy and techniques, which has also lead me back to the Zone, which, like you would expect, leads you back to CrossFit.

Loved the punishing workout I  received by Thomi and Pat of CrossFit Virginia Beach so much we’re already signed up for more instruction/pain in what I’m sure will be a life changing fitness program for us.

Anything that will help get you out of the Rat Race I’m a fan of.  Beth and I spend most of our free time focusing on investments that will help us retire before I’m 40.  Real Estate rentals, stocks, and eventually businesses.  If your thinking of a business… i suggest several things:

1. read Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki before you start… they are my business/investing bible
2. set a detailed plan for what you want and when, including what you will do if things go great or go bad.  in the few years of research I’ve been doing, it often comes down to people just ‘doing’ before they are ‘being’ what they need to be to be successful in what they do.  You and I are naturally interested in tech, which is the ‘be’ and once we starting ‘do’-ing the job it came rather naturally.  if your mindset isn’t one of a business owner (which is different then an employee) you won’t transition well because you’ll start the do before you have the be.  Kiyosaki explains this more, and I’m actually dealing with it now myself in stock investing (doing before being).
3. having started two of my own businesses, my wife another, my brother another, my brother-in-law two, my grandfather more then i can count, my uncle one, two friends, etc…. one thing is true in them all: you will not become wealthy if you ‘own your job’… meaning if you just do it all yourself, you’re what Kiyosaki calls a “S quadrant, or self employed, or small biz”.  this person does it themselves because “no one can do it better” and everyone I see do this spends LESS time with family and generally has no real change in overall financial status, almost without exception.  It’s ok to start out this way but the plan truly needs to be to work yourself out of the day-to-day labor (can you leave the biz for months and it still thrive?) by hiring others or working a network marketing downline, etc.  I actually quit a very successful indi consulting gig with 6 or more clients because I wasn’t willing to hire others to do the work and I was in the worst health of my life and never saw my family.  This was before I truly understood the Cashflow Quadrant book.
4. watch The Secret http://www.thesecret.tv/ (better yet, buy the dvd at target or something) and BELIEVE IT WILL HAPPEN (We are learning to use the law of attraction after watching this and realizing it has worked in our past even when I wasn’t aware of it).

hope this helps.  I’m mostly theory at this point, so take it as “free advice” which is to say “the most expensive advice is the free kind”.