ashPresentom

Doing it in 3D

2009-06-18T01:05:00.001-07:00

Hello folks, after a long time.
Funny thing, its actually has been a long time and the last time I designed the pencil sketch of the box and today after I designing a 3D version of the same box with wood and it has been a quite a good number of days in between.

But I want to mention here that the design I am posting here is a 3D rendering I designed from scratch based on the pencil sketch.

And I will keep trying to post more blog posts in here in the fields of interst and would appreciate the inspiration from you with your comments.

Pencil Art work ; Abundance

2009-05-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

Further enhanced version

Once again I went back to my drawings and drew somethings of a more abstract nature and after a scan of the sketch I added digital enhancements using Photoshop. In this art work the photoshop impact is heavy as it added more quality and flare to otherwise an ordinary graphic.

Enjoy!

Shot at Comic Character drawing; Wolverine

2009-05-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

The transformation from the original scanned copy of pencil drawing.

Learn Yahoo Finance

2009-05-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hello guys!

How have you been? I apologize for not being relatively active in the blog in the recent past. But the good news is today I am going to write about another lesson on Yahoo Finance, in the series of learning how to use Yahoo Finance for your investment purposes.

As you can see in the picture, we are talking today about Historical Prices section in the yahoo finance. Just like an eleven year old can tell you, its the past values for a stock.

In this section you can set your own date range for a company's stock on Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Dividends only basis. One important thing to mention in here is that prices listed here are end of the day prices and they are already adjusted for Dividend and Stock split.

At the bottom of the page you have the opportunity to download this data set to an Excel compatible file.

So thats all on Historical Prices section on Yahoo Finance.

Personal Finance, better balance your income to expense

2009-04-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Personal Finance education or making people aware of better personal finance management skills, still I found to be a topic need addressed for the time being.

Typical example of ciaos of personal finances effect on economy goes like this...

Poor personal Finance management > Individuals borrowing money on credit > Poor planning cause individuals to not able to pay the borrowed money back in time > Banks that lend money in trouble > Banks asking for help from the government to survive > Bailout plan from Gov using tax payer money > Government debt sky rockets

The circle goes on and on as long as Banks continue to lend money to individuals that has no long-term solid means for repaying.

2nd 10 day Results for Traffic Counter experiment

2009-04-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

From the results for the day 11 till 20th, as you can see in the chart above, clearly shows a difference between categories. On the last column I have the percentage of that data set as of the highest data set, which is Statcounter.

We are 2/3 way to completing our experiment and so far in both occasions it seemed clear that StatCounter is the only site that record the traffic data relatively accurate. (In this case it means higher numbers -- the numbers that others failed to track)

If you have any other questions about this experiment as we progress to the last part, please feel free to ask them in the comments section.

How to use restrict access & blocking other PCs on LinkSys router WTR54G

2009-04-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Have you had situations where you are watching something or surfing web and the internet is really slow on your DSL/Cable modem and you share the connection with other people or you think other people accessing your wireless is whats slowing it down?

Linksys router and several other routers comes with internet access restriction features and also bandwidth limit features. In this post I will talk about Internet restriction and Mac filter, how to put these into good use to stop unauthorized access to your internet boradband connection with WTR54G Linksys router.

First access your wireless router from http://192.168.1.1 and with your username password, on default its "admin" you will see a window like this...

To use Wireless MAC filter
What this feature does is, it filter certain MAC addresses or block certain MAC addresses from accessing your wireless internet. The MAC address we are referring in this example is your computer's MAC address.

Note: to find out your MAC address; run cmd (command prompt) type "ipconfig /all" it should be referred to as Physical address.

Back in the router page, go to Wireless > Wireless MAC filter
Select Enable, and pick whether you want to prevent the PCs or permit only listed PCs. Then click "Edit MAC filter list" and enter all the MAC address you want or you dont want to access your wireless internet.
Click save changes. and you have just successfully stopped other people from using your wireless.

To use Access Restriction
Access Restriction (AR) will completely disconnect the internet of a certain PC you want you can also specify what time you want this to happen, on what days.

Go to your router access page;
Click Access Restriction
First Edit the list of PCs you are targeting in this AR. Save the list and close. (always save the list or else it would not record the MAC ids) You can allowed up to 10 of these AR policies with WTR54G model router. Give it a name Under "Enter Policy Name" select whether you want to deny or allow and the Days, Times, even web addresses. When everything is done select "Enable" on Status and save changes.

These two techniques are very powerful to a certain level in restricting internet access from your connection to unauthorized computers. But of course there are computer hackers out there who always find ways to creep through these barriers and locked doors and that's what makes the world!

Borrowing money (Loans) Simple version for Eager Learners

2009-04-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

Borrowing money or on credit or taking a loan to pay it back later, all these terms refer to the same concept. And in this blog post I am going to break it down for you to understand the deep structure of what happen with borrowing money.

When you are borrowing money from a bank or an institution, you will be borrowing a large portion of money and will divide this into equal parts and pay it back over time with an added fee. This is called the interest on a loan or a credit.

On the opposite side, this is how banks make money. By lending to people and receiving interest on them over time.

There is a "Time value of money" concept involved in the simple money borrowing situation. In other words the Interest you are paying for bank loan (after 1 period) is the value of money over that one period, which you didn't pay until the end of the 1st period. So longer the money stays the higher the time value of money becomes.

It also refers to receiving XX today being equal to receiving YY over periods in the future because of the time value that is taken into account for the money.

For example lets assume you are planning to buy a new Car and you don't have enough money, so you decide to consult a bank as to a potential loan program. For this example lets say you need another $30,000 for the car, that you need from a loan.
Assuming that you met all the criteria the XYZ bank agrees to lend you money at 5% APR.

what is APR?
Annual percentage rate. Now if the bank say you have to pay the $30,000 in 10 years with equal payments of $3000 every year, the APR is the annual interest that will add onto the annual payment. So in this case your interest payment for a year is....

$3000 x 5% = $150

so total payment is $3150 per year.

Important part here is before you accepting the loan and enjoying your hot wheels, you should thoroughly consider whether you can meet these annual payment requirements. Because you can not meet the annual payment with interest, the bank will apply late fees, and that will lead to more other fees before you go "over draft" and into default. So called the "snowball effect".

Little insight: The United States current economy's main cause -- AIG and other big financial institutes failures -- is lending money to individuals and approving them for loans when it seemed from a deep look that they, not in any shape or form, would have been able to meet in the payment requirements in distant future. Yet were approved and the banks now suffer from the imposed-upon defaults.

So in recap, when you borrow money you will be given a certain set period to pay it back with added interest to each period. It is very important to identify whether one can meet the payments sufficiently before accepting a loan.

What is RSS, Simple version for eager learners

2009-04-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

RSS, Real Simple Syndication.

There has been exponentially increasing number of web blogs and news websites in today's world. But in this enormous information jungle how are you going to find the information that you need, the information that matches your taste??

In old days, what used to be was, people go out there and watch TV and read newspapers to get the information from out there. Which involve reading the entire Newspaper, meaning more time spent to find what you like. But now with the invention of blog everyone has the capability of producing high quality content that may prove a great value to you, to your knowledge base. This had made it difficult to find the information you like and that has a higher value to you.... and that's when the RSS comes.

RSS with the familiar icon like this is the solution for today's world to have those content that have a great value to you, to come to you and not you having to go out there and spend hours finding content of importance.

With a reader like Google Reader (or NewsGator, My Yahoo) you can stay upto date with your favorite sites and blogs for the information that you value. And RSS or the xml version of the websites and blogs makes it easier for these Syndication readers to capture those information and bring it to the reader's website so you only have to visit Google reader and have the luxury of reading latest articles and blog posts of all your favorite blogs and news articles,
all at one place.

Add ashPresentom to your newly created Reader now!

How to design a user icon (Human bust) in Photoshop

2009-04-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

Creation of ashPresentom

10 days update of traffic counter experimental study

2009-04-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

It has been 10 days since we started the experimental study to find out which traffic counter is more accurate (well relatively accurate). As I mentioned in the introduction experiment page, I will be posting results every 10 days from the date we started the experiment, today I will be posting the results here.

Results
So clearly from the table we can see that Statcounter had recorded more hits and pageviews than any of the other two.

If we assume our determinant is Page visits (Total views), Google Analytics have the lowest, which in other words (for this experiment) means it had recorded the lesser of visits to ashPresentom over last 10 days.

If we assume our experiment determinant is Page Views, in which case sitemeter becomes the lesser to have recorded a low number of page views.

It has only been 33% of our expected experimental period and these results are starting to clearly tell us which site measure website traffic accurately.

Additions after 10 days
I have added to the site after 10 days another 2 FREE website traffic counters you can find out there. In selecting the counters I paid close attention to the way they display results and easy installation and navigation.
New additions are;
4. ShinyStat (http://www.shinystat.com/)
5. GoStat (http://gostats.com/)

Anna Faris iPhone Wallpaper

2009-04-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

This blog post will feature Anna Faris in iPhone Wallpaper. She cast in the recent movie Observe and Learn as the character of Brandi. Enjoy!

Click here to download the iPhone wallpaper

How to make hover button for website (mouse rollover button) with CSS/HTML

2009-04-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today's post is going to focus on creating a roll over button using CSS and HTML just like the one you see above. And I will go over getting it to work with IE as well.

In website designing, website designer care a lot about website loading time and pay a great deal of time coding in a way it would make the site load faster. For instance if you want to do a rollover button, where you would have a button like this (inactive)

and switches into this image once you move your mouse over the image (button)

You would have to have two different pictures loaded into viewers computer to show this, meaning longer time to load two images as oppose to one.

Lets look at the file sizes of these two images;
They both are in gif fully optimized form,
inactive image is 4.21KB and the active image is 4KB. Total of 8.21KBs

What if you could use only a single image which has both rollover and inactive images in a single image??
Like this one..

This combined image is 7.53KBs not much of a difference but it is something. And loading a single image is always faster in website world than loading more images.

How do you make a rollover button with single image with both active and inactive images in one. First of all you have to design this button with precision. In the above button it has width of 400 pixels and height of 100 pixels which is 50 to one and 50 to other.

After you have designed the button image using this CSS and HTML code you can easily.

CSS code for this feature

HTML to in the body

Portions that make this code work in IE is "display:block" and associating the image to "a" rather than using <img> or linking to <div>.

Break down of the roll-over CSS effect;

With this code we are telling to move the background image of <a> tag to move up by describing its new position which is starting from bottom-left corner.

"a:hover" is the CSS hover or mouse roll-over associated code we use here in CSS.

Fast and Furious 4 poster design

2009-04-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

Featured here is a poster design of the lastest action movie, Fast and Furious 4, by aj designs. If there are enough requests there is a possibility of producing a wallpaper based on this poster. So let me know...

Rachel Mcadams iPhone wallpaper

2009-04-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

iPhone Wallpapers blog posts series.
As iPhone becoming an added gadget in people's lives, there had to be a certain amount of specialty be granted for enhancement of its usages and outlook. ashPresentom will assist our dear viewers in colorizing and adding killer graphics to your iPhone background with series of iPhone wallpaper backgrounds following this blog post. So check out again for our future iPhone background wallpapers.

Note: content here published under ashPresentom iPhone wallpaper blog posts series are a sole property of ashPresent.blogspot.com. These can only be republished with the mention of ashPresent.blogspot.com.

Download Rachel McAdams iPhone Wallpaper

State of Fear by Micheal Crichton

2009-04-06T17:32:00.001-07:00

Great novel by Micheal Crichton, talks about Global Warming. I found the topics discussed in the novel to be of truth, and the provided references to articles clarifies Crichton's points across.

A speculation of the global warming as discussed in here, writer takes you on a course where you will see the elite planning events that create world catastrophes artificially, such as detonated blasts in Antarctica that creates huge ice bergs, and Cavitation generators in use to create undersea land slide that trigger a Tsunami from Solomon islands.

Group of fully aware people find clues to these events and follow them in an attempt to stop these catastrophes from happening. On the other side, elite plan conferences focusing global warming -used as a state of fear to control humans- are expecting these catastrophes which will help them prove their point across to humans that Global warming is causing these events.

Fascinating script and story line, Crichton expressively provide statistics and build the story to a great phenomenon.

aP Novel rating of
4.7/5.0

Download eBook version of State of Fear by Micheal Crichton
Click here

Other Novels Featured on ashPresentom
Simple Genius by David Baldacci
Hour Game by David Baldacci

The key for readable clean Typograhpy

2009-04-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Achieving readability is relatively easy; all it takes is to follow a few key practices. A readable Web page can go a long way with your users, and readability has a huge impact on their experience. Designing for the Web is all about making the user’s experience as pleasant as possible. Here are 9 tips that will help you work towards readability.

1. User-Friendly Headers
Headers are a key element in typography, Web and print alike. As mentioned, they are part of the text hierarchy and a major factor in scannable content.

First off, header size is just as important as the size of the body text. Going too big with the header with a large amount of content can throw the user off balance when reading and cause them to lose their spot. It will ultimately ruin the flow of the content and be a distraction. Headers that are too small will ruin the hierarchy of the article, too. If the header is too small, it will not draw the user’s attention as it should.

Next, it is important to provide ample space between the header and body text.

2. Scannable Text
I have already mentioned “scannable” text many times, and you have surely heard it elsewhere. Scannable text goes hand in hand with readable text. Making copy scannable consists of good use of headers, hierarchy and focus points to guide the user through the content.

So, what makes copy scannable? Well, there are many factors, most of which have already been mentioned. Header size and position, body text size, text line height, text contrast and the way focus points are differentiated all impact how scannable copy is.

Focus points are certain elements or objects within the layout that attract, or are supposed to attract, the user’s attention. This could be a header, a graphical element, a button, etc.

3. White Space
In content-heavy layouts, spacing contributes to the readability of content. White space helps to offset large amounts of text and helps the user’s eyes flow through the text. It also provides separation between elements in the layout, including graphics and text.

In the example below, white space and only white space is used to separate text elements. The layout is very clean and efficient. The user’s eyes flow from text element to text element with ease, because of the large amounts of white space.

4. Consistency
Consistency is often regarded as an important technique for usability, but it also applies to readability. Consistency in the hierarchy is important to a user-friendly layout. This means that all headers of the same importance in the hierarchy should be the same size, color and font. For example, all < h1 > headers in an article should look identical. Why? This consistency provides users with a familiar focus point when they are scanning, and it helps to organize the content.

5. Density of Text
Density of text refers to the amount of words you place in one area. Density of content has a major impact on your content’s readability. Density is affected by spacing options such as line height, letter spacing and text size. If you find a balance between all of these so that the content is neither too compact nor too widely spaced, you will have perfect density that is both readable and scannable.

6. Emphasis of Important Elements
Another key factor is emphasis of certain elements within the body content. This includes highlighting links, bolding important text and showing quotes. As mentioned, focus points are essential in Web typography. By emphasizing these objects, you provide focus points for the user. These points and objects help break up monotonous text.

Scannable text is extremely important. By providing these focus points,, you make the body text extremely scannable. Bolding key lines of text immediately attracts the user’s eye and is therefore a very important element in presenting important information.

Pictured below is an article from UXBooth. This article uses bolding and italics to point out important information in the article. This is a very readable article and very easy article to scan for information.

7. Organization of Information
Believe it or not, the way you organize information in an article can strengthen readability. Users are guided with ease through content that is properly organized because information is easier to find. This veers into issues beyond the scope of this article but is still very important.

8. Clean Graphical Implementation
Every text body needs some sort of visual support, be it an image, icon, graph or illustration. Placing the graphic in the article can be challenging. Sufficient space is needed between the graphic and text.

If the graphical element is an image, then a clean border is a good idea for providing a clean separation from the text. Borders can help guide the user’s eyes and are good for adding style to content. It is important, however, to keep borders in content simple. They should have a subtle color palette and shouldn’t be too large.

In the case of graphical elements such as icons and illustrations, space is the only separator that should be used. The content should move cleanly around the graphic without disrupting the text.

9. Use of Separators
Separators are a simple and easy way to divide text into sections in a clean and organized manner. They can be used to divide hierarchy elements, such as headers and body text. They can also be used to divide content into sections.

The simplest form of divider is a single line. These are most often used to divide hierarchy elements and are very useful for making subtle divisions that still play a big role in readability.

Another common way to divide content is to use boxes. Text boxes are excellent for separating unrelated content on a single page. They help move the user’s eyes through a complex layout. Below is an example of this on Pixelmator’s website. It uses boxes to separate content in a clean way. Notice how the boxes are defined by their background instead of a border.

10. Good Margins
You hear people say that you should use white space, but why? White space actually helps draw the user’s eye to the text. The blank area (white space) forces the eye to focus on the text. So white space will influence the flow and readability of content. Margins are one of the best white space elements and support text elements well. Margins on either side will force the user’s eye to focus inward on the core content of the article.

Margins also support the article in another way. They help separate content from the rest of the design and layout. Text shouldn’t bleed into other layout elements, especially if it is a long article. Margins help define the article and its separation.

References:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Embed RSS feed into a html webpage part 2

2009-04-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

In the previous webdiv topic about RSS feed we talked about including someone else's RSS feed into your website. In those examples we used sites like feed2js, whome take your xml feed link and convert xml to html and show the results in a java script format.

Disadvantages of this option:
Since it is a third part site, they have an allocated amount of bandwidth for a day or for an hour for each of these tasks. So if your site is heavily visited and would show this RSS feeds regularly, there is a higher chance you would exceed this bandwidth limit and have a blank space.

One alternative for this is to try the server side solution, which in most cases is download and upload to server type of operations, but could get complicated with the number of files involved.

Site like www.feed2js.org, you can download this script files and the converter files. This you will install into your server, now it will use your own bandwidth and will not run out of it as fast.

Another solution is a site called www.grazr.com This site will provide an animated/interactive widget formed using your RSS feed link, which can be placed in your website quite easily. I have tried this and it has not run out of bandwidth limit for me yet.

www.wowzio.com, www.springwidgets.com are two more websites that provide a widget from your RSS feed link.

Website visitor counter testing on ashPresentom

2009-04-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

There are numerous website counters today used by bloggers and other website publishers to track their visitors and in-depth analyze what their visitor's did in those websites. Today we are not going to compare those stat counters on their features, but what we are going to do today is, to see which stat counter is the most accurate.

At ashPresentom we receive at an average of about 60-70 visits per day according to statmeter.com website which we have installed in here. Because of this relatively good number of visits, I am going to be using ashPresentom as the subject for this experimental study.

In this study I am going to be testing Google Analytics, Sitemeter, and Statcounter some of the best counters out there that are free for use. I have installed the required codes to this blog, to enable these counters, at 12:00 am on April 1st and we will use the data from April 1st till April 30th, 11:59pm.

Most of the time, if a website received a visit of less than 1 second, some counter's code fail in recording this as a legitimate visit. This will create inequality between traffic counters. A more defined goal of this experiment at ashPresentom is to find which statcounter provide an accurate reading of site visitors out of the three options we used.

At the end of first 10 days, second 10 days, and last 10 days I will record the numbers in here for aP viewers to have a look at how this experiment is progressing.

In the meantime if you feel there has to be added, another big player from "free traffic counter" group, please feel free to let me know. I will be able to add additional options to this experiment at the end of 1st 10 days and 2nd 10 days to maintain the accuracy of this experiment.

Note 0.01: Parameters of this experiment is; Page views and Total visits.

Simple Genius by David Baldacci

2009-03-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

ashPresentom Novel Review.

Today's novel we are going to review is Simple Genius by David Baldacci. This book is the 3rd of the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series. Specialty about today's novel review is that I am going to include the "Novel level of appeal, excitement, and suspense" graph.

Making of the "Novel's level-of-appeal graph"
As I mentioned above this will be an approximate and an average of the level of excitement and appeal as you read the novel. When I design this graph I will recall the novel from my memory and prescribe a number out of 10 for that part of the novel. I will divide the novel into 30 periods for the above process. Since the ranking will take the full judgment of my own senses and feelings, the graph can be used only as an approximate implication of the novel's level of appeal. Without further ado, here is the Novel's level-of-appeal graph.

aP Overall Ranking:4.7/5
Yet another great novel by David Baldacci. Story start from the last book, and the things going on in Michelle Maxwell's live in the first part of the story and how it evolve around level of appeal to the reader, I have described in graphical form above.
The story in this novel focuses on a drug scheme run under the covers orchestrated by CIA in particular. The location of this drug operation take a great importance in history as to a place where World war German soldiers were kept and tortured. In the vicinity is a facility that strive to design the next generation of a supercomputer, thus surrounded by Genius scientists. The investigative work for Sean King starts with the murder of one of the Scientists involved in Baggage town.

This was the scientist who discovered an secret tunnel made by German captives to escape from the prison facility, and what he saw was put into a secret code, which was programed to his daughter, Viggie. Who was also a genius with the capability of finding primes of big numbers in head at the age of eleven. Although she lived in her own world and space out of real life at times, Sean King and Michelle maxwell had to get the secret code or hints for revealing the code from her.

Altogether a great story line and fantastic use of codes and mystery hunting.

Networking computers, software update news

2009-03-31T17:06:00.001-07:00

In my computer networking mini-educational blog post series I talked about connecting two computers in a way that it would share single keyboard mouse and allow control of both computers on above mentioned basis. The program we used for this operation is win2VNC and VNC server program.

I was recently able to find out the updated version of win2VNC program which allows further added functions to our networking capabilities.

Click here to download the program. (win2VNC version 1.4.1)

Floral Graphic with overlay of pencil floral painting

2009-03-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

With the increased visits to ashPresentom on the area of floral Graphics, which seemed to have taken the viewers attention to a greater extent, I decide to post this simple digital graphic. This graphic shows the blend of Pencil floral graphic with vector graphics and added blue effects.

To make this post interesting; in creating this graphic I used Photoshop effects such as:
- Motion blur of rendered fiber to create speedy lines effect.
- overlay effect to show certain parts of floral graphics on top of an underling graphic.
- Color dodge effect, one of my favorite in PS, I used in creating the burning yet diffused outterglow of fonts.

Although this graphic is focused on floral portions, it also have a hidden grunge effect that I created using overlay and color dodge, which makes this a very appealing work of floral.

website compatibility across browsers

2009-03-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

In my previous Web div posts we talked about importance of a header section for a website before we went over RSS feeds on a website. Today post will focus on compatibility of a website across browsers, and some techniques used by website designers to allow a similar view from different browsers.

With Google Chrome being the newest addition to website browser family, it has become more tactful for today's website designers to develop websites that will have a consistent look across all those browsers. Because these browsers are designed differently they react to website codes differently, which makes all these troubles.

Why is it that important to care about how a website look in a different browser?
Take a look at this graph below.

This shows the percentage-wise browsers used by ashPresentom viewers in the past times. As you can see not all of them use a single browser to view ashPresentom, so it is very important when designing a website to pay close attention to across browser compatibility.

How to solve this issue?
It is impossible to make sure your website has a consistent look with all browsers and all their current and previous versions. Although you should at least test with top browsers such as FireFox, IE, Opera, Chrome.

Easy solution is open all the browsers and test every code you enter with all those browsers to make sure they look the same. This could be a time consuming process.

Another more famous alternative is the W3 quality assurance website validating service. To perform this, during your coding process you will define the document type you use, which allow validation of the code for errors through w3 website.

< !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >

"Why specify a doctype? Because it defines which version of (X)HTML your document is actually using, and this is a critical piece of information needed by browsers or other tools processing the document.

For example, specifying the doctype of your document allows you to use tools such as the Markup Validator to check the syntax of your (X)HTML (and hence discovers errors that may affect the way your page is rendered by various browsers). Such tools won't be able to work if they do not know what kind of document you are using.

But the most important thing is that with most families of browsers, a doctype declaration will make a lot of guessing unnecessary, and will thus trigger a "standard" parsing mode, where the understanding (and, as a result, the display) of the document is not only faster, it is also consistent and free of any bad surprise that documents without doctype will create." - www.w3.org

In today's blog post we talked about the importance of maintaining a website compatible across various browsers and solutions to over come this barrier.

Related Topics:
Importance of a header to a website

Learn to use Yahoo Finance: part 3

2009-03-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

In this post we look as Options section under Quotes. Call option is in which the Buyer of the security has the right but not the obligation to buy the securities at a set price or exercise price at a certain time. Put option is exactly the opposite; the sellers side. And the Bid price is how much the buyer is willing to pay to buy the option. Just like previous Ask is the exact opposite.

Alright with that preliminary understanding lets look at the Options page of Yahoo finance. Yet again we look at Dell stock.

"View by expiration" is when the option expires.
Both the Call and Put option have similar information, so lets look at the Call option.

Strike - is the price at which the option is exercised. In the case of Call option, if you buy the option and the price of the security goes up, our strategy to make the best profit is exercise the Call option and buy the security at $5.00 (Strike price) and sell it on market for higher.

Symbol - has the symbols of all the different options with different values.

Bid - is the price the seller of the option would get.

Ask - is the price the buyer of the option would receive to purchase the option.

Vol - represent the number of those options available.

Open Int - "The total number of options and/or futures contracts that are not closed or delivered on a particular day. Or the number of buy market orders before the stock market opens." - investopedia.com

In this blog post we talked about Options section in yahoo finance -call and put options. And we went over what each column of the page means to an investor or a trader.

How to add RSS feed to a website using Javascript

2009-03-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

In the aP last web div blog post we talked about the importance of header section of a website. Recently, I was in a demand to find out a way for including automatically updated News and Topics section from a favorite news website and include those topics with a link on a separate website.

This function is made easier with the RSS feed culture and it uses a xml format file that include news topics and short descriptions.

There are several free websites that allow you to enter the RSS feed xml link and generate a java script that will convert and provide you a code that you can include in your site to show those latest news in your site.

Here are some of the codes from RSS feed generator sites.
www.rss2java.com (excluding the first 2 (') signs)
'<'script language='Javascript' src='http://www.rss2java.com/feed.php?number=5&date=1&desc=1&html=1&new=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds2.feedburner.com%2Fblogspot%2FaP'>'<'/script'>'"

Customize this code:
- 'http://www.rss2java.com/feed.php?number=5&date=1&desc=1&html=1&new=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds2.feedburner.com%2Fblogspot%2FaP

- "number=5" <-- is the number of last topics/blogposts that will show
- "date=1" <-- (1) show date, (0) hide date of the post
- "desc=1" <-- show description of the topic
- "url=" <-- is where you would type in your required RSS feed link to be used for for this function. Be sure to replace "://" to "%3A%2F%2F" so java can understand this.

Option 2:
< script type="text/javascript" src="http://p3k.org/rss/proxy.r?frameColor=black&textColor=black&_=1238121698248&titleBarColor=
lightblue&compact=&fontFace=&align=&showXmlButton=
&maxItems=5&boxFillColor=white&titleBarTextColor=
black&width=200&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds2.feedburner.com
%2Fblogspot%2FaP&" >< /script >

Option 3:
Feed2JS.org
http://feed2js.org/index.php?s=build

Option 4 (AJAX version):
Google ajax Feed API.
http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/dynamicfeed/index.html

Thats it for today's Web div posts. Join aP next time with another exhilarating blog post.

How to increase computer's speed after adding extra RAM

2009-03-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Lets assume your RAM memory is 512MB. What would happen if your computer run out of this memory space?

Computers are designed to run multiple tasks at the same time today which is no news for us. When computers run multiple tasks it requires more random access memory aka RAM memory to save temporary data into. And when this memory runs out it uses swap files to store data. The rule of thumb is have twice as big swap file as the physical ram memory size, thus it will have extra space to store data during multi-task operations.

But for computers games, its a different story. These guys would run only one program and they would like to have the maximum speed they can possibly get from the computer solely to run the game. In which case they would argue against larger swap file.

So lets assume you had 512MB ram and you added another 512MB card to the RAM slots, but you dont really feel like its picking up any speed in processing operations. For additional RAM to take effect it will need higher swap file space. Simply increasing the swap file space can your new RAM card worked what it suppose to do.

Steps to increase the swap file size.

01. Click on the Start menu
02. Then right click on My Computer
03. Go to Properties
04. Go to Advance Tab
05. Click Settings under Performance section
06. Click Advance tab
07. Go to Settings under Virtual Memory section
08. Under "Pagin file size for selected drive" select drive your operating system is running on. At most cases this page file size is set to a custom size.
Select "System managed size" to allow your computer to allocate desirable amount of space for random memory purposes.

Related topics:
Networking computers together

Why is the header of a website important

2009-03-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

Header of a website has its importance in serving by holding valuable information that otherwise would have to be accessed from the body. Header in any case not pertaining to websites, either a document or a letter or a poster is an important part. Its main idea is to provide a valuable quick summary and theme or the title of what the rest of the document is going to be.

Header of a website is identified beginning with "< head >" and ending with '<'head'>', thus what is inside these two tags and the content of a header of a website. On a well scripted website, header usually contain markers such as '<'meta'>' '<'title'>' '<'base'>' '<'link'>', all these inside '<' head '>'

'<'title'>' this tag contain the title of the website, just like the title of an essay that goes in the header. Everything inside this markup tag you code into the header, will be shown on title of a browser when you visit the website. Therefore it is important to have a title for a website, so it can be easily identified by the viewer.

'<'meta content'>' in the meta content tags websites can usually insert keywords relating to website and description of the website, which will not be shown anywhere else on the website, or rather which is invisible to a simple viewing of the website through a browser. Yet this markup serves a great task in providing these keywords and descriptions of a website for search engines to optimize websites for search rankings as well as for descriptive bookmarking of the website.

Code to add a website description to the header;
'<'meta content="ashPresentom an educational consortium which serves in enlightening the viewers" name="description"/'>'

Next we look at '<'link'>' tags.
It is a great way to increase the website load time by separating other types of codes such as CSS, Javascript, etc. '<'Link'>' tag comes handy in these cases.

Code to load a CSS stylesheet from an external link:
'<'link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/stylesheet.css"'>'
In this case the website will load stylesheet.css file from css directory and be readily available for the site to use. If the CSS code happened to be rather large in size implying a longer time to load, you might have noticed in certain occasions website changes its view of tables and etc. as it load.

Another great use of the '<'link'>' tag is to add a favicon to your website. Favicon is the small icon that shows up on address bar and on tabs as well as bookmarks next to title. It gives a certain flair to a website and help improving its brand recognition. You can make your own favicon in photoshop to be in a square of roughly 75 x 75 px and use a website like www.favicongenerator.com to convert the jpg file to ico and have your own favicon.

Code for adding a favicon
'<'link href="images/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon"/'>'
In this code, website will retrieve the favicon.ico file, which has your favicon, and place on the website appropriately.

Also another code goes in the header are loading javascript files from external directories.
Code to load javascript:
'<'script src="js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"'>'

Next we look at '<'base'>' which specify a default URL and a default target for all links on a page.
'<'base href="http://ashpresent.blogspot.com/images/" /'>'
'<'base target="_blank" /'>'

In this blog post we talked about importance of a '<'head'>' in the website and break it down into pieces to better understand why things are there for. This conclude the educational post of WEB div.

NOTE: these tags (') has been placed outside < markups to avoid confusion with the blog site's coding and the post.

aP Novel Review: Hour game by David Baldacci

2009-03-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yet another great novel by David Baldacci. Story line very well written in a suspense thriller investigative serial killer based novel. As being the second of the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series, two ex-secret service agents build their relationship together while working at their private investigation firm.

Genius serial killer who leaves a wrist watch on the dead body representing the order of the deaths, by time by an hour. Doing those murders in a mimicking style to represent great serial killers of the past. At one point you will start thinking, is this going to go till 12 O' clock (meaning 12 deaths)? Yet all the killing initiating as a revenge for disregard for his twin brother's medical condition while he was eighteen, in the Battles family. Author has put great thinking in murdering and covering their tracks, for all the murders involved.

Good use of numerous, yet feasible and interesting theories introduced as the serial killer run progress, in solving that, which were Sean King's and Michelle Maxwell's task at hand. As always with all the stories, things have to come to and end somewhere, and so it does in this great thriller. Every plot and every covered tracks solved at the end and justice served.

aP rating for this novel: (based on level of suspense and thriller action)
4.3/5

NOTE:
Thank you very much Mr. David Baldacci blog for mentioning our review of your great book in your blog. (http://davidbaldacci.com/ontheweb/?p=1070)

Website developing: the Web div series introduction

2009-03-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today I am going to start the latest ashPresentom mini-educational series called "Web div". This post today will give an introduction to the upcoming blog posts pertaining to Web div topic area.

What is web div?
As descriptive a title it can be, web div will be a blog posts series which are going to be providing expert knowledge in website developing. The languages covered through these posts will remain mainly to HTML and CSS while I will slightly touch on java script and php on occasions. Thus simply put web div series will focus on great lessons on website developing.

Sports highlights: India v New Zealand 1st Test, Day 1

2009-03-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Venturing a new idea in tough economic times

2009-03-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

We have been discussing stock market movements over past couple of months. But for the last couple of weeks the results have been much pleasing than the older. Yet the times are still tough. Consumer's sendings has find it yet difficult to rise to its previous levels which is a key for a new venture.

The saying goes, if you can pull it off in tough times like this, you will shine forever. If you generates a great idea and a business based on it, and some how put the cogs together to pull out a great revenue, that business would be highly regarded. And would be easily pushed to the top of the list.

But the idea, the striking idea is what the main problem seemed to be in this tough times. Almost the industries are effected as they all at the end of the value chain struggle to sell the products and services.

The IT industry though was one of which yet to be harmed heavily, thus giving some potential for new ideas. If the economy continues to rise as it has been for past couple of weeks, it will definitely be something to look forward for not only Americans but the world!

live India Vs. New Zealand 5th ODI (streamng)

2009-03-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Note from aP: please be understandable these streaming video links disconnected by the broadcasters under no circumstances and may no longer appear to be working and ashPresentom will try our best to post updated streaming links.

Thank you for visiting ashPresentom. enjoy the entertainment!

India all out for 149 an unexpected twist in the tail. Will their bowling be strong enough to restrict the defiant New Zealand team from gathering 150??

- considering India hasn't lost more than 4 wickets in past 4 attempts this match makes an exception, yet doubtful of the outcome. Whether if its the pitch and would provide a similar result for NewZealand as well, is a question and will be answered when NZ start batting for the second inning seemingly quite capable target of 150 runs.

Learn to use Yahoo Finance, Part 2

2009-03-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Today's post we look at Real-Time section under the Quotes section on Yahoo finance left-side panel. Just as the word goes, this section shows you the real-time trading prices for a stock. In this example I have used Dell stock.

In this case last traded price of Dell stock was $9.36 right before the stock market closed at 4pm on Friday. It also shows the percentage change of the stock for the day and bid and ask prices.

Bottom also contain the block book of bid and ask prices list. Unfortunately in this example as the market was close the real-time trading prices were not shown in here.

That is all for todays yahoo finance, join ashPresentom next time for more educational blog posts on the yahoo finance.

aP Novel Review: Split Second by David Baldacci

2009-03-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

# Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
# Publisher: Vision (September 1, 2004)
# ISBN-10: 0446614459
# ISBN-13: 978-0446614450
# Genre: Thriller, spy stories.

aP Rating: 3.8/5

After reading the Camel Club series by the same author, the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series starter novel would be ranked little below the great Camel club books which are filled with action and mastermind investigations.

The story picks up in a slower pace and level of action and striving thriller acts. But once you are half way into the story it greatly enhances the activity levels and interest of the reader. Novel has a great plot and a story line. Excellent criminal plan put into action in an attempt to capture the lost lover-criminal act on behalf of trying to win back his love. Story has a mastermind discoveries in an attempt to solve the main investigation. Sadly the great novel, failed to maintain a great ending, yet still a good ending.

Thats is for today's novel review from ashPresentom.

Connecting two computers together: part 4, remote access to a computer from anywhere

2009-03-09T08:28:00.001-07:00

In previous topic we talked about connecting two computers together using hardware solutions and be able to access each others hard drives.

What we are going to talk today is, another great functionality of computer networking, remote access to another computer. As you may know, or have tried, there are variety of these type of software solutions. Because of the larger number of solutions available in achieving this task, in this post I will be ranking those software solutions based on their user-friendliness, features, and security.

Best remote access software

Links to above programs; TeamViewer, realVNC, logMeIn, gotomypc, pcAnywhere.

Other good programs that didnt make it to top 5 list.
UltraVNC
CrossLoop
Unyte Remote desktop server with a Java applet viewer and IM integration.
mRemote manage VNC and RDP connections on Windows.
rdesktop command-line client for UNIX/Linux.
And the Remote Desktop windows application.

See also:
VNC software connections in remote desktop

FinAnalysis, part 4: Operating Margin

2009-03-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since aP talked about ratios of importance to Financial analysis. In previous topics we talked about Gross Margin, EBIT, and ROA and ROE. All of which are important ratios in analyzing profitability of a firm.

Operating Margin in simple equation is;

= Operating Income / Revenue

Definitions
"It is a measurement of what proportion of a company's revenue is left over, before taxes and other indirect costs (such as rent, bonus, interest etc.), after paying for variable costs of production as wages, raw materials, etc. A good operating margin is needed for a company to be able to pay for its fixed costs, such as interest on debt." - wikipedia.com

"Operating margin is a measurement of what proportion of a company's revenue is left over after paying for variable costs of production such as wages, raw materials, etc. A healthy operating margin is required for a company to be able to pay for its fixed costs, such as interest on debt." - investopedia.com

Implication
This ratio gives an idea of how a company generate its income from operating activities on the basis of total revenue or net income. Example: an Operating Margin of 25% means, a company generates $0.25 for every dollar of sales revenue.

As with all the ratios this is another ratio that can be used to compare revenue between different companies in the same industry.

aP Review Divine Justice by Dald Baldacci

2009-03-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (November 4, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0446195502
ISBN-13: 978-0446195508
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

ashPresentom Review: This book complete the David Baldacci's action filled Camel Club series-it is the fourth book of the series. It was a common for all camel club novels to be loaded with heavy action and suspense, and Divine Justice, found no exception to that norm.

The main character, Oliver Stone (John Carr) continue to show his masterful killing skills and maturity again in this novel. Novel is well served for its title, well deserved justice was granted for Oliver Stone after 30 years of running for his life, after being opt out of the Tripple-Six division of US Secret Service. In this novel, Stone who created the Camel club, comes for his own rescue to a place in the middle of no-where called, Divine, VA.

If you happened to follow the series in order, the story will make lot of sense and you will enjoy it even more. aP recommend this novel, including the entire series for readers starving for suspense and action while enjoying great write.

Connecting two computers together over network: part 3, the hardware solution

2009-03-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

To provide a summary of what has been covered through "connecting two computers" posts,
In part 1 I provided a basic idea of connecting two computers together mainly using softwares over a network. Two software programs I talked about are Maxivista and vnc programs. What we tried to achieve in part 1 was to connect two computers together and be able to control both computers by a single mouse/keyboard.

Part 2 covered, the next step in connecting two computers together, the ability to access respective hard drives again over the network. In this case using the Microsoft workgroup.

Today I am going to talk about hardware solutions; to access other computers harddrive using relevant hardware.

Option 1: USB data bridge cable

This is a special Ethernet crossover cable, not a regular USB A/B cable. In fact you should not connect two computers using a regular USB male/female cable, that would severely damage your harddrives. The bulb in the middle avoid that damage and provide necessary support for connecting two computers to access each other's data.

When you purchase this cable it will always comes with relevent software CD that fullfill the task.

Option 2: Ethernet cable. Usually in this case computer A will be connected to Internet and will have a dual Ethernet hook up PCI or two Ethernet cards, allowing Ethernet in and Ethernet out. Ethernet out, will go into Computer B. This will allow Computer B to access files from PC A and also access the internet. This is also called cross-over cable method. (Descriptive tutorial from Microsoft)

Other options are, network Router, Switch and Hub.

Apart from connecting two computers over the network there are other options to perform the similar task using computer hardware. In this blog post I talked about using USB data bridge cable, Ethernet cross-over cable, and Network hubs. I hope you enjoyed today's post about connecting two computers together. Join ashPresentom next time when we talk about remote access technology to computers from anywhere in the world.

If you have any feedbacks or would like to suggest additions to ashPresentom, please feel free to use the comments section. Until next time this is ashPresentom.

Unemployment rates for February; How bad is it?

2009-03-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Businessweek's report on the release of unemployment data.

"The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 8.1% as the economy lost 651,000 jobs in February, the Labor Dept. reported on Mar. 6. While the report showed the deepening recession was continuing to batter the nation's wage earners, the numbers were lower than some of the most dire predictions. The January unemployment rate was 7.6%.

The government also revised upward the number of jobs shed by the economy in December and January, meaning that the jobs picture has been worse than the original data indicated. Stock markets gained on the report, with the Dow Jones Industrial index rising more than 1.5% in morning trading before falling back.

"Job losses were large and widespread across all major industry sectors," the Labor Dept. said in a news release, noting that payroll employment has declined by 2.6 million positions over the past four months. The largest job losses came in professional and business services, manufacturing, and construction. Health care, one of the few bright spots in the employment sector, had a net gain of 27,000 jobs." - By Phil Mintz and Peter Coy (businessweek.com)

8.1% unemployed of the total work force of United States, does that sound bad? Of course it is considering the level it was before, and this higher level unemployment make a clear comparison to days of 1930s. The important part about this is, not all the job categories suffer the same level of unemployment rates. But on average it does look a dark image on countries unemployment.

"If part-time workers who can't find full-time jobs are counted in, along with those who have simply given up looking, the rate would be 14.8 percent, the highest in records going back to 1994." - By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer

More statistical data from the same above mentioned article (as of February 2009);
- bachelor's degrees or higher : 4.1%
- w/o high school diploma : 12.6%
- African Americans : 13.4%
- Hispanic : 10.9%

It definitely look ugly for the lower educated job seekers-the labor jobs. Reason being companies most unable to afford the pay for their workers, although they are the major part of their work-force. On the other hand recruiters have also cut down hiring new undergraduate by 22% (according to businessweek). Not necessarily the people with bachelor's degree or higher possess a greater chance in the economy.

Stock market tumbling analysis for the first week of March (excluding Friday)

2009-03-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

As the investors worry about banks and GM stock market kept continuing its dreadful falls further bringing the countries economy as of the beginning of March. This blog post will solely provide analysis of the situation.

The area colored in red is the fall for the month of March so far, as we have yet to experience what Friday will bring on DOW Jones Industry Index.

This Chart shows the numerical changes of the first week of March. It just seems the way the economy is moving, none of the Economic bail out plans happened to design a change in the pattern. One would think with the help of Millions of dollars of tax payers money lend to Troubled Assets, they would show at least a slight improvement, which clearly was denied of the fact when AIG beg for another Bail out money.

I believe these companies required to be extensively restructured, and force extreme cautious on internal money management or some sought. It is to be given thought that US consumer base is in fact declining as far as the consumer purchases go. Consumers now expand its purchasing power only to essential items, which eliminate the possibility of economy stimulating consumer sales for companies. But I believe the Stimulus plan we talked in previous blog post, will have a good impact as to stimulate the country's economy. Because where they are getting those billion dollars to fund bail out plans, there is not going to be more of those soon or later...

How to get Apple OS X Leopard Stack dock for Windows, and other docks

2009-02-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Stack effect on Apple dock was an addition in its Leopard version. Manipulating this effect on windows was somewhat an old topic. But there has been recent enhancements in the docks for windows area and in this blog I wish to talk about stack dock and the circle dock for windows operating system.

Stack Docklet:

If you are new to this area, Manipulated docks for windows has been allowed through several programs. Two of the popular and more efficient ones are Object Dock and Rocket Dock.

First install either program;
Object Dock: Download Object Dock from http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/.
RocketDock: Download latest version of RocketDock from http://files.punklabs.com/RocketDock/RocketDock-v1.3.5.exe.

Install the stacks effect to Dock program;
Download stack addon files from, http://matias.securityconsultant.com.ar/StackDocklet-preview-FileSystemFoldersOnly.zip
Unzip to this folder and copy files to C:\Program files\RocketDock(or Object Dock)\Docklets
Now you should see a StackDocklet subfolder inside the Docklets folder.

Run the dock program right-click on the dock and you should be able to see "add stack" There you have it, if you didnt know how to do this, you should be good to go now.

Circle Dock:

Here is an improved program of the original Stack dock for windows. You can find more information about features and download from, Circle Dock.

Drawbacks of manipulated OS X stack dock:
- Program and animation definitely takes up more memory to function.
- If you click a stack icon from the dock, when the stack open either as a span or grid, while still open, if you move your mouse over to another icon and click that, the stack would still stay there and would not disappear unless you rerun the program.

Manipulated programs have their own glitches and will never equal the original OS Dock, but it will appease your needs.

Learn to use Yahoo Finance: part 1

2009-02-27T10:24:00.001-08:00

Yahoo finance is a real-time stock market display website. This site is used mostly for college level finance classes as well as investment classes. If you signed up with a yahoo.com email address it will let you pick stocks and develop your own portfolio and watch the performance. This site is only for displaying of market-performance and not for trading securities.

Today's blog post I will introduce what each of the terms reflect in yahoo finance website.

On top left, shows the real-time DOW Jones and Nasdaq index's percentage changes for today.

For demonstrate the layout of Yahoo Finance, I pulled out Dell Inc stock.
Last Trade: is the price or the value of a share of Dell for the trade time mentioned in the line below.
Change; reflect the percentage change of share price from the starting share price of Dell stock.
Prev. Close; is the last share price at which Dell stock was closed the day before.
Open, is the price at which it was open today.
Bid and Ask; Ask price is always higher than Bid price, which means if an investor to buy a Dell stock he would pay the Ask price, and if you sell a stock you will get Bid price. The difference between Bid and Ask price is called the Spread and is kept as profit by the broker.

1yr Target Est, is the estimated price of the Dell stock in 1 year from now.
Day's Range, shows the total fluctuation of the stock price of Dell for the day. The line below that is 52 weeks combined range of price fluctuation. This will give a potential buyer of Delll stock an idea of how high the stock price has been over last 52 weeks, as well as how low is has been.
Volume is the number of shares trading at the moment. This is also the number of outstanding shares of Dell, which is less than the Authorized shares. And companies will not always sell all their authorized shares.
Next Lines, Avg Vol (3m): average volume of shares traded over past three months.
Market cap, or market capitalization is a quick way to estimate the value of a company. Also is the Stock Price x Number of outstanding stocks. Roughly, if market cap is larger than $5 Billion is it called "Large Cap", $1-5 Billion is "Mid Cap", and $1 Billion or less being the "Small Cap".
P/E(ttm), in general P/E is the Earnings Yeild, price of a share relative to its earnings, which gives a percentage return metric. In ttm basis, means the current market price is divided by "Trainling twelve month" earnings per share. This look at the past 4 Quarters of earnings for Dell.
EPS (ttm), once again looking 4 Quarters back for the earnings per share.
And the last line "Div & Yield" is past divident payments.

Also the graph on the right side shows days progress of Dell Inc.. Stock price in a graphic format. Below the graph you can see "1d 5d 3m ..." clicking these each will display and explicit graph for the selected period of time. For some investors looking at a graph tells more than numerical values. In the next topic I wish to cover other components on Yahoo Finance real-time stock viewer website. Please feel free to flood the comments with your feedbacks and questions.

Connecting two computers together over network: Part 2

2009-02-26T18:04:00.000-08:00

On a previously published blog post I covered how to connect two computers over the network and have a single keyboard and mouse to control both computers, so as the mouse would disappear, when moved out of the screen, and appear on the other computers screen, allowing both computers to be controlled.

To achieve this I presented to you several options;
Maxivista, vnc programs, and hardware choice.

The topic we are continuing today is ideal for someone who want to develop a dual screen setup, but does not have a dual output VGA card, or find no use for investing money in such devices.

If you remember from that previous topic, I mentioned that file transfer between computers were a difficulty. After much research in today's topic I am glad to tell you that I will be covering how to achieve this step- the file transferring between computers over the network.

Note: this will require both computers running on Windows XP or at least windows.

What we are going to do is create a "workgroup" over the network and connect both computers to the workgroup by which allow them to share folders, files, or even a whole drive.
The below link will provide further information in creating a workgroup and sharing files over network: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323386

Questions that you might incur during the process:

Q: Work group not showing up in "my Network Places"
A: if you know you have created the workgroup and added other computers to this work group, restart both computers and this will remove additional work groups and show up the correct work group.

Q: I added several workgroups how to I delete a workgroup?
A: Go to Start> right click My computer> Properties > computer name tab and click "change" then under "member of" select workgroup and change the name. If you know you only want a single workgroup and its name is "XXX" put that as member of workgroup name. Restart the computer after all done.

Q: How to setup permission for the shared folder?
A: Open my Computer, Tools> Folder options> View tab, scroll down under advance settings, deselect "Use simple sharing settings" click ok.
go to My computer > Right click on Shared Documents and select "Sharing and Security"
- The option should be selected to share this folder. If you want only one other user to access the shared folder with permission, Select and type 1 for "Allow this number of users"
- Click "Permissions" and Add a user and select how much control you want the other user to have.

Q: Does the Network Driver need to be copied and installed on all the other computers that need to connect to workgroup?
A: Not necessarily, but you will have to create a Home or Office workgroup group in all the other computers and give the same name as Workgroup name. That should be enough to get all the computers connected to workgroup.

If you happen rise with any other questions during your process to achieve a perfect connection between computers, feel free to write them up here.

The Broker by John Grisham

2009-02-25T20:52:00.001-08:00

Amazon review:
Before he was sent to federal prison for treason (among other things), Joel Backman was an extremely powerful man. Known as "the broker," Backman was a high roller--a lawyer making $10 million a year who could "open any door in Washington." That is, until he tried to broker a deal selling access to the world's most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder. When caught, Backman accepted prison as the one option that would keep him safe and alive, since the interested parties (the Israelis, the Saudis, the Russians, and the Chinese) were all itching to get their hands on his secrets at any cost. Little does he know that his own government has designs on accessing that information--or at least letting it die with him. Now, six years after his incarceration, the director of the CIA convinces a lame duck president to pardon Backman, and the broker becomes a free man--and an open target.

aP rating: 3.8/5
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 368

aP review: John Grisham as a well recognized writer does a grand job in writing a grand thriller and spy novel; The broker. The story does contain several aspects of a highly entertaining action and suspense novels. Only part where I found the novel to be veering away from this theme was when the writer use pages explaining how the main character Joel Backman learned Italian. In other words, this novel will also provide you a good Italian language learning lessons. I liked his writing style of starting from the peak of the story, starting the story with a mysterious story, and continue the story while in the mid parts go back to the past and try to fill in the gap between past and present. Later parts of the novel again picks up on the suspense and running-for-life action which counter-balance the lack of action during Italian lessons. Overall quite good suspense novel by John Grisham.

How to earn extra cash while at college?

2009-02-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

Most of you interested in this subject have definitely explored the web and local for opportunities to earn extra few bucks while you are at college. In today's blog post I will provide a list of ways to earn few extra bucks while at college from my own experiences and from other blog sites.

College students during sleepless nights of college work spend hours studying and reading trying to ace their exams. During this hectic college life if you can make a few bucks by doing something that would only take couple of your hours or a small effort, would favor the odds of winning college students liking in participating in those cash earning activities. College students live on very small budgets, unless of course you prefer a luxurious life style which would be infeasible for a small budget. But a couple of bucks means a lot to most college students, it could help them pay for a midnight snack, or to enjoy an event or simply get drunk… yes I said get drunk.

I was one of the college students that lived on a small budget, so every opportunity to earn couple of bucks meant a lot to my budget and so will it be for most other college students.

1- Although 18 credit hours or 20 credit hours is an extremely heavy work load for most majors, for some college students finding time for a part-time 20 hours per week small retail or food service related job would definitely earn a good income on a monthly basis to pay for rent and food and other accessories. (Part time job)

2- If you live in a dorm, keep an eye on the bulletin board. Not only in dorms keep and eye for all the message boards on campus outside and inside buildings and classrooms. There can be opportunities that would make you some cash.
Things that will appear on message boards that would earn you some money are;

Experiments - Department of business, engineering, psychology etc. get grants all the time which are invested towards good use to improve academia. These are then used by masters of graduate students to perform experiments for their researches, for which they need participants. These participant finding attempts will only find the message boards across campus, providing college students the opportunity to make extra money.

Some example of these types of experiments is; finger print study, economic study, speech study. These would get you $10-20 for a session

3- If you hate needles then this is not the way to earn extra cash for you. Plasma donations can earn you somewhere from $10 to $40. This as the officials at plasma donation center would advice can be performed repetitively twice a week by a healthy individual. This option is only available if you are AIDS free and STD free and all the other diseases transmit through blood. But if you are going to hit this option be ready to let a thick needle pierce through your arm. With all that information, I would rank think option as the Last resort for money.

On the easy donation of bodily items, another area is sperm donation. Now this leave to individuals who want their kids running around the world (I said world because you will never know where this sperm is going to end up). Someday the child will want to know their dad which will come to haunt you down or it may not. If that doesn't bother you there is your choice, with an extra earnings of ranging from $1-200/week.

4- There is also bone marrow donation. More money for more pain you have to resist.

These options below are taken from other websites.
1- Tutoring students for few bucks
2- Sell things on eBay
3- Secret shopper
4- Surveys sites, inbox dollars, sendearnings (earn cash for checking emails and taking surveys)

If you are a college student and hoping to make few extra bucks for the weekend I hope this post helped you look for things around campus that you haven't thought about before.

Does 2008 Stimulus payment effect your tax returns?

2009-02-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

Most people while filing for 2008 tax returns, when filing all the income they made, start to wonder if they should include the stimulus money they received during 2008 (bush administration).

The answer is; is should NOT be included as income (- IRS)

Here is the information relating to this topic extracted from IRS.gov.

"Most people received the maximum Economic Stimulus Payment in 2008. However, some people may be eligible for a first time credit or for a larger payment than they were eligible for last year.

This amount is called a Recovery Rebate Credit . You'll need to have the amount of your Stimulus Payment from last year so you can figure out whether or not you're eligible to receive this credit.

How Can I Find This Amount?
To use our secure online tool to find the amount of your Economic Stimulus Payment from last year, you'll need the following information from your 2007 tax return:

* Your Social Security Number
* Your 2007 Filing Status
* Number of Exemptions claimed on your 2007 tax return

Take me to How Much Was My 2008 Stimulus Payment? "

Technology: How to connect two computers (dual screen) over network

2009-02-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

How to set up a Dual-Screen workstation with an additional computer.
What we try to achieve: connect a laptop or another computer to an existing computer and have the ability to control both computers with a single mouse and keyboard. (Without any hardware, but over the network)

If you have another laptop or a pc computer sitting around and is wondering how you can connect the two computers and use each computers' own processing power individually to multi task and speedup your working environment, there is a very easier way to accomplish this dream of yours. In today's blog post I will cover all the possible ways to achieve this.

If you do have a dual display supported video card, what you will be doing is using a single PC and spread out the processing power between activities and expanding the working area horizontally, with the use of an additional screen. But what we are trying to do is take advantage of two separate high speed computers and use their individual processing power separating while having the capability to control them with single input devices and eventually setting up a DUAL-Screen workstation.

Option 1: Maxivista.com
The program available on the site is non freeware software and has all the capabilities we are interested in, dual screen, single control, and mirror screening, all the functions done over the network. So if you want to pay some extra bucks for few more extra features, this is your best bet.

Options 2: vnc programs
You can use win2VNC and a VNC program such as ultraVNC, RealVNC, or TightVNC to accomplish the single input control feature.
Links: http://fredrik.hubbe.net/Win2VNC.exe - win2VNC
Instructions for usage: you will have to install win2vnc on the computer that you wish to have the control and a VNC program on the other computer which you are going to be controlling using the other computers' input devices. Both computers have to be connected to internet and relevant IP address will be shown after the program in run, which later will be needed in connecting each other.

Advantages:
- Share input devices (Mouse, keyboard) to control both computers and clipboards.
- Use each computers' own processing power to perform tasks, yet both are connected together to allow single control.
- Dual monitor setup/workstation

Disadvantages:
- Most of the VNC programs I tried excluding maxivista do not allow mouse scrolling function on the controlled computer, but only on the controlling (main/server) computer.
- Even though both computers seemed connected, you are only controlling the computers, thus no applications or windows can be shared. This is what you have to really understand, each run on its own.
- You can not transfer files between two computers using these VNC programs although you can use other file transfer programs such as teamviwer etc. to connect the computers and transfer files.

Option 3: using hard ware gadgets.

FYI: This feature is knows as FVM which stands for Keyboard, Video, Mouse control. Mostly used for controlling several servers with a single mouse, keyboard and a monitor.

If you have further questions about the Over network Dual monitor work station, please feel free to ask them in the comments area.

Economic Stimulus, rebate calculator

2009-02-22T13:24:00.000-08:00

Recovery rebate calculator is to be available on IRS website soon. The link to check back is http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=187383,00.html

Goverment grant for tax payers: EXPOSED by aP

2009-02-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

Deemed important to address today, so called highly-attractive and seemed-viable for the time being issue relating to possibility of receiving a portion of the recent Economic Stimulus package, we discussed on our last blog post.

With ashPresentom we try to educate the public about certain scams and plots in our Exposed series. Today’s post like wise mentioned earlier will be focused on the Government grant scam.

According to the site Scammer-alert.com website (01) if you are an American citizen you should be qualified for a government grant or part from the economic stimulus package. Although I found it hard to understand why government would want to give grants, which does not require a repayment, for the US citizens. Here is an example of one of the sites that promise you government money “grantsearch.securemediabox.com”(02) Along with dozens of these websites some seemed very apparent from the look of the site that there lies no credible background for those websites. This scam has also been heavily advertised on blog posts as well followed with comments mentioning the truthfulness of this program. This makes it extremely hard to identify whether they are lying or if it actually deem infallible. Govteconomicstimulus.com (03) is many of those blog websites.

Disclose the scam as it progress
According to consumeraffairs.com (04), scam take place explaining that there are several grants and a CD or an access code will give you the access to an online database containing these grants. Also suppose to help finding-grant process easier using this CD, had to be purchased from their sites for a small payment of $1.99. Seemed quite credible so far, the next step in the process is what urges this business or the scam, your credit card will not only be charged for $1.99 but also other fees which as said to be membership fees which you might not have exude in receiving at all. (04) Website provides greater resource of testimonies from people who had to experience this scam act.

With dozens of sites advertising these fake govt. grants it was difficult finding a website that actually spoke the truth. AshPresentom is hoping to cover important progresses in the economic stimulus package, which as of now will start rebating taxes starting from May 2nd. Please do check back our blog for these updates. Until then feel free to use the comments section for your thoughts and feedbacks.

01. http://www.scammer-alert.com/govt-grants.html?t202id=859&t202kw=government%20grant
02. https://grantsearch.securemediabox.com/?file=index_v6.html&affiliateid=EFNGFS01&sub_affiliateid=MA
03. http://www.govteconomicstimulus.com/about-me/david-brown/#comment-140
04. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/scam_alerts/grant.html

What ashPresentom's analysis and predictions of the $790B Economic Stimulus package

2009-02-13T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am sure you are delighted to hear that on top of tax returns you will also be receiving another tax rebate from the IRS. But will it truly mean anything to the country’s troubled economy?

Specs of the last economic stimulus package $168B, January 2008 under Bush administration.

With the current economic stimulus plan in the process of being approved has a structure that holds these sections.

Tougher times as oppose to 2008 have certainly being taken into consideration in Obama’s stimulus plan. “Tax cut would be scaled back from $500 for most workers to $400, with couples getting $800 instead of $1,000.” – Associate Press.

Timely concern of these tax rebates put into action by the Treasury; during the previous stimulus package which was approved to operate in January 2008, began sending payments starting from May. So we could expect a two months drag before tax payers will be able to receive the rebates. IRS will be using the 2008 tax return to determine eligibility and calculate payment amounts. As the previous time, there IRS will have a web page deem to provide detailed information regarding tax payer’s eligibility and status check.

On the previous occasion once the plan was passed, stock market showed a relatively interesting joy while found itself hard to maintain for a long time. Here is a graphical representation of 2008 plan and its effects.

Green area represents the immediate impact after Jan 22nd, the expectations of consumer spending and expected increase in profits for companies. But the Yellow area shows the length of this high-tone of stock market. Right after that it dropped on a continuous basis.

Given this economic stimulus package has a higher value and enclose more aspects in supporting troubled assets, it might mean to the overall country’s economy more than four or five months of stimulus.

Once the plan is approved and in place, be sure to check back ashPresentom and we will post more detailed niceties and useful links.

Graphic Design: Green

2009-02-12T23:30:00.001-08:00

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: RGB

2009-02-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

1680 x 1040
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Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Blue

2009-02-09T13:20:00.001-08:00

Live Sri Lanka Vs. India 5th ODI, Streaming Working link

2009-02-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

Here is a working link to watch the last of the One Day cricket matches of the Sri Lanka India Series. I have test the link and server deemed working for the moment. Enjoy the game!

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Yellow

2009-02-06T11:49:00.001-08:00

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Red

2009-02-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

Hello! today's post will feature another creative wallpaper from ashPresentom. As usual it has various resolution options. Please feel free to grab a one and enjoy it placed behind your work -on the desktop.

Inspiration for today's wallpaper; The blood shed by heroic soldiers of all nations to better the human society and mankind. In this graphic the color RED is not viewed as a color of warning, but for the heroic acts of historical leaders and soldiers. Graphic itself contain few educational information about color RED - the intuitive niceties, cited from wikipedia. Huge shape of an island silhouette surrounded by swerves of ocean waves representing the isolation of the battle of these heroics today....
Please feel free to comment and express your thoughts on this subject as I much love to hear them while you grab the wallpaper...

NOTE: The QUALITY of the base image was lost when it was uploaded to the blog, but the wallpapers do have a greater quality and clarity.

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iPhone 320 x 480

Photo Manipulation

2009-02-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Few of my attempts at photo manipulation.

PS Tutorials: creating tentacles, recover from old archive

2009-02-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

When brushing through my old archives I came across with one of my old graphics of tentacles. The unique technique involved in manipulating the tentacles, I am going to share the designing process in this tutorial post.

Final Product, this is one of the many ways that you can take advantage of the manipulated tentacle.

Step 1:
Run your version of Adobe Photoshop and open a new document, size of the new file may not cause much of a different although in here I have used 700 x 800 px blank white RGB 72px/inch ideal for web graphic file.

Step 2:
On the left side tool pane, second tool from top, select the "Rectangular Marquee tool" (if the rectangular marquee is not selected, then you will have to right click the marquee tool and select rectangular tool from the sub menu) and as shown in the image below draw a rectangle in the middle of the graphic to show as 1/3 of the graphic.

Step 3:
Having the middle of the graphic selected, click on the gradient fill tool from left side tool pane. From the top tool bar make sure you select "Reflected Gradient". After that click on the middle of the graphic and drag outside the previously selected area so you will get a gradient like shown below. After that press Ctrl+D to deselect the selected area. (The dotted lines should disappear)

Step 4:
Now we need to transform the shape of the rectangle to a triangle. To do this, press Ctrl +T or go to Edit>Transform>Perspective If you press Ctrl+T, then right click on the gradient area and select perspective as shown below.

Step 5:
Having the transform selected to perspective mode, drag the top corner either right or left towards the center so the top would become pointier.

Step 6:
To give the shear appearance to the triangle tentacle we have right now, go to Filter > Distort > Shear then as shown below play with the trend line on top until you arrive at a decent looking tentacle.

Step 7:
Congratulations, you have created a tentacle. You can modify this and colorize using Hue/Saturation as below.

Follow the same method and make several of those tentacles and you will have some generated graphics to play with for your graphic design.

Floralization pencil art part 2

2009-02-01T09:08:00.001-08:00

Post today is the second part of the floral pencil sketches continuing from the last time. As there was a higher traction towards floralization and floral graphics, I decided to draw more of these graphics. So Please enjoy the pencil art work...

Sri Lanka Vs India Live Stream Link among dozen of bogus links

2009-01-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you are trying to get a hold of the live stream of the game online, you might find you search results ended up in bogus web blogs that leads no where. It is absolutely ridiculous how people have used their blogs giving a link for live stream which doesnt even have anything. Most of these blogs have disabled the otherwise filled with bad reviews comments section such as this one http://cricketlivesite.blogspot.com/2009/01/watch-india-vs-sri-lanka-2nd-odi-live_30.html And there are a ton of these sites if you are one of the viewers that are trying desperate to get to the action before the game is over.

Best way to do this is use sopcast player http://www.sopcast.com/download/ and try surfing the channels since its india's involved in the game, would not be that hard to find a sopcast link unlike a website link.

or try this blog, I had some luck but doesnt mean you can always look on them.

http://cricketlivestreamingcom.blogspot.com/2009/01/server-1.html

On the other hand if you are searching for highlights of the games, here is a one useful blog I found out of the bunch that appear to advertise such events.
http://blog.cricket-highlights.com/

ashPresentom Transition to version 4.0

2009-01-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

ashPresentom is currently working on transferring to a new template design and we apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: Top Secret of US Intelligence

2009-01-29T10:09:00.000-08:00

Today's post will be featuring a desktop and iPhone wallpaper inspired by the novel "Stone Cold" by David Baldacci. An action thriller with suspense through out the novel, if you can get a hold of it, its a book recommended for reading pleasure.
In the meantime please enjoy the wall papers.

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iPhone 320x480px

Fake cashiers checks, travelers checks received through FedEx mail: Scam

2009-01-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hello guys, today I want to draw your attention to a widely spread scam that has been going all around the country and has deceived countless number of people because of their lack of knowledge about this scam. I went deep down into this to investigate the truth and the story behind this, so you can read this post and not be one of them to get fooled. Talk about Bernie Madoff's $50 million scam, in a small scale with the same degree of intensity this scam can be classified on top along with those.

It all start with an email saying work-from-home opportunity, sooner of later you will receive a fedex overnight package or a UPS, inside which you find travelers checks or cashiers checks addressed to your name. What's all requested by this group or an individual is to keep 10% of the money and send out 90% through Western Union, untraceable. But why would someone send you a check and ask you to cash it and send 90%, and why would someone want to pay you for that? That will take you to the deep truth behind the scene, the money you received are in counterfeit documents, so masterfully made that it would be extremely difficult to differentiate to an authenticate document.

Because most people find it hard to identify as fake, not a teller will have that much skills either. Therefore once its deposited, your bank account will be credited. After seeing the positive balance in your account, convinced of account balance you will go ahead and return the favor in sending this person the 90% through Western Union. But once the bank try to send the check to its predecessors for funds will they find out it is a fake check. At this point, you will be questioned as to fraudulent transactions along with a fee.

Now you lost 90% of the money which you will not be able to retrieve from Western Union and a fee from the bank. And at this moment you will regret what you have done which you shouldnt have if it wasnt for the crave for money, and for an idea seemed feasible.

So dont let this happen to you and lets hope those bastards get served with the true justice. And as always this is ashPresentom, the educational consortium!

Sources: http://www.topix.com/forum/city/manchester-tn/TN1T68LRQD3KM3476 (voices of people who got cheated with this scam.)

Floral caligraphy by the pencil artist

2009-01-25T17:27:00.000-08:00

Hello there guys, today's post will be of one of the sketched I drew during the weekend...

This art piece I drew using pencil which was later scanned and further processed with Photoshop. Now, that shouldnt to get you confused or ease your respect for the masterpiece. Photoshop in here, I used only to add the colorized effect and to darken the pencil lines which were gray colored from the original paper and had lost some texture in the scanning process.

What it also tells you is how old artist's pencil sketches can now be modified and perfected with the use of digital technology... Enjoy my work and be sure to use the comments section to show delight...

44th President of United States: Desktop Wallpaper

2009-01-21T08:08:00.000-08:00

To honor the man - the man who achieved his highest goal which never seemed a destiny at one point of his life. For those who admire his mission and that believe he will bring the change, ashPresentom will show our respect and courtesy with a desktop wallpaper. May he be able to take the nation out of its misery, 8 years of agony caused by bushism, and bring the Change!

(1280x 1024 px Desktop Wallpaper) ©ashPresentom Production

Alternate versions

iPhone version

FATCOW.com webhosting service reviewed

2009-01-16T13:39:00.001-08:00

You ever heard the saying some people learn things the hard way? Or, to learn somethings you have to do it for yourself? Well under those categories, do we classify the fatcow webhosting company. As most of the times, sales people are the trickiest and mind boggling folks that try to eat you up and take what ever they can, and give you the least they can. Signing up for a webhosting company, one thing to keep in mind is read the god damn terms, so you know what are the hidden charges. Thats the sales trick, show only the bright-side of the plate but hide the evil charges, that will hunt you down once you did something that was not shown in the bright side.

Interesting case, fatcow.com ranked top in most webhosting sites and for low rates per month, its the place to go, at least thats what you thought. They have a recent special promotion, $5.50/month and 30 day money back which comes with a free domain name. What are they hiding in this abnormally astounding offer? the hidden fees, which you would never find out regardless if you took that extra step to read their never ending terms and conditions. The catch here is, if you buy the hosting package and register a domain name, and even if it was after an hour you found out their hidden, but crappy shopping cart and decided to cancel the account, you will still not get the full refund that was mentioned in the bright side of the plate. If you register the domain name, no matter if you request the cancellation within 30 days they will still charge you $15, for what you may say? for using domain credits to register the FREE domain. May the truth be unleashed!

Bottom line here is the butterfly is only colorful so long till you start pouring water on its feathers, the wild dog is only calmed till you feed the bone before it bites your hand on your next move. Be sure to read the terms and conditions and ask specific questions before you purchase a product, will only save you the hassle in most cases.

The Bitter part of the Coldness

2009-01-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

As the midwest winter unveil at the coldest level during January February period, as usual with every year nothing was expected to be changed this year. Only noticeable difference is compared to last year, the coldness is at its extreme level. Chicago as the biggest city in Midwest, is -10F at 9pm on January 15th, with an equally devastating wind chill of -28F. A temperate that would freeze the tears that would slide down your eyes with the frustration of continuous cold weather in seconds...

Personal Finance : Filing for Taxes year 2008

2009-01-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

This is the second episode of the personal finance series which is devoted to educate you continuously for the futures to come. Today the main focus of this post is laid on taxes as we are getting closer to the tax filing period. You should be receiving your W-2 forms to your mail box if not they can be accessed online by your green employee.
Filing for taxes as an individual or as a family as soon as you received the W-2 forms, will allow you to receive your withheld funds returned to you sooner. Most individuals are used to filing taxes by old fashioned paper based method. The fact is that paper based filing of taxes takes longer to reach the IRS and the same with your state. Wouldn’t you want to see your money which was first derived from your paycheck and withheld by the IRS, be sent to you as soon as possible and perhaps you could use that money is this tough economic times? The trick is to file for taxes as soon as you can.
Filing for taxes online is another way you could speed up the refund process. Most of the time your state might have their own website set up for state and county tax filing. That is something worth looking into if you are in desperate need for that tax money. IRS on the other hand, do not have an online base filing system directly in association with them, although there are other private companies out there doing this function. More information about this can be found at http://www.irs.gov/efile/index.html. Given the fact that these separate private organizations striving to provide an online Federal tax filing services, I myself try to stay out it and use the old fashioned paper and mailing which still seem to refund my money faster.
Another faster way to get your returns is having the money deposited directly to your bank checking account. Intuitively sending a check in mail is time consuming in comparison to a direct deposit, and that should make sense to you.
Some of the forms that you might need for your tax filing purposes can be found as pdf format at http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/lists/0,,id=97817,00.html and your public library should have copies of required tax documents. I hope this episode of the personal finance entrenched you to be more knowledgeable about your own finances.

One of the great speeches from the Apple CEO

2009-01-14T19:45:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs, suffering from health problems, yet had great moments in his life. A speech that encourage any individual who is desperately waiting to see the bright light at the end of the tunnel. A video that reminds everyone that in their life time they will have a moment when they will fall apart, and that you can come out of the drop with courage and a dedicated motivation. Enjoy the video. It has been around quite a while but I still find this video as extremely motivational material.

Photographics - blending the background

2009-01-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

Click here for a larger version.

In this photograph, if your attention is directed closely at the background you should experience the subtle blend. The overlayed Gaussian blur has created an enchanting eye sight of what is behind the main focus. This smeared background, is so that it will relentlessly divert your attention to the main object of the picture which is sitting closer to the bottom half. Focus and blur effect is one of the most powerful features used today in photography to capture audience attention directly to the object while creating a surreal background as in this photograph. Be sure to delight me of your thoughts in the comments section as usual...

Personal Finance; Tracking your income

2009-01-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered what happen to the 60 dollars of cash you withdrew from bank two days ago. Where did all that money go? If you are careless about how much money you spend and 60 dollars is a drop in your paycheck then you probably don’t care about where those 60 dollars went. But for most Americans in this recession times, it is very important to save every penny you can and for them 60 dollars is a lot of money. As most research consumer report suggested, Americans are becoming more eager at saving money today and waiting for that big deal. The 70% off coupon for JC Pennys…

For an average American it is always a great thing to keep track of you spendings not only during troubled economies but all time. Take the initiative to balance your check books and stay on top of your money spendings. The key in learning personal finance is once you have a good track on expenditure, you can see in front of you what exactly caused the expense. Not only that, having the knowledge of expense will alert you where you need to cut down on spendings and where you need to control yourself. For example if you have a big portion of your spending allocated to eating out or paying for fast food restaurants and you want to reduce your spendings, this knowing of your spendings at fast food places will provide you the urge to avoid yourself from eating out and finding other alternatives such as cooking.

Analyzing the behavior of humans in finance, people tend to spend more and more on ‘not-necessary for survival’ items assuming they still have large portion of money left in their bank account. The fact that you still have lot of money left after you spend on that item is the motivation that kept humans from spending on such items. Remember you are assuming you will have more money left after you spend, but sooner or later people realize they were wrong. And the surprising discovery of very smaller amount of money left than they expected. Keeping track of personal spending will allow you to know your bank balances all time, and will tell you when to stop spending and when you need to stop spending.

To stay on top of your personal finance it is a must to keep track of your personal finances and organize your spending habits and have a good understanding of your finances. There are several personal finance products out there to assist you. Top of the list is quicken which is selling for $39.99 and up. Such programs are targeted at individuals new to personal finance and in a very generic program format to fit all. After reviewing quicken and finding out the rigid format and lack of customizable features, I have designed an excel based 100% customizable account balance spread sheet. I am planning on introducing my version of personal finance excel edition in the future along with next articles of personal finance educational blog posts. I hope you enjoyed todays insight of personal finance, please look forward to the next educational blog post.

This article is a property of ashPresentom

Famous Quotes by infamous bush

2009-01-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

• "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." — September 2000, explaining his energy policies at an event in Michigan.
• "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?" — January 2000, during a campaign event in South Carolina.
• "They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander in chief, too." — Sept. 26, 2001, in Langley, Va. Bush was referring to the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
• "There's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail." — Oct. 4, 2001, in Washington. Bush was remarking on a back-to-work plan after the terrorist attacks.
• "It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber." — April 10, 2002, at the White House, as Bush urged Senate passage of a broad ban on cloning.
• "I want to thank the dozens of welfare-to-work stories, the actual examples of people who made the firm and solemn commitment to work hard to embetter themselves." — April 18, 2002, at the White House.
• "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." — Sept. 17, 2002, in Nashville, Tenn.
• "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." — Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill.
• "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." — Sept. 6, 2004, at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Mo.
• "Our most abundant energy source is coal. We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." — April 20, 2005, in Washington.
• "We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job." — Sept. 20, 2005, in Gulfport, Miss.
• "I can't wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbors back into neighborhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs." — Sept. 5, 2005, when Bush met with residents of Poplarville, Miss., in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
• "It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship. After all, 60 years we were at war 60 years ago we were at war." — June 29, 2006, at the White House, where Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
• "Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." — Dec. 7, 2006, in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
• "These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved." — June 11, 2007, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
• "Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit." — September 2007, in Sydney, Australia, where Bush was attending an APEC summit.
• "Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech." April 16, 2008, at a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.
• "The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place." — May 27, 2008, in Mesa, Ariz.
• "And they have no disregard for human life." — July 15, 2008, at the White House. Bush was referring to enemy fighters in Afghanistan.
• "I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office." — June 26, 2008, during a Rose Garden news briefing.
• "Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people." — July 4, 2008 in Virginia.
• "The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there's a lot of prayer — prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I'm one of them. It's good to come down here." — Sept. 3, 2008, at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.
• "This thaw — took a while to thaw, it's going to take a while to unthaw." Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, La., as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.

article credit; http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSHISMS?SITE=CACRU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT - associated press

Panorama photography for beginners by ashPresentom

2009-01-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

Panorama photography basics for beginners
Shooting for a panorama scene without a tripod using a point and shoot digital camera.
Skill level; beginner

Most of the time people tend to think merging process of pictures for a panorama scene is the difficult part. But nowadays you can find numerous softwares with the reputation for automatically generating panorama scenes using source images with more efficiency. But the tougher part of panorama photography is taking the individual pictures.

There are 3 types of panorama scenes you can generate, which are horizontal, vertical and tile, and there is also the 360 view which is a complete circle of horizontal panorama scene. And there is also the complete sphere.

Panorama scene production can be made easier with the use of a tripod device, although if you are one of the few that can not reach out to a tripod there is always other alternatives. In trying to shoot pictures for a panorama scene without a tripod, you will need to keep in mind that those individual pictures will not properly line up although this will not trouble the panorama scene, it will only reduce the height of a horizontal scene and the width of a vertical scene. Needless to say it will still be a great panorama scene.

Approach for the actual photo-shooting
To further explain the photo shooting process; let’s assume we are hoping to generate a horizontal panorama scene using an average point and shoot digital camera, without a tripod of course. Also to keep in mind, that a great understanding of visual location of your photo or the portion of the overall panorama scene displayed in the camera and its position as oppose to the overall panorama scene is very important. You need to start from one side of the horizontal panorama scene and work your way slowly across to the other side. Everytime you move to the next shot, make sure the current shot overlap with some parts of the scene with the previously taken picture. Most cameras will have a feature that will let you see a smaller thumbnail of the previously taken picture. For better panorama outcome it is always a good thing to make sure each individual shot overlaps a great amount with other shots. Another thing to keep in mind is hold your camera still as much as you can and everytime you rotate your camera, rotate your wrist as oppose to turning your body. Rotation of wrist works just as the rotation of a tripod with lesser stability.

A tougher version of the panorama scene creation is the tile view. If you are going out there to shoot for a tile panorama scene without a tripod it will be harder than vertical or horizontal panorama shooting. You will have to continue shooting in tiles like direction while having a good understanding of the location of the current section of the scene you see in the lcd screen as oppose to the overall tiled panorama scene.

Once all done the easy part; processing the pictures is the next step. As mentioned in the beginning there are numerous software developed to perform this type of photo functions. There is arcsoft panorama maker, and several others you can discover yourself with a single google search. Also adobe photoshop comes with a photomerge feature which is a very handy tool as well.

For those who are out there thinking of trying a new adventure with panorama pictures to try to capture a larger area of scenery for the first time, I hope this article provided you with some insight and basic knowledge.

Photomerge Function for the photography

2009-01-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

If you can not capture the moment in a single shoot of the button, and there is more outside the camera frame that you want to capture to remind you how unforgettable the scene was, there is always panorama pictures.

panorama creation, basic and educational material coming soon

created using the 3 pictures below.

The 10 Worst Assumptions of 2008; by Rick Newman

2008-12-31T11:09:00.000-08:00

Rick Newman has published an interesting article about the wrongful assumptions professionals made for 2008 which never become right in USNews.com site.

For the US and globally for the most part economic conditions worsen as year 2008 progressed. But importantly 2008 will be remembered for the year that turned things around, the year that US saw how powerless and weak their economy is. Hard hit recession in 2008 and its effects on oil prices, housing real state prices, investment banking industry, increase in jobless rate will always provide hands on real time experiences for anyone to learn finance and economics. It was great learning experience how things changed caused by other.

But the great drop in DJI will be the unforgettable remark for year 2008 for US. I wish it was only US that was effected by this, but thanks to or due to the globalization, dependence of other nations on US consumer base mercilessly brought their economies down with it.

Nevertheless, 2008 will be a great educational experience for nations to open their eyes to unavoidable economic destructions.

Below are the main points Newman looked at for the year 2008.

Real estate values always rise over time.
The mighty consumer will keep spending.
A buyer will always emerge.
Banks will be careful with their money.
Don't worry, the smartest guys in the world are working on the problem.
Technology is the solution.
The feds will fix things.
There's plenty of liquidity.
Things will bounce back.
It can't happen to us.

Full article; http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2008/12/15/the-10-worst-assumptions-of-2008.html

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year on behalf of ashPresentom!

Financial news catch up; Buyers Pick Up the Pace As Indexes Hold Gains

2008-12-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

Volume picked up briskly as indexes held near the top of the session's trading ranges.

Oil prices pared losses, rising above $39 a barrel. Semiconductor and consumer electronics-related stocks continued to lead the Nasdaq, which showed a 1.7% gain.
The NYSE composite and the Dow each held 1.4% advances. The S&P 500 rode 1.5% higher, with Jones Apparel (JNY), Rohm & Haas (ROH) and Harman International (HAR) topping its upside.

More than 90% of the industry groups tracked by IBD moved higher, led by the paint and allied building product makers and auto and truck tire maker groups.
Volume picked up from mixed trading earlier in the session, rising 17% on the Nasdaq and 4% on the NYSE.

Full article; http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=1&artnum=4&issue=20081230

Photographics; nature

2008-12-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

Apologies for low activity here in December. Nonetheless, hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season. Down here is my attempt at creating a new directional photographics picture series. Photographers eye immerse with the digital graphic designers touch; such creation is defined by ashPresentom as a Photographic. This definition can also be defined as energy creating, striking, and unbelievable photograph of a photographer, which then greatly defined and masterfully touched by a graphic designer to fabricate the piece of photographics!
Note: photographics are copyright by ashPresentom.

Photoshop Actions: sephia blur

2008-11-18T16:07:00.001-08:00

This photoshop action will convert your images into a sephia blur image with outter shadow as shown below. This action can also be run with shortcut key F12.

Down load link:
http://www.esnips.com/web/ashPresentom

How to install:
Save the .atn file in the following directory.
C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Actions

Or,
open actions pane in Photoshop> click actions menu, and select load new action and find where you saved the file.

FinAnalysis: OCF operating Cash flow

2008-11-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

OCF stands for operating cash flow, simply meaning cash flow provided by operating activities of a firm.

Definitions from other sites:
Wikipedia:
"Operating cash flow = Cash generated from operations less taxation and interest paid, investment income received and less dividends paid gives rise to operating cash flows per International Financial Reporting Standards"

Investopedia:
"The cash generated from the operations of a company, generally defined as revenues less all operating expenses, but calculated through a series of adjustments to net income.

It's arguably a better measure of a business's profits than earnings because a company can show positive net earnings (on the income statement) and still not be able to pay its debts. It's cash flow that pays the bills!"

Equation:
OCF = EBIT - taxes + depreciation

Why interest not deducted in here?
Interest is considered financing expenses, and most of the time it is already included when calculating WACC.

ashPresentom half-year anniversary

2008-11-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Oh behalf of aP, it has been a pleasure sharing the knowledge and wisdom with the viewership of aP. The growth has been very encouraging to continue to grow this blog with more and more educational and entertaining material. Thank you all of you for visiting aP blog, hopefully you did take some wisdom out from this blog.

To celebrate this half-year anniversary we have updated the aP logo with a more organic and eye-catching logo. Enjoy! and dont forget to leave your feedback.

Election as it happened

2008-11-07T08:10:00.001-08:00

This year (2008) as the US presidential election happened, there were several websites reporting the results in dashboard format real time. Among several are CBSnews and MSNBC, I found to be showing a very detailed and informative dashboard real-time.

But as I was observing the awaited election results, the election started with Mccain gaining the lead with first results went out, but I wondered how Obama will increase his votes and the gap as the time goes...Thats when the graph cames into place.

Below you find is how total votes for each candidates changes against time or as we moved into the election results. After 12:45a I stopped recording data and the last was the final results.

The graph below shows the percentage difference against time. Percentage difference was calculated as (Obama votes - Mccain votes/Total votes distributed among Obama and Mccain)*100. Once again I stopped recording after 12:45.

These graphs thoroughly shows how election went on against time. Enjoy!

Excel Template: WACC Calculator

2008-11-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

In this post I am going go over WACC calculation and share with you a spreadsheet template I created to calculate WACC for a firm with given information.

WACC in other words, weighted average cost of capital. Or cost of capital in terms of weighted average calculation. Companies use debt or issue preferred stocks as a mean of generating capital for operations. WACC take into account the portions of these debt and equity financing and calculate the interest rate the company have to pay for every dollar it uses for financing activities.

This is also the rate company use as required rate of return in project management, capital budgeting, project evaluation, NPV calculations etc.

Investopedia.com says: "A calculation of a firm's cost of capital in which each category of capital is proportionately weighted. All capital sources - common stock, preferred stock, bonds and any other long-term debt - are included in a WACC calculation"

Here is a screen shot of the WACC calculator I designed.

You can download this spreadsheet free of charge and use it to calculate your required rate of return. (WACC calculator is copy right material of ashPresentom)

ashPresentom typography

2008-11-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Artistically organized typography is a type of graphic that I enjoy designing and looking at. Text tool in Photoshop can be used artistically to design extremely elegant banners and posters with the technique called typography.
This is a typographic design of categories I have discussed so far at ashPresentom.

What you see in this graphic is different sizes or font of the same face or type aligned in a gathered format. Font has also been rotated to 90degrees or -90 or 270 degrees to bring the text to a pack.

Enjoy!

Dont forget to change your clock

2008-11-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Sunday the November 2nd. Dont forget to change your clock.

At 2a.m. on local time you will be moving your clock back one hour to 1 a.m. Unless you live in Hawaii or Arizona. Fall daylight saving adjustment will cause you to have one hour extra sleep. So thats a good news for us right? to sleep an hour extra on the weenend and not have any effect on other things. Or simply sleep one more extra hour and get up and still see its the usual time you get up...

Any how, an interesting article I found this morning when I was reading Yahoo News.

Swidish researches have found out that time change done on monday morning in other words causing people to sleep extra hour on monday morning, when the week first start and people have to get up early and go to work; this has a high correlation with heart attacks. So doing the time change on sunday would be healthier for your heart.

I would think what the heck... how could a one hour of sleep cause me to have heart attack. Well the amount of sleep you get have a huge impact on how our body works. The immune system, the blood pressure, heart rate, and how we feel. So these things are effected by the amount of sleep we get. So it is done on sunday now to have a lesser effect on people's hearts.

That is your insight for the day... be sure to leave a comment in here.
Source: news.yahoo.com

Computer Arts 3D text Tutorial

2008-10-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Full Tutorial: http://mos.futurenet.com/pdf/computerarts/ART152_tut_4.pdf

Financial Crisis USA 0.3 Crude Oil & OPEC

2008-10-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

The biggest decline in Crude oil prices from its height we saw in July.
So why did the oil price start falling like this after it was peaking to record high?

With the bad economy consumer spending started going down. With that demand for gas in developed countries start decline for the first time. With the bad demand, the expected decline in prices is what we are seeing now.

This week OPEC CEO Chakib Khalil had discussions about reducing the crude oil production to stop the fall of prices. With a low demand cut in quantity will help stop falling crude oil prices. But the question is, "is it going to help the global economy which is in the thin ice of a recession"

If as a result of this reduction of production of Oil, prices start going up, it will not necessarily help to boost the bed rock of economy; consumer spending.

If you have any comments about whats happening today with the crude oil prices and how it will effect your life, dont forget to leave a note here.

Financial Crisis USA; 0.2 Gold Price Collapses

2008-10-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

Date: Oct 22, 2008

More and more interesting things starting to happen as we see US economy stumbling. Latest of all from businessweek is the plunged Gold price per ounce.

In this post I am going to relate the effect of market condition to my close venture, FAARO Jewelry.

The news was Gold price went down to $735/oz 13 month low (Businessweek.)Caused by stronger dollar created with high demand for dollar and the fear of global recession. As global recession fears have create huge fear in investors mind to cause another big loss for DOW Jones Index average.

Lets talk about the effect of this to our venture, FAARO Jewelry. Direct effect we experienced at FAARO inc. is where we use gold at first, which is FAARO manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka. Although this facility is located in Sri Lanka changes in Gold price at NY stock exchange are very well reflected in SL gold market. But FAARO buy gold at whole sale price from trusted suppliers, who would take several days to reflect this change in gold prices in their actual gold wholesale price. If we assume the wholeseller also reduce the Gold price to reflect the drop to $735/oz., at FAARO facility we can purchase Gold at lower cost with these conditions. With FAARO's FIFO inventory valuation method these changes will be very well reflect in Cost of Goods sold.

From managerial standpoint of FAARO, the drop in Gold cost will give us as option to cut back on our production cost of Jewelry (Gold jewelry, in particular.) With metal cost representing 43% of the cost of goods sold, this drop will make a big difference.

Overall, change in gold prices are not only helping FAARO jewelry buy gold at lower cost but it also create an opportunity for FAARO with the option of reducing production costs and cutting back on prices to better suit for slow economy.

I would really like to hear your comments about the today's topic; Gold and its implication to FAARO Jewelry. Please dont forget to leave your thoughts.

Financial Crisis USA part 1

2008-10-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

So it would be shame to not mention anything about the financial crisis going on in the USA at the moment. As I have been following closely to the rollercoaster rides of the DOW Jones index, I have found some great sources of intellect.

So where did all this begin? the US war with Iraq?

Will this become a great depression like in 1930s? No, but the future generation will definitely call this "Great repudiation"
The root cause of this crisis lies on the foreign debt that US holds. There is a $3trillion debt hold by US over past few years. These were borrowed from countries like China, Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. And US financial institutes used this borrowed money for mortgage loans. As we have been hearing all the time from SEC chairman Henry Paulson, and Ben Bernke, the loans offered to people who didnt have sources to pay them back are causing much of this lag in the money for financial institutions in US.

Any how, the $700 billion dollar plan to buy back troubled (above mentioned) institutions who got them selves screwed over by giving mortgages and lending money to people who didnt have a way of paying back, has increased the burden that US tax payer had. Which was about $30k per person.

Much of the plan to buy back stakes of US banks with that money, as we saw caused the highest gain in DOW. But declining again...
It might still not be the time to invest in the market to bag up the gains when DOW shoot up.

Photoshop Enpowerment: Enhance your graphic with Florals

2008-10-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

Finished result

FinAnalysis: ROA and ROE

2008-10-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

ROA: return on assets

ROA = Net Income/ Tot. Assets

Definitions:
1. An indicator of how profitable a company is relative to its total assets. -Investopedia.com
2. what the company can do with what it's got - wikipedia

Analyze formula:
this ratio you can find netincome per unit of total assets. Which means how much income have we generated for every unit of assets we consumed in the business or every unit of assets the business has.

Implication:
We can use this ratio to find if company/firm is efficiently using its assets to generate income.
Higher the ROA - better, more income from assets, and company using assets very efficiently to generate their income.

ROE : Return On Equity (basic form)

ROE = Net income/ Total Equity

Definition:
1. A measure of a corporation's profitability that reveals how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested. -investopedia.com

Analyze ratio:
This ratio divide netincome per unit of equity.

Just like ROA this ratio tells how much income a firm generate per unit of stockholders equity money they have invested in the company. So from a stockholders perspective higher ROE mean the company is generating lot of income from their money. Which is a good thing for investor as it can generate higher return and possible divident for them.

As for the firm, higher ROE mean they are pleasing shareholders and they are using that equity money efficiently to generate income.

Graphic Designing: Simple Business card

2008-10-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

Simple 45degree theme business card. This design is designed with more composure and freed up lot of white space for easy viewing the information from the business card.
It is a vertical design which is becoming popular in new ways people use business card to differentiate themselves.
If you are a graphic designer, the way your personal B-card look gives a good impression in differentiating you. As graphic designers usually prepare a portfolio of designs when applying for jobs, it is also a positive thing to give away your personal business card.

Photoshop resources: Floralization

2008-09-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

Floral Brushes:

I want to share some great PS floral brushes that you can download for free, and that can be used very effectively to enhance your design.
http://www.brusheezy.com/brush/download/341-Floral-Swirl

- floral swirls 2

Floral Frame brushes:
-
Click here to download floral frames

-
Click here to download floral frames 2

-
Click here to download floral frames 3

Look forward to a tutorial on how to use floral frames to create stunning designs.

Credit for PS brushes: coolwing.deviantart

FinAnalysis: EBIT

2008-09-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

EBIT - earnings before interest and tax

Meaning: amount of money left in a firm after paying operating and admin expenses, but before paying interest and income tax. Basically this is how much money firm is left with to pay their debt.

- EBIT = Operating Revenue – Operating Expenses + Non-operating Income

Definitions:

1. (EBIT) is a measure of a firm's profitability that excludes interest and income tax expenses - Bodie, Z., Kane, A. and Marcus, A. J. Essentials of Investments, McGraw Hill Irwin, 2004, p. 452.

2. operating and nonoperating profit before the deduction of interest and income taxes. - thefreedictionary.com

3. An indicator of a company's profitability, calculated as revenue minus expenses, excluding tax and interest. EBIT is also referred to as "operating earnings", "operating profit" and "operating income" - investopedia.com

EBIT/Interest

Implication:
- measure of long-term solvency, times interest earned ratio.
- How well a company have its interest covered.
eg. if company X's EBIT is $20,000 and interest expense is $10,000 the ratio is 2. Meaning they are capable of paying interest for their debt.
- with a volatile company like movie industry, ratio of 2 may not be adequate.

"Long-term Solvency" - firms long-run ability to meet obligations, or financial leverage.

FinAnalysis: Preface for Ratios

2008-09-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Preface of the financial ratio posts.

As financial ratios are very important in my career path, I do lot of research on each individual ratios. Source these ratios using text books to online websites.
For each ratios I try to encapsulate as much analytical decisions or trends we can use from those ratios to interpret the ratios in balance sheet and income statement.

This research will help me refer back to my finding in later times and hope this will help you with analyzing your financial reports.

Summary of the Ratios Covered so far.
1. Gross Margin
2. EBIT (Earnings before interest and tax)
3. FinAnalysis: ROA and ROE

PS Tutor: Interesting collage wallpaper

2008-09-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

For the full tutorial:
Source: Photoshop-Garden

Financial Analysis: Gross Margin

2008-09-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

Gross Profit Margin = Gross Profit (Revenue - COGS)/ Sales

Profit margin is the ratio used in financial analysis to measure the gross profit per sales. Gross profit as in COGS deducted from the Sales revenue.

Higher the Gross Margin the more efficient the firm/company in turning its raw material into income. If its a retail firm, the higher number tell how fast they turn the inventory into income.

Check out for more financial ratios and their interpretation in financial statements.

PS tutor: Orange skin Porche

2008-08-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

Read full tutorial here on how to design it from scratch using photoshop: http://alfoart.com/gold_car_1.html

MS Excel: formulas that make your work easier

2008-07-24T17:23:00.001-07:00

# To return a latest value of a column. (the column can not have empty cells between 1st value and last value)

=INDEX(H8:H14,COUNT(H8:H14))

in this formula, the range H8 to H14 we will get the latest value or the bottom most value in the correspondent cell that hold this formula.

Explanation:
count formula here counts the number of cells that has values.
using index formula, we find the index value within the given range, in this case H8:H14, and we want the index value of the 5th cell that is from top to down (the last cell with the values), which is the value given from Count formula.

Gas price has its effect on indivituals: financial perspective

2008-07-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

Fair enough gas prices are going up day by day even though we saw a slight decrease of the price in past week or so. But gas prices has shown an exponential growth overall, rather average price graph over past 8 years.

I have been keeping track of grocery expenses in a spread sheet. In the past few months I was able to identify this increase in gas price clearly showing off in my spread sheet. Over past three months, April, May, & June; the groceries price per day per item value showed a clear integrated increase in my analysis of the expenses.

Even though you went to the grocery store and didnt identify much of a increase in food prices or even good prices, overall it has gone up. As you may know gas price increase causing good/food item prices to go up as in forms of transportation of goods, storage, etc.

There is a heavy need for alternative fuel source that we can rely on just like gas with less pollution and cost efficient.

Read more about environmental effects of gasoline prices and depletion of resources at http://apenvirom.blogspot.com/