WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl » Tools

Best Stock Dividend Reinvestment Calculator

webchicklet — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:56:07 +0000

This Webchicklet loves to dabble in the stock market in her free time, and I especially love dividend stocks and the financial benefits of compounding gains through dividend reinvestment. While explaining these financial benefits to a friend, I went in search of a dividend reinvestment calculator. It’s always better to illustrate benefits with an actual example. Well, I turned to a google search, but it took a lot longer than usual to find a useful calculator. Now that I’ve done the legwork, here’s the top 3 dividend reinvestment calculators, and why. Keep in mind, these are just my personal choices, and I hope that if you have found a better dividend reinvestment tool, you’ll let me and our readers know, by leaving a comment below.

1. BuyUpSide.com (Free Information for the Serious Investor)

This was by and far the most useful DRIP calculator I found in my extensive search. Why do I like it? Well for starters, it has a nice simple form design and it’s very clear what information you need to enter. More importantly, it not only shows you the future value of an investment in a company with dividends, but also provides a side by side comparison of what happens if you do NOT reinvest your dividends. This was super handy for my purposes of explaining the benefits of a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP)!

Another handy feature is that it accounts for both dividend growth rate, and stock price growth rate, which you can estimate from historical averages for the given stock. See photo below.

So you just enter the initial number of shares, the stock price, the current dividend yield, the expected annual dividend and stock price growth, and the number of years. Voila, it spits out the future value and lets you know just how rich you’ll be in 10 or 20 or 30 years. It does a great job of illustrating the power of compounding. Click on the photo for a larger image.

2. http://www.hughchou.org/calc/drip.php

While this one is lacking some of the features of the number one dividend reinvestment calculator above, such as the reinvest/no reinvest comparison and the dividend and the dividend growth input, it does have a couple of additional different and useful inputs.

Number one, it allows you to enter an amount for monthly contributions, if you are planning on buying additional stock each month. It also asks whether this will be a taxable investment or not, and if so you can enter the estimated tax rate. Useful if you’re investing in dividends outside of your 401k (or RSP in Canada)!

I personally like both of these calculators, and consult with them on a regular basis. But BuyUpside.com is my goto dividend reinvestment calculator of choice. Be sure to let us know if you have a different favorite.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Three Best PMP Exam Prep Books

webchicklet — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:16:36 +0000

Recently, a good friend of mine was preparing for her PMP Certification Exam, and was frustrated by the massive number of PMP Exam prep books and courses on the market. She was paralyzed by the decision on which study guide to buy. I told her my theory on buying any educational book and she gave it a try and it worked out just fine for her. What’s my theory? It’s very simple. Look at what PMP exam prep book everyone else is buying…if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for you and me.

All you have to do is go to Amazon.com and use there Bestsellers Feature. It’ll show you which book everyone is buying, then you just look at the reviews and sample pages of the top 3 or 4 and decide which one sounds the best fit for your style of learning! Easy, right? I find it works very well 9 times out of 10 on any topic, including PMP Certification Exam prep books.

So, if you are looking for the best PMP Exam prep book, have a look at these top 3 bestsellers on Amazon:

1. The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try , by Andy Crowe

If you actually ran the best sellers feature on Amazon, you’ll be wondering why this is number one on Webchicklet. Well, I placed this one number one, because according to many readers, and my friend, this is really the best, and only book you need on PMP exam prep. It really does give you the info and tools to pass the PMP test on the FIRST try. If you don’t have it, get it. If you already have it, then you don’t need any other one!

2. PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition: Rita’s Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam by Rita Mulcahy and PMP

Everything you need is in here to pass the test, according to people who have bought this book. Rita Mulcahy has a ton of experience in PMP Exam prep, so you really can’t go wrong with this book. She has a knack at explaining and presenting the material in a way that helps readers absorb all the important points.

3. PMP Exam Prep Questions, Answers, & Explanations: 800+ PMP Practice Questions with Detailed Solutions (Volume 1) by Christopher Scordo

This is based on the PMBOK Guide Fourth Edition. This is for those students that maybe don’t have alot of practical project management experience. It has over 800 detailed PMP exam practice questions covering everything you need to know to pass the test.

Nope, I’m not talking about some obscure (and unpopular) new google smartphone here, I’m talking about free calls to the US or Canada through Google Phone, in your gmail account! Yesterday I was checking one of my lesser used gmail accounts and noticed a new item under my chat window on the left that said Call phone. They haven’t actually come up with a name for the new feature, I just made up Google Phone as it seems like a logical name.

hmm, that sounds interesting. So I grabbed my microphone headseat and gave it a try. I calleda friend in Canada and it said it was free, and on top of that my friend had no idea I was calling through my laptop, as the voice quality was so clear.

As is quite often the case, Google unveiled this new amazing Skype killer with little (or any??) fanfare on Wednesday August 25, 2010. I don’t know how long it will last, but for 2010calls to the U.S. and Canada are free. For now, this is only available to gmail users in theUnited States. This is a great addition to their already amazing video chat feature. It seems they are out to crush Skype with agressive pricing to other countries. For example, calls to India are only 6 cents, Italy 2 cents, and Dominican Republic only $.06. These prices are all lower than skype.

It’s super easy to use:

Click on Call Phone

Select Country, and dial phone number.

Hit Call and wait for it to ring and the person to answer.

Just make sure you have a microphone and your computer volume is turned up.

While this is pretty awesome stuff, I won’t be entirely impressed until I see a Google Phone app for my HTC Incredible Android based phone. Until then, I’ll still have to use Skype on my phone. Come Google, get’er done!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

FIFA World Cup 2010 Apps and Toolbars

webchicklet — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:16:34 +0000

With soccer’s 2010 World Cup in South Africa less than a month away, it’s time to get ready to get the tools and apps to keep abreast of all the action. You can’t just quit your job to watch soccer full time (or can you?…hmmm) so you better have all the world cup 2010 toolbars and world cup iphone apps to keep up to date while working, or sleeping.

Naturally, if you have an iphone or iPod Touch, you’ll want to get the best app for the job. But if you want large screen updates and more robust multimedia World Cup updates, you also need a good toolbar for your pc or laptop. No matter what your preferred platform, Apps and Toolbars need to have the following features:

Real-time World Cup 2010 Scores
Up to date World Cup 2o10 dates, Schedules, Groupings, and Standings
Real time World Cup news, happenings, injuries
Video highlights, updates and commentary
Accurate TV schedules so you don’t miss your favorite games
World Cup 2010 Song
World Cup 2010 Draw
World Cup 2010 Tickets info
World Cup 2010 Fixtures
World Cup 2010 Stadiums info

So based on the above, here’s the top World Cup 2010 iPhone App. And best of all it’s FREE. FREE is good. Drumroll please……

ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup App

As usual, ESPN has come out with a best of class sports app with the FIFA World Cup app. They have the resources to build a solid app, and the resources to bring the most indepth news, analysis, and updates. Here’s just some of the reasons the ESPN 2010 World Cup app is the best:

The ESPN App brings you exclusive US and global news and anaylsis
Detailed profiles on each and every team in the World Cup
Full schedule
Group news and analysis
You can personalize your app with your team colors!
World Cup history
profiles of the ten world cup venues
ESPN’s Fantasy Bracket predictor
Exclusive ESPN rankings of the top FIFA teams
Live scores, and gamecasts
news alerts
Fan picture gallery
AND LIVE AUDIO STREAMS!!!

For those with a PC or laptop, the Yahoo Toolbar with World Cup Coverage may be a good bet. It brings you all the news, real time scores, highlights, tv schedules all in one easy to use toolbar. Naturally, you can also personalize the toolbar with your favorite team theme. I like it because it’s easy to install, and with Yahoo’s solid reputation, you know you’re not going to get any spyware or other spam issues from this toolbar.

So get your apps and toolbars now so you are ready to go next month. As usual, please comment below if you know of a better World Cup iphone app or a World Cup widget/toolbar for you pc.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Onscreen Pixel Ruler For Windows

webchicklet — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:11:47 +0000

This Webchicklet is a big fan of simple tools that make work so much easier, and onscreen pixel rulers for windows are another example of the less is more mantra. How many times have you been surfing the web and wondered whether that cool photo or other graphic element would fit in your own website project? For me it was too many times to count, until finally I decided to search for the term Pixel Ruler on Google. Lo and behold I found plethora of precise pixel rulers!

If you’ve been wishing for a quick and easy pixel ruler to measure web elements, look no further. Here’s two pixel rulers that are Webchicklet approved (read: free) and guaranteed to make your work day easier:

A Ruler For Windows

Rob Latour developed A Ruler for windows, a super slick pixel ruler that allows you to layer one or more on the screen at the same time. It has a ton of great features. You can set the appearance to wood grain, stainless, clear plastic(useful for typing below with it running) or yellow. You can measure horizontal or vertically, change the ticks from top to bottom, and especially important, you can zoom in 2, 3, or 4 times magnification for super precise measuring. This is my personal favourite of the two pixel rulers I tested. It’s easy to use right from the start, and it’s totally free on as many computers as you want.

Pixel Ruler V4.0

Pixel Ruler v 4.0 is a nice looking pixel ruler, that also has some great features, and provides you with the same exact pixel measurements as the ruler above. This ruler auto sizes up to 2500 pixels wide or 1500 pixels high. It’s easy to drag around the screen, or click to change orienation from the horizontal default to vertical. And you just have to right click to shut it down. A great product from mioplanet.com. After 50 purchases, a license box will popup on startup, but you can still continue to use it for free.

So get out there and measure the world wide web, and as usual let me know if you have an even better pixel ruler.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Google Transliteration: Another useful Google Tool

webchicklet — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:53:44 +0000

Google has updated it’s super useful Google Transliteration tool, which improves upon the already popular tool. If you’ve never heard about the Google Transliteration tool, it is one of the many interesting tools found in Google Labs. Google says it’s Transliteration tool allows users to type phonetically in many different languages, using your english keyboard.

So to be clear this is not a straight up language translation service. If you’re looking for language translation, I recommend using www.freetranslation.com. I use this service when ever I need to convert an article from english to spanish for example. With Google Transliteration, you can currently type phonetically in 17 different languages using your english keyboard. This includes Greek, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Serbian, Tamil, and Punjabi.

As you will see in the image below, you just type in english and every time you hit space or enter the words are automatically translated phonetically to the language you have chosen! Pretty cool. Have a look at this transliteration to Hindi:

As Google states, it can be cumbersome for people to type in their native language with the standard roman english keyboard, making a normally basic typing task a nightmare in many parts of the world. For example english keyboards are the standard in India, yet many people there want to type in Hindi. Google Transliteration makes this task super easy!

So next time you need to write a document in Hindi, Greek, or Russian, be sure to give translation a try with Google Transliteration!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Another Useful Google Tool: Google Docs

webchicklet — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:53:31 +0000

Last week I wrote about the new and improved Google Keyword Tool beta, and how it is one of most useful google tools for any blogger wanting to write useful, targeted posts that generate new search engine traffic. It seems alot of web surfers don’t know about the amazing number of useful Google Tools and Apps availabe to them! So this week, Webchicklet introduces you to Google Docs.

Google Docs is Web-based and includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation all in one easy to use package, offered by Google, and best of all, it’s totally free! It allows you to create and edit documents online and share them with other users, if you need/want to. This webchicklet doesn’t use it to share docs with other people. I store all my frequently referred to documents on Google Docs so if I’m traveling out of town/country and need to refer to a document, I just log into Google Docs and open up the document! This is the most useful feature for me! I also can open up documents in Google Docs that are emailed to me through Gmail, which is great when I’m on a public computer that doesn’t have Microsoft Word or Excel, or any other word processor/spreadsheet software.

The great thing about Google docs is that you can edit and save the documents in several formats including: OpenOffice, HTML, PDF, RTF, Text, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc. So no matter what format someone sends me a document, I can usually open it with Google Docs. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops: You can only download/upload one document at a time to Google Docs, and I believe the documents cannot exceed 500k in size, and embedded images are limited to a max of 2 Mb.

A recent new and useful feature of Google Docs is the ability to share selected folders! This makes it easy to manage the docs you want to keep private and those that you want to share with others. Sweet!

Here’s a snapshot of what Google Docs looks like:

So next time you need to access a document or spreadsheet online, look no further than Google Docs. Give it a try, and as usual let me know how you use Google Docs, or let me know of any other online document managers you may use that are even better than Google Docs!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

MonitorHackdFiles Tool Helps Fight Site Hackers

webchicklet — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:42:31 +0000

Don’t wait for Google to ban your site to find out you’ve been hacked. You might use several tools to prevent your site from being hacked, but if they fail, you want to know right away – long before Google bans your site for hidden links and malicious scripts. That’s what MonitorHackdFiles does – it is a sentry for your site. It watches your site, and when it detects a file has changed (or been added), it notifies you via email and tells you which file(s) was changed. When other security measures fail, MonitorHackdFiles makes sure you know about it.

I have a friend whose blog gets hacked and removed from Google’s search results every couple of months or so. It seems like every time I start to forget about the irritating hackers* out there, another friend cries on my virtual shoulder because their site has been hacked. It’s a constant stream, and I’ve been looking for ways to help everyone stop it for a while now.

Today, I’m giving everyone a free tool to add to your “anti-hacked sites” arsenal. (Download link near the end of this post). It’s ONLY ONE TOOL and only does ONE FUNCTION. You need other tools as well, and I’ll list some that I use and recommend, and I’ll continue to search for more. But this is one I haven’t seen released yet, so I decided it was time to make one (with a little help).

Let’s start with the problem. There are many different ways that your site can be hacked. This post deals with one of those ways – a file or files are added to your site, or a file(s) that already exists on your site is changed – by someone with evil intentions – and without your knowledge. These changed files cause something bad to happen with your site – what that “something” is could be different for everyone. You may get links to unsavory sites injected in your pages, like my friend did. Here’s a pic of what that looks like.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know those links were there. Why not? Because they were INVISIBLE to him and to any other human visitor. He only found out about them because he wondered (weeks later) why he suddenly disappeared from Google’s search results, and a kind Google employee told him that he was linking to some bad sites – but only search engines could see the links.

There are many other things that might happen, including having links placed on your site that redirect users to another site – and that site may infect your users with malware. Whatever the end result is, it began in a similar way. And you had no idea your files were tampered with.

THAT’S THE PROBLEM. Site’s have files changed and site owners have no idea that anything has happened. Visibly, they see nothing changed. It’s only after time has passed do they notice that they’ve been banned from appearing in Google’s search results and wonder why. Eventually, with enough effort, and some luck, they may realize that their site has been hacked. And even then, they have no idea how, or which files might have changed!

The tool I am giving to everyone will NOT prevent files from being changed without your knowledge. Sorry. However, if a file *is* added or changed, this tool will alert you by sending you an email, and it will tell you which file(s) changed. That quick knowledge could be enough to stop the hacker in his tracks, and prevent more damage being done. You may never have to wake up to wonder why you’ve lost all your search engine rankings. And by knowing exactly what files were changed, you have a little more knowledge so that you may even figure out how the hacker managed to find his way in.

This tool can be used by just about everyone (assuming your site is hosted on a Linux server, capable of running PHP). It’s not JUST for WordPress blogs, although they are often hit with this issue. I didn’t want to restrict this tool to blogs. It’s useful to the broader web site community, whether you run blogs or any other type of site. And in most cases, it’s a 5 minute install. Set it and forget it.

It’s completely free (as in beer and as in freedom) and I encourage you to let everyone know about it. I would appreciate linking to this post, rather than the download itself, so that everyone gets the benefit of knowing what they are downloading. I’ve licensed it as GPL, so that others can modify and distribute as needed, while making sure it always stays GPL. Download the zip file below. Unzip it, read the readme.txt instructions, and install it to harden your site’s security just a little bit more. (Current version is 1.1. View changes here.).

Download MonitorHackdFiles (MHF) Here

Other Site Security Tools I Recommend: (most for WordPress)

Install the Login Lockdown WordPress plugin. This will prevent brute force attempts at grabbing your admin password and is the first line of defense. (WordPress only)
Install the WordPress Firewall plugin. This is great at stopping most intrusion attempts and is the second line of defense. If this plugin fails to catch an intruder, however, MonitorHackdFiles will be the next line of defense, which will be a sort of “after-intrusion” defense mechanism.
Install the WordPress Database Backup plugin. You can set this plugin to automatically backup your blog’s database every night and email it to you, so you never have to remember to backup. This is essential for being able to revert back to a known-good state. Once installed, test it, and make sure you get a good backup right now. (WordPress only)
Install the Content WP Backup plugin, which automatically backs up and optionally emails your plugins, themes, and uploads (like your post’s images). (WordPress only)
Backup your site’s files now while you know they are clean. You can grab a backup from CPanel if your host uses that, or you can just FTP all the files down. (For Everyone)

I can’t stress enough the importance of regular backups. If you do get hacked, you can always retrieve a known-good backup and be back in business fairly quickly. And because this tool will alert you quickly to problems, if you can revert your site to its original state quickly as well, then you may avoid getting dumped from search engines completely. And that can mean the difference between being a victim and being a warrior!

Who To Contact Once You’ve Been Attacked

As I mentioned, MonitorHackdFiles is just one tool in your arsenal. Once you’ve been alerted to a problem, you need to deal with it. Most often, you should get help from experts. I’m not going to recommend any particular company or service, because I don’t have any experience with any of them to rate them. However, here are a few that might be useful to contact if you need help finding out how the intruders got in. What is most important is finding the vulnerability so that you can secure that hole.

If after all of that, you’re still not sure what the heck this tool is for, I suggest reading another post I wrote about it over on the DazzlinDonna blog. I explain it in a slightly different way, so maybe it will make more sense.

Note: This script works best if it is automated via cron. If your host doesn’t allow cron jobs, you can still use this script, but you’ll have to manually run a file periodically. If your host doesn’t allow cron jobs, you might want to consider a better host. I recommend HostMonster.

*Note: Yes, I know the real term is crackers and not hackers, but like it or not, the word “hackers” has become the standard use and is even used by Google themselves in the various posts they’ve made about this problem. So don’t even try to start a word-war here about it. I don’t care about semantics. I care about solving more important problems.

Download MonitorHackdFiles (MHF) Here

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.