K's Learning Diary

Here is another useful tip that I have learnt today. A Mac and many other modern laptops all have this function. You can zoom in and out of the screen simply by pinching or spreading your fingers over the mouse pad. In Ubuntu, what you do is to hold the Ctrl button, and then scroll up or down with two fingers as you normally would to move the page. This would zoom in and out of the page. ********* Do you use wifi in public places or travel abroad often? Do you worry about cyber security? Get added security with a reliable VPN.   Get a reliable VPN  today for less than £3/$5 a month. 

It was surprisingly difficult to get this one right. I move back and forth and work between my Windows PC and my laptop with a Linux operating system. It's useful to edit files using the same software when moving across the platforms. There are software that can convert and edit PDF files such as Word or OpenOffice, however, none of them look 100% perfect after the conversion. I use Adobe Reader DC on my Windows machine to annotate and highlight texts, and it works very well. So I set out to find a way to have Adobe Reader available on my Linux machine as well. There are lots of useful websites online that shows how to do this. However, it turned out to be less straightforward and I ended up spending two days to find a way to do it. To start with I followed instructions from this website: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-latest-adobe-acrobat-reader-dc-on-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux-with-wine 1. The first step was to download two pieces of software, Wine

Assuming that you invest in a stable/boring/predictable company, with consistent dividend payouts. Let's assume you keep the shares forever (or for a very long time), how much would all the future dividend payouts be worth to you today? If you can answer this question, you can then compare different companies to see which one's present value is higher to help you with an investment decision. Luckily, this has been worked out already. Here is the handy derivation for this very useful tool:

I have recently started using the Ubuntu (a version of Linux, free to individuals) operating system on a laptop, instead of purchasing an additional Windows license. I have to say, since I only use the laptop for general word processing and web-browsing, it is working very well. With Firefox, Open Office, and Dropbox installed, it works just as well as my usual PC that I am more used to. I was looking for a antivirus (I was told it is not required on a Linux system, but I feel more at ease to have one) and a firewall software. Someone suggested the following software to use. If you are just starting to use a Linux system like me, may be you will find this useful. Antivirus: ClamTK You can search for and install it using the Ubuntu software finder (go to system tools > software). Firewall: UncomplicatedFirewall  This came with the operating system. Follow the instructions under "Basic Usage" here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UncomplicatedFirewall I have

EBITDA stands for “earning before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.” It is a financial indicator used by many companies to show their financial performance; however, it excludes depreciation and amortization.” Depreciation and amortization are also a measure of what the company is spending or needs to spend on capital expenditure to maintain or grow the business. So although EBITDA is used as a measurement of a company’s earning potential, it is somewhat misleading. I will give you a few quotes from Warren Buffett on this point that made a lot of sense to me: "It amazes me how widespread the use of EBITDA has become. People try to dress up financial statements with it.” “We won’t buy into companies where someone’s talking about EBITDA. If you look at all companies, and split them into companies that use EBITDA as a metric and those that don’t, I suspect you’ll find a lot more fraud in the former group. Look at companies like Wal-Mart, GE and

This came through to my inbox this morning: The example showed how unrealistic it is to expect to get rich quickly by investing or in this case (trading) in the stock market.  Warren Buffet puts it succinctly: "The economy, as measured by gross domestic product, can be expected to grow about 3 percent a year in the long term, and inflation of 2 percent would push nominal GDP growth to 5 percent. Stock prices would probably rise about the same and dividend payments will boost total returns to 6 percent to 7 percent a year." A sound investment strategy takes into account the long-term growth of the real economy, which is why investing in good businesses is a reasonable way to expect gradual and sustainable growth over several years. While it's possible to gamble and profit from market fluctuations through regular trading, this approach is essentially speculative and not true investing. For most people, the best approach to investing is to wait for a downturn in the economy,