So, today I decided to pick up a pair of SOL Republic Tacks HD headphones from the store. I had been using a pair of noise cancelling headphones for a few years but they’ve been getting kinda rough. They were mostly held together with masking tape. I picked these up for $130 at the Apple Store (couldn’t find them anywhere else, in the area). So far, they feel reasonably comfortable. They have a definite feel of sturdiness to them. They don’t fully surround the ears, so it feels a little odd. My initial reaction is that these do sound noticeably better. I do like...
What is a dividend and how is it paid?
When a company makes a profit, it is its obligation to return that profit to its shareholders. In the case of a younger company, the company might want to reinvest its profits back into the firm but that is because it hopes to maximize future returns for the shareholders. When the company pays part or all of its profits back to its shareholders, it is called a dividend. The payment does not necessarily need to be from its earnings. If the company pays its shareholders from capital, it is called a liquidating dividend. Another option, the company has is to pay a...
I have been playing around with making time-lapse videos
I was inspired by the android ice cream sandwich demos of time-lapse video to see what I can do on my existing devices. I found an app called Time-Lapse on the Android Market and after trying it’s demo version, I bought it. It seems to work well. I am starting to try to think of interesting videos to try to do. Stay tuned. 🙂
A few notes on Sublime Text 2
A code editor is a very personal choice for a developer. Over the years, I’ve used Notepad++, Pico, Nano, Dreamweaver, and ColdFusion Builder and they all have their pluses and minuses. Recently, I’ve started using Sublime Text 2. It doesn’t hog your system resources and isn’t littered with controls but it has more features than a lot of the big IDEs out there. It uses TextMate bundles for expansion, has tab ripping (a personal must have), spell checking, and easy tag completion. That is just the tip of the iceberg, though I figured that I would compile a “top 5 tips” list for getting started with...
So, do I get a Lytro camera? I got my invite email.
I’ve been saying for a while that I want to get one but I don’t own a Mac. Who releases their software for the Mac first?
I wonder how long it would take me to get to zero unread messages?
In case you are wondering, all messages that are sent to this address are forwarded to a second address. 🙂
What are Modigliani and Miller Proposition I and Proposition II?
A business can have a number of different possible capital structures. A firm’s capital structure is defined as “mix of a company’s long-term debt, specific short-term debt, common equity and preferred equity.(source)” In the paper “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment”, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller stated that if you consider two firms which are identical except for their financial structures, with one firm being unlevered and the other being levered, the two firms would have the same value ([pmath size=10]V_u = V_l[/pmath]). According to the third edition of Corporate Finance: Core Principles & Applications, this means...
What is the Weighted Average Cost of Capital?
We are a few weeks into the series of finance-related posts. I figured I would explain this series a little before we go into today’s topic. I am currently working on an Masters of Business Administration at Cardinal Stritch University, in Glendale, WI. As I go through my homework, I often find that the textbook is not the best in the world and I have to pull concepts from a number of source. With this content, I try to develop a reasonable narrative that pulls things together. When I blog a topic like today’s topic, it’s my highly public way...
Took a quick photo walk along the Oakleaf Trail
These were taken with my phone’s 8mp camera. I have more that I took with the dslr.