The Power Of Compound Interest

http://investor.gov/tools/calculators/compound-interest-calculator#.UsHSz-LNkfk

The power of compound interest (ignoring taxes, such as in an IRA or a life insurance policy, or something like that). is enormous.  That's not really news, but what was news to me is this government page where you can make an easy calculations on "what it".

This website came to me by way of a curious moment today – I found some documents cleaning my files, and realized that I had an opportunity in 1983, when my children were young, to purchase a Gift Trust Fund that was being offered by American Century (under a prior name 20^th, Century Funds). The idea was this Fund would act like a mini trust fund, but the Fund company would do all the paperwork for you, and file any and all tax returns.  The minimum investment was $2,500, and you locked up the money for a minimum of 18 years.  Ideal as a gift for a newborn child for future college money.

The fund has earned 11.5 % average per year, since inception.  So, had I put in $2,500 per child, what would the present value be?   I ran the numbers, it was something like $65,000.  Think if I had put in more, like $10,000 ?  I ran the numbers on putting in $40,000, and that would have yielded $1,000,000.  Of course $40,000 is no small amount to part with, but $1.0 million isn’t a bad payout.  This Fund tracks the market, but invests in all size companies with high growth since it takes a long term perspective, that makes sense.

Of course the on-line calculator is my thrust with this post, not the Fund.  But it is interesting to look back over time and see that some growth mutual funds do perform well, in spite of 2008 type crashes. And surely this Fund is not the most successful of the type.

19 Useful Tips for the iPhone or iPad User

http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/mind-blowing-tricks-every-iphone-and-ipad-user-should-kno

I leaned a few valuable tips here.  Who know these?

1.    That putting your iPhone in “airplane mode” would speed the charging?  Useful in airports and other times when you need the phone back quickly.

2.    That you could hold down the “numbers” key on the keyboard, then slide to a number and release, and be back to the alpha keyboard?  That should be handy.

3.    That holding the “decimal point” key would bring up your choices of .com  .net and so forth?  You wouldn’t have to type those letters in?

I see Buzz Feed a few times a year, it is a cluttered site, and could be a time waster, but once in awhile it has some pretty funny, or useful stuff. 

Apple's Choice for "App of The Year" (In The Free Category)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/talkingtech/2013/12/17/duolingo-apples-iphone-app-of-the-year/4042469/

Learn a second language, for free.  Not a bad idea.  Shark Tank investors?  Come on quickly, this one might work out well. Basic point, good software to learn a second language is out of the price reach of many people for whom a second language would greatly expand their employment opportunities. 

Public Service Announcement (Junk Phone Calls)

I get several junk-telemarketing calls a month, often from the same companies.  I never answer the phone for them since I have caller ID.  When the caller hears my answering machine pick up, they hang up.  I am sure you have the same.

I discovered doing a reverse phone number look up today for one of the more frequent and irritating callers that there is an FCC website to file an on-line complaint about a particular caller. Here is the link.

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html

I have filed my first complaint.  It was serious stuff, they asked many questions, but they were all sensible.  They also had me authenticate my complaint, much like you do when you sign a tax return.  Then I got a confirmation and a complaint number to print and save for future reference.  Here is what that looked like (with my numbers XXX out).

 ----------------------------------------------------------

FCC Submission Confirmation: 1088B

Acknowledgement of Submission from Lxxxx  Bxxxx on 12/17/2013, reference number 13-xx  2387954w3.

Thank you for your information. The FCC will contact you if additional information is required. Please keep this information for future reference.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------

On their main site www.FCC.gov  , they even have a mobile bandwidth speed check you can use to see if you are getting real 4-G or not. Worth checking out this website.

TurboScan APP for Smart Phone

There are many scanning APP’s for smart phones, but today I will review the one I just discovered by way of my furnace repairman today.  I liked to see APP's in use by people I know, and hear their story, and this was one of those days.  My repairman is a skilled smart phone user ---  for business purposes --- so I trust his judgment. He uses TurboScan ($2.99).  

I have a few other scanner APP's (all scanners use the smart phone camera) but they are not exactly first class in their performance.  The demo I saw today from my friend, the repairman, was amazing.  He took a photo of a full sheet of printed instructions. The APP actually took about 4 photos quickly, and then selected the one that was best quality. Then he cropped it to get out anything that was not "the document" that was in somehow visible in the photo. Then he was given choices:  Email it to Myself  --  Email it to Someone Else --- Print it to a wireless printer, and so on.  It would go out as a PDF file.  On top of that, the APP enhanced the document, making the text black and the background white, very professional looking – and there were choices on the enhancement techniques.  But all this took place very rapidly.

He told me he could photograph a repair bill or anything and email it to a client or his own office, using this system, and he did that often.  It would come into the client’s email in-box as a PDF, and they could print it, forward it to the person who would be paying the bill, or whatever.  I saw the results, and it was very good looking. 

So, if you have tried a few scanning APP’s and not been satisfied, you might want to try this one.  I purchased it and will be testing it shortly.  I love my Evernote as well, which does some similar things, with OCR recognition for searching as well.  And Evernote stores the documents you photograph in their cloud. But they are also stored on all your computing devices as a backup.