Dynaquest Monthly Digest will stop publishing by August 2011

I have been subscribing to Dynaquest's Monthly Digest for years, and have been using it to shortlist and analyse my stock picks. It is sad to know that this publication will come to an end.

Founded by Dr Neoh Soon Kean (梁孙健), Dynaquest has been publishing precious fundamental analysis information of the Malaysian stock market, including the Stock Performance Guide (SPG), the Second Board Guide (SBG, which has ceased publication few years ago), Monthly Digest and the expensive Stockbase.

Contents of Monthly Digest includes:

• Summary of marketwide information
• Ranking of companies by PER & DY
• Ranking by discount to NAB/Share
• Ranking by Market Capitalisation
• Ranking by combination of PER, DY, PX/NAB and ROE
• Valuation of TSR and warrant
• Valuation of REITs
• Dynaquest's selected stocks
• EMAS index vs Sectoral indices
• EMAS index vs Major Global indices
• Entitlements information
• Summary of updates for the month
• Financial statistics
• Weekly price charts

Although there are a few competitors to this publication, those competitors are yet to close up the gap in getting close to Monthly Digest's comprehensiveness, up-to-date info, detail and usefulness.

Existing subscribers of Monthly Digest are given 3 options to:

• Get a refund for remaining subscription paid
• Continue receiving Financial Statistics part of Monthly Digest in PDF format
• Convert to Stockbase subscription

Stockbase is a set of updated KLSE public listed companies' information and fundamentals, selling at a few thousand ringgit per year. This will be too expensive for retail investors.

Tweaking Ubuntu 11.04 easily with Ubuntu Tweak

Ubuntu Tweak is an open source tool licensed with GPL v2, designed to make easy to configure your Ubuntu Linux system and desktop settings using its user friendly GUI interface.

It is developed by Tualatrix Chou (周鼎), a 24 years old Chinese guy who also founded HZLUG (Hangzhou Linux User Group).

Features of Ubuntu Tweak includes:

• Display Basic System Information (Distribution, Kernel, CPU, Memory, etc.)
• GNOME Session Control
• Auto Start Program Control
• Quick installer for popular applications
• Lots of 3rd-party sources to keep applications up-to-date
• Clean unneeded packages or cache to free disk space
• Show/Hide and Change Splash screen
• Show/Hide desktop icons or Mounted Volumes
• Show/Hide/Rename Computer, Home, Trash or Network icon
• Tweak Metacity Window Manager's style and behaviour
• Compiz Fusion settings, Screen Edge Settings, Window Effect Settings, Menu Effect Settings
• Set the Shortcuts to archive quicker access your favourite applications
• GNOME Panel Settings
• Nautilus Settings
• Advanced Power Management Settings
• System Security Settings
• and many more...

For example, many of us prefer to have the Window Titlebar buttons on the right instead of on the left. You can easily set this with Window Manager Settings in Ubuntu Tweak.

You can download the DEB installation package of Ubuntu Tweak from its website. To install it after download, just double click on the DEB file.

After installation, you can find Ubuntu Tweak inside the System category of Applications. Click the Applications launcher on the side bar of Ubuntu 11.04 Unity Desktop, drop down the search selector which default to All Applications and select System. Alternatively, you can search for "Ubuntu Tweak" by key-in its name in the application search box.

Deloitte Technology Trends 2011 Report - The natural convergence of business and IT

Deloitte has released their annual Technology Trends report for 2011, taglined "The natural convergence of business and IT".

This report examines the ever-evolving landscape of technology put to business use. Although it is written from the perspective of the CIO, it also informs business executives on exciting new possibilities to apply technology to address their most pressing business challenges.

10 important trends were identified in this report, clustered in 2 categories.

1. (Re)Emerging Enablers are trends that many CIOs and technology executives have spent time, thought and resources on in the past.

They are:

• Visualization
• "Almost-Enterprise" Applications
• Cyber Intelligence
• CIOs as Revolutionaries
• The End of the "Death of ERP"

2. Disruptive Deployments are trends that present significant new opportunities to improve business processes, rethink operations or even enter into new business models. The technologies themselves are not necessarily disruptive, but when when deployed, could disrupt the cost, capabilities, or even the core operating model of IT and the business.

They are:

• Real Analytics
• Social Computing
• User Engagement
• Applied Mobility
• Capability Clouds

Among the list, the convergence of Social and Mobile computing plays significantly.

Click here to download the 68 pages Deloitte Technology Trends 2011 Report.