Lots of reporting on Microsoft's new dividend announcement, but today's WSJ.com - Ahead of the Tape: points to a paper last year from AQR Capital Management managing principal Cliff Asness and First Quadrant Chairman Robert Arnott who claim that that "earnings are stronger following periods when dividend yields for U.S. stocks are high than when the yields are low. "

Proof that economists will study just about anything that has numbers attached: The Independent Institute | A Brief Report on Economic Research on Obesity, by Alexander Tabarrok

This report summarizes economic literature on the causes of obesity, trying to show how it might related to income or food prices.

Hey check this out! The New York Times Link Generator lets you get around the NYTimes expiring archive problem. Normally if you link to the normal NY Times reference, a few weeks later that reference will expire and direct you instead to the paid archive, where the full text will cost you $3. This site creates a new link for you, one that won't expire.

Check out Oddpost , a fancy email site that was recently acquired by Yahoo!

The late Phil Goldman would have been all over this new interest in email sites spurred by Gmail and now the new plans for larger storage spaces at Yahoo and MSN.

I've known about HomePlug for a while, but an article by James Fallows in The New York Times (Your Money > Techno Files: Is Broadband Out of a Wall Socket the Next Big Thing?) reminds me that this might be the perfect way to pump video and sound into my home theatre. I was worrying that WiFi-G might have too much interference, but if HomePlug works well at high speeds, that would be the way to go...

MoneyChimp: learn Stock Investing, Index Funds, Valuation Models, and more. is an interesting site that teaches about investments.

VOIP changes everything in some non-obvious ways, and one of them reported in today's WSJ [subscription required] is the new ability to pick your own area code--regardless of location. Wouldn't it be nice to have a company located in the middle of nowhere, but with a Manhattan-sounding 212 area code? You can do that with Vonage's new VOIP service.

Apple Computer is running a contest where they give away an iPod to a certain number of people on the way to the 100 millionth song download on their iTunes service. My favorite Gadget site, Engadget.com, has a cheat sheet for how to enter the iTunes contest for free.

Instead of actually buying a song, you click on the "tell a friend" button and email to itunes100@apple.com.