Examine the distribution and skewness of a variable

[slacknoise]

Hi Forum,
I used to work with eviews, but i cannot remember a lot of stuff. So if someone could help me with my questions that would be great.

1. How do you decide whether a variable is standard distributed or not. Is there a threshold in the level of skewness? When i look at the histogramm i would say it is really skewed to the right, but does that mean it is not normal distributed then or how do i perform a proper test?

2. i would like to take the log of a variable and therefore create a new one with the log.

Would be great if somebody could help me. Thank you very much in advance.