In the spirit of Matt Cutts, I am considering taking up one of these 30 days challenge. Any advise which one makes sense to take first:

• run for 45 minutes every day
• no caffeine for 30 days
• blog 1 article every day for 30 days
• no sweet or processed / industrial food for 30 days
• read 15 books in 30 days
• burn 10 pounds in 30 days
• no meat for 30 days
• take 1 picture every day for 30 days
• go without tv for 30 days

• A  low-cost, true catastrophic (> $50k deductible) insurance that everybody needs to buy. This comes with no medical underwriting and a national shared risk pool. This policy should cost about $200/month for a family of 4 as per today's premiums.
• A new type of HSA account which everyone is required to contribute to fund for under-50k expenses. People can take loans from this account (if bigger expenses happen earlier in life) and they can also withdraw from this account for non-medical purposes (after a certain minimum indexed to age is met).
• Govt contributes to this new HSA for lower-income Americans. Medicare is replaced by this new type of govt-assisted HSA

David believes that this will force people to save for health insurance while at the same time letting them use that money for other things if they use it efficiently. Such an approach will lead to:

• Removal of obfuscated prices for health care as people will demand to know prices when they are paying for it themselves
• Providers will spend dramatically less time on paperwork as very little of expenses will pass thru insurance
• Patients will see "integrated" pricing for the whole service (like they see today for elective surgery like LASIK) rather than multiple bills from each provider that was part of the service leading to better efficiencies at the backend.
• Technological innovation— which often takes the form of slightly improved treatments for much higher prices—would begin to concern itself with value, not just quality. Many innovations might drive prices down, not up.

• We  also need to deregulate insurance sector allowing carriers to operate beyond state boundaries and letting hospitals and providers form tighter, efficient groups
• We need to limit legal liability and at the same time protect consumers against unscrupulous providers perhaps by giving FDA or similar authority some kind of jurisdiction over providers for safety of procedures.

• If you are struggling with cash flow and money and want to break free from debt: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• If you are past the cash flow stage and now interested in building good money habits that will allow you to save your first million and beyond: The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko
• You have made your first million and feel comfortable about your earning and saving habits but now need a good plan for Investing: The Random Walk Guide to Investing by Burton Malkiel
• You think you are doing okay on debt, making money and investing it but now its time to inculcate some good habits in your young kids then its: What Color is Your Piggy Bank? by Adelia Cellini Linecker

1. Zoho Writer and Zoho Mail
   • Word Processor, Email
   • Not transparent.
   • You can access documents stored inside your Zoho account and edit them offline inside the web browser.
   • You can read and compose mail when offline
2. Gmail :
   • Transparent and automatically detects your are offline.
   • Even has a "flaky connection" mode.
   • Full read-write access to your mail.
   • Even allows access to most gadgets
3. Wordpress
   • Hosted Blogging Service
   • Transparent and full-access to your posts and pages.
4. Google Docs
   • Word Processor, Spreadsheets, PDF documents and Presentations
   • Transparent and automatic offline access
   • Read-write access to word processor (no new docs)  and read-only access to spreadsheets and presentations
5. Remember The Milk
   • Todo List Manager
   • Full read-write access to your tasks. Even allows local search engines to search offline tasks.
6. Some Things
   • Todo List Manager
   • Full read-write access to your tasks
7. Autodesk Labs Project Draw
   • create diagrams online
   • the application can run in the offline mode and synch files later when you reconnect
8. MindMeinster
   • Mind Mapping Tool
   • Need pro account for offline access.
   • Full read-write access
9. Passpack
   • Password Manager for your online stuff
   • Transparent and full-access to your passwords in offline mode
10. Paymo
    • time tracker
    • Google Gears added the "ability to work offline and sync the data with the Paymo server once an internet connection is available"
11. Google Reader
    • Feed Reader
    • Not transparent. You have to tell it in advance that you are going to be offline.
    • Can read and update feeds but not add new feeds
12. Google Calendar:
    • Transparent but read-only access to your events.

• Time Machine or Superduper! for daily painless backup. this is your first line of defense
• JungleDisk or Mozy for the off-site backup (just in case time machine is corrupted or your house is on fire. This is your reserve backup
• Dropbox or Syncplicity to sync files to other machines on your network (good to have a backup of "critical" files). This is for the worst case

• Employers funded most of the cheaper plan (just like other plans) but their costs were less .
• Employees got an attached account (HSA) that they can fund with pre-tax dollars (upto $5950/year/family).
• Many employers choose to pass on some of their savings (say, $500/year/family) to employees to kickstart their HSA fund. This added as an extra incentive for employees to opt for this fund.
• Employees owned their HSA free and clear and are free to invest them as they wish or take it with them when they leave the job but can only use it for medical purposes.

• Preventive checkups were covered at 100%
• Any other expenses (upto about $5000/family) were covered by the HSA - funded by employer (first $500) and then by pre-tax money from employees
• Catastrophes (beyond $5000) were covered 80% by insurance and 20% by employees.
• Any unused HSA will rollover to next year.

• Extra incentives for preventive checkups (no copay).
• Since consumer pays from "her" money - she has more incentive to search for the right cost.
• Cheaper premiums for employers and employees.
• Incentives for staying healthy as consumer pays some portion of the cost.

• People with chronic diseases (diabetes etc) where annual expense is roughly between $600-$5000 will have to pay most of it from their pocket

1. TripIt: Now available for iPhone. forward your trip emails (from airlines, hotels etc) to tripit and have then available as organized trips with offline access on your iPhone. Very useful for people who travel a lot.
2. Kayak: Book the next flight home while you are in the cab going towards airport !! Or find out the cheapest hotels as soon as you get off the call with your customer.  Call airlines or hotels at the touch of a button (they have phone numbers for all of them).
3. Evernote: A great note-taking application for your iPhone.  Take Notes in meetings, Take pictures of whiteboards. Record people as they talk. Sync it all back to your Mac (or Windows) automatically over the air.
4. LinkedIn: Your LinkedIn on the phone !! Learn more about the person you are about to meet or search contacts in your network on the fly !! And yes, its free.
5. Nexonia Expense: Note down your expenses on your iPhone as they occur.  Have it all automatically sync to a web application accessible from desktop. Take pictures of your receipts or fax them to an 800 number. Export nice expnese reports to HTML, PDF or EXCEL.
6. RowMote: Using your iPhone to flip your powerpoint slides for every little meeting gets old soon but its still worth doing it for those big conference rooms or large meetings. Works with both Keynote or Powerpoint (also controls FrontRow, DVD, VLC and lots of other apps)
7. Yelp: In a new area and do not know what will be a good place to grab lunch (or dinner of your favorite cuisine). Why not go where locals go - using Yelp!!
8. Tip: There are dozens of tip applications in the appstore. Some are even free. But i like this 99 cents app. Its has the highest rating of all tip apps and it am
9. Cheap Gas:  Find the cheapest gas prices near you. So okay, company is paying for the gas in your rental but you can still use the app to find the nearest gas station (and if there is one across the street that is 6 cents cheaper, it wont kill you to use that!!).And yes, its free.
10. Kindle for iPhone
    
    : Carry your entire library with you on your trip and read whatever you feel like - with no weight !!

• Tripadvisor Flights is a great site overall
• For International flights starting from US: try Kayak or Trax
• For international flights not starting in US: try Mobissimo or Momondo

Question: Should you buy an iPhone when it is launched in India? Answer:

• yes, if you are a gadget freak or
• yes, if you derive your sense of achievement in life from the cellphones you flash, you NEED to buy it (at least till that new vertu comes out in 3 months).
• no, if you just want a phone that "works".

• Using this phone is like living in the future. You always have access to internet to search anything: What is Akshay Kumar's real name? How do you make sangria? Where is Amitabh Bachchan right now?
• And the phone makes it easy. Integration of a music player, internet device and a cellphone has been attempted before but never so well. The UI flows in your hands. There is nothing to learn. Its more intuitive then any device you can think of.
• Updates from your whole life: emails, sms, exchange invites and even your facebook pokes just appear automatically on your device. You will feel as if you are one with the humanity. (okay, that was supposed to be half-sarcastic)

• The battery life sucks. Specially, if you are on 3G or you use push services (Exchange or Mobile Me). My phone hardly last a day (and I do not even talk that much). In all fairness, battery life on all 3G devices suck but in 6 months when we will have 3G in India, this will be a real problem.
• The camera sucks (get that Nokia N95 if you like to take pictures) while iPhone integrates the camera application well, the lens and sensor overall produce.
• You really need iTunes. There is only one way to get applications and music on this device - use iTunes. If you dont like that app (which I must say, is just an average music playing app) - tough luck. You have to use it.

• If you invested money in sensex any time in last 11 years and left it for 1 year, you would have made about 21% yearly returns on average. But chances are 40% of time you would have lost money.
• If you did the same thing for 3 years, you would have lost money only 19% of time and made 26% yearly returns on average.
• If however, you left your money for 5 years, there is virtually no chance that you would have lost money and you would have made 37% yearly returns on average. (worst case 9%)