Confessions of a Workaholic

Best Cash Back Credit Cards in USA

2009-01-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

The best general purpose cash back credit cards are:

Fidelity Retirement Rewards American Express Card:

2% cashback on everything - even in your Costco purchases (2 points for each dollar spent. 2500 points = $50 in your Fidelity account)
Automatic Redemption
No Annual Fee
No Limits on cashback

Schwab Bank Invest First Visa (signature or platinum) Card:

2% cashback on everything
Automatic Redemption
No Annual Fee
No Limits on cashback
No Foreign Transaction Fee
Visa Signature benefits (if you qualify for limit of $5000 or more)

Opera Mini reports on Mobile Web

2008-11-20T02:20:00.000-08:00

Opera has released stats for their Opera Mini browser that runs on some cellphones. Some highlights:

Users of Opera Mini browser worldwide grew 9% month on month and 357% year on year.
Use per person grew by 11% month on month and 337% year on year
This implies that total use grew 21% month on month and 20 times year on year !!

If Opera Mini is any indicator of the overall mobile internet usage then we are looking at very healthy trends !!

most popular mobile platforms in next 12 months on internet in India

2008-11-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

Admob has released its 2008 report for advertisements delivered to cellphones.
Extrapolating from this report:

The most internet usage in the next 12 months in India will come from:

Nokia N70 (7.4% of all internet use)
Nokia 3100C (6.2%)
Nokia 6233 (4.3%)
Nokia N80 (3.3%)
Nokia 2626 (3.1%)

Notice, that together the top 5 still make a minuscule percentage (about 24%) of total internet use. More than 76% of usage still comes from "others". The mobile market is still a tough market to develop for.

Going by just the manufacturers, the trends for next 12 months are:

Nokia (67%)
SONY (13%)
Samsung (3%)
Motorola (3%)

The above are India-specific data. I also look at world-wide data here and at US data.

most popular mobile platforms in next 12 months on internet in USA

2008-11-19T01:17:00.000-08:00

Admob has released its 2008 report for advertisements delivered to cellphones.
Extrapolating from this report:

The most internet usage in the next 12 months in USA will come from:

Apple iPhone (10.6% of all internet use)
Motorola RAZR v3 (6.7%)
Motorola KRZR (4.1%)
Motorola Z6m (4.0 %)
Motorola W385 (3.9%)

Notice, that together the top 5 still make a minuscule percentage (about 30%) of total internet use. More than 70% of usage still comes from "others". The mobile market is still a tough market to develop for.

Going by just the manufacturers, the trends for next 12 months are:

Motorola (25%)
Samsung (17%)
Apple (13%)
LG (8%)
RIM (8%)

The above are USA-specific data. I look at world-wide data here at also at India-specific data.

most popular mobile platforms in next 12 months on internet

2008-11-19T01:09:00.000-08:00

Admob has released its 2008 report for advertisements delivered to cellphones.
Extrapolating from this report:

The most internet usage in the next 12 months will come from:

Apple iPhone (6.2% of all internet use)
Nokia N70 (3.2% )
Motorola RAZR v3 (2.8%)
Nokia 6300 (1.7%)
Nokia 3100C (1.7%)

Notice, that together the top 5 still make a minuscule percentage of total internet use. The mobile market is still a tough market to develop for.

Going by just the manufacturers, the trends for next 12 months are:

Nokia (37% of all internet use)
SONY (13%)
Motorola (10%)
Samsung (9%)
Apple ( 8%)

The above are world-wide data.

I look at US specific data as well as India specific data.

Top visited sites in India (across verticals)

2008-11-17T01:59:00.000-08:00

Email --> Yahoo
Instant Messaging --> Yahoo
Job Search --> Naukri
News --> Yahoo
Search in English --> Google
Search in local language --> Google
Travel --> Yatra
Non-travel shopping --> Ebay
Real Estate --> Google
Financial News --> Money Control
Stock Trading --> ICICIDirect
Matrimony --> BharatMatrimony
Friendship / Dating --> Orkut
Sports --> CricInfo
Music --> Raaga
Buy movie / cd --> Rediff

Source: JuxtConsulting

India Internet user statistics for 2008

2008-11-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

According to JuxtConsulting:

There are 35 M internet users in India (people who use internet more than once a month). 90% of them use internet daily.
All but 5 M of these are in urban areas.
This means that 9% of Indian urban population uses internet at least once a month.
Indian regular urban internet users grew at 19% compared to last year.
72 % of internet users have a computer at home.
Most common activities on the net are email, job search, IM, News, Sports, downloading music or movies, social networking and matrimonial search, in that order.
34% of users visit vernacular content regularly (compared to 12% last year).
YonY growth is linear not exponential, as we hoped.

India Online Market

India has 8m active online shoppers. (those who have purchased something online in last 6 months)
About 24% of them have never bought anything besides railway tickets. 49% of them have bought nothing but air or train tickets.
Books, clothes and CD/DVDs are the other big selling categories.

More at IBEF .

Cathedral to Modern Transportation

2008-09-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

I just came out of a bullet train into Kyoto Station. This place is a huge glass and steel cathedral to modern transportation. Where else - but in Japan - we have train stations that are 15 stories high !!

BTW, it is only the second-largest train station building in Japan (after Nagoya Station) and is one of the country's largest buildings, incorporating a shopping mall, hotel, movie theater, department store, and several local government facilities under one roof. (from Wikipedia)

Dinner of boiled stuff

2008-09-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Walked into this roadside place that was bustling with locals (always a good sign) and had a wonderful dinner entirely of Oden dishes.

Everyone has a phone so nobody talks.

2008-09-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

In Tokyo, people on the street, and in subway are looking at their cellphone screens - probably txting, chatting, gaming or browsing (hardly anybody is talking).

on fixed maturity plans (FMP)

2008-08-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

As security market is slowing down; interest in relatively risk-free instruments is growing again. FMP offers a better rate of return then fixed deposits with only slightly more risk.

I posted an article on FMPs on my money blog.

Should you buy an iPhone 3G (if you are in India)?

2008-08-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Govt has resolved the 3G license issues and the first 3G networks should start appearing in 6 months.
Rumors are on that Airtel will launch an iPhone next month.

So, of course, the next big question is here. Should you buy an iPhone.

I will give the answer away before I give my reasons (since that is what today's generation with short attention span is looking for) :

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".

I will admit it. I am a gadget freak and I have had an iPhone since ... well since they have been first available. I have always kept it updated with the latest firmwares.

First of all, what is good:

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)

And now, here are things you will hate about it:

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.
Addressbook is too slow. In nokias and blackberries - you just start typing the contact as soon as you press your addressbook button. (here it takes about 4 seconds for my 400 contacts. I have heard the time just increases as the number of contacts go up)
Its a little buggy. Its probably the processor. Or its the way it handles the RAM. I dunno but many times switching applications takes too long. iTunes suddenly crashes. Safari just goes down . Its common for applications to crash occasionally on this device.
No copy and paste. There is no way to copy (or cut) and paste from one application to another.
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.

So, whats the verdict ? like I said, if you like gadgets and do not mind carrying an extra charger and a few crashes a day, buy this sucker.
Else, wait for a year. They would have updated the battery and made it more reliable. And the future will be still be there...

How to automatically track tasks delegated to others over email using Omnifocus

2008-08-01T05:44:00.000-07:00

One problem that I face is that how do I keep track of what tasks I have delegated to others from my Entourage.

So, I wrote an applescript that will take your current message and copy it to OmniFocus inbox and also set the context to Waiting. At your leisure (or depending on your settings), you set the project of this task later (if you want to).

Here is what you need to do:

download this file and save it at ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items
create a contact in entourage with name as "waiting" and address as your own email address
set up a rule in entourage for the account you created the "waiting" account like this:

The applescript should point to the script mentioned above.
Now, whenever you want to track a task that you have delegated to somebody else - you can just BCC it to yourself.

Send Entourage Message to OmniFocus QuickEntry

2008-07-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

I modified Sandro's wonderful script to send Entourage message to OmniFocus.

My modified script takes the selected messages and add them to the quick entry window and then activates the quick entry window so people can assign projects to them.

It then also moves the selected messages to a folder called "Active". You need to have this folder created in the same mail account.

Save this file to your ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items

Investment Strategy for India

2008-07-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of money invested in the stock (and bond) market and even in this downturn my portfolio is down only about .5% (compared to 12 months back) and about 35% up (compared to 5 years back)

While a lot of above is just chance, I think some credit goes to the fact that I am a very "boring" investor. I do not invest in stocks because they are "hot" or because I got a "tip". As a matter of fact, I do not invest in single stocks at all. Most of my money is in index funds with very low costs.

Here is what I advise to people who ask me for investment advise:

WHAT MONEY TO INVEST:
In the long term, stock markets always go up. However, the keyword in that last sentence is "long term".

Typically, if you will need the money in next 3-5 years (say for house down payment, vehicle, family events) stock markets is probably not the right place to invest them. You should keep it in fixed deposits with a bank where it will earn a cool 10% or so, risk free.

WHERE TO INVEST
My advise is to keep things simple and boring. So boring that you do not feel inclined to touch it or talk about it.
I suggest that you pick two classes: debt and stocks and choose their percentage based on your age. Debt should get your age-10 and stocks should get rest. So, if you are 25 years old, you should put 15% in debt and 85% in stocks. However, if you are 50 years old, you should change the ratio to 40-60.
This ratio should include you kept in fixed deposit for next 3-5 years. If there is still some money left over on your debt side; you can use it to buy some long term govt paper (RBI bonds etc). You should look for absolute safety (govt backed or a large bank) and highest "after-tax" returns. More on this in a future article.

The stock money should go in a low-cost index ETF and nothing else.

What is index ETF?
Index ETF is a fund which basically buys the all the stocks in an index (like NIFTY) in the right weight. Hence, you are protected from the inherent risk of a single stock and participate in the long-term reward as stock markets overall always go up in the long term even though any single stock might not.

A low cost index ETF allows you to have the entire transparent and efficient stock market work for you rather than trusting a single "tip".

I recommend, Benchmark Funds for their lower costs. (their current expense ratio for nifty index is about 0.5% annual with no entry or exit load. you will also pay your broker's regular fees)

So, in a nutshell, this is my boring investment advise:

put your next 3-5 years expenses in a FD.
if something is left over, divide it into two parts (risk free and stocks). Percentage of risk free should be (your age - 10). Stocks get rest.
with risk free money, buy govt paper or fd etc.
with stock money, buy a low cost ETF (like benchmark nifty bees) and forget about it for ever.
when your risk free money matures and you think you will not need it in next 3-5 years, reinvest it again in risk free instruments.
if you get some other money later in life, that you think you will not need in next 3-5 years, divide it in the same ratio and do the same with it and never ever think about it again).

Indian stocks history - or how to make money via stocks in India

2008-07-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

Broad facts:

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%)

The raw data is in this spreadsheet which I collated from Google Finance.

Moral of the story: Stock market is for long term. If you think you will need the money in next 5 years - you are better off keeping it in a fixed deposit or debt fund (more on these in a future post). However, if you think you will not need the money for 5 years - then regardless of where stock market is today, its probably a good place to park the money.

How can Google be our "hard disk"

2008-07-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Google needs to start a project that:

Installs FuseFS (works for Windows, OS X, Linux among others)
Installs a caching GoogleFS that uses Google APIs to "mount" following directories:

My Google Docs (my docs, spreadsheets and powerpoints)
My Google Notebook
My Google Bookmarks
My Picasa Pictures
My Blog Posts
My Gmails
My GCal data
My Contacts
My Youtube Videos

Installs a Google.app (or google.exe) that registers itself and when a googleFS item (docs etc) is clicked launches the appropriate web app in a browser. Of course, the web apps are intelligent enough to do the right thing when the user is not connected to internet

I think the first part is done. Third part is easy (as a matter of fact, I am writing an app that does this for google docs). Now, somebody just needs to write the second part...

With such an app you just "mount" your app from any computer (or phone) in the world and you can work as comfortably as you will from your own machine (well, after the initial caching is done).

Best NGO and charities to donate to

2008-07-02T03:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of some good charities to donate to in India:

I encourage you to know more about them before donating.
I also have a list of some good charities in America.

Lessons from Buffet and Gates

2008-03-02T02:13:00.000-08:00

Brian Haligan talks about some nice things to learn from Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.

I specially liked how important Gates think reading is.

When asked if Gates could be a superhero, what power he'd want to have, he said he'd like to be able to be the fastest reader in the world.

Buffet also thinks that the most important skill he has is the ability to focus. Its important to stress that in our society where every geek thinks that having an attention-deficit disorder is not a bad thing.

On life and career, Buffet thinks that we should do what we love sooner than later and in business that is the biggest predictor of success.

6 traits to get rich

2008-03-01T02:26:00.000-08:00

Russ Alan Prince, author of The Middle-Class Millionaire, has been trying to understand the “working rich”. Prince defines them as those with net worths between $1 million and $10 million, but who still work for a living. After talking to 586 such families, he thinks 9 most important factors are (I picked the 6 that are relevant to me) :

Rich people work longer. Rich people work an average of 70 hours a week and they are "always" available via email or phone
Rich people network more. They tend to know 60% more people then average.
Rich people take significantly more risks. Almost 90% admitted of making a big business or career decision with bad outcome. On average they made 3 such mistakes.
Rich people dont work for salary. Over 80% own a good percentage of the businesses they work for.
Rich people follow the money. 74% think that following money is more important for the career.
Rich people can be ruthless. More than half say taking advantage of others' weakness is an important ingredient for success.

Some anti-valentine poetry

2008-02-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

I mentioned Kala Ghoda SMS contest earlier in my blog. The goal is to write a poem that fits into one SMS message (160 letters).

Here is the one I liked most:

In my phone contact list:
Parents
Grandparents
2 best friends
43 other friends
71 business contacts
4 ex-lovers
3 potential dates
1 wrong number -
you.

Another good one:
Roses are passe,

violets expensive;
sugar is fattening
and v-day offensive.

And a shot at fast food:

2 burgers 2 cokes plus fries

in a heart shaped box, surprise!
@Rs. 99 for 2 the lovin’ is easy
Why then do I feel so queasy?

Its not easy being a Muslim in India (or anywhere)..

2008-01-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

She said, you're Pakistani, aren't you?

I said, no. Of course not.

She said, no, I know that you people are Pakistani.

Even then, I knew that I was not Pakistani. I was such an overt patriot that I cringe to think of it now (had saare jahaan se achha by heart - the whole six verses). But in that instant, looking at her face, her smugness, the authority with which that child of eight (I think) spoke, I also knew that there was nothing I could say or do to win this particular argument.

Almost two decades later, I cannot forget. She was a child and I have forgiven. But I have not forgotten.

From Annie Zaidi's history.

Best cash back credit card in india

2007-10-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

I am currently doing some research to find out the best cash-back credit card in India.

So far, I have discovered that ABN AMRO's ONE credit card fits my needs best.

It does charge an annual fee of INR 600 but it gives an average return of >1.5% in solid cash for about first INR 29000/month you will spend on anything (a total of INR 6000 every year). Plus, there is no surcharge at any petrol punps !!

Is there anything better out there? Am I missing something in its fine print? Please feel free to comment.

Throttling bandwidth usage for Miro (formerly Democray Player)

2007-10-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

Miro is a great software. Unfortunately, there are still some bugs to be ironed out and it can quickly become a bandwidth hog.

Sometimes, it hogs so much bandwidth on my macbook that I cannot browse the net or download my email.

Hence, I wrote this small script thats uses ipfw and dummynet features of BSD (and OS X Tiger) to throttle bandwidth to ports used by Miro:

#sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 24Kbit/s
#sudo ipfw queue 1 config pipe 1 weight 1
#sudo ipfw queue 2 config pipe 1 weight 3
#sudo ipfw add 10 queue 1 ip from `hostname` to any src-port 8500-8600
#sudo ipfw add 20 queue 2 ip from any 1024-65535 to `hostname`

Now, verify that your Miro bandwidth usage goes down in the real-time !!

If something is wrong, then type "sudo ipfw flush" and start over.

This will not survive a reboot. This will only work for OS X 10.4

best bank and cash-back credit card in US

2007-09-25T02:19:00.000-07:00

After much research and varied experiences I will recommened Fidelity Smart Cash as my choice for the checking account and Fidelity FIA Visa Signature for the credit card.

Fideliy SmartCash has following benefits
* free bill pay, ACH and no minimum balance
* free ATM access from ANY ATM in the world (with a VISA, STAR or PLUS logo). All ATM charges are reimbursed same day
* free checks and deposit slips for life.
* very good interest rates on the cash in this account (currently about 3.5% APY)
* you can also maintain your brokerage, 401k, IRA, 529 etc with fidelity at very good rates so they are a one stop shop for all your US money
* very good phone customer support when you need it

Fidelity FIA Visa Signature card is useful as
* they give 1.5% cash back (deposited to your retirement or brokerage account automatically) on ALL your transactions.
* all benefits of Visa Signature and free cards for additional members

Please remember:
* visa will charge you 1% for any inter-currency transaction (e.g. when you are in India and are withdrawing dollars from your US account). this is true everytime you do an inter-currency transaction (even if its a wire transaction or anything else) - most banks just hide this information in their exchange rates. Fidelity just makes that information public.