A new host for my web page

I attended graduate school in the Electrical and Computer Engineering departments at Duke University where I built my first home page. I just had a bunch of HTML files all in a folder public_html folder. My account and web pages there have been active all along. I started looking for alternatives for a similar service ever since I graduated (which was a long time ago).
These were my requirements:

• Free (or nearly free). 
• Allows me to provide my own HTML and CSS files. 
• Strongly prefer no advertisements. 

Many years ago, Geocities provided such a service. Geocities was subsequently acquired by Yahoo, and Yahoo later discontinued the service. So I had to look for yet another alternative.

Most places that advertise that they offer free websites don't really offer the control of hosting your own HTML files (or even if they did, I wasn't able to find it). Among several options that I explored were Google Sites, Weebly, and Wordpress. All of these require one to pick a pre-defined template and then edit content within the confines of that template. I never quite liked any of the templates. In fact, I'm not particularly crazy about the template of this blog, but it works. I kind of like things plain.

Dropbox

I was pleasantly surprised when I accidentally stumbled across someone that was hosting his HTML files on Dropbox. After confirming with him that that is indeed what he was doing, I created an account and moved my files over to Dropbox to be my new home on the web. It met all the 3 requirements that I stated above. Dropbox is actually a file sharing/file synchronization service. However, they have a public folder and anything that is put there can be shared with anyone. So one can have both HTML and non-HTML files and they would all be publicly accessible.

But all that ended in 2016...

Netlify

On 8/31/2016, I received the following email from Dropbox:

Hi Anoop, 

We’re writing to let you know that we’ll be discontinuing the ability to render HTML content in-browser via shared links or Public Folder. If you're using Dropbox shared links to host HTML files for a website, the content will no longer display in-browser. 

Please note that this change will take effect for your account on October 3, 2016, and only impacts how shared files are displayed on the web. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox. 

Thanks for being a loyal Dropbox user. 

- The Dropbox Team

As a result I started looking for another low-maintenance website.  I found a couple of blogs about this topic and quickly signed up for bitballoon (now netlify).  My new site is at https://anoop.netlify.com.

If you would like to keep working with Dropbox

UpDog allows you to render html files stored in a Dropbox Apps folder.  Download times can be slow as it involves UpDog retrieving the files from Dropbox.

Update: UpDog shut down its service on Feb 8, 2020.  There are alternatives, but they all appear to be paid, not free.

Other alternatives

Non-Dropbox alternatives that I explored

• https://pages.github.com/ -- seems similar to netlify in terms of management complexity.

Here area a couple of blogs that discuss static web hosting alternatives.

• http://alignedleft.com/resources/cheap-web-hosting
• http://designrope.com/toolbox/static-web-hosting/

Memorable books from my school days

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I don't do much reading beyond required reading.  But here are some memorable books that were part of my school curriculum (secondary school and high school) in India.

• The Arabian Nights (multiple short stories)
• Jungle Pictures by Norah Burke
• Journey by night
• Tales from Far and Near (multiple short stories)
• A pair of mustachios by Mulk Raj Anand
• The angry street--A bad dream by G. K Chesterton
• The imp and the crust by Leo Tolstoy
• Panorama (a collection of poems)
• The highwayman by Alfred Noyes
• The pied piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning
• The Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

I wish I could get copies of all these.

Resources for buying a car

This post is a collection of resources that I've found to be useful for buying new cars.  Because I tend to research things endlessly, I figure I might as well put all of my findings in one place.  One significant issue that I have no experience with is leasing, so that is not addressed.

Let's begin with the first question.

How much car can I afford?

A question that immediately comes to mind when thinking of a car purchase is "how much can I afford?"  Some people think it's as simple as having sufficient savings to pay cash for the car, while others look at it as the ability to afford the monthly payment of financing the car.  Yet others will say "If you have to ask, then you can't afford it."  I see this as a personal decision because people do their financial planning differently (some prefer to be more conservative than others), but here are a couple of resources that I have found useful.

Bankrate.com has an article titled "How much car can you afford?", which states:

How much should you spend on a new car? Not more than 20 percent of monthly income, say experts. "This includes payments on all the cars you may own, whether you have one vehicle or six," says Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief at Edmunds.com. "And we're talking about your take-home pay, not your gross income."

They do have some exceptions to the rule which are stated in the article.  But it also leaves some open questions:

• Does this rule assume that the car is being financed?  Or leased?
• Does it include maintenance costs and the cost of insurance?

Another respected name in the financial planning world, Dave Ramsey, in response to a similar question, says:

The total value of all of your vehicles—things with a motor in them—should not be more than half of your annual income.

Again, there are some open questions:

• Is he talking about pre-tax or post-tax income?

Which leads us to the second question.

What is the cost of owning and operating the car?

While purchase price is one factor, cars that are more expensive to purchase are often more expensive to maintain as well.  For this, we can get some guidance from Edmunds.com's True Cost to Own (TCO) calculator.

And now there is a new tool that reveals the hidden costs -- all the costs -- associated with buying, owning and operating a car over a five-year-period.

There are some issues with the calculator.

• It assumes you're looking for ownership over 5 years.  If you own for less, it will probably cost more per year than the 5 year number.  Conversely, if you own for longer than 5 years, it will cost you less per year than the 5 year number.
• It assumes that the car will be driven 15,000 miles a year.  Most will drive more or less than that number, and some, significantly so.
• It assumes that the car is being financed, but there is no mention of the interest rate.  If purchasing with cash, one can get rid of the finance charge.  (But there is still some loss of income since the money would have been earning interest in a savings account.)

Yet, it is useful for getting a ballpark figure for what it would cost to own the car.  Even though some manufacturers offer free maintenance, they don't cover the cost of tires.  And tires on high-performance cars wear out pretty quickly and are more expensive to replace than tires for regular cars.

The tool also has the capability to price the car with options.

So let's take an example.  Running the calculator for a 2012 Honda Civic DX sedan with an automatic transmission, we find that the purchase price of the car is $16,924, but the total cost of ownership over a 5 year period, 15,000 miles a year is $37,113.

This gives an average annual ownership cost of $7,422.60.

Putting it all together

Now that we have the annual true cost of ownership of the car, we can decide what percentage of income we're willing to spend on the car (which in turn would depend on several factors such as the number of cars in the household, other debt/obligations, etc.) and decide whether or not we can afford it.

The purchase process

There are a couple of websites that will allow you to build the car and price it with options.  These sites also provide the "true market value" (TMV) which is the average price people in a certain area have paid for that car.  This can be useful for knowing what would be a reasonable price to pay for the car.

Edmunds: This site provides the ability to get quotes for the car and contact dealers that are willing to offer it at that price on your behalf.  From the homepage, click New Cars, scroll down and select a make, then select the year and the model, and that will take you to the page where you can price the car with options.  It provides the invoice price, MSRP, and TMV.

KBB: Offers a pricing tool that is similar to Edmunds.

Truecar: A number of banks, credit unions, credit card companies, wholesale clubs (e.g. Costco), and AAA offer a car buying program where they provide one with a quote and contact participating dealers on one's behalf.  Most of these are offered through Truecar.

The quotes and dealer(s) contact are offered with no obligation, so it's always OK to walk away if a dealer doesn't honor the price that was quoted by the website, or if you can find a better deal elsewhere.

Extended warranties

Most cars come with a bumper-to-bumper warranty for some period of time -- usually 3 yrs/36000 miles, while luxury cars come with a longer warranty of 4 yrs/50,0000 miles.  Whether or not an extended warranty makes sense depends on the reliability history of the brand/car.  I've always purchased extended warranties on my cars, but I wait till I'm close to the end of the factory warranty to get it.  Here are a few things that I have found helpful:

• Wait until close to the expiration of original warranty.  It may be wasted money if one decides, for whatever reason, to get rid of the car while it's under the original warranty, or if the car is totaled in an accident.
• Get the extended warranty by the manufacturer of the vehicle.  Normally, the dealer tries to push other third-party extended warranties, but I stay away from those.
• Pay attention to any exclusions.  The last warranty that I bought specifically excluded the radio/CD player and navigation.  My car didn't have navigation so the latter wasn't an issue, and fortunately I didn't have any issues with radio/CD player.
• Shop around by calling several dealers.  Often, it is possible to buy these remotely by just sending in recently used key (many car keys contain information about the mileage of the vehicle), so there is no need to limit yourself to dealers that are close by.  Prices can vary quite significantly.  Usually, you'll be dealing with someone in the finance department at the dealership rather than a regular car salesperson.

Prepaid service plans

Some manufactures offer service plans for the car.  Sometimes the service plan is already included in the cost of the vehicle; e.g. as of this writing, all BMW come with prepaid service for 4 yrs/50,000 miles.  Other manufacturers may offer pre-paid service for an extra charge.  Some things to check on about these plans are:

• Do they cover all wear and tear items (e.g. brakes and wiper blades) or do they just cover scheduled maintenance items.
• How long is the plan valid for?
• If the car comes with a prepaid service plan, can an extended service plan be purchased?
• If the car comes with a prepaid service plan, wait until close to the expiration of original plan.  Otherwise, it may be wasted money if one decides, for whatever reason, to get rid of the car while it's under the original plan.
• Shop around by calling several dealers.  Often, it is possible to buy these remotely by just sending in recently used key (many car keys contain information about the mileage of the vehicle), so there is no need to limit yourself to dealers that are close by.  Prices can vary quite significantly.  Usually, you'll be dealing with someone in the finance department at the dealership rather than a regular car salesperson.

Wheel and tire insurance

Some car manufacturers offer wheel and tire insurance plans.  Depending on the type of car, these could make sense.  Car with low profile tires, run flat tires, and large rims (18" or 19") are especially prone to being damaged by hitting potholes or curbs.  And they are usually very expensive to replace.

Other add ons

Many dealers try to sell other add ons such as paint protection or fabric protection.  Personally, I don't think these are worth it, especially if it's not something that is coming from the vehicle manufacturer.

A few more inputs for the decision process

• Crash test data
• IIHS Top Safety Pick
• NHSTA via safercar.gov (can also be used to check for recall notices)
• Euro NCAP
• ANCAP
• Reliability ratings
• Consumer Reports
• J D Power & Associates
• Driving reviews
• Car and Driver
• Motor Trend

Driving reviews from magazines are useful because they provide insights into some quirks that one might not otherwise notice during a test drive.

Related reading

• Can you return the car you just bought?
• Understanding heat reduction and window films
• Which window film/tint brand is best?
• Running low on gas can be costly
• Saving Lives -- lists 20 vehicles with least and most deaths per million registered vehicles
• 9 car insurance money savers and surprises

Going green, living healthy: Food

This is part of a series of posts on Going green, living healthy. The first post is here. I'm not an expert on this subject, so if you find errors please let me know. I have tried to provide pointers to my sources where possible.

From my standpoint, "going green" with food means being more in touch with raw ingredients that go into making food and minimizing consumption of processed and packaged foods.  It takes quite a lot of effort to do that given the time constraints imposed by modern living.  Let's look at some of the things that I have found matter to me by look at the following 4 questions:

• How is the food grown?
• How does the food get to you?
• How is the food processed or prepared?
• How is the food packaged?

How is the food grown?

The most important thing here is to look for food that is grown without pesticides, without chemical fertilizers, and non-genetically modified.  There are local farmers that I've encountered that claim they don't use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, but they can't afford the cost of organic certification.  At the same time, we have big businesses that will try to game the organic certification process by getting regulators to relax the requirements.  Obviously, the only way to know for sure what you're getting is to grow the food yourself or buy locally from a grower that you trust.  It's kind of hard to do that exclusively, but some ways to get going in that direction are shopping at farmer's markets, and looking at options for community supported agriculture (CSA).

There are several other types of farming that I've recently become aware of, but I'm not an expert on these to really know what they are all about and be able to compare them.

• Veganic refers to food that is grown without any animal byproduct such as bone meal and blood meal that are permitted for use as fertilizers when growing organic produce.
• Biodynamic farming seems to be about farming in a way that heals the earth.
• Permaculture seems to be about sustainability and while it includes how food is grown, it goes beyond that aspect covering issues such as home building and landscaping.

How does the food get to you?

A closely related question would be "where is the food grown?"  Naturally there is a difference in the resources it takes to ship food a few miles versus shipping it thousands of miles across the globe.  Food that is local is likely to be fresher and I've heard from proponents of Ayurveda that it is healthier to eat seasonal, locally grown foods.  To be shipped half way across the globe, all sorts of extreme measures would be required including picking the produce before it ripens and possibly freezing it.

How is the food processed or prepared?

Unfortunately the nutrition labels on packaged and processed foods simply don't do justice because they typically only tell you what is required by law and no more.  Let's say for example we buy potato chips cooked in olive oil.  We know that olive oil heated beyond the smoke point becomes toxic.  While this is a simple example and is probably not a cause for concern, in general, the more the ingredients, the more one has to be careful about how it was prepared because combining certain ingredients and heating or cooling them a certain way could cause them to become toxic, or at the very least, something that is hard for the body to process.  Nutrition labels, for example, won't tell how the salt that is used in the product was processed and a variety of chemicals can be used in the processing of commonly available table salt.

In general, I try to buy foods that have the least amount of processing, but it's not always possible.  Got to satisfy those cravings for processed foods every once in a while.

How is the food packaged?

In general, less packaging is better because it's easier on the environment and we don't have to worry about the safety of the packaging materials.  Many canned foods, for example, have been found to contain traces of BPA.

A word about restaurants

Restaurants, at least in the US, depend a lot on processed and pre-prepared ingredients for their menus.  Even though the food that arrives at the table appears fresh, they are often made with sauces or other ingredients that are processed food.  This is the reason why they can maintain consistency of taste even across geographies and regardless of the chef preparing the food.

Additional resources

These here some organizations that bring us information on what is happening with our food supply.

• Organic Consumers Association
• Natural Society

Thanksgiving at the Yoga Farm

I have written several posts about the Yoga Farm, including how I found it and how I became a regular visitor every Saturday.  For the last several years, I have been going there to spend Thanksgiving evening.  They have a sumptuous dinner comprising 8 - 10 different dishes including a couple of different pies that conforms to the yogic diet.  What makes this event particularly fun, is that it often has a very large attendance (50-100 people), many of whom have had past association with the ashram as visitors, students, or staff, and as a result there's a lot of running into old faces.

Following the dinner is an evening satsang -- meditation followed by chanting and a concert or a guest speaker.  This year, the speaker was Dr. Edwin Bryant, who is currently a professor of Religions of India at Rutgers University.  He taught several classes during the day, but since I visited only for the evening, I was able to listen only to his evening talks both on Thursday and Friday.  He talked about a variety of subjects including the origins of Hinduism, the various texts such as the vedas and the puranas, the epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the origins of asana practice in yoga, and many other topics.  It was truly a treat to hear an accomplished scholar with in-depth and precise knowledge of these subjects who was able to put all of these ancient texts in perspective (e.g. how they're related).  At the end of each talk, he took a number of questions from the audience giving patient, in-depth responses to each.

One of things that I learnt from this is that documented asana practice is fairly recent.  Most of the older texts (vedas and puranas) don't say much about this subject.  Another interesting takeaway was the concept of yogamaya and mahamaya.  Up until now, I was only aware of maya, the term used to describe the illusory material world that we live in.  Yogamaya and mahamaya are terms to used to describe illusion that, for example, Lord Krishna creates so that people can have a relationship with him (such as a that of a parent or lover), and illusions such as the one created when Lord Krishna's mother looks into his open mouth and sees the whole universe.

Opting out of interest-based ads in iOS 6

I came across this in message boards on macrumors.com.

Apple decided to enable tracking by default in iOS 6.  To opt out, go to Settings -> General -> About -> Advertising and turn ON the Limit Ad Tracking option (OFF by default).

There's more information on what this is all about on Apple's website.  The tracking information is used to tailor advertising from the iAd network.  By disabling this, you'd still get advertisements, but they will be random rather than tailored based on information in an application or other non-personal information on the phone.

If you ever restore the phone, the setting will default back to OFF and must be enabled again.

Opting out of AT&T's ads and information sharing

You can opt out of receiving interest-based ads from AT&T by updating your preferences here.

Ways to own gold

(Some interesting quotes on gold in literature can be found here.)

This is not a post advocating that the reader buy gold.  This is simply a summary of my research on the different ways to own gold.  There was a period of time around the financial crisis in 2007-2008 when there were a number of people talking about why it's a good reason to own gold.  That got me into doing some research.  So here's what I came up with when I researched this subject back then.

There are several ways to own gold.

• Gold bullion
• Gold-backed exchange traded funds
• Leveraged exchange traded funds
• Online gold accounts
• Gold-linked CDs

Each of these has its pros and cons.  Let's take a look.

Gold bullion

In this case one would buy actual physical gold (coins, bars, etc.) from a reputable dealer and find a place to store it.  Most proponents of gold bullion fall into two categories.

• People who believe in an "economic armageddon" scenario.  They prefer to store it outside the banking system.  Of course, at that point, the safety of anything, anywhere is going to be questionable, so one would have to come up with creative and diverse ways of storing one's holdings.
• People who don't trust the "paper gold" varieties.  They prefer to be able to see and touch their physical gold.  For such people storing gold in a bank locker is probably acceptable.

The issues around theft of gold bullion from one's home is complicated; I haven't really looked into things like whether or not insurance would cover it.

So, in summary, one should be aware of several expenses -- there is a commission when buying (usually resulting in a premium over the spot price of gold), there may be storage-related costs (e.g. locker rent at a bank), there may be insurance costs, and finally, there would be a commission involved when selling it (usually resulting a getting a price slightly lower than the spot value).

Unfortunately, even with gold bullion there can be fraud (see #1, #2).  So if one goes the bullion route, one has to make sure the source is good and perhaps even get it tested.

Gold-backed exchanged traded funds

In this case, one would hold shares of an exchange traded fund.  There are several such funds.  The most popular and largest of these is GLD, but there's also SGOL, PHYS, and IAU.  These funds are reportedly backed by physical gold bars at vaults in places like London, New York, or Zurich.

OUNZ is an interesting option for those that might want to convert their ETF holdings into physical gold without tax consequences.  This page discusses some of the costs associated with doing this.

The pros of using this approach are clear.  It's easy to get in and out of the fund.  There's no premium when buying or selling (other than the fee by the brokerage for the stock trade).  However, there is a management fee for owning these funds (as there is for all types of funds) so there is an ongoing expense, although it's typically taken out by adjusting the net asset value of the fund.

The cons here are that even though the funds claim that their shares are backed by gold, there are some cynics that say there could be fraud involved and, in a doomsday scenario, the fund would simply report that bars of gold just aren't there, or that some number of them are missing.  The funds do state that the bullion is insured and audited -- would be one of the things to check in the prospectus.

Leveraged exchanged traded funds

These include funds such as UGL which use leverage to move at twice the percentage change in the price of gold.  As a personal opinion, I think this is getting into gambling territory, so I wouldn't touch something like this for investment purposes.

Online gold accounts

These include sites such as GoldMoney, BullionVault, and the Perth Mint Depository.  These often offer allocated and unallocated accounts, and in some scenarios will allow the account holder to take delivery in physical form, for a fee, if they should so choose.

The cons with these are similar to that of ETFs.  One has to place trust that they are being run in an ethical and well-managed fashion.

Of these, the Perth Mint Depository is interesting because it is the only one that is backed by a government -- the Government of Western Australia -- which would be the equivalent of something being backed by a state government in the US (as opposed to the federal government).

Gold-linked CDs

Some banks have either offered in the past, or currently offer, what is referred to as gold-linked CDs.  In other words, the returns of the CD are tied to the price of gold.  Often, the principal will be FDIC insured, and there is some, usually complex, formula that determines how the returns of the CD will be calculated based on the movement in the price of gold.

Here's a word of warning from the FDIC on market-linked CDs in general, so make sure that the terms of the CD are well understood before investing in them.

Additionally, with such CDs you typically have to pay income taxes on expected returns which may never actually materialize because the price of gold went up for a while, but then went down by the time the CD matured.

Is owning gold a good idea?

Even as of this writing, some of the blogs that I read such as ZeroHedge, Mish's Global Economic Analysis, and iTulip, talk about gold being an essential part of one's portfolio.  However, there are others such as Warren Buffett who don't think very much of the idea of owning gold.  More recently, there was this article by PIMCO which discusses a viewpoint on gold.

Just as with every investment, it seems like you'll find people on either extreme ("it's the only investment worth owning", or "stay away"), to those that have more moderate views ("it makes sense to have a percentage of one's portfolio in gold").

Personally, I'm much more comfortable with the approach detailed in my post on worry-free investing, sticking with instruments such as TIPS and I-Bonds.  They might not be ideal, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about all the fraud-related risks related to buying and storing of gold.  Of course, as with everything else I write about, this is subject to change.

A word about taxes

It is probably worth noting that any gains for gold holdings are taxed as a collectible rather than as long/short-term capital gains from a regular security.

Disclaimer:  I am not a financial advisor and it is possible that what I have written may contain errors so please do your own research and form your own opinions and/or action plan about this subject.  This post is just my way of documenting and sharing what I have learned.