If you are looking for last second, cheap getaway, then the bargain maybe just a tweet away.  JetBlue and United Airlines are offering their Twitter followers access to discounted fares.  

If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it’s a micro-blogging platform where users can inform each other of what they are doing.  Each user is allowed to send a message (or a tweet) that is 140 characters long to people who are following them.

JetBlue and United Airlines apparently are using the free service to promote sales.  Twitter allows the airlines to easily and quickly send special airfares to people to follow their “tweets”.

To see JetBlues and United airfare specials visit http://twitter.com/JetBlueCheeps and http://twitter.com/unitedairlines, respectively.

Online financial planning tools have much improved over the years.  No longer are they just cookie-cutter plans, one size fits all.  One recent entrant is Voyant (www.planwithvoyant.com) which provides detailed financial advice and best of all, it’s free.

The three financial sites aren’t designed to replace your financial planner; however, they can provide general ideas to most investors and benchmark your progress without having to pay money to a financial planner.

Voyant is a do-it-yourself financial planning solution that puts consumers in direct control of their financial health. Voyant helps people understand the big-picture impact of life-changing events and their long-term financial implications; from the birth of a child to the early retirement of a spouse. Unlike one-dimensional personal finance software, expense aggregators and budget calculators, the product features interactive forecasts, “what if” scenarios and online collaboration tools that give consumers more control and customization than traditional financial planning options. Voyant is a free, Web-based Internet application that allows users to manage up-to-the-minute plan information from the convenience and privacy of their home, office or favorite coffee shop.

Voyant features include:

• Timeline – defines key life stages and events; foresees important financial obstacles and opportunities.
• Simulations/Illustrations – demonstrates the impact of life-changing events such as birth, marriage and retirement; illustrates products and services such as life insurance, investments and loans that support personal financial goals.
• Real-Time Snapshots – compares current account balances to established goals; defines and tracks action items.
• Collaboration – supports secure communication with designated community members including friends, family, employers, and professional advisors.
• Data Mining/Analytics – recommends areas for potential improvement based on established industry norms such as fees and coverage rates.

A core component of Voyant is Voyant Community, a fully-featured social networking platform that creates compelling opportunities for dialogue between users and their friends, family and trusted advisors. With Voyant Community, people can chat online, join a forum and interactively (and anonymously) share plans with others – including members of affinity groups with similar interests, concerns and questions. Whether someone is a small business owner considering expansion, or an adult child supporting aging parents, Voyant helps users exchange valuable advice and information that improves outcomes and mitigates the risks of unforeseen events. And if an individual needs expert counsel, Voyant’s Advisor Connect feature provides a direct link to a wide selection of licensed professionals.

Video: CEO David Kaufman Presents Voyant

Two other free financial websites to consider are SimpliFi and ESPlannerBasic.

One thing I love about Google is that they offer so many free tools that makes your life easier, allows you to conduct business and even make you money.  

I currently use Google Documents, Google Reader (tracks RSS feeds from multiple websites), Google Base (list products for sale), Google Checkout (process orders, like PayPal), Google Webmaster (optimize website), Google Analytics (track visitors to website), Google Calendar, Google Adsense (make money from advertising), Google Sketch (create 3-D drawings), Google Mail, Google Alert (track new topics on the Web), Google Chrome (Web browser), Google Search (search engine for website) and Google Maps all for free.  Google however offers many more free applications that I’ve never used.

One interesting new Google application just released is the Google Checkout Store Gadget that makes it easy and quickly to create an online store using Google Docs spreadsheet.  The application allows you to easily add a store to an existing website or Blog.  This is great if you are novice and want to sell items on the Internet.  Google Checkout handles the credit card transactions for you (like PayPal).  With the Google Checkout Store Gadget no complicated coding or technical skills are required.  You can get your online store up and running in under 5 minutes, according to Google.

For more information visit StoreGadget.GoogleLabs.com.

To see all Google Applications visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Did you know Google and Sony now allow online access to over a million public domain books all for free?  You can search, browse, and read the books with a Sony Reader or on your computer.  If you have a smart phone, such as an iPhone you can use that as well.

U.S. owners of Sony readers PRS-505 or PRS-700 can download the books to them.  New users can access books by downloading the free software and creating an account.

The selection of books includes romance novels, biographies, and historical texts along with hundreds of other genres.  The books have been digitized by Google as a part of the Google Book project.

To get your free access, visit ebookstore.sony.com/google-ebooks.

Want to see how a rich criminal lives?  Then check out the January 2008 American Express Bill for Bernie Madoff, his family and top business associates shown below.   The bill for the month was $100,121.99, which includes spending money for shopping, dinning and travel, all paid from the $50 billion Ponzie scheme.  The month prior the bill was $169,283.45.   That is some serious money!  How could Madoff sleep at night knowing that one day he would be caught?

Related Articles:

• The Madoff Affair by FRONTLINE
• Caribbean-based Millennium Bank Ponzi Scheme Uncovered

This is interesting! YouTube is now allowing users to upload videos that can be converted to 3D. To produce a 3D film 2 cameras are required. You then upload the video and YouTube converts the video into 3D. Of course, you will need 3D glasses to watch the video.

See video below of CTV SWO creating a 3D Video

See 3D by CTV SWO at YouTube (3D Glasses Required)

The Internet has become a powerful influence in health care. Eleven years ago, in 1998, The Harris Poll reported that about one-quarter of all adults, 54 million people had ever gone online to look for health information. This number increased rapidly every year until 2007, when we found that 71% of adults, 160 million people, had done this. The great majority of users find this information reliable and many discuss it with their doctors.

However, last year and again this year we have found no increase in the number of cyberchondriacs (the word we use to describe these people). A new Harris Poll find that 67% of adults, 154 million people, now report having looked for health information online. This nationwide Harris Poll of 1,010 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive between July 7 and 13, 2008 shows how much cyberchondriacs value the information they find online:

• The overwhelming majority (83%) of cyberchondriacs report that their search for information online was successful and almost half (45%) say it was “very successful”;
• An even larger majority (87%) believes that this information was reliable (but only 28% say it was “very reliable”);
• Fully 44% of cyberchondriacs have discussed information they obtained online with their doctors (however, this is lower than the 58% we reported in 2007); and,
• Half (49%) of cyberchondriacs have searched for information online based on discussions they had with their doctors.

There are two reasons why the number of cyberchondriacs has not increased for two years. One is that the proportion of adults who are online, which rose rapidly from 38% in 1998 to 79% in 2007, has not increased for the last two years. The other is that the proportion of those online who report having used the Internet to look for health information has remained remarkably steady, varying only from 71% to 84% over the last eleven years, and currently stands at 78% slightly lower than it was in 2007.

To read the entire report visit HarrisInteractive.com.