Citibank Exchange Rates and Average Values Chart

A new version of US Dollar to Indian Rupee conversion rates application is live now. New features include addition of Citibank exchange rates and a new chart to compare the exchange rates over a period of time by averaging the rates across all amount ranges.

In addition to the previously existing ICICI, SBI, HDFC and Remit 2 India, now you can see and compare the live exchange rates of Citibank. Many people asked me to include the Citibank rates and it was difficult to find the rates online. At last, now it is here.

There is a new chart to help you compare the exchange rates. The average values chart averages all values over a period of week, two weeks or month to tell you who provided the best conversion rate on average. If you check both the line chart and the average values chart, you can easily identify which bank is providing the best rate.

Now you can also vote for Citibank if you like it. The line chart will take a few days to display properly as the addition of the Citibank values made it a little off the radar. Don’t worry. It should work fine as the values for few days get saved from today.

Feedback from you is what is driving these changes. So, keep the feedback coming. Let me know which features you want to see or evolve more and what you like and dislike about the app. I will take into consideration all your feedback and more features to the application when time permits.

Bookmark or save pages to read later using toread

"toread" is a free email-based bookmarking service that you can use to save pages to  read later. Bookmarking your "toread" web pages or pages that you want to read later is very easy. Just click the “toread” bookmarklet on your browser and you will receive an email with the link and the basic content of the page that you bookmarked or saved to read later.

If you combine “toread” with Gmail, it will be the best read-it-later service that is fast, free and easy to organize. I will specify the steps and the advantages of using this method.

• Register for “toread” with a Gmail address
• Create a filter in Gmail to skip the inbox and assign a specific label such as “later” when a mail arrives from “toread”.
• Now, drag and drop the “toread” bookmarklet on your browser’s bookmark bar.

Once the above setup is complete, you can bookmark or save a page to read later by just clicking on the bookmarklet. When you have free time to read the saved articles, just go to Gmail and access the messages with the label you gave above. All newly bookmarked items will be unread and once you read it, you can decide if you want to delete it or keep it unread etc.

I have tried several different read-it-later type of services to save websites that I want to read later and I always had one or the other issue with them. Finally I settled with the above setup. The advantages of this setup are :

• You don’t need to get used to one more interface. You can star, mark as read, mark as unread, delete and do everything else that you do with your email messages in your favorite interface of Gmail.
• Unlike some services that just save the URL, “toread” even saves the text of the site (partially). This is equivalent to offline capability.
• Search : Many read-it-later type of services fail to provide search functionality or it just sucks. With “toread”, you have the URL as well as content of the page in your Gmail. And Gmail search is the best. As you can also search by the text in your bookmarked page, search becomes easier.
• Access anywhere. If you have access to your email, you have access to your saved pages and bookmarks.
• No need to remember a new login and password.

Try it and let me know how you like it.

Reserve a camping spot this summer with ReserveAmerica

If you are looking for a good campground, check the ReserveAmerica website. It is a one-stop shop for your camp site requirements.

You can search for sites that are suitable for RVs, tents, group or day use. You can also check the campgrounds with cabins. If you provide your zip code and the date you are looking for, it will give you a list of campgrounds around you with the availability information.

All campgrounds that match your criteria will be listed in order with those nearest to you listed on top. It will also give you the distance of the site from your place so that you don’t have to go to Google Maps and check each site for the distance.

You will be presented with a lot of information about each campground. You can also see a layout of the campground to decide on a site. You can check the availability and reserve almost all of the California state parks, state recreational areas, federal campgrounds and a handful of private campsites such as KOA.

If you are planning an anniversary trip and looking for a good place with minimum budget, check the campsites with cabins. It is an affordable and great way to have fun.

Use your iPhone as personal card manager

You get a rewards or club card for almost every merchant or store these days. Whether it is Safeway, Staples, CVS, Blockbuster, PetSmart or BestBuy, you have to register for a membership card to get exclusive rates or rewards. And with each registration you get one more plastic piece that you need to carry with you in your wallet or attached to your keychain.

Leave those bulky pieces of plastic "reward cards" or "club cards" at home! CardStar for iPhone or iPod Touch lets you easily store and quickly retrieve your rewards, club, and loyalty membership cards which can be scanned directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch screen at most merchants.

Storing a card is as simple as selecting the name of the store from the list and entering the number that is displayed below the barcode on your membership card. CardStar then displays the number you have entered as a barcode that can be scanned using the handheld scanning guns available at most stores.

CardStar contains more than 130 store or merchant list grouped into categories. Most US, Canada and UK stores are available and it even supports library cards. You can store a card even if the merchant you are looking for is not available in the included list by using the advanced options.

You might run into few issues when attempting to use flatbed scanners. But these models typically come with a side scanner that is recommend to be used when available. If you have a situation where a barcode does not scan, CardStar displays your membership number so that you or the cashier can enter the number by hand.

CardStar is at this time available for free in the App Store for a limited time and the regular price of the application is 99 cents.

Why a PC is no bargain ?

Recent Microsoft ads say that the PCs are cheaper and you pay a premium to own a Mac. Yes, if you compare a PC with a Mac only in terms of specifications of the hardware, PCs come at a cheap price. But is it wise to compare the two only based on the hardware it comes with ? Are the PCs really cheap if you take everything else into consideration ?

Every PC user spends a lot of time updating the system or the software that he installed on it. With a new worm discovered a day for the PCs, you will be forced to use and update the antivirus software everyday. Every patch Tuesday brings more and more fixes from Microsoft and you have to restart your computer every time those patches are installed. What about the time spent in taking system backups for the fear of loosing your data due to a virus attack (think of Conficker) ?

What good is a system if you have to spent more time on keeping the system alive than really doing your work ? Ultimately, time is money. Every hour you waste on a PC to fix issues or just keep it updated accounts to money. If you think Macs are pricey, think of it as an advance investment to save your time and hence money.

I can go on and list the 10 reasons why Macs are better than PCs and also one or two reasons why PCs are better than Macs. But I want to limit the discussion here to the financial aspects. I just wanted to say that don’t look at that price difference between the PCs and Macs purely in terms of specs. Consider everything before making a decision.

How I installed Windows 7 to dual boot with Windows XP

I finally got some time yesterday to download and install the Windows 7 release client available as a free download from Microsoft. As I have all my favorite applications installed & configured to my taste in the Windows XP and also considering the fact that Windows 7 is a release client, I have decided to install it to dual boot with the existing Windows XP. This way I can still have a stable operating system to access all my files and data while trying out the Windows 7. Below is how I managed to install Windows 7 without disturbing my existing OS.

Initial Setup : A laptop with 1.63 GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 80 GB hard disk and Windows XP. The hard rive was not divided into partitions and the entire space is in C drive.

Precautions : It is always better to be safe than sorry. Installing an operating system that is not final itself is a risk and my current hard drive state requires disk partitioning to be able to install the new OS. SO, I have backed up everything important to me. Do backup all the stuff you care about before you proceed.

Pre-requisites :

1. Download the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft. Microsoft will give you a key that is required for installation. Print it or write it on a sticky. You will need it during the installation.
2. Download ImgBurn to write the ISO file downloaded above to a DVD (you can skip this if you already have a software to burn ISO files to DVD).
3. If you have to partition the hard-drive to install the new OS
1. Download the GParted Live software to resize the existing space (download the ISO file if you want to use a CD as boot device to partition the drive or download the zip file if you want to use the USB drive).
2. Download Live USB Helper to load the GParted onto your USB drive and use it as a boot disk (you can skip this and the one below if you prefer to burn a CD of GParted ISO file and use it).
3. Go to http://www.dll-files.com/, search & download the file ‘vb6stkit.dll’. Live USB Helper needs this file to work.

Steps :

1. Skip the first 3 steps mentioned below if you already have the space to install Windows 7 and partitioning the drive is not required.
2. Install Live USB Helper downloaded above and try to run it. If it asks for ‘vb6stkit.dll’, copy the DLL file downloaded above into the system32 folder inside Windows (Alternately, write the GParted ISO file to a CD).
3. Using Live USB Helper, extract the GParted Live to USB drive (Skip this step if you are using CD).
4. Shutdown the system and boot it with the GParted USB or CD prepared above and resize the hard disk to carve out at least 20 GB space for Windows 7. Check this guide if you need more help.
5. Shutdown the system and boot it with the Windows 7 boot disk (DVD prepared above).
6. Select the space that you have allocated to install Windows 7 and start the installation process.
7. Follow the on-screen information and enter the key when asked for.

Windows 7 installation was over under 30 minutes and it detected and installed all the required drivers for me (I had to download and install display drivers separately for my monitor to work properly with Windows XP). The installation process and information provided when an action is required during the installation are very easy to understand even for the basic users.

Once the installation is complete, you will see the option to either boot into Windows 7 or Windows XP (listed as “Earlier version of Windows”) every time you start the system.

My overall feeling about Windows 7 after using it for only few hours is very positive. Even with 1GB RAM, it was responding well and looked as speedy as my XP. But let’s see how it works after I install all the software that I use (Windows tends to get slower as you install and uninstall software).

Airtel Call Home needs to get serious about quality of service

Calling friends and family in India is an everyday activity for NRIs and it is a very lucrative and competitive market. I have used many services like Reliance Global Call, TATA Trueroots and Reliable Calling before settling with Airtel Call Home as my primary account to make calls to India. Airtel offered very competitive rates and good service at that time.

Recently I have started noticing issues with their quality of service. They offer the best rate if you use their local access numbers instead of the toll free numbers and call cell phones in India instead of landlines (check my website to compare voice call rates). But, their local access numbers seem to be too busy or completely unavailable during peak traffic hours, forcing you to use their toll free numbers and hence pay more.

I have had issues accessing their local access number every time I tried to make a call to India in the last month. And sometimes I got the message “All circuits are currently busy. Please try after sometime” even when I tried the toll free number. Although I could get connected when I tried the next time with toll free number, it was a no go for the local access number.

For the first time in over a year, I’m thinking of switching from Airtel Call Home and if they don’t improve their quality of service, it is not long before they loose many valuable customers.

Sync your music with any phone or music player

Having your music in sync with all your gadgets is a nice thing. I always love and cherish the ability to sync all my music to everything that can play it … whether it is my iPhone, my wife’s SonyEricsson w580i phone or our little iPod Nano. So, I will list here software that can be used to sync your music to all your gadgets.

If you are using iTunes to manage your music :

If you use iTunes, you already know that you can sync your music to all iPods and iPhone. But what if you own music players other than iPod and a phone that is not iPhone ? Below are few programs that you can use to sync your iTunes music to any gadget.

iTunes Sync (Windows Only): iTunes Sync will let you synchronize any iTunes playlist (standard or dynamic) with any MP3 player or phone that shows up as a drive letter in Windows. You can setup different players to sync to different playlists. There is a list of supported / tested players list on the website. I have used it to sync my iTunes music to my wife’s SonyEricsson phone and it worked very well. It is available as a free download.

Salling Media Sync (Windows and Mac OS X): Salling Media Sync synchronizes playlists, music, and podcasts from iTunes onto most mobile phones. Again, they have a compatible device list that you can check to see if you phone is supported. The free version is slow. If you want the faster and intelligent registered version, you need to pay.

iTunes Agent (Windows Only): iTunes Agent syncs any playlist in iTunes with any music phone or MP3 player. It is freely available for download from SourceForge.

If you are looking for a free and open music player to manage and sync your media to all your devices :

doubleTwist (Windows and Mac OS X): doubleTwist is a program to manage and play anything. And it lets you copy your media onto any device. The best thing about doubleTwist is that you don’t need to worry about the formats. It does all the converting to play anything on any device. And did I forgot to mention that it is open and free ?

Songbird (Windows Only): Songbird is an open music player that’s under active development. It’s like Firefox for music. It is extensible with lot of plug-ins. The device support is very basic right now. But it will be updated soon.

If you have used any other software to sync you music in iTunes with your gadgets or liked any other media organizer that can sync the media with all devices, do write a line about in the comments.