Faster Money Transfer using NEFT

With Inter funds transfer gaining quite a bit of momentum in India for past few years, it becomes important for us to know some tips & tricks to have money transferred from one Bank to another in the least possible time.

There are 2 types of funds transfers currently offered by RBI (Reserve Bank of India) - NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) & RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement). RTGS system is meant for amounts exceeding Rs.1,00,000.

I am currently referring to funds transfer using NEFT. In case of NEFT the transfer advices from Bank to RBI happens in 4 batches - 9:30 am, 1:30 am, 12:00 pm & 4:00 pm.

I would share a couple of tips which will enable to have the quickest funds transfer -

1. Avoid transferring funds at the end of day (say around 3-4 pm) & on weekends (like Fridays).
2. Transfer funds in the early hours. For eg, if you want to transfer funds from ICICI Bank to HDFC Bank, try initiating the transfer before the 1st batch timings i.e. 9:30 am. I have found out that all transfers which I have initiated before 9:30 am have resulted in credit of my funds in the destination Bank account at around 2:00 pm on the same day itself.
3. Any transfer timings not following the above 2 rules will result in funds credit happening after 1 or 2 days.
   

The tips which I have shared are my personal experiences & not endorsed by RBI or any other Bank in India.

So try it with your own luck !!!

Re-enabling your locked HDFC Bank NetBanking Account & Re-generating your Password

So many passwords to remember these days... ooofff !!!!!

Many a times it so happens that you enter a wrong password consecutively 5 times at the HDFC bank Netbanking site & your account gets locked. Now you have 2 problems - your NetBanking access locked out & also that you have forgotten your password. The Banks standard procedure calls for filling an application form at the Branch to re-enable your account & also re-generate a new password.

I have discovered a simple workaround with which you use the power of Net to both re-enable your account & re-generate a new password.

(My site statistics show that this is one of my most successful posts in my Blog. Unfortunately, almost all my readers forget to drop me a THANK YOU message after getting the required results :-( . I would feel nice if you could comment on this post after successfully unlocking your HDFC Bank NetBanking Account. This would inspire me to write more.)

After receiving numerous complaints from my readers I found that HDFC Bank has finally changed their site and I feel the following new method should work -

• Log on to www.hdfcbank.com and log on to NetBanking
• Click on the link "Forgot IPIN (Password)"
• Type your Customer ID number and click on "Go"
• You will be shown a list of active HDFC Bank ATM/Debit cards that are linked to your Customer ID
• Select any of the linked card (In case you have more than one card)
• Please type your ATM PIN & Card Expiry Date.
• Enter your Net Banking Password and re-login.

x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x-0-x

Old Method: Might have worked till Dec'13

The procedure is as follows -

1. Visit https://www.hdfcbank.com/applications/webforms/customersupport/mainfrm.htm & select the Radio Button "I am a customer of the bank and have a query / Clarification on a transaction / Product".
2. Now under the section "What is the query about?" section select "Assistance with NetBanking Service".
3. Now under the section "Kindly classify your request:" select "Access Denied - Enable access to NetBanking" & then click on submit.
4. In the following screen fill up all your details - Customer ID, First Name, Last Name, E-mail ID.
5. Now comes the most important trick - select the check box "Yes I remember my IPIN and just need re-activation of the same.". Though this may sound funny, since you don't remeber your IPIN (NetBanking Password), but do this as suggested by me. And then click submit.
6. After almost 24 hours visit the NetBanking page & under the "Whats New" section on the right hand side, click on the link for "Forgot Your IPIN (password), click here to generate instantly".
7. Now just follow the steps & re-generate a new IPIN.

Simple... isn't it ? So never ever worry again if you have a locked HDFC Bank NetBanking account & have forgotten your password :)

If you did find help from this post & are from India, please vote for my Nokia Momement by SMSing VOTE 54470 to 55555 & increase your chances of winning a Nokia N8!!!

Labeling your E-mails

With the growing popularity of GMail, people have practically forgotten about restricting their Mailbox sizes. The result - cluttered up Mailboxes which practically becomes unmanageable at a certain point of time.

This post is not dedicated for techhies or to say... those organised & disciplined people in the Cyber era :)
GMail provides a very easy way to organize your e-mails. Rather than the classical FOLDER model which most other e-mail Service Providers have to offer, GMail offers something called LABELS. Labeling of e-mails can be done automatically or manually. I suggest automatic labeling is the best thing to have. You might frequently receive e-mails from some Job Portal or say some Mailing Group. How about having a visual indicator which can easily categorize all your e-mails ("A Picture is Worth Thousand Words"). In the screenshot shown above you can easily see the distinct Red, Green & Amber Colours to clearly distinguish different kinds of mails.

So how do you implement auto-labeling ? Very simple... after logging on to GMail, visit Settings -> Filters.Now create a new Filter based on different criterion (like Subject, Words, etc.) & then link it to a new Label. You can change the Label colours easily from the list shown in the Labels section. Labels not only gives a visual identification to all your e-mails, it also helps in uncluttering your Mailbox by allowing you to group identical content. Just clicking on individual Label Names on the left hand pane will display you e-mails of only that category.

How about exploring this small tip this Sunday ?

Don't throw of your old Thumdrive

A few years back having your own Thumbdrive was quite an unimaginable thing. I still remember when I first bought my first 128 MB Thumbdrive for as much as Rs.3300. 128 MB... aaahhh, thats too old fashioned, nowadays you get a 1 GB Thumbdrive for as low as Rs. 500. You might also think of disposing of your old 12b MB Thumbdrive coz thats too small of a space to store your bulk MP3's, DiVX's etc. Then what to do with that small little thing ?

Don't worry, your old Thumbdrive can turn out to be an excellent recovery media when your PC doesn't boot from your Hard Drive due to Media failure, OS crash or say Virus attack. Here are a few simple steps which would help you to make your Thumbdrive bootable with a compact Linux distro running on it.

Here it goes -

1. Format your Thumdrive in Windows with Fat32 filesystem.
2. Download syslinux-3.36.zip or any latest version of syslinux file.
3. Download dsl-4.3-embedded.zip or any other latest version of dsl-embedded file.
4. Extract the contents of dsl-4.3-embedded.zip to the root folder of the Thumbdrive.
5. Extract syslinux-3.36.zip in a temporary folder & browse to the folder win32. Now from the command prompt execute system -ma (where X: is the Drive Letter for Thumdrive in Windows) from the win32 folder.
6. The Thumdrive is now Bootable by changing the Boot sequence from your BIOS to USB.
7. Linux installed on the Thumdrive can also be booted within Windows using the QEMU emulator found on the root of the Thumdrive.

Isn't this quite easy. Try it yourself. More of Thumdrive based installations can be found at http://www.pendrivelinux.com .

Thats what you call "Best out of Waste".

Microsoft Disabling DAV Protocol from 30-June-2008

An important mail from Microsoft which I thought of sharing with all -

"Dear Microsoft Outlook Express customer,

Thank you for using Microsoft® Outlook® Express. Our information indicates that you use Outlook Express to access a Windows Live™ Hotmail® e-mail account via a protocol called DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol). DAV, like POP3 or IMAP, is the way that a mail client communicates with a web-based mail server.

As a valued customer, we want to provide advanced notice that as of June 30, 2008, Microsoft is disabling the DAV protocol and you will no longer be able to access your Hotmail Inbox via Outlook Express. As an alternative, we recommend that you download Windows Live Mail, a free desktop e-mail client that has the familiarity of Outlook Express and much more. This next generation of free e-mail software will allow you to easily manage multiple e-mail accounts—including Windows Live Hotmail, plus other e-mail accounts that support POP3/IMAP. Better yet, Windows Live Mail integrates well with other Windows Live services, and downloads in minutes. After you provide your user name and password, you will automatically be linked to your Hotmail account, providing continued access to your email and contacts.

We encourage you to download Windows Live Mail at http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview.

And, to make your transition smoother, we've provided answers to frequently asked questions below.

Again, thank you for your use of Outlook Express and we are confident that you'll be just as delighted with the new Windows Live Mail.

Your Windows Live Mail team

Frequently asked questions:

Why are we disabling DAV?

DAV is a legacy protocol that is not well suited for client access to large inboxes. Over time, as we've provided more e-mail storage to our users—and now offer 5GB inboxes for free—a more efficient access protocol is needed.

What are we replacing DAV with?

We have developed a new, much more efficient protocol called DeltaSynch that is far superior to DAV especially for large e-mail inboxes. It enables email clients to only download changes since the last time the client polled the email server for changes. This is much more efficient and high performing than having to download all the headers in every folder as is the case with DAV.

Is DeltaSynch compatible with Outlook Express?

The new protocol unfortunately is NOT supported by Outlook Express and support would require too many changes to the Outlook Express software.

Is there a different or new mail client I can try that uses DeltaSynch?

Microsoft is providing Windows Live Mail, a free e-mail client that has the familiarity of Outlook Express and much more. This free, next generation email client enables users to easily manage multiple e-mail accounts including Windows Live Hotmail and other e-mail accounts that support POP3/IMAP. Windows Live Mail also integrates well with other Windows Live services, is optimized to work with Windows Live Hotmail, and offers:

• Offline mail
• Windows Live Hotmail account aggregation for those users with multiple Hotmail accounts
• Account aggregation for POP and IMAP mail accounts
• Rich photo-sharing capabilities
• Advanced search via integration with Desktop Search
• Safety tools (Anti-Virus scanning, anti-phishing, anti-spam features across aggregated accounts for customers who do not have an Anti-Virus product)
• Integration with Windows Live services including Windows Live Spaces
• RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed aggregation
• Ability to send SMS (short message service) text to a mobile phone from Windows Live Mail

Where can I download the new Windows Live Mail client?

You can download the new client at http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview.

Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more, please read our online Privacy Statement.

Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052"

SIP-enabled Instant Messenger

I just visited a site http://www.gtalk2voip.com & found out very useful services offered by this company. With the growing popularity of VOIP, SIP has almost become a defacto standard.

With the help of this site you can easily SIP-enable your very popular Instant Messengers like MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, etc.

Some benefits which I have found after a little bit of tweaking -

1. You can call up any registered VOIP number on the internet from your Instant Messenger.
2. You can register a free SIP number with any service provider & associate the same with your IM client. Your IM client will thus act as a SIP softphone & you would thus not require to install another SIP softphone.
3. You can call US Toll Free numbers right from your IM client.

There are various other interesting features available. To explore these features just send an invitation mail to your MSN/Yahoo/Google ID from the site www.gtalk2voip.com & accept the invitation that you receive from this site.

Some of the features currently provided are -

Gtalk2VoIP: Welcome to GTalk2VoIP - Free Voice Gateway for Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ and iChat

Type 'HELP' for more information

You entered: HELP

.
*====== AVAILABLE COMMANDS ======*
HELP - Display this message.
MYPAGE - Display URL to your personal account page.
WEBCALL - Display URL to your personal Web Call.
DICT word - Make a request to DICT.ORG for word definitions.
MSG to text - Send off-line message text to user to .
IM to text - Send Instant Message text to user to . Example: IM msn:billgates@hotmail.com Hello Billy!

VMLIST - Display content of your voice mail box.
VMPLAY id - Play voice mail message number id .
VMDEL id - Delete voice mail message number id
VMSEND user - Send voice mail to other gtalk user .
VMSET id - Set id as a default welcome message.
CONF - Create conference room for you. Room cookie will be sent back.
JOIN cookie - Join someone's else conference room using cookie .

COST phone - Display amount of credits charged for 1min unit while calling to phone . Example, to figure price for calling american 800 services type: COST 1-800
CREDITS - Go buy more credits.
CALL phone [via] - Make an outgoing voice call to telephone number phone which is represented in E.164 format. Example, to call Google type: CALL 1-650-253-0000 . You can also setup a registered service provider name in optional via parameter to place call throu.
CALL sipuser@sipprovider.com - Make an outgoing voice call to SIP phone sipuser@sipprovider.com . Example: CALL pbx@stalker.com .
DTMF_TONES : Type in any string of digits or Asterisk or # sign while talking to send DTMF tones.
SMS phone_number text - Send text an SMS message to phone . Example: SMS +1-234-5678901 Hello, just testing
*============== END =============*

The information above has been pulled by using the keyword HELP.

करलो दुनिया मुट्ठी में।

Tax Planning

For people having CTC over Rs. 6-6.5 Lakhs per annum & having a Floating Rate Housing Loan, the investment pattern suggested below would be quite useful.

Tips -

• Section 80C - (Max: Rs.1,00,000 for Males)

1. Check the Prinicpal component of your housing loan from the Provisional Tax Statement provided by your Housing loan provider. Let your Principle component be around Rs.70-80,000 per year. If you find it less, use an Amortization Chart & redesign your EMI.
2. Let your life insurance policy premium not exceed Rs.10-15,000 per year.
3. Leave the balance Rs.10,000 amount in the beginning of the year, so that if the interest rate on Housing loan changes, you can utilize this buffer amount. Remember, if the interest rate increases, the Principle component would decrease & Interest component would increase. And if the interest rate decreases, it would be vice versa.
4. In case of increase in interest rate, you can do a part pre-payment of your Principle component for the balance amount in Section 80C (max investment of Rs.1,00,000 for males). Before re-designing your EMI at the beginning of the year you have to do a what-if analysis of interest rates depending on market trends. (NOTE: It is beyond the scope of this article to explain in complete detail of doing a what-if analysis within an amortization chart)

• Section 24D - (Max: Rs,1,50,000)

1. This section would cover the Interest commponent of your housing loan & the investments here would vary based on interest rate changes. As already mentioned above you need to do a what-if analysis within the amortization chart which would give you maximum benefit under Section 80C & Section 24D.

• Section 80D - (Max: Rs.15,000 [Rs.20,000 for Senior Citizens])

1. Buy a Health Insurance Policy depending on whether you have Dependant Senior Citizens in your family. Go for a health insurance policy which gives you benefit of both Domiciliary & Hospitalization claims. With a premium of around Rs.20,000, you get domiciliary claim limit of around Rs.50,000 approximately & hospitalization coverage of around Rs.1-1.5 Lakhs.
2. With domiciliary claims you can claim the day to day doctors' expenses you incur on yours & your dependents' treatment (Medication for fever, etc.). This includes claims for both the Doctors' fees as well as medicines.

• Section 10 - (Max: Rs.15,000)

1. You could claim tax benefits on Medical Bills (day to day expenses) mentioned in the previous section.

• Food Coupons - (Max: Rs.30,000)

1. If your employer provides you the option to take part of the Salary as Food Coupons, do go for it, as you could do grocery purchases at many famous outlets using these food coupons. You can also use these food coupons at various hotels when you go out for partying.

There are various other options available for Tax Planning & this was just a small suggestion from my end to help you in saving more from you.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not a Tax Consultant. Please do your Tax & Investment planning after thorough study & guidance from a qualified Financial Consultant).