VarunKrish https://varunkrish.com Musings of a Dot Com Geek Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:02:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.13 202290994 Which bank gives you the best Foreign Exchange rate for remittances in India https://varunkrish.com/which-bank-gives-you-the-best-foreign-exchange-rate-for-remittances-in-india.html https://varunkrish.com/which-bank-gives-you-the-best-foreign-exchange-rate-for-remittances-in-india.html?noamp=mobile#respond Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:02:18 +0000 https://varunkrish.com/?p=568 Be it sending money outside India or receiving money from aboard, the foreign exchange rate offered by your bank comes into play. Previously, only limited banks offered Forex services but nowadays every other bank offers this service. But you should be careful whom you bank with in order to get the best possible rate for … Continue reading Which bank gives you the best Foreign Exchange rate for remittances in India

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]]> Be it sending money outside India or receiving money from aboard, the foreign exchange rate offered by your bank comes into play. Previously, only limited banks offered Forex services but nowadays every other bank offers this service. But you should be careful whom you bank with in order to get the best possible rate for your money. Forex is a commission heavy business and it is easy to get a bad deal from your bank if you are not aware of the market rates. I’m writing this blog post after doing some research on this topic and having sent/received money with a few banks over the past few years.

I am using the rate from XE which is the most common benchmark we use for conversions. Sadly the real rate your bank might use will be different as they include their margins and their costs might be higher. Here are some of the best banks in terms of forex rates offered. Let me warn you that every bank might have some hidden charges over and above the actual forex part and there is also a GST option for the service which I have not accounted for. Just wanted to give you an idea about the difference in rates offered. I might not matter to someone who does occasional transactions but more and more people are sending money and receiving money in foreign currency, so I hope you find it useful.

USD1100010000
XE76.037676037.6760376
IOB76.6476640766400
Punjab National Bank75.9575950759500
BankofBaroda75.9375930759300
Bank of India75.9375930759300
Canara Bank75.8875880758800
South Indian Bank75.8475840758400
HDFC75.7175710757100
Bandhan Bank75.6375630756300
IDBI Bank75.7675760757600
SBI75.5575550755500
DCB Bank75.275200752000
Indus Ind Bank75.1475140751400
Kotak Mahindra Bank75.0475040750400
Yes Bank75.0175010750100
IDFC First Bank74.9574950749500
Citi Bank74.6874680746800
Federal Bank74.5774570745700
ICICI74.4474440744400

The rates might have changed since I started working on this post but the idea is still valid.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/which-bank-gives-you-the-best-foreign-exchange-rate-for-remittances-in-india.html/feed 0 568 How to run a small website on Amazon LightSail for free https://varunkrish.com/how-to-run-a-small-website-on-amazon-lightsail-for-free.html https://varunkrish.com/how-to-run-a-small-website-on-amazon-lightsail-for-free.html?noamp=mobile#respond Sat, 29 Jan 2022 10:09:05 +0000 https://varunkrish.com/?p=573 Amazon had announced Lightsail as an addition to the Compute lineup of services back in 2016 but not many developers are aware of it as the Elastic Compute Cloud – EC2 is more popular. Not only is EC2 more popular, it could feel complex and overwhelming for some developers who are used to traditional infrastructure … Continue reading How to run a small website on Amazon LightSail for free

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Amazon had announced Lightsail as an addition to the Compute lineup of services back in 2016 but not many developers are aware of it as the Elastic Compute Cloud – EC2 is more popular. Not only is EC2 more popular, it could feel complex and overwhelming for some developers who are used to traditional infrastructure or new to the scene.

Lightsail allows you to launch your own virtual private servers with SSD-based storage in several locations around the world for a low fixed fee per month or in our case free. Your instance could run a vanilla OS or pre-configured application like WordPress, LAMP or Magento. The interface is straightforward and lists all the options available.

As you might be aware, AWS offers several services under a free tier for which you are not billed, and you end up paying only when you exceed the free tier allowance. Out of curiosity, we created a new instance on Lightsail in the Mumbai region and setup a WordPress powered website. The basic instance comes with 1 vCPU,512MB RAM and 20GB SSD storage which is quite generous for someone who is getting started with cloud computing or even a small personal website or company website. The cost for this instance is $5 per month at present but we have never paid a single cent till date on this instance as you can see in the screenshot below.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/how-to-run-a-small-website-on-amazon-lightsail-for-free.html/feed 0 573 How to Get a Fancy New Google Earth View each time you open a new tab in Chrome https://varunkrish.com/how-to-get-a-fancy-new-google-earth-view-each-time-you-open-a-new-tab-in-chrome.html https://varunkrish.com/how-to-get-a-fancy-new-google-earth-view-each-time-you-open-a-new-tab-in-chrome.html?noamp=mobile#respond Sun, 23 Jan 2022 18:55:54 +0000 https://varunkrish.com/?p=549 I have always been amazed by how large and diverse our planet is. Considering we are all stuck at home since the beginning of the pandemic, feels good to get glimpse of some new places on earth within the browser itself without having to waste time. https://earthview.withgoogle.com/ Get the Google Chrome extension here

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]]> I have always been amazed by how large and diverse our planet is. Considering we are all stuck at home since the beginning of the pandemic, feels good to get glimpse of some new places on earth within the browser itself without having to waste time.

https://earthview.withgoogle.com/

Get the Google Chrome extension here

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/how-to-get-a-fancy-new-google-earth-view-each-time-you-open-a-new-tab-in-chrome.html/feed 0 549 How to make sure your Google Apps G suite Email does not land in Gmail Spam Folder but in the Inbox https://varunkrish.com/google-apps-gsuite-gmail-spam-folder.html https://varunkrish.com/google-apps-gsuite-gmail-spam-folder.html?noamp=mobile#comments Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:13:53 +0000 http://13.126.186.100/?p=430 Ever faced the situation when that important email you sent someone has landed in their spam folder and they never bothered to check it ? Read on. I was recently facing this really frustrating issue where emails from one of my domains which were using Google Apps or G Suite were being marked as spam. … Continue reading How to make sure your Google Apps G suite Email does not land in Gmail Spam Folder but in the Inbox

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]]> Ever faced the situation when that important email you sent someone has landed in their spam folder and they never bothered to check it ? Read on.

I was recently facing this really frustrating issue where emails from one of my domains which were using Google Apps or G Suite were being marked as spam. It was weird because it started happening suddenly and that website and IP were not blacklisted and everything seemed very hard to trace. Even emails i forward from that mail id to my personal gmail were landing in spam. I contacted Google Apps support to get some help and they did give me some very good recommendations. Interestingly the mails from this domain were landing in inbox on Hotmail, iCloud or Yahoo but Gmail alone was marking them as spam.

For most of these , you would require access to your domain or hosting or both to make some major changes to your DNS or zone files. If you are using a shared hosting, you can request your web host to make these changes for you. Feel free to comment if you get stuck at any point .

Rule #1 – Don’t send spam or unsolicited email

If you are actually sending spam or unsolicited mails , please stop doing it and there is no way this guide is going to help you. Google has some strict bulk sender guidelines too. There is a high chance you domain could get blacklisted too for spam and in some cases is a punishable offense.

#2  – Check your MX records

In my case I had some stale MX records for my domain. Google Apps / G Suite . This is the recommend list of MX records and priority for each and TTL. TTL can be lowered to something like 300 initially and then can be increased to 3600 once the DNS records have been migrated globally. You can use tools like Hexillion and https://www.whatsmydns.net/  to check your records

Name/Host/Alias Time to Live (TTL*) Record Type Priority Value/Answer/Destination
Blank or @ 3600 MX 1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
Blank or @ 3600 MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
Blank or @ 3600 MX 5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
Blank or @ 3600 MX 10 ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
Blank or @ 3600 MX 10 ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

#3 – Configure SPF for Google Apps

Google has a neat little guide on how to enable SPF or Sender Policy Framework for your domain.  You need to create a SFP record for your domain to prove your authenticity and legitimacy.

You need to create a TXT record

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Be careful not to add multiple entries as only one such record can exist per domain else it loses the significance.

#4 – Configure DKIM for Google Apps

This is a slightly advanced step but highly recommend if you can get this done. Google has a detailed guide on how to generate and configure DKIM for your Google Apps account. DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) standard.  You need to create a TXT record with the DKIM key

#5 – Check if everything is configured correctly and validated

You can login to your Google apps Admin console and click Start Authentication. Also make sure to check your DNS records to make sure nothing is wrong and check for typos etc.

#6 – Celebratory dance

Hopefully your mails should start landing in inbox and stop going to spam folder. It might take a few hours for this to start happening considering the DNS and other changes behind the scenes. At least took me a few hours to see all mails in the inbox.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/google-apps-gsuite-gmail-spam-folder.html/feed 2 430 My Top Travel Destinations of 2017 https://varunkrish.com/travel-destinations-2017.html https://varunkrish.com/travel-destinations-2017.html?noamp=mobile#comments Mon, 01 Jan 2018 12:38:24 +0000 http://varunkrish.com/?p=455 Traveled a lot in 2017 for mainly work and managed to travel for fun too.  Kicked off 2017 with a trip to Las Vegas for attending CES 2017 and my last trip of the year was a trip to Maui, Hawaii almost in the other side of the world. Here is a list of my … Continue reading My Top Travel Destinations of 2017

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]]> Traveled a lot in 2017 for mainly work and managed to travel for fun too.  Kicked off 2017 with a trip to Las Vegas for attending CES 2017 and my last trip of the year was a trip to Maui, Hawaii almost in the other side of the world. Here is a list of my top travel destinations for 2017. Hope to travel more in 2018

Las Vegas

CES 2017 was so much fun and tiring. Managed to spend some time in California post CES.

Barcelona

Going to Barcelona, Spain has become like a yearly ritual for me and 2017 was exciting too. I managed to discover a few more countries on this trip.

Nokia made a comeback as HMD at MWC this year.

Andorra

What a lovely tiny country Andorra is.

Got my Nintendo Switch on release day 😀

Toulouse

Toulouse was so much better than Paris in my opinion.

And this is how is they spelled my name at a Starbucks in France :)) Buggati Veyron anyone ?

Managed to visit the Aeroscopia museum and step inside a Concorde aircraft.

Zurich

Milan

Milan Cathedral #duomomilano #duomo⛪ #milan

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Spaghetti #pomodoroebasilico #spaghetti #milan

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Lisbon

Golden gate bridge in San Francisco ? No , its the 25 Abril bridge in Lisbon

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Taipei

View from the top of Taipei 101 #heights #taipei #tower #galaxys8

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Hong Kong

Shenzen

Berlin

What a view to wake up to! #berlin #ifa #airbnb

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Double Rainbow over #messe #berlin #funkturm

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San Francisco ( thrice ! )

The iMac Pro #wwdc #imac #mac #apple

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New iPads #apple #ipad #wwdc

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View from my @airbnb apartment. What a treat #california #hills

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New York ( twice ! )

iPhone launch day

Hawaii

There is something magical about beach waters! #maui #beach #water #sunset

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And within India

New Delhi

Delhi is like my 2nd home in India especially with so many launches. Several trips this year too.

Mumbai

Hyderabad

Kanyakumari

Managed to get out of Kanyakumari in the middle of a Cyclone.

At the southern most point of India! @jnsunil

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Train journeys are fun!

Getting on a train to Kanyakumari 😁 #irctc #train #indianrailways

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/travel-destinations-2017.html/feed 2 455 Back to Blogging after a long hiatus https://varunkrish.com/back-to-blogging-after-a-long-hiatus.html https://varunkrish.com/back-to-blogging-after-a-long-hiatus.html?noamp=mobile#respond Mon, 25 Dec 2017 21:02:57 +0000 http://13.126.186.100/?p=376 Wow , it has been such a long time since I stopped writing here. After getting busy with work and life , I never got time to maintain this site and it got defaced a couple of times beyond repair thanks to the Apache, PHP and WordPress vulnerabilities. Things have changed drastically over the past … Continue reading Back to Blogging after a long hiatus

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]]> Wow , it has been such a long time since I stopped writing here. After getting busy with work and life , I never got time to maintain this site and it got defaced a couple of times beyond repair thanks to the Apache, PHP and WordPress vulnerabilities. Things have changed drastically over the past 10 years. This site is now hosted at Amazon AWS’s Mumbai data center, something which was next to impossible unless you had big bucks back then. I would be writing a lot about programming, general issues, travel and startups. Feel free to drop a note or comment.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/back-to-blogging-after-a-long-hiatus.html/feed 0 376 Bangalore is making me feel good https://varunkrish.com/blore-is-making-me-feel-good.html https://varunkrish.com/blore-is-making-me-feel-good.html?noamp=mobile#respond Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:27:51 +0000 http://13.126.186.100/?p=392 Each time I visit the Silicon Valley of India – Bangalore, I meet new people get new ideas and not to forget discovering great food. This is the very similar to my experience in the original Silicon Valley in California USA also known as Bay Area.

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]]> Each time I visit the Silicon Valley of India – Bangalore, I meet new people get new ideas and not to forget discovering great food.

This is the very similar to my experience in the original Silicon Valley in California USA also known as Bay Area.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/blore-is-making-me-feel-good.html/feed 0 392 Blogging from a Nokia N900 running Maemo OS https://varunkrish.com/blogging-from-nokia-n900.html https://varunkrish.com/blogging-from-nokia-n900.html?noamp=mobile#respond Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:59:33 +0000 http://13.126.186.100/?p=428 Linux on a Nokia phone . What a beautiful device. One of the best mobile devices I have got a chance to use recently.

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]]> Linux on a Nokia phone . What a beautiful device. One of the best mobile devices I have got a chance to use recently.

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/blogging-from-nokia-n900.html/feed 0 428 Twitter readying Real Time Google-like Search , Contextual Ads? https://varunkrish.com/twitter-readying-real-time-google-like-search-contextual-ads-today.html https://varunkrish.com/twitter-readying-real-time-google-like-search-contextual-ads-today.html?noamp=mobile#respond Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000 Twitter is working on a Real time search engine and this might be change the face of twitter Zdnet broke a story about the same Santosh Jayaram who was VP , Search Quality , Google is now VP of Operations at Twitter . SEO will have a new term – after Google Optimization and Yahoo, … Continue reading Twitter readying Real Time Google-like Search , Contextual Ads?

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Twitter is working on a Real time search engine and this might be change the face of twitter

Zdnet broke a story about the same

Santosh Jayaram who was VP , Search Quality , Google is now VP of Operations at Twitter .

SEO will have a new term – after Google Optimization and Yahoo, get ready for Twitter Optimization

Soon Twitter will crawl tweeted URLs and index the content.

This will be used to display results inside twitter.

Off late Twitter has been a source information overload for me personally after RSS overload.

Though, I’m really excited to see this decision by Twitter in organizing the data better.

Also , when you have such data , Contextual ads will do really well. Twitter is not going to keep making losses for long

Imagine a user searching for mobile phones is reading a tweet pointing to http://fonearena.com

Advertisers who usually advertise on the site will love to target the potential user base of FoneArena.

It gives them more ROI than advertising on a tweet pointing to say my personal blog

Only time will tell what’s going to happen

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]]> https://varunkrish.com/twitter-readying-real-time-google-like-search-contextual-ads-today.html/feed 0 286 Why Mac and Linux is such a beautiful combination https://varunkrish.com/mac-linux-beautiful-combination.html https://varunkrish.com/mac-linux-beautiful-combination.html?noamp=mobile#respond Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000 I love my MacBook although it’s a bit slow and has a smaller screen. Its so cool because it is light on my back when carried around .. not 4+ kilos like my old HP Pavillion Battery lasts for 4-5 hrs . Brightness of the screen has a direct impact on battery life . I … Continue reading Why Mac and Linux is such a beautiful combination

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]]> I love my MacBook although it’s a bit slow and has a smaller screen.

Its so cool because it is light on my back when carried around .. not 4+ kilos like my old HP Pavillion

Battery lasts for 4-5 hrs . Brightness of the screen has a direct impact on battery life .

I have converted it into a Desktop by connecting a Apple wired keyboard and Logitech wireless mouse ..

The best part is the 24 inch Dell monitor ..

For all of you who want a Mac desktop which can be carried around easily , this is a good solution ..

Mac Mini is cool and cheaper but its useless without a display.

There is often a misconception that Mac is just about usability and Graphics but the command line (Terminal ) in Mac OS is very similar to Linux. In fact Mac OS to built on top of BSD Unix

I just love it

You can work on any Linux web server over SSH natively.

Putty sucks big time compared to the Mac command line

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