My Thoughts !

A lot many of us know this one, mostly after a painful experience in some way or other. This are few tidbits that I've learnt thru my own experience and thru my friends' experience.

• After you have decided on the house/apartment, check whether any banks have approved the project. If a bank has it approved then your paper work becomes much easier with that bank.


• Period of loan plays a very important role. There is no very big difference in EMI for a 20 year loan and 10 year loan. It would be ~ Rs 100 per 1L. So if you are taking a loan for 10L, a 10 year loan will result in Rs 9000 EMI and 20 year loan will result in Rs 10000 EMI. The trade-off is between paying a little high every month for 10 years or paying less for 20 years. In any case, as a rule of thumb, make sure your EMI doesn't cross 40% of your take-home pay.


• The choice between interest types - floating/fixed is always confusing for many. The floating interest rate went all the way to 7% few years back and now its back to 11%. Whether it will decrease/increase in the next 20 years is hard to predict. Also the fixed is not really fixed. The banks can change that rate also. Some banks allow switching between these two. Many banks offer a combination of two - fixed for first 5 years and floating for the rest of the period. Look for these options


• Not all of the banks will give you the whole amount. You have to bring in around 10-20% and the bank will lend the rest. However, you can find some deals with the banks for lending the whole amount. If you don't have cash for the down payment and not very keen in opting for a personal loan, this might be a good deal. The penalty of taking 100% loan is the interest rate will be a little higher (but will be definitely less than the personal loan's interest rate)


• Processing fee is another charge that you have to pay. It ranges from a fixed amount of Rs 5,000 to 2% of the property value. In some loan mela or exhibitions or some festive offers, banks usually levy off this fee. That means you can negotiate for the same during other time as well. Talk :-)


• Till the construction is over, you need to pay a Pre-EMI. Remember this Pre-EMI doesn't include any principal amount. So if your construction takes 2 years, all two years, you will be paying only interest and not a single Re for your principal. There are two alternatives for this. One is that you can pay as Tranche EMI, which includes the principal amount also. This is applicable for only the amount that has been disbursed to the builder. The second option is to start the EMI right from the first month. In both cases, the principal amount repaid cannot be used to reduce your tax. Many banks allow you to change the scheme for a nominal charge/free of cost.


• Be cautious about part-prepayment. Say you get a bonus of 2L and you wish to pay it towards your home loan so your monthly EMI burden comes down. After you have paid the amount you may not see any change in the EMI. This might be because many banks take the part-prepayment into account only in the end of the quarter. If you think that is bad, some schemes in ICICI bank do at the end of the financial year! That means if you pay 2L on Jun 07, that is no use of you till Apr 08. On the nice side, most of the schemes in SBI does it on the very same day you paid the amount.  You will have restrictions like you can't pay more than half of your principal left, the minimum amount should be more than 3 EMI, you can pay only once in an year and so on. On top of it all, they might also charge you a part-prepayment penalty. Its usually less than 5%, but on which the % is calculated sometimes differs. Few banks will charge that percentage on the amount you pay and few on the whole amount. Double check that before opting for a loan. For all schemes in HDFC (not HDFC Bank, its HDFC) its 0%!

At PSG Tech, our department (Mathematics and Computer Applications) is the only department which doesn't produce any Engineering graduates. Yet, many of our Alumni big shots in the industry. I knew it for a while, but it was apparent last weekend when we had the Alumni meet. Chairman of Computer Society of India, VP of IBM, Founder of 24x7 Customer (add your truly myself ;-)) all are products of our department.

This alumni meet was tagged as "Re-live your golden days". Don't know who coined it, but few of us really lived the golden days. As usual we entered the college late; spent time with our librarian; tea-time at NMB Bakery; bunked the afternoon events for a movie @ Archana; loud chat in the terrace till 3 AM (next time my neighbors are going to shout at me) and the next day trip to Thirumurthi Hills. It was exactly like the college days. Friends and fun. Longing for next get together in Jan end in the name of Guru's wedding :-)

You would have heard of several horror stories about Credit Cards. How the banks cheat you, over charge you, abuse you etc. Here is a nice story of a Credit Card.

I got a HFDC Card 3 years back. I used it to pay monthly utilities like phone & internet and used it for other purchases as well. Once I started using it, the advantage of Credit Card is apparent. My billing cycle of mobile is 26-25. So I get a bill sometime around 30th of every month and the last date is somewhere around 15th. I pay it by 10th with my Credit Card. My credit card's billing cycle is 10-9. So the transaction will come only in the next month's Credit Card bill. I've to pay that only 20th of next month. So I talk in August and actually spend for that only in October!

Big purchases are another good thing. I usually convert them into EMIs. I get them after 10th and convert them into EMIs. When you convert into EMI, the transaction will appear in the current month's statement but the EMI will start in the next month's statement. I don't know whether its a feature or a quirk in their system, I don't want to complain anyway. So I don't get to pay a single paise out of pocket for two months, yet enjoy watching my TV.

I always pay before the due date, so I never went into any sorts of troubles. The good part is I get reward points for all my expenditures. HDFC Bank has a huge list of items to redeem your points for. Last month I opted for Tata Sky. I've to pay a Rs 1,700 extra, but I'll get gift coupons worth of Rs 1,500. That effectively means, I pay Rs 275 (adding the shipping charges) for the Tata Sky. Thats a good deal. Tata Sky guys came in, installed and said that I got 6 months subscription free (its a new deal from Tata Sky for every purchase of Tata Sky), so I have to pay only the Rs 1,000 installation charges (which I can use the gift coupons). Adding  the remaining Rs 500 gift coupon, I get a Tata Sky hardware + 8 months of free subscription. All for using your Credit Card ! Wow! Man you got to love Credit Cards :-)

My Canon D350 should be in my hands by mid Jan. So finished off the roll that I had. Few shots from that roll.

First snap is taken during my daughters first birthday and the rest of them are taken in my wife's home during this Diwali. I've not written much about my wife's place recently, but one of my very first blog entries was about that.





I touched one of the photos with GIMP. Is it looking good?

Before:


After:

I know how much I love bike and enjoying traveling long distances. But now traveling within the city is become difficult for me, reason being my daughter. I was thinking that I should purchase a car sometime in next march, but then preponed it. I was looking for pre-owned cars, but the rates are too much. A 2002 model Wagon R costs me somewhere around 3 Lakhs + 2% commission to the broker. Its not worth it. So decided on a new car. I've booked a Wagon R today. The delivery will be only in the end of Jan/first week of Feb, but the waiting is worth enough because I'll get a 2008 model car with 2008 registration and still get a 20k discount which is available only till 31st Dec :-)

My daughter is one of the very active kids I've seen. We usually don't restrict my daughter from doing something. If she tries to open the door or pull down something from the sofa or throws the onions and potatoes all over the kitchen, she is always allowed to do so. As soon as she started crawling, I taught her how to get down the steps from the hall to my room and to climb up the stairs from the ground floor to our house in the first floor. What I didn't teach was how to get down safely from the cot. Last week she tried by herself when we were not around. She fell down and broke her collar bone.

Though she is not feeling the pain now, its the very toughest time for her. Because of the arm sling she can't use her right hand and now she is pretty much restricted in doing most of her normal mischiefs . It would take around a month to get back to normal, but one month at this age is really too long. Call me a optimistic, but the good thing about this is, since she finds it very difficult to crawl with one hand, she is now more inclined to walk and trying hard. With in a week or two she should be able to walk without any support.

Now for the lesson learnt, never let a kid alone in the bed/sofa.

No blah blah blahs, straight to the images to tell you the story.

An error in Google Doc:



An error in VSNL website:

Meanwhile, Microsoft has said that an internal build of IE 8 now passes the Acid Test. Wow! Thats an achievement. I think its the second browser after Opera to pass the test. While IE 8 is expected to be released in an year or so, Firefox 3 is close to release. Its already in Beta 2 and it rocks!

Its based on Gecko 1.9, pages now loads really fast, UI is cool, Proto theme blends well with Mac and so on. If you ask for my favourite feature, it is the auto complete feature in the location bar. No longer you have to type from the beginning. Type any character in the URL/page name you want, Firefox shows all the results. See the screen shot:



In another related news, Mozilla Prism isn't exciting as I thought earlier. Its just creates a short cut and nothing else. I thought some nice integration such as Application Menus are on the way, but nothing of that sort. If all I want is a short cut on the desktop, I don't need an application, all I need is the upcoming version of Google Gears!

[Cross post from my Eclipse blog]

Eclipse Demo Camp is coming to Bangalore on 10th Dec. Looking at other Demo Camps, Bangalore might be the one with highest number of registration (around 50) - and its still growing. In case you wish to attend, do register here.

Yup, I'm working on a presentation on GEF. Meet you all there.

I'm switching to a digiatal camera. Finally :-) When I decided to purchase a camera, I know it has to be an SLR. But the only "affordable" DSLR was  Canon's 300D. It was around $1000 and the exchange rates were close to 45.  I decided for a film camera. For 8k, Canon's K2 came to my rescue with a nice 28-90mm lens. I've been using it for years and taken nice snaps like these.









Many of them looks really good in photos, not-so-good in digital form (I should blame the scanners).

Now that the exchange rates are falling down below 40, the DSLRs are much more affordable and Ravi will be back from US in a month or so, I decided to switch to a digital Camera. The choice was simple. Canon's Digital Rebel XT. I purchased body only version so that I can reuse the lens that I already own.I would have gone for the XTi, but I was not ready to go pay $250 for extra 2 Mega pixel and bigger LCD. The camera has been delivered to Ravi and eagerly waiting for his arrival sometime in Jan.

In other unrelated news, Ravi also bought a MacBook. Then Dinesh, Jaiku. Surprising thing is none of these guys are hardcore Mac fans. All they wanted was some laptop for personal use and after analysing the options, they found the MacBook to be the better than Dell/Compaq. No, I didn't press any of them, I knew only after they decided. Mac penetration is increasing :-)