Texas Vehicle Registration Renewal

I was new to Texas and took me a while to know that it is so simple to do Vehicle Registration renewal online.

Have your Vehicle information and other personal details ready before you start the process following below link. Make sure it has your current mailing address, so that you can receive your renewal notice on time. You could renew much before the expiration date.

http://www.txdmv.gov/motorists/register-your-vehicle

It takes around 2-3 weeks for new Registration sticker to arrive.

Protecting Dahlia Plant from Insects/Slugs

Recently I bought Dahlia bulbs from Costco and planted them in my front yard during beginning of Spring season. Everything went smoothly and I could see germination successfully within 2-3 weeks. On closer look, I found that some insect or bug is eating all the plant leafs.

First Attempt (03/25/2015)

I tried two or three pest control but I could hardly see any improvement. I did some research on the web and found this site to be very useful. Now, I suspect it is Slug rather than insects.

Second Attempt (04/03/2015)

Today I'm going to buy some Slug control from Home Depot and apply it to those plants.

Review 08/18/2015

Now we are into peak summer and Dahlia season has long gone. The final review is that, the Slug control which we got from Home Depot was great. I had to apply it three times during the season. I mean almost every 4th week, otherwise Slug would come again. I do many much left of Slug Control which will be used next year.

Feedback on Dahlia

Next year, definitely, I am not going to put the Dahlia bulb. But, I think it would grow on its own now, because it's bulb is already placed in the ground and I have not removed the plant's root beneath the soil. Dahlia requires lot of maintenance. Also, its shoot is very weak and it breaks down pretty easily. 30-40 % of my flower bloomed on broken upside down shoot. Dahlia looks beautiful and it remains for couple of days. But, if you can maintain it, it is a beautiful flower to have in your garden.

Creating Pathway in Backyard Entryway

In my backyard entryway, I could hardly find any grass throughout the year. The obvious reason is that it is a high traffic area. Other than removing trash, I use this pathway many time for casually walking around, sometimes friends come in through this door. So, for me this backyard door is kind of second entryway.

Problems

1. This pathway doesn't have much grass
2. It is always muddy because of sprinkler system
3. During heavy rain, it is almost like walking on a black mud
4. It becomes slippery
5. When grass gets bigger, it feels scary to walk on the grass
6. I want to see where I'm stepping on rather rather than blindly putting my steps on the thick grass
7. It doesn't look good

Solution Approach

1. Low Cost
2. Elegant Looking
3. Grass should still grow to its thickness
4. Avoid mud sticking to my feet/shoes
5. Avoid sensation of dirt while I pass through barefoot
6. Avoid unconscious feeling that I'm stepping on already damaged grasses

Items to Buy

1. 11 7/8 in. x 11 7/8 in. Red Concrete Step Stone

I found this Red Concrete Step Stone (11 7/8 in. x 11 7/8 in. Red Concrete Step Stone) in Home Depot. It required some planning ahead for placement, design and number of tiles. I just put these stones on the ground without any additional support or digging. I do remember that, it took about 3-4 months to settle the stone firmly in the ground before it was not shaky at all. If you want a firm fix from beginning I would suggest digging and removing grass underneath before placing these stones. In First month, I could remember that I had to shift these stone little bit, whenever I took some heaver item rolling over it because it used to shift on the ground. But now, it is firmly settled and surrounded by thick green grass. It has settled lower enough inside the ground to a limit that I could take my Lawn Mower over it to cut the grass, which I was not able to do initially.

References

[1] http://www.diynetwork.com, 26 Design Ideas for Beautiful Garden Paths, http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/outdoors/structures/26-design-ideas-for-beautiful-garden-paths-pictures

Changing the Tube of a Tire in a Kids Bike

There are many blogs on how to change the tube of a tire in a kids bike. You could see few reference videos, I have listed in the reference section. On top of that, I would like to share my experience along with the roadblock, which is very important to know in advance. All in all, it is an easy job to do.

At the first glance, the very thought, while looking at the flat tire, to change the tire myself made me little uncomfortable and unconfident. When I watched few how-to videos, I got little ease in confidence. The first thing I did was to create a list of items I would need. My son's bike is about 2-3 years old, so making sure not to buy too expensive parts.

Start of the Project

It was quite intuitive to open the screws fitted in back-tire and start unfolding the bike. In past it had happened that I opened few things but was unable to assemble it back, so I always keep tag on what goes where. This one was not that difficult, though.

Tasks where I had to really struggle

When I started putting the new tube back in the tire, I literally failed in the first attempt and broke the tube. In video, it was quite easy to put the new tube back in the tire, but I was not able to do that. I called off the day and started thinking about it. Did I miss any tool to use? Am I doing it right way? Is it really that tough, what in video looks so simple? I was determined to find it. There was no chance that I would have taken this bike to a bike shop for repair because this bike is less than $40-$50 bucks in value. I started observing the bike tire whenever I got time. After two days, while I was casually observing what went wrong, I found that I was trying to insert the tube in the tire from the wrong side. Once I realized the mistake I did, on the second try, it hardly took 2 minutes to insert the tube in the tire, which took me more than 30 min of try before I broke the tube, the previous day. Anyway, learned something new.

Other than this challenge, unscrewing back-tire and screwing it back again is not that of difficult part. Just be ready that your hand will get messed up with black grease from the axle of tire. So, now that I know the process, it would hardly take me 45-60 min to change the tube.

List of Tools

1. Tube [$5] (Mandatory, if you don't want to fix the old one.) Check the tire size mentioned on the tire to get the right size tube. You could also get puncture resistance tube.
2. Tire Lever [$5] (Mandatory)
3. Crescent/Adjustable Wrench [$15] (Mandatory)
4. Wrench (auto rotating) [$10] (Mandatory)
5. Flat Head screw driver [$5] (Mandatory)
6. Hammer [$12] (Mandatory)
7. Tire (Optional) - If you want to change, but not recommended
8. Lubrication (Optional) - After you are done the fix
9. Pair of Plier (Optional)

References

Cloud Experience with Home Printer with Epson WF-3640

Epson WF-3640 Printer

Just bought a new Epson WF-3640 Printer from Costco for about $100 bucks, after my old HP MX 890 horrible printer stopped working. Still discovering Epson WF-3640 Printer's features. After using for few days, I am quite impress with the quality, speed and features it provides. Especially, its Cloud Print and Scan capability is at par with what we have at work. At a high level, other than traditional wired features, it provides Email Print, iPrint through Mobile device, Scan to Cloud and Remote Print. All these features enhances the user experience to an another level where it let's you synch with other Cloud Services we use in our day to day life. My favorite, which I would use the most, is Email Print, Remote Print and Scan To Cloud services.

Overall, I would recommend this small, inexpensive printer for personal use. It is great if you would want to upgrade or want to have a better printing and scanning experience.

I have had two HP Printer (MX 89X series) from last six or seven years. The first one broke. Got another HP Printer two years back and it broke again. Horrible quality. On top of that, it was a printer with an experience of just get the work done somehow. We had to struggle a lot with its driver, Wi-Fi, wireless printing, paper feed, scanner, and what not. But, let's just say it was a piece of crap and work just got done.

Installation and Setup

Just like any other good product, installation of this printer was a breeze. I was able to print and scan through wired connection to my laptop within 30-45 min or so. I was able to connect this printer to my Wi-Fi but could not get up and running with Epson Connect Service. I had to call their support and it was a quick 20 min call to resolve the issue.

What was the problem: In order to avail Epson Connect service you would have to register at https://www.epsonconnect.com. I downloaded the driver but could not get through the registration process because it was not able to detect my printer. Technically, my laptop and Printer is connected to the same Wi-Fi. So, you could connect to printer using its IP Address http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, which you could obtain from its setup menu, through a browser. The registration program does the same thing behind the scene. The problem was that I did not realize that I was on VPN and because of that my machine was not in the same network as Printer. I was able to realize this when I tried the printer IP from my other home laptop. Accessing printer through its IP Address simplifies registration and many other admin processes. Once you reach to admin console of the printer you could do all sorts of settings and configuration directly from there. Here are the list of services and their description on how to.

Email Print

After successful registration, my printer was automatically assigned an email id within epsonconnect.com domain. Later I reconfigured this email Id after logging into https://www.epsonconnect.com to my own convenient emailId. My new email Id looked something like meaningfulname@print.epsonconnect.com. I test fired few print through this service and it worked really great. My wife tried this from work and it worked. I could not find any latency in this service. To make this service more secure, I blocked this service to a selected email address, so that it will print only if the print request is coming from the listed email a/c. I created a docx file and sent and email with this file attached and empty email body. Within 30 sec I got a response that either email body is empty, file is not attached or attached file is not supported. On further investigation I found following limitation or guideline of email service. I tried this couple of time from my office email Id but it did not work. When I tried my gmail account, it worked fine. [ToDo: There is some setting or something that print request sent through exchange email, for me, doesn't work.]

Note the following when sending an email.[1]

You can enter up to 100 printer's email addresses.

Cannot print with specifying a printer's email address in the Bcc field.

You can attach 10 files.

You can attach files up to a total of 20 MB including the body of the email.

The following file types are supported.

Word (doc, docx), Excel (xls, xlsx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx), PDF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF

Except for the body of the email, text files (plain text) cannot be printed.

Zip compressed files cannot be printed.

Short Message Services (SMS) unique to mobile phone providers are not supported.

Scan To Cloud

Scan to cloud activation took no time. Once I was registered at http://www.epsonconnect.com, I just had to follow few simple steps to link my Google Drive and Email account where I would receive my scanned document. Scanned to two different location, one for Google Drive and another for email, and both worked like charm. Response time was as if my Printer was connected to my laptop.

Epson iPrint App

Printing through iPhone app was another quick setup. It took hardly 5-10 min downloading the iOS App and setting up the printer. You want to make sure, your phone is on the same Wi-Fi on which Printer is connected.

Google Cloud Print Services

You can enable this service after accessing the connected printer at http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. (check your printer configuration to get this IP Address).

All of the following setup were done easily. I would need more time to investigate the nitty gritty details of these services and which one would be best suited to me.

Remote Print Driver

AirPrint Setup

Wi-Fi Direct Setup

References

[1] Epson, Email Print, https://www.epsonconnect.com/guide/en/html/uses_1.htm

Best practices for Outlook for Mac 2011

Best practices for Outlook for Mac 2011

iPhone Storage Fills up with Calendar and Reminder Data

Problem Description:

My iPhone 6 storage fills up to 100% from Calendar and Reminder data.

There seems to be a bug in iPhone 6 that fills in 100% of available storage on my phone. Earlier, I had storage problem due to large amount of photos and videos, which I had to painfully delete from my phone. But, Calendar, which I least care takes around 6 GB of my iPhone space. The overall problem, I guess, was activating iCloud account. I would highly recommend not to activate iCloud account.

Finally after total frustration I had to reset my iPhone to factory setup. I didn't have time and patient after almost three to four days of serious research and so many tries to restore from backup.

Here are the things I tried but didn't work for me, probably for you it might work:

Deleting iCloud Account

I think this problem is related to iCloud account. So, try removing iCloud from your phone and see if it works. If you still need iCloud you can always log back in again and carefully unselect Calendar, so that you don't fill up your storage again.

Settings> Mail, Contacts, Calendars> iCloud and sign-out from iCloud.

Sign Out will take some time, probably ten minutes or so.

Restoring to earlier backup

This option also didn't work for me because my iPhone used to freeze and storage was still 100% occupied.

If anyone has any solution please comment.

Mac : Outlook 2011 : Archiving Emails to save space on Exchange Server

I use Outlook 2011 for Mac as my primary Email client backed by Microsoft Exchange server. We have limited storage space on Exchange Server, to a limit that every two months, I get email message that my storage is almost full. As I mentioned, nothing unusual, everyone faces this problem.

Here are the list of problems, I wanted to solve. I wish, I had unlimited Exchange storage so that these problem would not exist in first place.

1. Automatically move my emails to a backup folder or drive.
2. I should be able to retrieve my old emails pretty easily

Here are the list of Solutions

Manually backing up emails into backup data file, 'On My Computer'

Export the selected messages to 'On My Computer' folder of the Outlook 2011

Moving emails to gmail A/C

Create a gmail A/C and move all the old email there. This solution might not work for everyone because of corporate security requirement.


Please see the URL below in Reference section. Those article provide a great deal of details around concept with which we are dealing with here.

Reference

Archive your Outlook 2011 Exchange messages using OEAO

How to create local folders in Outlook 2011 for mac?

Basic Folders On My Computer

POP/IMAP Accounts

What’s the Difference Between POP3, IMAP, and Exchange?

Connect Outlook for Mac 2011 to Gmail’s IMAP service

FBAR Information Disclosure to IRS

Brief Information on FBAR

If you or your spouse combined account balance in Indian bank accounts crossed more than 10,000 $ (i.e., 6,30,000 INR) at any given day in 2014 you need to file FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report).

OR

If you or your spouse's combined Asset value in Foreign Countries crossed more than 50,000$ at any given day in 2014 then you need to file FBAR. (Assets includes: Bank deposits, Stocks value, Mutual fund values, Partnership investment value in any business, Life Insurance account value-Do not include house, land, apartment values)

 

IRS will not assess any tax on this amount but failing in disclosing this information may result in IRS penalties.

Last day for FBAR submission is Jun 15, 2015

Should I file it?

I had the same question. I discussed this with couple of my friends and used my judgement to file it. I have been hearing about this from last few years and every year, during tax filing season, I would fall into the same dilemma. One of my friend suggested this - "If you want to be in USA for a longer period of time, for now, then you should file it."

Indian government is coming up with detailed plan to track all of your assets through Aadhar, so it is just a matter of time, when India & USA government agencies, including Banking sector will have  tie-up to exchange information. When this becomes mandatory or strictly enforced, then it would be really hard to file for one big lump-sum amount. The question would be - "How did you accumulate everything in one year". Anyway, that was my two cents. So, use your judgement.

Filing Information

I filed this through my CPA who charges $20 for a single Joint Account. You could reach out to him at  taxfiling@taxcooler.com. If you would like to give my reference it would be Mukesh Kumar (mukeshietk@gmail.com)

How to file for - OCI in lieu of PIO - Indian Consulate Chicago

Recently there has been some update in Indian Government Policy that will replace all PIO card with CIO. I filed at Indian Consulate Chicago, IL. Whatever your scenario be, it will not be too much different from what has been mentioned below.

Here are few primer:

1. You have to file to the same location where PIO Card was originally issued. In my case it was Chicago, though I live in Houston.
2. Filing fee is $0 till 17th June 2015. So, hurry up otherwise you will end up paying approx. $275 !
3. Here are the relevant links:
1. Consulate General of India Chicago
2. CKGS (This third party vendor that acts as intermediary b/w Consulate and you.)
3. How to Apply
4. On-line OCI in lieu of PIO form
5. 'OCI in lieu of PIO' checklists and details
6. Checklist Document. Very important!
7. List of forms

If you follow these steps, it will simplify the process and save you lot of time.

1. Fill in the Application form: There are lot of details to cover, but don't worry, I'm sure you had done this many times in past. Just follow the form and start preparing your personal checklist of required items. Everyone's checklist would be different, but not a whole lot different. For example, I had to scan and print from my original documents but I heard many of my friends already had scanned copies, thus saving time. For Photos I spent 3 Hrs, but someone might already have it. So, prepare you own list while filling the form. Once you have filled in all the details in Application Form, start reducing your checklist till you have gathered all the information and requirement documents. If you do this, you are 90% done, but not complete yet.
2. Print the Application Form: Once you feel that you have all the required information filled in the Application Form and gathered all printed documents in hand, print the Application Form.
3. After Printing, make sure you read the printed physical copy again. You have to complete Part - A,  Part - B and gather all the documents listed in Part - B. Don't worry about checklist, this is not your final checklist. It is coming later.
4. Now, directly jump to the Checklist Document: Take two copies of Checklist Document. Start marking, with pencil, those documents which you already gathered, otherwise collect the missing document. Make sure your documents are arranged in the same sequence as they are listed in Document Checklist. Please notice that not all documents are applicable for everyone. Choose yours based on your situation/criteria/scenario. I would recommend having extra document in case of doubt, rather than not having it.
5. Notarization of documents: Which document needs to be notarized is already mentioned in the checklist. In my case, I had to notarize following: (be careful, in doubt notarize it through public notary)
1. Application Form, where parents had to sign.
2. CKGS Disclaimer Form
3. copy of PIO card (all pages)
6. I would recommend using Fedex service of CKGS for both sending document to CKGS and receiving documents from CKGS. I found this cheapest and hassle free.

Notary & Postal

If you are in Katy, Houston TX area, you could use goinpostal for both notary and postal service. Their notary service is really awesome. Here is their website http://www.goinpostal.com  and they are located at 5614 W. Grand Parkway South #102, Richmond, TX 77406

How to print Passport Photo with Home Printer

Ask:

• 2x2 inch Passport Photo
• photo should be easily printed through Home Printer
• Use my digital Camera to take photo
• Cost should be in cents < 1$
• Time should be less than 15 min

Take a normal good photo with any digital camera. Make sure background color, person's look, dress and overall presentation meets the specifications provided by the organization. The idea is that you should have a JPG file in your computer.

Now, visit this site https://makepassportphoto.com/ and instruction should be provided how to upload and edit the file. This site will give you option to download a photo which can be printed on 4x6 paper with 5 passport photos on it.

Transferring iPhone Photos and Videos to create more space on iPhone

Problem Statement

I want to free up my iPhone space, which is consumed mostly by Photos. I want a quick and simple solution.

I have 16GB of data on my iPhone. As everyone does, this has become my primary Camera and within one year, I have topped the 16GB space to a limit that I can't even upgrade my device, download apps or taken any pictures. I know, it sounds pretty simple to transfer all photos to some other device but I wanted something simple, robust and dependable solution.

Use Image Capture Application within Mac

Open the image Capture Application on your Mac. In old style way, select photos to be delete and click delete button on your Mac.

Backing up on Mac

Launch Image Capture from your Applications folder.

Connect your iPhone to your Mac via USB cable.

If you want the photos to be deleted from your iPhone after you’ve backed them up to your Mac, check the checkbox on the left bottom that says “Delete after import”.

Choose where you want to save your photos to under “Import to”.

If you want to backup all the photos from your iPhone, then select “Import All”. If you want to selectively backup specific photos, highlight the ones you want to backup and click “Import”.

Practical Approach:

I had tried to delete media from my iPhone almost three time. To cut the chase, the best effective way is the manual way. Follow the below step:

1. Goto to iPhone Photo App. Open the album. On top right corner, there is a 'Select' link. Click on the 'Select' link, this will allow you to tap and choose multiple photos. Click Trash on lower right corner. In other words, delete all photos manually.
2. Now go to your iTune Settings, from where you synch your iPhone to your laptop. Make sure, auto Synch for Photos or any other item is unselected. you can always synch, if needed, manually.
3. Make it a habit, in free time, while browsing in your iPhone, go to Photos Apps and keep your Photos or other media collection clean.

Reference

How To Backup iPhone Photos