TransferWise - Best money transfer portal

TransferWise is a recent startup that works on a peer-to-peer based money transfer method. The reason for posting about this is 'mutual benefit'. I personally like it and use it for my international transfers. It made sense to put its unique features which I appreciate here and along with that put my referral code to share the benefits.

• Mid-Market Rate: It offers rate which is generally displayed on Google and other websites and is called mid-market rate. This is the best rate usually available on any website.
  
• Transparent Service Charge: There is no other hidden fee and they charge a fixed amount for the transaction and you can do the maths after the transfer to see that no extra charges deducted unlike banks and other websites.
  
• Easy to use: It is very easy to use offering both the web and mobile app service. Hence, once you get a hang of it, it is only a few clicks away to make the transfer.
  
• Exchange Rate Fluctuation Control: This is more like a safety measure. The service allows you to put an x% cap on the allowable fluctuation in the exchange rate. If the exchange rate falls below the cap you choose, the transfer will not happen and wait for 5 days for the rate to fall, else will cancel the transfer automatically.
  
• Guaranteed Exchange Rate for 24 Hours - Recently, Transferwise started providing a 24 hour guarantee period for the exchange rate subject to reception of money from your bank account or debit/credit card.
  
• Accessible and Available: The transfer service is available in all the major countries and the count is continuously increasing.
  
• Safe: It is safe to use this website and there are enormous other review websites that verify the fact that it is one of the popular choices.
  
• Referral Benefits: The company offers you certain gift amount if 3 people use your referral code to sign up and make a transfer. You choose the currency you want the reward in. This is also the point where I share my referral code and the purpose of this post is therefore met. But why should you do it? Because it gives you first transfer free of service charge which means that you don't pay any extra charge and get a transfer done at the mid market rate.
  
  Use this link to sign up and get free first transfer- https://transferwise.com/u/72c7b6
  
  Happy Transacting!

Applying Online for Australian Visa through ImmiAccount

I am writing this to get and give more information related to the online application of the Australian Visa. I tried searching for the same, but unfortunately couldn't gather much information for the doubts I had.

I had applied for the Student Visa: Postgraduate Research Sector Temporary Visa (Subclass 574) for my PhD studies in Australia from India. But most of the things mentioned here are in general applicable to all the visa classes.

Depending on which country you are applying from, there are different ways for making the application. In India, one can apply directly to the Australian High Commission, through an agent, through VFS or through ImmiAccount. The last two aren't same though are online methods (I wanted to apply through VFS which I thought earlier to be referring to the ImmiAccount and both being the same thing, but that wasn't the case).

Applying through ImmiAccount, as mentioned on the DIBP website, is handled with top priority while paper based application being the last. The other methods of online application are faster too, that is, through a registered agent or through VFS but it is just that they take some consultation charges. VFS is quite cheap in that sense, while agents can ask for any charges they feel like based on the scale of their organisation/company. ImmiAccount doesn't need any such charges as one handles his application by himself without any third party. The charges being mentioned here are not related to the Visa Fees but just the consultancy charges.

For applying through ImmiAccont, all by yourself, you will be going through these steps:

• Find the exact Visa you will have to apply for your purpose of visit. The tool is available on the official website.

• Register yourself on ImmiAccount and start an application.

• Complete the application and submit it with the corresponding Visa Fees.

• You will be assigned a case officer and he will send you the document checklist.

• Upload the required documents in the ImmiAccount portal under correct heads/categories.

• Complete health requirement test (status for that is directly available in your ImmiAccount).

• Once the checklist is complete, you can press the "Complete Request" button and then confirm.

• It will then show the status of your application as "Assessment in Progress" which earlier would have been showing "Request for Information".

• I am currently at the above step, so I will be updating the post as time passes.

• Now you have to wait for the case officer to respond back or the notification of acceptance of visa.

The average processing time for TU 574 subclass visa is 14 working days through ImmiAccount with Assessment Level 1. It has taken longer than that for me, and might take more than month varying from case to case.

The information I have provided, part of it and details of most of it is available on the official website. But there are certain things which are not known prior like:

• The response time for an email is 7 days for onshore and offshore email addresses for querying about visa and it might take longer than that.

• Sending email to the department in India guided me to connect to the onshore case officer.

• Sending emails to the department (SVCSA offshore) returns with an automatic reply with all the necessary details, and also implying that only thing I can do is wait for them to respond instead of spamming them with query emails.

• Australian High Commission in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi cannot help you with information regarding your visa, so no need to waste time going there. I couldn't also get any of my phone calls received there.

• Making phone calls at onshore (Australia) office also didn't help as no one picked the call.

• The average processing time as experienced by one of the consultant companies is 2-4 weeks for student visas.

The above efforts were made after the average processing time had passed. Querying before that might or might not get entertained.

Things might have been simpler if I would have applied via VFS or an agent, but it was worth exploring. However, I was least interested in throwing away money for agents, but VFS is definitely a good option. Their services as experienced while contacting them initially over phone seemed absolutely fine.

I hope I added some useful information on the www, if there is any suggestion, correction or doubt please do comment. I seek more information and personal experience of applicants.

Age of Warring Empires - Free Gold - Tips and Tricks

It has always been a disadvantage to play against a Gold buying player when you are yourself not buying or may be you don't buy as much as they do. Here, I am going to help you with some Gold mining strategies mentioning almost all the sources of
in-game Gold coins. This will also let you know about some of the game events. If you already aware of them, you can skim read them, you might be missing some point.

•  Dragon Invasion: This one is the most important and is the major source of gold coins for me (being a non-gold player).
  
  • This is a daily event, so you always try to get gold coins.
  • First Hit: First hit on dragon gives you 20 GC.
    
    • This is not difficult to get if you don't forget to log in to game when dragon arrives. 
    • Prepare your one single hero with a single troop (or fully loaded). You will have to make his selection and use him in Magic Tower so that the selection is saved and the same selection shows up when you start hitting the dragon. (This part keeps on changing in game, so you will have to figure out how to save a selection). 
    • Now, keep refreshing the event attack page by going to-and-fro on the rank page. 
    • As soon as you see the attack option, click it asap and tick mark the hero (troops for which you had already set in tower) and hit attack. 
    • If dragon HP was full when you made this, Congratulations! You just earned 20 GC.
  • Killing Blow: Final killing blow gets you 30 GC as a reward. You have to be very careful for this.
    
    • Keep an eye on how players are gaining over their percentage damage over the time. 
    • Also, who hits when. This will give you some idea about when to hit for the final chunk of dragon. 
    • The idea is to wait for others to hit and leave small amount of health for you to kill when dragon nears its death. 
    • If you realise that dragon won't die that day, you might not need to waste your troops and time. 
  •  Top Ranks: The top three ranker get a chest which can give 150, 100 and 50 GC respectively. If you are a heavy hitter, you need not worry about the ranks may be. In case you are not, then you might wish for a chance when the heavy hitters are not online which happens usually. Not all the top players will come and hit dragon every time. So you always have a chance. Mostly people are not even aware of these rewards. There is always a chance to get military bonus, with a sure rewards of prestige and copper. So usually there is no harm in trying for dragon.
  • Some more details on Dragon Invasion Event - Age of Warring Empires - Dragon Event

• Treasure Map Event: This is a well-known source of gold coins in game with top 5 rankers getting gold reward. It might seem to be difficult but I have seen people even who are not the top players in game get top ranks in this event.
  
  • Strategy is simple, you need to have City Protection Cards, City Moving Cards and Random Relocation Cards. Over the time, if you plan to play alternate Map event, then you can always have enough of these cards (without spending gold).
  • What you have to do is use Protection whenever you know you are not going to be online for long, i.e. at night when you sleep. For all other occasions you can always escape the attackers by using port cards and building traps.
  • Use City Moving Cards to get to locations where you can find more maps like near IC or next to people near you having good amount of maps.
  • Always keep the pace of gathering maps slow initially and faster as the event nears its end.
  • You have to be vigilant to avoid loss of maps in a single tragedy hour.
   
•  Imperial Overlord Event: This event has only small amount of gold as a reward. But for non-gold players that is also a delight.
  • Use the lowest level of spins if you think you are not going to get too many points from the event for multiple spins. It has a relatively high probability of giving a better reward especially gold coins.
  • Use the second level and higher level as per the number of points you can gain from event. Nice rewards lure you in for a higher level spin, but beware, GMs are not there to give you away stuff so easily. ;)
•  Angelic Welfare Event: This event is sometimes very lovable.
  • Event is clever enough to raise the bar of next donation by seeing the amount of gold coins you already have in hand, i.e., what is displayed at the top right of your screen.
  • It never counts the gold coins which are in your inventory. So, use the inventory gold as per the requirement set by your donation in the event.
  • Try holding on gold coin rewards from the achievements tab in daily tasks, they are also not counted by the event. Claim the reward only during this event, if you don't need gold urgently.
  • Same holds for gold coin rewards from the invitation codes accepted by your friends.
     
•  Always keep some alts and keep some port cards for them. They are usually helpful in gathering points in events like Imperial Overlord or Lily Event.
• Try to use gold for events like Gem Explore event, New Year Event etc. where returns are still better for your invested gold.
• Don't use gold for gold keys in Key Event, and other such events where returns are not good. 

I hope this was useful for some of you. Experts already nail the game, I hope the beginners don't screw it with lesser knowledge of game.
Happy Gaming! Cheers!

How to grind tower better, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Magic Tower 

Age of Warring Empires - Magic Tower - Tips and Tricks

Magic Tower is one of the major parts of the game and by far the only method (as of July 2014) for training heroes in battle mode.
Ever gave a thought of simplifying the tower for best of your needs?
Here are some tricks for getting things done in an efficient manner with regard to tower, where needs meet their ends quickly:

• Experience Run:
  
  • Each stage in tower is comprised of 10 sub-stages. 
  • Always do the last sub-stage of any stage, for example, 1-10, 15-10 etc.
  • Reason is very simple: Hero experience, which is always maximum at the last sub-stage and will always be higher than the first sub-stage of next stage, that is, Hero experience from 10-10 would be greater than what you would get from 11-1. 
  • For example, even though you are capable of doing 11-1, it is recommended to do 10-10.

• Prestige Run:
  
  • If the only thing you are concerned with is prestige (which is not a usual case, but sometimes you feel the need for it), then you are supposed to do the highest level you are capable of. 
  • Prestige reward rises with every stage and sub-stage.

• Crafting Material:
  
  • This is what helps you in upgrading your weapons, armour and accessories. 
  • Game is designed in such a way that it won't be always easy to get to that particular stage from where you need to extract the required upgrade item. 
  • So, most of the times you will have to buff up with all kinds of military bonuses along with the leadership card and head straight to the minimum sub-stage of required Magic Tower stage, for example, 11-1 for iron ore and 14-1 for ruby etc.
  • If you are capable of doing the last sub-stage out their, then it would be an additional Prestige and Hero Exp, but it can come at the cost of reduced "Stars" after completion. 
  • "Stars" decide the amount of material you will get. Minimum 1-2 Star fetch you single item and the subsequent reward contains a pack of three such items along with other Energy and Copper Coins reward. 
  • Stars depend on the troop loss you had and the number of steps you took to reach the final skull inside the instance. Better you perform or longer you go better the item reward.
• Resources:
  
  • There is a huge amount of resources that you can get from the Magic Tower, which increases with every stage of tower. 
  • This amount due to latest change in Tower is usually high enough that you might even need to get extra food for making troops, that is, the amount of troops lost in a single run of tower can be rebuilt using the reward food.
  • Also, always make use of your Medical Centre for regenerating troops (except catapults), because it is cheaper to revive troops through donation of food than to make them directly from barracks.

• Double-Experience Event:
  
  • This is the high time for training your heroes. 
  • Do not forget to wear a double-experience card so that you get triple experience from the tower. 
  • If you have VIP card, it will further add to the exp. 
  • And remember you have to do only the last sub-stage of your highest tower stages, even if it is needed to buff up completely.
  
  

• Minimum Steps:
  
  • This is the most important step for which the blog post was written. 
  • Each instance of the tower is based on some random instance generation algorithm, but it repeats its instances and one learns them while training on and on in tower. 
  • I have posted some instances here below which take a minimum of 7 steps up to 9 steps to complete. What you all have to do is keep switching between two stages of tower unless you get the desired one as shown below.
  • The clear cut benefit is that, by doing tower this way, you gain Prestige and Crafting Material at a very fast pace, which is not possible during usual random grinding of instances.
    
    
  
  
  

• Version 2.3.22: 
  
  • Now this is where key to this business is. 
  • If you find trouble in recognizing the instance, its better to install an older version of this game, which you can easily find on internet. 
  • In this version, Magic Tower shows where the boss is, so it is easy to identify the instance and reach the boss straight.

Check out this link to see how sometimes its needed to spam tap to get into the right instance which is unique and small.

Perhaps, most of the stuff you people who have been playing for long now already knew about. Hope some part of it helped some class of players, at least the new ones, for whom otherwise it takes long to figure out all these things by themselves.

PS: The Game stuff keeps on changing with time, this post had been written as per then current status of game as in July 2014.

Happy Gaming! Cheers!

How to get free gold in game, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Free Gold
How to deal with the Dragon Event, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Dragon Event  

Age of Warring Empires - Dragon Event - Tips and Tricks

The Dragon Invasion Event is a daily event in which dragon re-spawns every 23 hours. Most of the information about the event is available in the log on the left side of the window. Please read that before going up for the event.
This is an event which I would say every one should try, at least when their heroes have become a little better so that they do some 1 or 2 damage on the dragon. There are nice gifts available for toppers, first blow and killing blow, and for the rest some prestige and copper.
But one has to be careful so that you do not waste many troops and do maximum damage.

1. Dragon's Nationality - This changes randomly for the dragon, so one has to take the heroes of the same nation in which the dragon is (Persia, Rome or Greece) so that you can do 200% increased damage. Now this you already know, what you need to know is the number of troops, number of heroes and the formation for the battle.
2. Number of heroes - If you have four heroes of that nation, you are good to go. In case, you don't have take rest of other nations. Do not take less than four due to the fear of loss of troops. This is because with the right formation of the heroes, you can make your same nation heroes do more damage while other heroes keep dying and hence give you extra turns to hit.
   Therefore for such a scenario, the formation should be such that your same nation heroes are hit by the dragon at last.
3. Formation -
                           1              2                 3
                           4              5                 6
                           7              8                 9
   
   If we number the grid like this, and let us assume that you have only two heroes of same nation H1 and H2, where H3 and H4 are for sacrifice only. Also, H1 is stronger than H2.
   In this case, one of the options for maximum damage is to place H1 at 2, H2 at 3, H3 at 4 and H4 at 5. With this H3 and H4 should never get a chance to hit and H1 and H2 will give maximum number of hits before dying.
   
   If you have all the four heroes of same nation with their strength as H1 > H2 > H3 > H4, the corresponding position that I found to be best is, 7 - 8 - 5 - 6 respectively.
   
   Give these a try if you were not using the same formations, and you will see the difference.
   




4. Number of troops - The heroes which you take for a sacrifice only, give him just a single troop to carry, because he is anyway not going to attack for such a case.
   Give the best necklace to your heroes which are fighting in same nation so that they carry maximum troops.
5. Do not wait and watch the battle and be ready for the next attack (after the wait timer).
6. You can send the other heroes on wall or on an attack so that they do not irritate you in the selection process and you can always choose the designated heroes from the list just from the top 4. This will fasten your process of attacking.
7. With these tricks, which are obvious for a veteran player though, you can make maximum damage loosing lesser troops. You can claim better prizes, for example, a military bonus buff everyday is good enough.
   
   If I have missed out something, or some information is incorrect, or if you have some question, use the comments below.
   
   Keep playing! Enjoy!

PS: For better damage on dragon, try using Two Ashokas in front and a stacking attack hero at the back. This hero combination is far better than any other.

How to get free gold in game, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Free Gold
How to grind tower better, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Magic Tower 

Review: GREedge - Online GRE Coaching

GREedge is one of the many online GRE preparation academies. I chose this because one of my friends suggested me, as in my case it would not have made much difference even if it were some other coaching institute. But I would certainly like to write a review of this institute so that others may find it easy to compare.



1. Course Material: This is one of the major aspects to look for, so we will take this first. For this I assume that the reader is aware of GRE pattern as of 2013. The paper contains three main sections:

1. Quantitative Reasoning: This is relatively easier than other sections. One only needs to brush up the concepts he/she had learned during secondary studies. GREedge has a good amount of material for this section. They cover almost all the related concepts and have a nice variety of questions under each category of this section. The questions in actual exam would be less difficult than what are there in the mock tests provided by them. This makes it easier to score in the actual exam. But, I did find some questions that required too much time to solve and shouldn't really come under Quantitative Reasoning section, nor are they asked in GRE exam.
2. Verbal Reasoning: This section is what decides your score on a larger scale. Reading Comprehensions (RCs) provided by GREedge are good enough covering a wide range of topics and varying lengths of paragraphs along with proper relevant questions. The art of attacking each and every type of questions for RCs is also very well taught through their ppts and videos. But they still need to add more to this as RCs need more effort.
   
   For the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence, I realised that there was some difference in what they had and what was actually there in the GRE exam. SE is still match worthy but TC is what they really need to improve upon.
   
   The word lists in their learning tracker are still underpopulated. They also provide with a pdf and online database of words, but need to add more into the learning tracker itself as it is a crucial part of preparation.
3. Analytical Writing: This part is covered well by GREedge. A pretty good amount of essays are available for practice and feedback along with proper strategies for getting better scores.

2.  Student Facilitator & Adviser: This is a facility provided in form of two mentors that they appoint one each for Verbal and Quant section. The  SFAs keep a track of your progress and keep providing you the adequate feedback regarding your mistakes. You can discuss with them on phone or through email if you face any issue. They also keep you motivated and dedicated towards your studies.

3. Learning Tracker: This is the interface from where you access your online source of preparation. This is in beta stage as of now and needs improvement.

4. Webinars; They keep organising webinars on various topics related to 'how to prepare some particular topics', education loans, right time to apply, pitfalls in entire process of application, and a hell lot of other useful tips.

5. Time Management: This is something that they helped in properly maintaining. This is also necessary for your preparation to go well.

On a scale of 10, I would rate 6 for this institute. I managed to get a score of 325/340 in a preparation period of two months studying for average 4 hours a day.
Other famous sources for GRE preparation are like Jamboree, magoosh, wordpandit, CL, etc. Reader can look for some reviews of these to decide which one to join.

PS: Please read other online GREedge reviews as well, the number of people dissatisfied with GREedge services is no less. One of the links to such complaints is there in the comments below.

For any doubts, use comments below.

TCS Executive Hostel, Trivandrum (ILP)

The purpose of writing this topic is that, because there was no such information available to me at the time I needed it, I hope it may help someone who needs to know about it and are somewhat lazy to keep mailing or may be even shy to ask the authorities each and every detail.

Ok! So what this actually is for those who didn't actually want to land here while searching, this is a Hostel built by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. in Trivandrum, Kerala for the new recruits who come for their Initial Learning Program (ILP) in Trivandrum.

Coming to the main point, this is one of the best hostels they have, and nearer to Peepul Park if your ILP is being held there.

•  Rooms are well furnished with basic provisions like Bedding, Bedsheet, Pillow (with cover),  bucket, mug etc and are spacious enough with windows to let some air in. Moreover your bedsheets, towels are replaced twice a week at least. The bathroom is attached for each room (accommodating two persons) with a working shower.

• Power backup is available.

•  A provisional store is there near the hostel entrance which carries everything, yes I mean everything, that you my need during your stay there, including Tata Docomo cellphone connection at special rates.

• A small documentation shop cum cyber cafe is also there.

• Though I had rare meals in the mess, but yes if you are a fan of southern dishes you may appreciate it, as I was not much into liking it.

• Near the mess you can find TV room along with the Table Tennis and carrom-board table.

• A laundry man visits every other day so you need not worry for your clothes.

• Elevator is there in case you were unlucky to get a room on top floor i.e. 4th I guess.

• If you are subscribed to the Bus service, then it visits the Hostel gate to pick you up.

• There is a temple just opposite to the Hostel if you are interested.

•  In case you are not liking the food much, just need to exit the hostel gate, move to the right on the street, or better take an auto-rickshaw to reach the Kazhakottam junction, where you can witness a good enough market to buy stuff for yourself. (This is around 2-3 kms from Hostel). On the way you will come across the Technopark Campus entrance where you can hang out for Subway, Baskin Robbins etc. along with Ojus Hospital (in case) and SBI Bank ATM. Some distance before the Kazhakottam junction there is a Punjabi Dhabha on right side of road if you prefer that. Apart from this some 'above 18' can spot their favorite place on left side of road. ;-)

May be you didn't require these many details but I wished to have read this before coming to Trivandrum for ILP but couldn't really gather much information.

Hope it will be of some help to someone!