greyfriarsbobby

How hard would it be to just make from scratch? Burns Night coming up right.. Olde Belle could give it a shot..

Chas from Tuskers made them from scratch a couple of years back, it was the most disgusting Haggis I've ever tasted

Nothing against Chas or Tuskers [rip] by the way an excellent host and a much missed drinking venue.

Maybe if there was enough demand the Sausage King could knock up something?

I believe it is against, or is that agin? the Haggis Breeding Society rules to allow Haggi to be 'knocked up' by King Sausages! Only Black Pudding are allowed this offal pleasure.

This has helped me decide, I'm moving to Chiang Mai.

Judas. Have you thought this thru fully? If this ®evolving subject has really turned you on and flicked all the switches, have you thought of how you will slow yourself down?

You may have to stand in the corner or hide under the desk to lessen your impact. Or maybe you can ask the RPM (Revolving People Moderators) to ban or control you for a while.

Hope this helps before you arrive and get cought up in a tempest.

A little off topic but probably worth mentioning.

The Bank of Thailand issued a regulation about three years back which requires that when you use a credit card the slip that comes out of the machine must show your card number as follows:

XXXX XXXX XXXX 1234

In other words only the last 4 digits can be printed.

The Bank of Thailand also issued a regulation, at the same time, which says that merchants cannot record your full card number in any other manner.

Reason? Obviously to try to seriouly reduce theft of credit card numbers.

The bottom line is that many merchants still print the 16 digits on the credit card slip that they ask you to sign.

I have challenged many merchnats about this including two very high profile home products companies. They refuse to do anything about it saying it's too difficult. I also checked whether it is difficult to program their machine which spits out the slip. It's not, takes two seconds and requires no advanced knowlwsge of any sort.

Just recently I was with my adult son at a high profile car maintenance outlet, my Thai son gave his credit card to pay for the services and the machine printed all 16 numbers. My son queried this and was simply abused by the 18 year old loud mouth cashier girl. Additionally she had quickly pulled a small notepad from her purse and had writen down the 16 digits.

We contacted the police who did come to the shop and indicated that they would investigate. In front of the police my son insisted strongly that the shop reverse the credit card transaction and that they give him all copies of every slip that had been printed and insisted that the police allow him to rip uop the page of the girl's notepad. The police agreed. Meantime my daughter in law went to an ATM and they paid cash for the services.

Just as we getting in the car two technicians came over and said 'thank you'.

Machines can be set up to print two slips - merchant copy containing the full card details, and a customer copy showing xxxx xxxx xxxx 1234 - would that fall within the Thai ruling, and if one did not know this, would one just accept on receiving a customer copy that the merchant copy is the same?

As far as visa verify goes - yes on the internet you will be required to verify your pin, but at a merchant machine where customer not present is used you do not require a pin.......only details held on the card....this is why you can make a payment over the telephone if you wish.......

Of course things may operate differently in Thailand I do not have a Thai card so perhaps speaking out of turn.....

You do not (should not) be using your pin on the internet ,or anywhere other than POS Chip and PIN and ATMs. On all other occassions you should be using the VCC or three digit security code (the last three numbers of the seven digit security code) on the back of your card printed on the signature strip.

Verify by Visa (VbyV) is an additional, optional, security messure which you set up with your issuing bank (although it may appear to you on the web sight as if you are doing it with the web site). Soem outlets use it, some will not let you carry out a transaction without it. Outlets who insist on VbyV usually allow 3 purchases before they insist on VbyV use

NEVER use your PIN except at POS and ATM. If you do disclose your your PIN in this way your card issuer will not refund any losses.

Another nice addition to the Maddog is the photo gallery. Nick has found and framed many pictures of old Chiang Mai and Thailand and mounted them throughout the establishment. Well worth a look.

I have no financial interest in the Maddog apart from spending a fair bit of money there.

Whose money?

As there is no free water at MD I assume you go there as they must not have a "no riff raff" policy

BTW I agree it is nice to see Rose back. I have always liked her, Scott's loss, KH's gain!

To avoid paying the 12% APR, transfer the cash onto your credit card via internet banking before withdrawing. bear in mind it takes a few days to transfer money onto a credit card even from a Halifax account.

The above is a pointless statement. You cannot transfer "cash" to a credit card. All you are doing is reducing your credit balance. Transferring from your credit card to your bank account (if you have no credit in your debit account) so you can use your DEBIT card at the ATM is even more expensive. In the UK it is called a "cashline transfer" and is even more expensive than using the CREDIT card at an ATM as a DEBIT card. They are not the same.

I say again. You are advised NOT to draw cash (in any shape or form) with a UK Crdit card.

(Visa or Mastercard) either online, in an ATM or online.

The same way as the other "sausage" post , or perhaps to the dogs.

Transcript from BBC Radio 4 programme (presenter Ruth ALEXANDER) re using UK issued debit and credit cards in overseas ATMs. The Clarity Card gets a thumbs up, but best to use it as close to the statement date as possible and then pay off the balance in full to minimise interest charge.

Rgds

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now over the summer there's been a steady stream of Nationwide customers contacting Money Box complaining about the building society's decision to start charging for cash withdrawals made with debit cards at ATM machines on the continent. From November it will start making a commission charge of 2% plus a £1 flat fee. Nationwide says it's made the change to the Flex Account because it was bringing disproportionate benefits to only a tiny minority of its members. It says a much fairer way of rewarding these customers is to give them free travel insurance instead. But David Reagan from Berkshire is one of many Nationwide customers who have told Money Box they're unhappy about the change. He runs a small company which does a lot of business abroad and he says he'll really feel the new cash withdrawal charges.

REAGAN: The last bastion that we had was Nationwide in actual fact in terms of withdrawals abroad for no cost. We will be paying I would say £15 to £16 a month at least on that 2% on withdrawals. Anybody that's in a small business and are doing those sort of trips, then it's going to cost them.

ALEXANDER: Well Andrew Hagger is from the financial website Money Net and joins me down the line. Andrew, why do you think Nationwide has introduced these changes?

HAGGER: I spoke to Nationwide last month when this story first broke and they say they've got 5 million Flex Account customers, but only a quarter of those actually use the account as their main bank account. Everyone else was just in there for the cheap debit card. So, as they said, they're trying to sort of spread the value amongst the customers who use their account rather than those 5 million people.

ALEXANDER: So how will using a Nationwide debit card abroad compare with other providers come November?

HAGGER: Even though the costs are going up, it still stacks up quite well. If you look at debit cards, the only one that's free at the moment is Metro Bank, but that's only got one branch in London at the moment so probably not too many customers are going to be affected there. Coventry Building Society will charge you a 2% foreign loading fee but no ATM charge. And then Nationwide comes in in third place - a 2% usage charge and a £1 fee for the withdrawal. So it's still quite a good deal.

ALEXANDER: And if you're considering using a credit card abroad, there are a few of those which have no foreign usage charge or ATM withdrawal fees, aren't there?

HAGGER: There are. I would say the number one is the recently introduced Clarity credit card from Halifax. No foreign usage charge or ATM withdrawal fee. Just bear in mind that you will pay interest on the cash you withdraw up until your statement date. Again Metro Bank have a credit card that is free, as does Santander - their Zero Card - but you do have to have a Santander current or investment or mortgage to qualify.

I rest my case! as stated above "Just bear in mind that you will pay interest on the cash you withdraw up until your statement date"

You are paying over 12%APR from the moment you use the ATM and of course the Baht 150 and the exchange rate of the day mark up.

This is from the Halifax web site on FAQ's "

"Using your credit card and managing your account

Using your card

You can use your card in any shop or cash machine at home or abroad, that displays the MasterCard or Visa symbol, depending on your type of card.

Cash withdrawals and credit card cheques are usually charged at a different interest rate to the purchase interest rate."

I am not rying to be smart. I am just trying to warn people that the use of a credit card for a CASH transaction is very expensive. Try using your credit card to buy lottery tickets, gamble on the net or order forgeign exchange. OUCH! they are all classified by visa/mastercard as CASH and will be above CREDET APR and applied at time of purchase, not time of statemnt.

Just be AWARE

Fee free and interest free are not the same!

EDIT I am talking UK credit card rules. Other countries may be different

Strangely enough it's now cheaper to use a credit card than a Nationwide debit card. If you can get a Halifax Clarity card at 12.9% you'll pay no overseas usage charges, you'll get a good exchange rate and if you pay it off in full at the end of the month you'll pay 1.075% on the money you draw.

Can I suggest you check the terms and conditions of your credit card as most credit cards treat ALL cash transactions at a higher APR than other deals and charge that from the moment of the transaction, not when you pay the "statement balance. Apart from a loan shark it can be the MOST expensive way to get cash anywhere!

I'm sorry - it wasn't just the location... The menu was appallingly basic (with weird - not imaginative, weird options) and didn't include a single breakfast meal option that either me or the mate I went for breakfast with fancied eating. That's got to be odd for somewhere with giant signs proclaiming All Day Breakfast!

We walked in, sat down, looked at the menu for a few minutes and left - embarrassed (for them) to find nothing we wanted to eat! They really never had a chance with that menu. I was wondering how long they planned to lose money for before closing. With a decent menu they had a genuine chance - not much competition this side of town!

The farang half of the equation was there but never even asked us what was wrong, why we were leaving, etc.

The people with that business had as much chance of success as me offering a pussy polishing service in Chiang Mai (and I like cats )

Did you think of asking the "farang half of the equation" for what you wanted or explained what YOU thought was wrong with the menu? There may have been reasons why he did not realize/notice/understand etc that you preferred a pussy polishing service!

I take it that pussy polishing was not on the menu.

I can thank of four so called cornerstone establishments off the top of my head that are up for sell. Coincidence?

If you can fit four cornerstone establishments on the top of your head, then all I can say is "well done".

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'conerstone businesses', especially as regards to chiang Mai - businesses that have been here for more than a year, is that the rub of it? Probably nothing to do with coincidence either.

Why do you think they are for sale.

In your OP you mention both poor service and management. They of course go hand in hand.

There is an earlier post here (in another thread) about a sausage place closing and two customers leaving because they did not like/undrestand the breakfast menu. They say one of the owners was in attendance but that no convesation took place between them as to the reason for their departure. Why did they not ask the owner for clarification of the menu etc, and if the response was not to their liking why did they not offer feedback to the owner?

I am sure that businesses who have an open channel of feedback to management about the standards, problems, and general moderation of their perceived bad service have a better chance of improving their service, as in an open forum perhaps, than those who just ban or ignore their customers (no rif raf here I hear!)

Listen to your customers, let other customers know the subject is under discussion and feedback to all your customers and your business must improve. Putting your head in the sand or having a quiet word here and there does not work.

According to the forum rules, posters agree

3) Not to post in a manner that is vulgar, obscene or profane

According to the rules about Netiquette

"10. General Forum is for Thailand related topics not covered in other forums."

The Op has been a member long enough to know better.

Where are the moderators when you need them?

I am not making any comment on forum rules or the dreaded "MOD" word, but George, please explain why did you make this post?

I use UltraISO to make an .iso image of the CD I want to use on my desktop. and then I use the same UltraISO software to mount the .iso image to a virtual CD drive on my netbook.

This simulates a real CD in a real CD drive.

with UltraISO, you can just right click any .iso (or other CD image file) and mount it on a virtual CD drive that will appear as a CD drive in "My Computer".

There are other programs that will do the same thing. a search in Google with "virtual CD drive" will give you some ideas.

hope this helps.

Thanks for the Possative response.

I assume from what you say thet I need to install "ultraiso" on both machines, mount the cd on the desktop and then can export/import via usb. Is that correct.

As for the suggestions of carting an external D drive! It is a NETBOOK! It is called traveling LITE

I think you have a misunderstand of a Virtual CD drive and the concept. There is no Export/Import.

You use a CD burner program or ISO manager program to read the ISO image that is recorded on the CD and save it to a hard disk or memory stick as a .iso image file. That would need to be installed on a machine that has a CD drive.

Then you need a Virtual CD Drive Emulator/Player to 'mount' the ISO image file to, on the netbook computer.

You don't need to use a memory strick. All your CD (ISO) images, can be stored on the netbook computer. They can be transfered to the netbook though a network connection.

There are a multitude of Virtual CD Drive Emulator/Players. There are also a multitude of ISO burning programs.

Ultra ISO is not free, but it is a good program.

Windows 7 has CD ISO image mounting support built-in. For Windows XP there is a free Microsoft utility, albeit an unsupported one, to mount ISO images. Here is the download link:

http://download.micr...rolpanel_21.exe

ImgBurn is an excellent free-ware burning tool for reading CD ISO images off the CD and saving the image to a disk drive as a .iso file. Here is the link to the ImgBurn site:

http://www.imgburn.com/

These tools will work with non-copy protected CDs. For copy protected CDs, Thai Visa Forum rules prevent that discussion

BTW by using Virtual CDs. the performance of the Virtual CD dramatically outperforms a CD. I'm with you, I do not recommend purchasing an external CD drive.

Even if you purchase Virtual CD software, it's still less expensive than purchasing a drive.

CDs are also easily prone to damage, a Virtual CD isn't.

I highly recommend to anyone to convert their CDs to images and use the images on Virtual Drives and lock away the original CDs.

Thanks to 'johndeuf' and 'bb1950' for some great practical advice.

My netbook now has the progs on board which was the original aim. I am also no moving my most used discs to virtual cd format.

Thanks a lot

GFB

I use UltraISO to make an .iso image of the CD I want to use on my desktop. and then I use the same UltraISO software to mount the .iso image to a virtual CD drive on my netbook.

This simulates a real CD in a real CD drive.

with UltraISO, you can just right click any .iso (or other CD image file) and mount it on a virtual CD drive that will appear as a CD drive in "My Computer".

There are other programs that will do the same thing. a search in Google with "virtual CD drive" will give you some ideas.

hope this helps.

Thanks for the Possative response.

I assume from what you say thet I need to install "ultraiso" on both machines, mount the cd on the desktop and then can export/import via usb. Is that correct.

As for the suggestions of carting an external D drive! It is a NETBOOK! It is called traveling LITE

I have a netbook without a cd/dvd drive. I want to be able to use some old game (not DOS based) cd/dvds on it but when I copy accross using a USB and install these games all I get is "insert cd in d: drive"

I have tried cd/dvd emulators but they do not recognise the usb as a cd/D Drive.

I do not have access to a portable cd to connect to my netbook but obviously have cd.dvd drives on my desktops and USB sticks.

Ant advice would be welcome.

Pray tell us what the joke is! This is a statement and/or opinion and should be in the religious section, or better still nowhere.

i brought some books from gecko books (the vampire of siam trilogy ) last year , went there to put a name to ug face but he was not there . the staff were pleasent and the books very well priced for me as a tourist,and as previously posted they offer to buy them back for 50% less . will definately go back next time and i am in no way connected . these people are only trying to make a living for themselves and staff , it's hard enough in these times of economic crisis without other ex pats making it harder surely.

I am sure that I am not the biggest useer for Gecko Books,but I usualy take 10-12 books bought from them every 2 weeks,and exchange them for another dozen or so.

For my tastes in reading I can usualy get books that I will enjoy and overall they cost me 1000-1200 baht each visit.

Ive not used any of the other bookstores so I cant compare Gecko with them...and until I can no longer get books that I have not read from Gecko I have no reason to change my ways.

I have no connection with Gecko books apart from being a customer....indeed I have no wish to get to know the owner since his tastes in food...ie Burgers etc...are certainly not mine

I have and will continue to use Gecko books. As well as the one 99baht across from the Porn Ping previously mentioned. I unlike gennisis would like to meet a man who can say McDonald's and Burger King are the same. Ugh Yuk Ugh Yuk. But he does have some saving graces he didnt put the Dukes in that category.

Well I always say that McDonald's and Burger King are the same. They are both unedible, and certainly unreadable.

I thought they were better known for eating lots of pussies!:jap:

I can't believe there are 4 pages of respones about hamburgers.....Advertising does work in wonderfully devious ways doesn't it.

Wait till he adds FREE WATER and see what happens!

Is this typical for them to just stop them from being legal tender? Normally governments do that with something like a currency split where they take a couple zeros off. They only stopped printing these 3 years ago.

What they're doing is effectively voiding a lot of currency. It turns into a gift certificate that has value, but only in a certain place.

The reason for withdrawing the notes, as the BOE do with all denominations after a period of time, is to reduce the chances of forgery. The new Adam Smith notes were introduced in 2007 and at that time it was announced that theElgar (he of Pomp & Circumstance Musical Fame) would be withdrawn idc.

Like ALL withdrawn notes these will still be accepted at face value by the BOE no matter how long ago the notes were withdrawn. The notes can still be exchanged at all banks, bulding scocities and Post Officeces, at the managers discretion.

Don't panic!

A few years ago (when I was still rich!), I needed to transfer 2 million baht between 2 Thai banks. The easiest way to do it was to withdraw this as cash from one bank, walk across the road to the other bank and deposit it.

This is still the quickest and easiest way to transfer money between two different banks in the UK. It takes a full three working days to do a bank - bank transfer with different banks on a personal account there (at my bank anyway). Of course if you pay more than £10,000 in cash into your account the inland revenue are informed just for good measure.

In UK do an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) before 1515 on any working day and the funds will be in the other UK bank account (business or private) the same working day. May cost up to Max £25./ transaction.

Inter same bank transfers are not subject to the £10,000 money laundering checks and will be instant.

The Thai's love their cash!

I'm at the bank at least a couple of times a month and there is nearly allways someone either depositing or withdrawing large amounts of cash.

In Australia even medium sized banks you need to give them 24 hours notice if you need to withdraw more than $10k.

Acouple of months ago I was a Bkk Bank branch and a couple of tellers down there was a woman withdrawing about (approx) 6 million! The money counting machine was going flat chat for at least 10 minutes and then she just stuffed the cash inside her bag.

She finished just before me and I follower outside where I expected her to jump into a security car or something. She jumped into a tuktuk!!

Not a taxi, a <deleted> tuktuk!!!

I felt like robbing her myself

Bloody big bag to hold that much, plus the weight!

With a name of FORD I guess you hair will have to be FIXED OR REPAIRED DAILY.

haha

guess it's hard to find hairdresser named Toyota in cm

do Japanese have a right to work as a hairdressers in Thailand?

No, I don't think so, but if they are "Topia" trained maybe they could trim your bush!

Have you thought about using the 'IraqGoals' (www.---------.TV) web site. Every game should be shown there with most earopean languages. (site is good for all goal based & other games)

Back on topic! You will not find a non Thai legally doing hairdressing in Thailand. Your choices, apart from the 40/50bht posters are to go for the big Salons advised earlier and pay for their standard sevice, A large hotel boutiqe or some of the smaller tourest orientated salons are probably more likely to soot your needs. One of the best is Shampooh Salon between the Chiang Mai Plaza and Chedi hotels. Both the staff speak english, especially the girl (oz BF) and their main trad is tourist. The boss has won a number of international awards and does know about light curly hair!

Hope it helps

Are you a Thai citizen? Because foreigners can not "buy a house" in Thailand. Only a condominium.

Absolutely correct.

Is the OP suggesting that members advise him on how to do something illegal?

I am confused. Both elektrified and bigwheelman seem to be replying to an OP that I cannot see. Am I doing something wrong or has the original post been removed?