spog

All the old offices are open with the exception of Pingklow which is open next week after redecoration.

Personally, I'd give it a couple of weeks to settle down before you apply, if possible.

Sounds like they are probably crap quality. The ones I've seen wouldn't fool an immigration official on the first day of the job. About as authentic as a 100 baht note printed out on an inkjet printer.

It's not as bad as that:

The validation tool does not stop you from receiving the security updates. MS has been rather sensible and will allow anyone to get all the security patches. What you don't get are the enhancements and upgrades (eg directX updates).

Seems rather fair to me.

Original or ahem, not-so-original?

Don't you just love unnamed sources?

The fact that the gate cannot read other countries' machine readable passports might be attributed to the fact that there are no other machine-readable passports in the world.

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Untrue. I have had a machine-readable (Canadian) passport for over 2 years now. The airports in Dubai (and even the one here in Kabul, Afghanistan), have had passport readers for over a year now.

I'm at the point of having to apply for a new passport, as my current one is almost full. When I checked into it, I was told that the embassy here would have to send the application to the embassy in Pakistan, who would issue the new passport, but it wouldn't be machine-readable.

The only way to get another machine-readable passport would be to travel back to Canada and apply there.

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Add Malaysia to that list. They have had machine readable passports for 2-3 years.

Not sure if their gate will read other nations passports

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I knew that I was going to have to clarify my remarks. I thought I could be lazy and get away with it.....

'machine-readable' means simply a passport that can be scanned into a computer - ie it has the 2 lines of text on the bottom of the datapage that it OCR-swiped.

Thailand has had this for over 10 years.

What has just been launched is the new chip-based passport. 'Biometrically-enabled' is a more accurate title. The standard was defined in reponse to US demands for the 27 countries in the visa-waiver programme. Bad reporting means that the phrase 'machine readable' is being used instead of the correct term.

And there are only a handful of countries in the world that are issuing these and Thailand is the first for a full-scale roll-out. A couple of places in Europe are playing around with pilot programmes.

The Malaysian IDcard/passport doesn't count as it doesn't meet any worldwide

standards. (ICAO).

Chaos reigns at passport section

``The gate cannot read other countries' machine-readable documents as Thailand has yet to be recognised by authorities from other countries,'' a source said.

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Don't you just love unnamed sources?

The fact that the gate cannot read other countries' machine readable passports might be attributed to the fact that there are no other machine-readable passports in the world.

Truecrypt has a good reputation.

Personally. I prefer PGP. You can buy the full version that lets you encrypt the whole disk, or the free version that lets you make a file that becomes a disk (like Firefoxx described)

Pretty much sounds like the HDD is at fault.

About the only other thing you could do is to plug both drives in at the same time - your old one as master, the new one as slave. Then you can boot using your old disk and try to see if you can access the new one through windows.

But I am fairly sure that it is a dead drive. Take it back and don't feel embarassed.

thanks for the replies... very helpfull, but I'm thinking the scanner might be a bit big for hand luggage.

I will have to trust i can do a good job in packing it up to withstand the throwing around by luggage handlers.

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Bags get a severe pounding if you check them in. I'd very very nervous of sending a scanner that way. Even if the glass doesn't get broken, a good, hard knock (which it *will* get) might knock stuff out of alignment.

Personally, I would DHL it and then you at least have insurance if it gets damaged in transit

You can bring it on the plane, no problem. Just make sure that you wrap it well.

I would hand-carry the scanner as they really don't like the rough treatment that baggage handlers would inflict.

I doubt customs would care.

With orange, you get a a different time limit, depending on how much you recharge by and what package you are on.

e.g my wifes phone give her something like 2 months for 300 baht and 3 months for 500 baht (I can't remember the figures)

But my Orange phone give me 1 years credit on any refill - I think it is because I am on a different package - but no one at the Orange shop seems to know exactly why.

I don't make a big fuss in case they reset something

Humerous yes ..if it wasn`t so serious.

With to-day`s GSM technology an experienced bomb maker will be able to wire together a phone and detonator.  Phones are reliable and the cautious terrorist can either use the things alarm clock to trigger the bomb, thereby avoiding anxiety about unintentional lethal telemarketing or other calls, or make sure that only a call from his own number will cause the phone to ring.

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Ssh, they'll have us registering all our alarm clocks next

So, 180 baht per hour is 3 baht per minute and that gives you an internet connection only.

Or you could go to an internet cafe where:

2 baht per minute gives you an internet connection. And a chair and desk. And a loan of a computer. And Aircon. And technical support.

Hmm.

1 - sorry - not sure - but they're always been open whenever I have flown and I have taken flights around that time.

2- never had any problems like that. They don't seem to have any link between what someone takes out and what they bring in.

Of course, that's against the law which is why I've never done anything like that. Oh dear, no, not me, not never.

Gif is very good for line drawings and pictures with hard edges. Jpeg is better for pictures of people and places

ACDSEE has an excellent batch convertor and I think the older versions are freeware

Microsoft has a neat little 'powertoy' called 'image resizer' which allows you to right click and convert a bunch of files into smaller jpegs

Like wot they said.

But if you do use one, make sure that your earth is tested. Not all places have earths and those that do, may not actually be connected anywhere.

If you don't trust your building, then a fused extension gang might be more reliable.

Failing that, do what I do and never go anywhere without wearing rubber gloves and wellington boots.

Ah, so when we give Tea Money to the traffic cops, it's going towards buying new vehicles?

I never understood that they were collecting for charity - perhaps they should wear red noses when they pull over motorists?

Jeez, I know that the mobile operators here in Thailand are behind the times, but surely they can't have just received this urban legend spam. I remember getting it on fax, before email was popular.

This ONLY worked on American PBX systems (office systems). ONLY on a few systems and ONLY on ones that had been incorrectly set up.

There are not SIM cracks, hacks or magic numbers.

Furthermore, if I got a call from Vodafone, I would be asking them why they are calling a Thai mobile when they are a European company.

If I got a call from Cellnet, I would be asking why they are calling me from 5 years in the past (since that is when Cellnet became O2).

This highlights the stupidity of some of the mobile operators here and helps explains that busy signal I keep getting.

You can normally click on the line that says it is going to install to such and such drive/folder and select what you want.  I always did that when I had partitioned drive.

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I agree... this can normally be done...however on some programs I have downloaded, it downloads onto the desktop first, then you have to click on that to install... it then installs directly to the C drive without giving any options.

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copy the downloaded file from your desktop into your d: drive.

Then doubleclick (run) it from there. It may then install onto the D: drive.

The ones with software managment come with a port to connect the UPS to your PC - usually a com port. If it has one, then you might be able to download from the web

Of course, she couldn't sell stolen Thai passports for two reasons:

1) the new chip-passport means that stolen passports are useless

2) thai passports are pretty useless anyway

So we've all heard about the recent big leak of credit card info by hacking to a Mastercard outsourcing contractor computer in the US.  I'm not a US citizen and there's already a report of more than B40 million losses in my country alone due to recent hacking among credit card holders who has either used credit card in US or ordered goods to on-line shopping stores in US.  I have done a fair amount of shopping with amazon.com in the past.  Should I cancel my card and reissue another one?  Has anyone bothered to do so?

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Don't worry. Just keep an eye on your account for dodgy transactions.

You're protected against fraud - you won't have to pay for these transactions - it is the credti card issuer's responsbility (or the vendors) not yours

Even with security protocols etc, isn't it just plain dangerous to use wifi anywhere for sensitive information?

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Yes and no.

If the site has a https secure page (ie the little padlock appears in the corner of your browser when you are connected), then you are safe.

You should be looking for this anytime you send your personal details - I'd never use a creidt card on an insecure page.

And that applies whether it is wifi or cabled connections. Both are as secure / just as insecure as each other.

So - reading the apple store sory - it's not that they are dodgy, it is just that a few dodgy people have used their connection to do dodgy things and the bank knows this. So it is unfair to warn about the nice people at the apple store.

It happens everywhere.

The good thing is that you're protected and will not have the pay the fraudulent charges.

Of course, how painless that is, depends on your card supplier.

(I'm looking forward to chip cards, then I won't have to worry about this)

more likely wrong translation.

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There's no version of the article in Thai. Must be the high standards of journalism we've come to expect.

A Malaysian guy I was speaking to at the weekend said this was not a giod idea.

Malysia has already experimeted with it and they are now wrooroed about the security of their passport details because the same company is also involved with NIGERIA. Is there any need to say more ?!

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Um, just because the're involved in Nigeria, doesn't make them a risky company.

I believe that Toyota sells cars to Nigeria - so therefore we should be wary of Toyotas?