gamb00ler

A family member conducts significant business using virtual meetings so I would like a failover option to reduce interruptions. Our primary internet will be a fibre connection. I expect I'll have to settle for nested routers, with the ISP's modem in bridge mode. Hopefully it will be more reliable than our current connection at our rented house.

I agree... OLT accepts my Thai address, works well and is free for federal filing. The user interface could be a little better. After using for 2 years I can finish my return in an hour. I have all income details ready by about the 2nd week of Jan. as I keep excellent records in a spreadsheet throughout the year.

When you notice that it's raining everywhere outside, do you not carry an umbrella? It's raining sugar on your food... asking for less sugar is your protection. Is it so hard? Google Translate will help you with that.

After being told by the Immigration officer that I needed a copy of each extension stamp, I went back outside to check the list of copies required. The same requirement was listed under both retirement and marriage extensions. I would interpret that to mean that if you have had extensions using both types, you would still need a copy of every extension stamp.

I'll give the good news first.... I got my extension using a BKK bank fixed account balance for the first 3 months following my last extension. Being careful to have a period of overlap, I switched to using the SCB EZ savings for the 9 months preceding my current extension. If you're going to do this be careful with the timing and make sure there isn't any window where you can't prove the required balance. CM Immigration was very busy when I arrived there at about 11:30AM. My minor tasks I had to take care of before Imm took longer than I had hoped. I needed a couple of copies before I passed the document check so didn't get a queue number until after the lunch break. It went downhill after that. At 5:15 I was nearly the last customer out of there. A new (to me) requirement caused another delay. Now they want a copy of ALL previous extension stamps rather than just the most recent.

Thankfully, you're not accurate. My stepson has lived in this CM neighborhood for 35 years. He's in the restaurant business and knows how to serve healthy food and also knows where to get healthy meals. My wife usually politely asks the restaurant to eliminate as much added sugar and salt as possible. After several years we're so used to low sugar meals that when we accidentally get a "normally" sweetened dish we notice it's too sweet on the first bite. If we want more salt, there is usually fish sauce at hand.

All my family are Canucks and most love Thai food ... care to share the details of the restaurant in a PM?

In 2022 I opened an SCB EZ savings account (1.5%) planning to use it to hold the funds for my retirement extensions. I brought the balance up to 400K ฿. A couple of weeks later I closed out my fixed deposit account (only .65%) and moved those funds to the EZ account. I like the ease with which I can adjust the EZ balance to match Immigration's requirements and of course the higher interest I receive. There is no passbook for this account so you will need to do a few transactions to ensure your statements contain what Immigration is looking for. Yesterday I went to my SCB branch to get the account verification letter and a statement covering the period that the EZ account held the funds required for my extension. SCB charged me 200฿ for each document but at least they were available in 20 minutes. Since the EZ account has no passbook, I ensure that there is a transaction on the account every month. The monthly statements I can download from SCB will be essentially blank if there are no transactions for that month. That statement doesn't even show the balance unless there's a transaction. Another issue for the EZ account is that you need to do a transaction the day before you request a statement from the branch. The statement produced at the SCB branch will only include transactions completed the day before you make the request. I will be going for my extension this week. I see others have been successful with this account so I think I should be as well.

You should be able to find gang hung lay as it's a northern specialty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaeng_hang_le

I have to disagree. The pre-prepared pastes are excellent if bought from the correct vendor. Go to the vendor where you see about 20 different pastes piled up in big ceramic bowls. A good green curry paste is much more green than brown. The canned and the plastic pouch versions of curry paste are the ones to avoid. I recommend you only buy your curry paste in a large open market located in Central Thailand around Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chaochengsao, etc. That area is the home of that type of curry. My wife is from central Thailand and is an awesome cook with excellent english. She teaches me all about Thai food and how to select quality ingredients.

LOL ..... my Thai family would say: "you silly farang". Red and green curry are traditional central Thai dishes. Thais consider those dishes too simple to order at a restaurant. They do buy it at open markets and from local street vendors during the day. Central dwelling Thais don't want to order it from restaurants because they eat it all the time at home. All the places that you mention that don't serve curry..... they're all in Northern Thailand and they serve what the locals like... and it isn't curry. Thai food varies greatly from region to region. You should know better than to generalize from you experience around CM to ALL of Thailand.

The VM has its own copy of the operating system and all user files. They are completely independent of the host system (your Mac). There is no transfer of data between the host and the VM except that which you do by copying it yourself. However, you may have an issue in connecting the VM to a different network than the host. I can't recall how VMWare handles access to the network. What I chose to do is have an extra computer sitting on my network which performs a few different tasks. I have a headless (no screen, keyboard or mouse attached) Raspberry Pi. I use it to filter out ads from my home network and I also use it as a seed box for torrenting. In the near future it will also be handling home automation and some home security. Such a setup would work well for you as long as you don't mind learning how to use Linux a little. Pi's are cheap (or will be once the chip shortage is over) and uses only sips of juice.

There are two completely separate issues that you may want to resolve to hide the fact that you're in Thailand. You understand the IP address issue and the easiest solution is a pair of the dongles. The other issues is that the computer you're using in Thailand will provide clues about your location. Those clues are primarily the timezone you have configured. I'm not sure what other clues that may exist but they will probably be less convincing than the timezone. You can resolve this second issues by several methods. You can diligently remove the clues from your everyday computer but that is not as easy as it sounds and certainly not that convenient. Another method is to use a different computer that is permanently configured to appear to be located in the US. As you had earlier suggested you could buy another computer, configure it appropriately and install it in your sister's house for you to use it via Teamviewer or another remote access software. There is no need for that extra computer to be located in the US. It doesn't even need to be an actual computer, it could be a VM that is running on your everyday computer in Thailand. The VM will have a completely independent copy of an OS, browser, cookies, etc (everything else) from its host computer. The separate computer/VM will be connected via the dongle to your sister's network in the US. Just as on your everyday computer, you are in complete control of everything on the separate computer/VM.

Are you sure that's the fault of the dogs?

You're not 100% correct. The promotional material the company publishes is probably using the term VPN to refer to actual commercially marketed services not the technical definition of a VPN service. A VPN is typically created by implementing one of several well-defined protocols specifically created for this task. But as we all know there are many ways to skin a cat. The dongle company is free to implement what amounts to VPN service but call it TSC (top secret communications) or not give it any name at all. They can "reverse engineer" a custom solution instead of using one of the common software stacks that implement a VPN. The fact remains that they are providing a service that from the outside is indistinguishable from a VPN. The dongle solution requires two dongles and they are not interchangeable. One dongle implements the functionality of a VPN server. That dongle must be physically present and connected to your sister's network. The other dongle provides the functionality of a VPN client and will initiate all connections to its partner dongle at your sister's house. If I understand the functionality of dongle setup correctly, you would not be using a computer that is at your sister's house. The dongles simple give you access to your sister's home network. If you don't add another layer of isolation, you would still be using your own computer in Thailand to access any website. If you wish to completely isolate the web site from your computer you still need to remotely login to a separate computer that is connected to your sister's network. You would then use the browser on that separate computer. The dongles are doing nothing more than providing a VPN service that I described in my last post as the second method. The VPN service is not provided by a commercial (and therefor identifiable) server.... it is a private VPN and as such will not be known to any one outside. Your IP address will simply be that assigned to your sister's router by her ISP. You can also provide total isolation of your computer from any website by using a Virtual Machine (VM) running on your Thailand computer instead of using a machine physically in your sister's house. This VM should be configured to have an appropriate timezone and contain as little personal data as is practical. Assuming you go the dongle route, the steps to access a financial website would then be: disconnect from your normal internet connection login/connect to your sister's network start and login to the VM start a browser in the VM open the website and perform transaction close the browser and VM. exit/logout of the connection to your sister's network reconnect to your normal internet connection Since you are a Mac user you may have to acquire a working knowledge of some other OS to run in the VM. I don't know if MacOS can be run in a VM.

You can substitute a domestic SWIFT transfer in place of an ACH and the transfer will arrive in your Bangkok bank account just as in the "old" ACH transfer. Domestic SWIFT transfers are not free like the ACH of old, but they are often cheaper than international SWIFT transfers.

There are two methods to use a VPN to accomplish what you want. You tried using a VPN to a commercial server which then connects your home computer to a US based financial institution. You described very well the issues that arise with that method. The other method uses a VPN to connect your computer to a home network (your sister's network) based in US. Your computer now functions and appears as if it was physically in your sister's house and attached to her network. There is no direct way for the financial institution to determine the actual location of your computer. A diligent company could possible infer that your computer is not in your sister's home by examining the timezone setting on your computer and perhaps a few other crumbs of information they can extract using the limited capabilities of your browser. It is not too difficult to remove those hints so that your location remains completely hidden. Those dongles that @KhunHeinekenrecommends use the second method to hide your location. They implement a VPN between your home network in Thailand and your sister's home network in the US. An extra bit of information: The Virtual Private Network (VPN) function was originally designed to allow computers to appear to be connected to a remote network, not to conceal their location.

If you've got the $$, Sugatsune makes some very nice sliding door hardware. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IsHrwnriNba7MOTUvtiEemv3NXGotFSm/view?usp=sharing I did find a distributor in Bangkok.

We have one interior sliding door that uses Hafele hardware. It uses the same mechanism as a pocket door just isn't enclosed. It has soft open/close which costs an extra 4 - 5,000฿. We didn't want a pocket door as the enclosure can make maintenance complicated. I have pictures of almost every part of our house.... but not that door unfortunately. The mechanism is concealed in a box on the wall above the door. The box is about twice as wide as the door opening and about 15 - 20cm tall and about 10 - 12cm thick. The locking mechanism is very different for sliding doors. I'm not sure a suitable digital lock would be easy to source.

As long as you don't breathe, walk, drive or eat.... you should be OK!

Just like in RE... it's location, location, location. Right side of the tracks (AKA Northern hemisphere), bordering both major oceans, only populated by technologically backward and unorganized natives, no nasty neighbors, truly massive natural resources, decades of virtually free labor from the enslaved, acquired resistance to the diseases they brought with them that devastated the natives .... no rocket science needed to figure out why they ended up a superpower. The US became powerful despite having its share of bumbling idiots in charge.

Cotton met its match in this century. The newer synthetics are much better for staying cool in this climate. It's hard to find here, but linen is actually much cooler than cotton. Once you get used to the wrinkled look, it looks better than the synthetics. My favorite shirt is a waffle weave synthetic. It keeps the sun off but lets the air through to so the evaporation cools me.

Schwab: SWIFT fees (per their website) are $15 for online, $25 using an agent. However they often refund the fee for customers with larger balances. Sometimes they do that automatically, sometimes I've had to ask for the refund and sometimes I wasn't considered eligible. While living in US I had set up an order with Schwab to send to a BKK bank account and I could easily initiate a transfer over the phone to that specific account. After moving to CM, I stopped using SWIFT and now use my Schwab debit card to withdraw up to 15K $US (daily limit) at a BKK bank teller and incur NO fees. Using this method, VISA determines the exchange rate which is published once daily on their website. Currently VISA rate is 32.75 and BKK bank inbound TT rate is 32.70 (doesn't include the .25% receiving fee of 200-500฿). Wise: Their published rate is 32.78 at this moment but it is updated very frequently each day. Their fees appear to be $6.25/$1000US so their effective rate is actually 32.78 * .99375 = 32.575 but they will also charge you a fee if you have them move the funds from your US bank. Caveats: Using Wise you will get a locked in exchange rate when initiating the transfer. Using SWIFT you will get the exchange rate in effect when the money arrives at the Thai bank. The speed of transfer depends on how you move the funds to Wise and the local US time when you initiate the SWIFT at Schwab. You can use ACH to push the funds to Wise which will take 1-2 days but will save you the fees that Wise charges for moving the funds for you. Wise transfers can be used to satisfy Thai Immigration's requirement for monthly inbound transfers, but Schwab debit card transfers are not acceptable to Immigration.

Why do the lotto administrators announce when someone hits the top jackpot and say nothing when someone gets the second prize?

They are a pharmacy that provides a mail order service. The medications are the same you buy in a local pharmacy and are manufactured by the same companies that supply the brick and mortar pharmacies.