briley

Everyone has different needs - I live long enough each year in CM to make ADSL well worth while, especially compared to prices in other countries. Otherwise the TOT 1222 number (just checked the number with my always on ADSL :-) ) is cheaper than Loxinfo.

I agree Loxinfo are a good service but if I can find someone giving equivalent service cheaper then I change. If you have a TOT phone and a bill you can give them a try - for 3baht for 2 hours!

The cheapest way for occasional use has to be the internet cafe at 12 baht an hour, think that beats loxinfo and you don't have to buy a computer!

If you have a TOT line you can dial in to their - is it 1221???? - internet service, you get 2 hours for 1 phone call, ie 3 baht. You have to get a username and password, these can be got on the TOT website or any TOT office for free.

(http://signup.totonline.net/)

When I used to use it the connection was fine.

But I would seriously consider ADSL, TOT charge 500 baht a month and often have free connection periods, otherwise 1000 baht. Plus you need a modem - under 2000 baht.

Dial up, even the free one, is 3baht a call. Do that once a day and you spend 300 baht a month, not much less than ADSL which is always on. And once you've had always on you'll not want to go back.

wow no charges at all.

that's the best news I've heard today. I will transfer into my SCB bank this way in future and get ftt markings. Not dependant on UK rates but the rate at SCB. Next step see if you can negotiate better than the tourist rate for large amounts.

Cheers briley. What u havin? it's my round!

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Using Nationwide you get virtual the market rate, the difference it fractional. It is not the 'tourist rate' that can mean anything. Look at the Bangkok Bank exchange rate page,

http://www.bangkokbank.co.th/Bangkok+Bank/...es/FX+Rates.htm

Using a Nationwide card either over the counter or via the ATM you get the TT buying rate (currently 71.88500). Compared to their TT selling rate (currently 72.48000) the bank makes 0.595 Baht per GBP, or 0.83% profit.

You'd have to be bringing in a heck of a lot to get a bank to better that, after all the bank has to do two transactions (buy and sell) to make their 0.83% profit.

Rinrada: Used my Flex account direct debit card. Nationwide do make charges against the credit card.

It was put direct into my savings account with the FTT markings, forgein telegraphic transfer? BUT note that I did make a comment that I wanted the FTT for immigration so it might be optional?

Oops sorry about the duplicate posting..................

Rinrada: Used my Flex account direct debit card. Nationwide do make charges against the credit card.

It was put direct into my savings account with the FTT markings, forgein telegraphic transfer? BUT note that I did make a comment that I wanted the FTT for immigration so it might be optional?

AFAIK it is impossible to recieve short wave via a card in a computer as the interference is far too much of a problem.

The speeds used in a computer is in the short wave frequency range.

hi briley - could you explain how you go about getting bkk bank to do the transfer for you to your bkk bank savings account free of charge ?  What do you say and what nationwide card do you use ?

Cheers

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Sort of very simple.

Took my debit card, savings book and passport. Asked to pay 55,000 baht from my UK account (wave card) into my savings account. Cashier went and found the exchange rate and said is this OK? I said Yes (71 something baht). She runs my card through a little machine that prints off what looks like a credit card purchase and I sign the piece of paper. Savings book put through the machine and home I go.

Mind I did try in Tesco's branch of Bangkok bank and they said not possible use the ATM. So I went to Chiang Mai - Suthep road branch where my account is held and had no problems - except the queue.

Unfortunately the max on a single transaction is now limited to £300 quid a day but as said with the 3 atms our niece (likes visiting her local bank)can withdraw £900 /day. We are talking to N/W to up the limits so will see.

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Agreed Rinrada that Nationwide is the ONLY way to transfer money (except Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society)

But the GBP300 limit is easy to circumvent. I have a Bangkok Bank saving account. Go into the branch with card and savings book (oh and Passport) and they will transfer any amount to my savings account - I have transfered 55,000 baht in one go, a friend reportedly transfered 600,000 baht in one go. No charges.

I even did a withdrawal at the ATM at the same time. They went through on different days but the different in exchange rate was under 0.1 baht so still no charges.

Some people slept through the whole exercise!

I'm above the fire but something woke me to the smell of smoke, I was out before the fire brigade arrived.

Wonder if I can guess which condo block after events of Monday night/tuesday morning?

Not read all messages so this might have been said before:

Not much point in an SMS service that insists on your having a mobile. If you have a mobile then you can send an SMS.

I don't have a mobile but need/want to send some SMS's so use similar web to SMS services in the UK. It would be nice to have the same service in Thailand but this service is not the thing I need.

Pity you are not told about the need for a mobile phone BEFORE registering. Still I have 100 SMS's I can't use, anyone want to buy them?

I use 008 when I want to phone the UK,

But this time the firm wants me to phone them (I don't want to talk to them) and offered to take a reverse charge call.

But I can't make it work.

As I said the phone home from TOT doesn't work and CAT reverse charge calls is not free, or even cheap. Seems to cost more that 008.

TOT advertise the number 1800 0 044 99 and claim that you get a UK operator who will then connect a reverse charge call. This is from their web site and was confirmed when I phoned TOT.

When I tried it I got a recorded BT operator asking for my account and PIN - not much use.

Has anyone managed to make a reverse charge call to the UK? If so, How?

I don't want to use the CAT service as they seem to charge - and it is not cheap. Seems to me to be 100 baht if you get through and more if the calling party is an answer machine/refuses the call/don't answer etc. And on top of that you are paying for the Thai leg of the call.

Page 4 of current US Tourist passport "This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way.  Alteration may make it invalid, and, if willful, may subject you to prosecution (Title 18, US Code Section 1543). 

Amazing what officials write without thinking.

Reading the above means it is illegal (by who's laws?) to put in a visa stamp at the airport etc.

And even worse, I hope you have never removed the TM.6 from your passport.

Making the assumption that the cambodian visa can be removed without marking the passport, ie it is stapled in or something, then go ahead.

Incidentally the UK passport says it "... should not be tampered with ...". Provided scotsman has a UK passport the authorities don't care much about the stamps/ lack of stamps in a passport. But don't use it to keep your shopping list on the observations page as a friend of mine used to do.

It is my impression that it is the US$ rising against all currencies, not the pound falling. As the Baht and US$ keep to an almost fixed exchange rate that means the GBP Baht rate falls.

Still I got about 72 last week. Not so bad.

Have you got a FAT32 filing system or NTFS? Making the assumption you do not have a bad disc (run check disc or whatever it is called and do a surface scan as well, takes ages) you can do one or other of the following

The FAT32 method is a dirty method but does solve the problem however if a further problem occurs with your hard drive then it does not check it in addition it means manual changing your registry files. Everyone gives the warning don't do this unless you know what you are doing. Set a restore point before making the changes. Anything you break is your own problem.

Checking Chkdsk Status:

WinXP should only run Chkdsk if the "Dirty" flag is set for (one of) your hard drives. After Chkdsk completes it then resets the dirty flag. To check the state of the dirty flag for your C: drive, at the Command Prompt type : fsutil dirty query c: The response should be "Volume - c: is NOT Dirty"

To stop this but not fix the drives errors

1. Run the Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). You must use Regedt32.exe and not Regedit.exe

2. Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

3. Change the BootExecute value from:

autocheck autochk *

to:

autocheck autochk /k:x *

Where x is the drive letter, e.g. if you wanted to stop the check on drive f: you would type autocheck autochk /k:f *. To stop the check on multiple volumes just enter the drive names one after another, e.g. to stop the check on e: and g: autocheck autochk /k:eg *, you do not retype the /k each time.

If you are using NT 4.0 with Service Pack 2 or above, you can also use the CHKNTFS.EXE command which is also used to exclude drives from the check and updates the registry for you. The usage to disable a drive is

chkntfs /x <drive letter>:

e.g. chkntfs /x f: would exclude the check of drive f:

To set the system back to checking all drives just type

chkntfs /d

Since the UK passport no longer has an 'issued at' bit you can leave it empty on form - well that is what I do.

Is the gasohol 91 the same as 91 octane petrol - in that my Honda dream will run on it?

No problem leaving a condo empty - but take normal precautions.

Make sure you have good locks - at least one dead lock.

Swithc off the electricity, water and shut all windows. No need to clean the place.

If you leave draws and cupboards open there is much lest chance of mould on clothing on return.

Leave the key with someone trusted - ie someone who will not rent the condo out for a few months your away! This is only in case someone has to get in, ie you left some papers in the condo and now need them.

As said bills can be paid direct from the bank, but it takes a couple of months to be sure the system is set up. Otherwise you can pre-pay on all bills. Just go in with a wad of money and they happily accept it.

Some people leave money with the condo to pay bills - if you trust them that can also work.

Chiang Mai immigration charge 300 baht and need copy of passport and photo - thats all. Takes a good half hour but not available over lunch time.

I use PTgui which is a front end for panarama. This enables you to import the pictures, set points that are on the overlap and then the program makes the panorama - anything up to 360 degrees and can have multi layers of pictures.

The only problem is that whilst panorama is free it is hard to use, PTGui makes it easy to use but is not free. look at ptgui website.

You then need a viewer - plenty of free ones about.

Would add for the OP you can only get one 30 day extension for each 60 day on entry - ie each entry is for a maximum of 90 days.

(OK you can get 10 days whilst a further extension is considered but that costs 1,900 more - bit expensive.)

Any particular download managers recommended?

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Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) but not the spyware infested free version. THe paid for version can be picked up in many places.

BUT SpyBot doesn't like DAP and tries to uninstall even the full version that doesn't have spyware.

Incidentally d/l accelerators are good on Thai broadband and helps get the best our of your connection. No one download connection ever gives me more than 50% of my bandwidth, but 4 downloads often give me 100% of the bandwidth for long periods at a time

The original hard disc has a problem - OK blindingly obvious!

Your operating system can't 'see' it, whether you boot from DOS or any other method.

In this case I'd check the BIOS settings (at boot-up press Del on many computers, otherwise read the screen) and check that the disc is recognised by the BIOS. If it isn't recognised there then you had a dead hard disc, maybe a warrnetee swap out but I doubt it.

If it is recognised then boot using your floopy to A:

Check all the rest I write as it is just my experience - be it on your own head.

I am assuming that the bad hard disc is the ONLY hard disc in the computer. If you have other hard drives then the drive letters can be different. Doing what I say could delete all your data on a good drive. You are warned.

Before anything else I would try:

Check that the program fdisk.exe is on the floppy.

Then can you do C: and get the C:\ prompt?

If so do "a:\fdisk /mbr" (no quotes) -- would others reconfirm that this NEVER causes problems it just re-writes the master boot record on the drive?

If that does not work I would suggest you have lost the data on the disc - never to be recovered.

The rest of this will destroy ALL DATA on your hard disc.

Go to drive A (A:)

use format c: (assuming you have the format program on the disc in drive A)

If that works you have a working empty disc you can use as a second drive.

If it doesn't you might have to try using Fdisk to setup the drive then format it.

If that doesn;t work look for a dustbin.

Suspect that the exception is if you arrive in the evening and are going for the last Thai air flight. Then booking in advance might be a good idea although I suspect it is never fully booked except at holiday time.