Darrel

I came at 40 to the Quid

When was it 40 Baht to 1 GBP?

the British Embassy and their staff did'nt think it was their responsibility either to help British citizens after the tsunami.

I remember seeing (on television) a group of people from the British Embassy who had gone down to the Phuket area quite soon after the event. I dont know what they actually did there though.

I'm not a Brit so cannot contact the British Embassy to ask for confirmation of this.

Nonsense. There is no reason at all why they should not answer you.

It's the consulate or consular services that you need to contact about this anyway, not the Embassy.

So its confirmed then that the British Embassy DO NOT REPATRIATE.

I have seen nothing even approaching confirmation in this thread.

There are certainly people out there who believe that Truecrypt was a CIA honeypot that contains a backdoor. The fact that its open source means zilch except that no one knows who the developers are.

Not at all. If anything is really open-source then the source code will be downloadable and viewable by anyone (well, anyone who can understand it and who has a few months to spare to work through it). If you have the source code then you can compile it yourself and know for certain that the compiled executable contains no backdoor that isnt in the code.

That's the whole point.

If the code isnt downloadable then there could be anything in it, for sure.

Dell Thailand is not difficult to order.

Call the number on the website. Order the model number you want

So much for online commerce and the 21st century!

And how do you know which model number to order when there is (apparently) no list of products or prices on the site? I suppose you ask the guy on the phone and he sends you a paper catalogue?

Even Apple can manage a decent online shop in Thailand, why cant Dell? No wonder Dell are going bust.

"Absolutely 100% failproof guarantee that I won't lose files or wind up unable to access them (this is FAR more important than keeping them secure"

Truecrypt is way over the top for your needs, as you dont require 100% privacy. Do a search for "folder password protection": there are many simple solutions, some pay, some free, some built into Windows already. Few if any will be as secure as Truecrypt, but you said that the privacy aspect is not vital.

But do bear in mind that NONE of them guarantees that your files wont be lost if the container becomes corrupted or if you forget your password.

You MUST make copie(s) of any important data, be it encrypted or unencrypted.

Supply and demand...

Those two, and labour costs/inflation.

Im just waiting for another baht bust like 97 with the massive amounts of foreign capitol coming in and being loaned out with no chance of it being repaid by the borrowers.

You may not have long to wait. I was horrified to read the other day that Thailand only very recently capped mortgage loans for condos at 90% value. Since the last crash you would be lucky to get 75% on residential property in the UK, and rightly so.

I was even more horrified to read that Kbank has one of the biggest exposures to domestic residential loans. Kbank is my bank and I'm seriously thinking about changing.

That's why you should use registered post (aka signed-for, recorded and special delivery).

The little bookshop opposite Pattaya Post Office has diaries. Also pencil sharpeners.

My first line of defense is a 3 meter high wall around the outer perimeter of my property. At the corners, there are towers manned by well trained and armed marksmen. All of them are army trained snipers. At night they use night time visors.......

Ah, thanks. That explains where all these ex-SAS, CIA and Special Forces guys in the bars here get their beer money, and what they do when they aren't drinking. I've often wondered.

"Posters on this forum and writers of online teaching books should learn to write proper English like what I do."

Ernie Wise

On the other hand you get the new ones with the new feel but these are often even more over priced versions of the older ones, the walls are just as thin, the fittings are just as tacky and in a few years they will feel just as seedy.

At least old units have ceramic floor tiles (and some are even good quality tiles). Many new builds now come with cheap laminate floors.

Also it can be difficult to accurate gauge even a fair rental price in Pattaya. I was offered a place on a one year lease at 35,000 p/m. I came back with a 30,000 offer and asking for a new 42' TV. I thought I was haggling and would get a counter offer. I didn't, the owner nearly bit my hand off to take the offer, leaving me feeling like I had probably overpaid.

I'm afraid you did. Rental asking prices here suffer from the same syndrome as re-sale asking prices. They are way over the top and very negotiable.

It's common to hear "owner nearly bit my hand off".

Do you need a swimming pool?

Special offer this week only: big free municipal pools on every street!

I bought a Samsung 26" (T260) from IT City at TukCom 1 1/2 years ago for 12,900 baht. They had to order it from their store in Bangkok, but as I recall it only took a few days. I would think the price would have come down since then.

Only one monitor over 24" on the site that I could see: and that was a 27" Samsung for the same 12,900 you paid.

The big difference in prices and the rarity of screens over 23" makes me wonder if there isnt some sort of extra tax on larger screens here?

Dell U Series upto 30" availale from Dell Thailand direct to your door.

I've never liked Dell websites: very complicated and hard to navigate around. The Thai one is a masterpiece though: I spent 5 minutes on it just now and couldnt find a list of available monitors, let alone any way to buy one. Also they dont seem to cater for private buyers here at all: just big and small businesses.

No wonder they are going bust!

Yes, Chinese software companies are often dodgy.

Truecrypt is open source which must a significant point in its favour.

UPS or DHL or registered Royal Mail should all get here.

Personally I try to do as much as possible with scans via email.

We all understand the difference here between the asking and selling price. Sellers and buyers understand prices are negotiable. When I priced condos to sell you always give yourself some "wiggle" room and it also makes the buyer feel good getting a lower price. But we are talking about real estate here and not T-shirts. When you make unsupported generalizations of high prices and offers of 30-50% and you lose all credibility. If you made me an offer like that I would escort you the lift or the balcony edge of my condo and say the way down is your choice.

And your unit would remain unsold, just like hundreds of others here.

Everyone the world over knows that there is a margin for negotiation in property prices. It's just like used cars. However in most places with a normal market, that margin might be somewhere between 0 and 10% (though in every country and town there is also the occasional Pattaya-style loony vendor, who asks way over the top and who cant sell). Here the margin just happens to be much higher. Unfortunately many owners think that because everyone in their building is asking 4MB for units like theirs that it actually means that those people will get just under 4MB when (if) they sell, and not that they will settle for 3Mb or maybe even 2.5 or 2.

I have seen a nice enough place on a decent beach that started life at 3.8MB and over the last couple of years has dropped to 2.75MB. It isnt sold.

In another building I saw a unit that started at 6MB and sold when the asking price had dropped to 3.9MB (though for all I know it actually sold for less). There are a couple of identical units in that building that are up for sale at between 5 and 6MB.

I also saw a reasonable unit that sold for well under 2MB in a building where just about everything the same size is listed at 2.5 - 3MB, or even 3.5MB.

Another unit with a stunning view (no, not one of these agents' "sea views" where you can see 1 square inch of sea if you stand on a chair in the bathroom), at well under 3MB asking price in a building where other owners are asking 5MB for similar sized ones, or just over 2MB for units half the size. And all not sold.

A large unit in good order and in a popular building that sold with an asking price of 3MB. In the same building there are many units in worse condition and only 2/3rds the size, with an asking price of 0.5MB more. Not selling though.

This compares with a house in Europe that was sold for 98% of the asking price within 2 months of being put on the market. The asking price was based on the official recent selling prices of similar houses in that street, as released by the government land agency. During the recession, I might add.

If I was selling and I got one of these offer 50 percent bozos after pricing the unit based on my perception of the market (which isn't that hard to determine really), I would probably just laugh at the guy and say Bye Bye. Why waste time with a buyer like that who is never going to pay anywhere near the price you think your place is worth?

The seller's perception of the condo market is:

1) largely irrelevant, as it is the buyer's opinion that matters

and

2) based on other asking prices, nearly all of which are total fantasy also, at least around here

It all boils down to the indisputable fact that used condos in Pattaya sell extremely slowly (if at all) and the reason for that is because they are overpriced. It really is that simple. Just because a seller thinks his condo is worth xMBaht doesnt make it so. It is only worth what someone will pay for it, and if the seller is just going to reject everyone who is a serious buyer but who doesnt share his absurdly high estimate of his condo's worth then he will wait a very long time to sell. And indeed that is precisely what we see here. Many wait years and years and years and even after that they still dont sell.

In countries where there is a serious property market (as opposed to the fantasy one that exists here) an agent will provide an estimation of value based on recent sale prices (not asking prices) of similar properties. Here that isnt so easy as lots of places are on sale (at very high asking prices), very few sell, and even when they do sell the real price is not known.

If anyone thinks there is another viable reason perhaps they could say so?

Try searching for clipboard manager. I suspect that autocomplete in your browser is what you really need though.

Wifi + VPN should do the trick.

It's unfair to say that Apple products suck in Thailand though. I'm pretty sure they suck just as much everywhere else. They are always the most expensive way of doing anything, that's for sure.

If you are talking about typing into web forms, most browsers will remember common form entries like your email address and will offer them for you automatically as you fill in the form. You may have turned this off at some point. Look for 'autocomplete" or "forms" in the browser preferences or options.

There are also specific programmes for Windows that will remember many bits of common information and allow you to copy them in easily. Some will also remember passwords and logins.

There are also some clipboard managers that allow you to "stack" information.