55Jay

What's the deal?

By the time the next elections will be held in Thailand most previous elected politicians will have died of old age.

I belive that is the plan.

For general reading info from an article in Military.com

Week of January 12, 2015

A University of California, Davis (UC-Davis)/U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 (NAMRU-6) collaborative study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 provided evidence that human movement contributes to the spread of dengue virus (DENV) infections, starting outbreaks......

http://www.military.com/military-report/navy-studies-dengue-virus?ESRC=miltrep.nl

The ailing HD in my Dell XPS420 (Vista OS) became very unreliable and then wouldn't boot up at all evening of 09JAN.

I gave that WIN7 HD another try, no dice, so with nothing to lose, I tried its "Restore Factory Settings". It went through the process and WIN7 booted up after restart; which for me was not a foregone conclusion, so I was pleasantly surprised when that happened.

Pib and others were right, it was pretty ugly, and took me a while in Device Manager to get things working and of course, the avalanche of Windows Updates. As several here opined, \System said my Windows OS Product Key didn't match the hardware - it was showing the former Vista Product Key. Located the MSoft COA sticker on the HP computer frame the WIN7 HD came from, entered that Key, verified genuine, good to go.

All seems to be stable now, nice to have this computer on Win7 instead of Vista. Thanks again for the comments and suggestions.

The article sure does gush about him and his specially designed chair. A normal luxury chair used by previous PMs, wasn't good enough.

Have you tried to call them?

Yes but we had trouble communicating, I'll be calling again once I get in contact with a friend that speaks Thai.

For those that have filled out the form, how did you fill in the part that says "quarantine at"?

Keep in mind, Thailand just went though a long holiday period. They could be working through a long queue of emails. I would try it again and if you have a Thai lang person handy, try the ping email in Thai. Not necessary but we started with them in Thai but the final sending of the permit and instructions was all in English.

On the "Quarantine At", we put a dash line. No entry.

Dang, all this talk about Lazada, I was reading this thread last night, went to the bedroom and my wife was on Lazada and had the two items she wanted (during our previous failed order attempt), in her "cart". What the hell, I said go ahead, so she ordered COD instead of using our credit card like last time. I just like to get the 1.5% cash back.

Mrs did avail a 10% voucher code which knocked 848.00 Baht off, and that was alright with me!

I've only had 1 attempt ordering from Lazada, which they stuffed up and could care less that they did, so I've never tried again.

Yeah, you may get the hd to boot, etc, but whenever something goes sideways you'll have to wonder if it's your weird installation. Do a fresh install of Win 7 and go in peace.

If the MS Office is on a CD there is no way for it to know how often it has been run -- it's read only!

These days, a lot of people copy the OS install disk to a USB drive and install from there. Saves time and grief.

Thanks, I'm going to do just that or something similar. For the moment though, this Vista HD keeps working so I'll ride it until it croaks, and then go from there.

Far as my MS Office disc goes, installing wasn't the problem the last time I tried a number of years ago. When I entered the product key to activate it online though, got a message saying that I had reach the max number of uses/activations. Have never tried to reinstall on a drive it existed on before, but I'll give it a go when the time comes.

Thanks again for your comment.

Thanks to all the respondents.

When this HD dies, I've decided to reinstall Vista on the spare HD using the Visa reinstall CD, and try to rescue the MS Office from its CD as well.

If my old Office can't be saved, oh well, welcome to 2015.

Will hang on with Vista until Win10 comes out, see what that's like. I like Win7 on two other machines I have, just not very interested in Win8.

Again, thanks for the comments, suggestions and offers of help.

^ Yep, that's the one I was thinking of.

Send me a PM when you are ready to go.

Unbelievable. I can not locate the disc/docs/product keys for the HP computer the spare HD belongs to. Odd because I save all the booklets and CDs when I buy a computer, still have stuff from computers I don't have anymore. All my gear came over in a large household goods shipment so I have 1 other box to find and check.

Thank you to all who responded.

Both hard drives came in the typical off-the-shelf computer, loaded with their respective, genuine OS. I have all the CDs and Keys around here, will dig them out.

I also have the MS Office 2003 CD, unfortunately it's tapped out on the new install quota. This is why I'm trying to use this spare Win7 HD "as is", because I previously installed MS Office 2003 on it from this same CD-ROM. In fact, the Dell XPS' failing HD also has Office '03 from the same install CD.

If there's a way, I'm game to try. It's not the end of the world nor is it a cost avoidance issue. It's really about saving the MS Office 2003 Suite, the "comfortable old shoe" syndrome.

You don't have an install quota. If it will no longer be installed on one of the machines, your quota is restored.

Do you have a USB Flash drive to hand? Is the old HDD still attached to the machine?

Sorry, been bouncing between patio BBQ operations with the BKK tribe here visiting, and now it's late.

I was thinking along the lines of what most others are saying - no can do.

However I'm game and if you'll be around tomorrow and still willing, I'll have a USB Flash handy and I'll locate the Windows CDs while I'm at it. I'm still using the dying HDD for now so yes, it's still attached to the native Dell XPS 420 tower.

Tx, Rgds,

J

Thank you to all who responded.

Both hard drives came in the typical off-the-shelf computer, loaded with their respective, genuine OS. I have all the CDs and Keys around here, will dig them out.

I also have the MS Office 2003 CD, unfortunately it's tapped out on the new install quota. This is why I'm trying to use this spare Win7 HD "as is", because I previously installed MS Office 2003 on it from this same CD-ROM. In fact, the Dell XPS' failing HD also has Office '03 from the same install CD.

If there's a way, I'm game to try. It's not the end of the world nor is it a cost avoidance issue. It's really about saving the MS Office 2003 Suite, the "comfortable old shoe" syndrome.

My WD HDD is about to go in my 6~7 year old Dell XPS 420, running genuine Windows Vista. I've got all the original discs but frankly, not interested in reloading Vista onto a new HD. Files on external storage, so I'm "ready" when this HD does give up the ghost, only thing I'll miss is my good old MS Office, which I use daily.

I have a spare hard drive from a disused computer, and it has (licensed) Windows 7 on it as well as a good MS Office suite. Perfect.

Connected this Win7 HD to the Dell XPS, it starts, but when the Win 7 start up graphic shows up, it freezes, goes to a screen that asks me if I want to load Windows 7, hit enter, then computer starts looping in this re-start sequence.

I've let Start Up Repair run but says it can't fix the problem.

The extent of my knowledge is once installing a new hard drive in and reloading the same OS from the original Windows CD.

Is there something else I can do to get this Win7 OS working in my Dell XPS tower?

You ought to Google up the two Korat expat forums and there are Issan properties website(s)/Century 21 as well. Few minutes, you ought to be onto what you seek.

I live about 30 minutes outside the city so I'm not into the house/property scene in town, but yes, there are gated housing communities and some condos in and near town. There are two new condo projects that I've seen, one just opened and I'll be damned if I can remember the name; tossed the brochure in the bin last week.

Good luck.

How about the ATM charges? 7-11 private machines were $2.50 or 2.95 - something like that. I used the Schwab card a few times before I got my head around being back in the US (it had been about 5 years) and that we could use our credit cards virtually everywhere, unlike Thailand - at least where I live. Funny how conditioned I got.

Sheeeeet, we about wore the mag strips off the Capital One cards after that. The cash backs were really nice those couple of months.

I also appreciated driving. The freeways get you places so quickly, you don't realize you've gone 20 miles. No motorbikes all around you or going the wrong way, massive tour coaches and over-loaded mini-trucks about to fall over if the wind blows.

Gained A LOT of weight on our recent 2 month vaca in California. Thankfully, able to shed most of it after return to Thailand.

We also brought back a lot of new gear and after looking into various ways to do that, ended up being most economical to purchase 2 second hand suit cases at a retread shop (1 each) and paid Korean Air for the extra bags/weight. The US Post Office was priced out of the game for our purposes.

Enjoy your trip.

surface mail stopped years ago so all Post office shipments are Air and expensive

Guess that's what it was then. I remember mailing large, heavy boxes to LoS circa 2007, in the $60-$70 range using the slow boat to China rate.

Gained A LOT of weight on our recent 2 month vaca in California. Thankfully, able to shed most of it after return to Thailand.

We also brought back a lot of new gear and after looking into various ways to do that, ended up being most economical to purchase 2 second hand suit cases at a retread shop (1 each) and paid Korean Air for the extra bags/weight. The US Post Office was priced out of the game for our purposes.

Enjoy your trip.

That's a great fare, I paid 1,097 BKK-LAX Eco return on KE early summer this year.

You CAN stop smoking and once you do and look back, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

Mate of mine stepped down trying to reach 1 smoke an hour and trying not to smoke all of it. He kept paring down, identifying the urge and dealing with it instead of giving in and lighting up. Half the battle is taking control of your mind, your urges. The other is the chemical addiction, which compliments the former.

I went the e-cig route, stepped down nicotine strength and then finally quit 2 months ago. Think I've got it cracked this time.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ Here's the website if anyone else wants to cut and paste. He is actively seeking donations.

Not sure if Bitcoins are accepted or not.

Actually I'm kind of seriously asking the question ... if you are aggressively approached to identify your nationality by someone who appears to have a nationality probably hostile to the USA, what do you do?

Say you're from New Zealand, but don't say it with an American accent.

That's not a bad idea. Saying Canadian is too obvious. It must be funny for actual Canadians who are met with skepticism when they tell the truth.

If upon hearing your attempted accent, they say, "Oh, lovely! What part of Australia are you from?", just smile and say Yes.

Now you've done it!

Until/if somebody provided a more personalized response, here's some back and forth chat on SSI in a recent thread.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/777239-any-tips-on-filing-for-social-security-benefits-us/

I'm not really much of a Three Stooges fan so I'll just leave you guys : zydeco, jay, and Carl to your fascinating insights.

We're not gonna get anything new, or anything we haven't heard already from jerks like Hannity, Bill Olielly and the luscious Anne Coulter, Sara Palin, Michelle Malkin, Geraldo Rivera and, of course White House stooges like Cass Sunstien.

There's enough of those MSM jerks to form a big circle.

However, you three are just gonna have to give it the old dorm room try.

I'll respond to anyone of you three with the verbal acuity to put an argument together using decent facts, paragraphing and syntax.

And more than your usual 140 character tweets.

Otherwise it's (you know) that old circle thing for y'all. Cheney's been suitably re-characterized so he can lend a hand.

Sweet thoughts

Donnie

bye bye.