JSixpack

1 hour ago, Mattd said:

I repeat, buying a cheap activation key off the web is not the same as purchasing the individual license, you are buying a key that may or may not activate Windows, 99% of the time these keys are from either MSDN, bulk licenses or OEM software.

You could avoid repeating yourself if you'd read what I said. Here it is again:

2 hours ago, JSixpack said:

Duh. You buy a license and then you activate.

Lemme try to get through this "activation key" fixation.

1. Nobody has mentioned anything about buying an "activation key" but you.

2. Nobody is selling an "activation key" unless perhaps some Nigerian scammers. Any such mythical activation key would be useless w/o a license.

3. You don't buy an "activation key." You buy a license, then activate via Microsoft as usual. Yes, the keys bought from reputable online vendors always activate; if not, then you get a refund or another key. 

Repeat this 10 times: "I had the activation process backwards. I imagined somebody said something about an activation key. You buy a license online, not an activation key."

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The fact that is works doesn't make it legit and MS could pull that activation anytime they like.

Yes, the fact that it activates and then the software updates normally makes it legit. M'soft wouldn't "pull" that activation because it was legit, it had already "sold" the key, and M'soft wants as many Win 10 users as possible, even gave free upgrades (still possible).

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You are purchasing this at your own risk and have no idea if it has been activated already etc. and it is highly unlikely it will reactivate if you have to change the motherboard

As always, see Rolex example. Refund or change from the vendor, pal.

Yes, it will reactivate if you merely purchase a retail key. If you purchase an OEM key then when you realize that you'll be out another USD13 you'd need to declare bankruptcy after you've curled up onto a fetal position and had yourself a good cry. Why didn't I buy that THB3900 license? Buyer's remorse is a terrible thing, no?

So many of our members change their motherboards, too. Almost a daily occurrence around here.
 

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The biggest single advantage of having a legit activated version of Win 10 is that you get all of the updates and support and with Win 10, that is going to be forever, or at least so MS say.

Exactly. Got that right. Check!

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Interesting you think this, especially as you have no idea about me, or my knowledge,

On this topic, which is all I'm discussing, the level of your knowledge is very clear.

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Really, anybody that thinks that it is legitimate that they can buy a few dollar activation key off the web, download Win 10 for free from MS is kidding themselves, if this was the case, then MS might as well just stop selling the software in the way they currently do, because nobody would buy it.

Same clueless nonsense. You only need the license to install not to download from M'soft. Go find the link.

21 minutes ago, johng said:

I prefer the original "Darth Vader"   version

 

 

Thanks! This may better reach our Brit members. We can never get enough teaching here! I'm shocked our ace TVF Traffic Police didn't catch the error that might have led to another fatality. Losing faith . . . .

53 minutes ago, pattjock said:

There is not a single ashtray to be found anywhere along the sidewalks of Pattaya. Most cigarette buts end up in the street drains and the city are allowing the contents of the drains to end up in the sea. All these buts will float and end up on the beaches around Pattaya.

 

Will the city fine itself for this serious offense???

Switch to pipes & cigars--should be nothing wrong w/ a cigar butt. Organic. :)

22 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Crossing the street in Thailand is a very, very dangerous thing to do. I always do it very carefully, and always look both ways, even if it is a one way street! Pedestrians beware. Alot get taken out here. Alot.

Actually you've been missing a critical step. Guess either Mama didn't teach you or you just plain forgot. Yet teaching resources are readily available nowadays on the 'net. So it's just amazing you've lasted this long. To correct this incomplete lesson endangering our clueless members, here's a free teaching vid. Catchy tune and some cool moves to help all remember, man. Practice makes perfect! Good  luck on safe crossing in the future. Whew!

1 hour ago, Mattd said:

Reputable doesn't make it genuine.

There is no way on this earth that Microsoft endorse the sales of activation keys for their products in this way, they didn't build a huge company by giving their software away!

In the end being genuine makes it genuine, as you find out when you activate it from Microsoft itself. So that's the same as with other products--initially you trust a reputable vendor that your, say, Rolex is genuine. Microsoft doesn't need formally to endorse the selling of genuine keys by particular third-party vendors who currently own them. Nor has M'soft given away anything. Problem is, you don't have a clue and are confused. You really should google around as I advised earlier and educate yourself. Been some discussions on the IT forum.

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but that is where it ends, the chances of it be licensed are zero, zilch, nil, you are buying an activation key, not a license.

Duh. You buy a license and then you activate.

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Have you ever tried to download the software from Microsoft?

All sounds nice and easy, until you go ahead and do it, even trying to download a WORKING USB boot software is not as easy as it sounds, everything has to match 100%.

Amazing. By a coincidence I downloaded Win 10 German from Microsoft for a friend of mine yesterday. And it's trivial to download a tool to create the USB installation medium on a USB stick from the .iso. Not sure what the "match" issue is. Sorry you find it so-o-o hard. Maybe get some knowledgeable help.

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Legal? It would only be legal if you paid for the license.

Which you do. Makin' progress there, man.

8 hours ago, Mattd said:

One thing is for certain, if you are paying $5-20 it is not a genuine Windows 10 license,

In fact it is, from a reputable vendor. If you google around you can find out how that's true.

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plus all you get is the activation key, no software.

If the offer included the software then you'd merely claim it wasn't genuine software too. Anyway, it would make no sense: you download the software directly from Microsoft. 

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If you are not bothered about the software being legal, then no problem, loads of places can install in Pattaya.

Of course, loads of places can install legal software as well. If they don't have it, you can provide it from other sources.

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The cheapest Genuine Windows 10 available in Thailand is around 3,900 THB.

Which makes the online purchase of a license look even more attractive.

11 hours ago, YetAnother said:

should we, long stay expats, be worried about efforts like this ?

No.

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i believe we should, simply due to the prevailing thai attitude that anyone not thai is a tourist; how can these tourist police make an accurate snap judgment that we are either tourist or long-stay expat ?

It isn't about snap judgments and a snap judgment would make no difference anyway if you're all legal.

We could without yet more paranoia, victimism, and fear-mongering around here, thank you.

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

And why are they not able to attract the Western tourists, like they used to? 

 

Again, this is a situation where nobody is attempting to get to the root of the problem. Of course, in Thai society, it is not particularly popular to look within for the source of the problem.

 

I think perhaps a few decades from now, they will have tourism classes at university, where they will discuss how Thailand lost the golden egg of Western tourism. Those tourists, unlike most Chinese tourists, spent anywhere from $100 a day, to over $2,000 a day. They brought real money into the country, and in exchange, were treated with utter and complete disregard, scammed, disrespected, and abused. Eventually, most said no more. Thailand thought the country was something very special, and that nobody would ever say no, or find alternative places to visit. The fact is that there are countless other spots, many in this region, that offer better service, more expertise in food and beverage (especially wine service and selection at fair prices, which rich tourists demand), reasonable import duties to sustain a luxury goods market, better training, and far better english skills. Thailand simply lost sight of the big picture, and had very little vision, with regard to big spending tourists, who need to be catered to, instead of scorned.  

 

So, what happened? The Western tourists started to decline in number, and the genius minds at the TAT decided it was time to "lure" the Chinese. They came. They came in droves. But, they did not spend much money. Hotels, restaurants, gift shops, jewelers, galleries, spas, massage shops, bars, and countless other businesses suffered, and will continue to suffer from this extreme myopia, on the part of the officials in charge of tourism. Oh well. Can't say they were not warned. Zero baht tourists are perhaps the majority who visit Thailand now. Sure, they spend some money in restaurants, and in 7/11. But, that is about it, for some of the super low budget Chinese tours. Not many rich Chinese are not visiting Thailand, for a dozen good reasons. They have too many other options.

 

There are countless things the government could be doing, if they wanted to attract the high quality tourists. The very first thing would be to repeal the anti faring wine bill, that was passed by a few very corrupt senators way back when, to protect an anemic local wine industry. They are losing billions of dollars a year in revenue, that would be had from a 100% wine duty, instead of 460%. The five star hotels would have major wine events, and the entire industry would flourish here.

 

I was recently with a group of friends, and we wanted to order a bottle of wine, at of one of those high end restaurants in the EmQuartier complex. It was Bella Rocca Restaurant. I asked about a 2011 Chianti they had on the list. I was told they were out of stock. I asked about a Barbaresco, at 2,600 baht. Again, out of stock. How about this Nebbiolo? Do you have the 2010, as stated on the list? No, we only have the 2015. OK, what is that wine like? Is it drinking well now? I do not know. Is there anyone here that is familiar with this wine list? No. Sorry sir. Wait a minute. You have 100 bottles on this list, ranging from 1200 baht to 10,000 baht per bottle, and NOBODY who works here knows anything about the wine? Are you serious? We all just looked at each other, and got up and walked out. We realized the restaurant was a pretender. And more than likely the food was marginal at best. It was all dressed up to look like a very nice Italian restaurant. But, it appeared to be only window dressing. High end tourists have little patience for that lack of quality and lack of service. 

 

But again, the lack of vision, combined with a naive, surly, silly, churlish, and ignorant sense of nationalism, bites the country in the butt. And again, who is the loser? The Thai people. 

The entire country is suffering from a declining tourism industry. And that will not change. It is a permanent declining trend. For a hundred valid reasons.

 

Little P. Moving Thailand backwards at a breath taking, alarming and astonishing pace. Not making Thailand great again. 

The country has been suffering a declining tourism industry in your dreams. That will not change. In reality, the trend has been quite positive. The Golden Egg Layers of old simply ran out of golden eggs but that elephant in the room always gets ignored for the sake of bashing about whatever. Wine.  

Same post already responded to here:

And that's today's Whither Thailand doom prophecy except we've added a rant about the price of wine. We'll add that to the large pile.

I think perhaps a few decades from now, they will have tourism classes at university, where they will discuss the TVF Poster Golden Egg Theory Of Thai Economics along with the Flat Earth theory. You seem still not familiar yourself with classical Golden Egg Theory, its history and underpinnings, with crucial related concepts such as Fixed Pie, but a brief summary, distilled from years of ace economic analyses, is found here.

A video of a motorbike trip from Jomtien to Pattaya in 1994:

It was in the heyday of the great Golden Egg Layers, the quality tourists, i.e., the "naughty mongers," the economic powerhouses behind Pattaya's now-vanished prosperity, the great jobs creators, who were "put off" and left for Cambodia etc. where they're wanted. It was before visa fees had risen, the Big Bang that sent Thailand back to the Stone Age. Before the crash of 1997. Before the Perpetual Pattaya Death Spiral!

So then, according to myth, booming Pattaya had no abandoned or unfinished buildings. No shophouses were closed. No cracks in the clean streets or sidewalks. Walking and jogging, recently whinged about by one of our members who's been unable to jog for probably decades, on the promenade was then so easy. No motorbikes were parked on that promenade. No delicate aesthetic sensibilities were offended by unsightly clutter. What a paradise.

Ha! What a TON of closed shophouses everywhere. Unfinished buildings. Dirt & cracks. Cars, even boats, parked on & blocking the promenade. HUGE mess on the beach side as you approach WS. Traffic. Cop enforcing a one-way. Whole place looks like it really was in an economic depression! Now compare Pattaya as it is today, 4 times larger, after 20 years of dire prophecy (starting in the Pattaya Mail). HUH? Now I'm beginning to lose some faith in our doomsters. IS IT POSSIBLE WE HAVE BEEN MISLEAD?

And Chinese do spend quite a lot, just not in beer bars. This has been demonstrated with objective evidence and discussed previously. We probably don't need another repetition.

Go big or go home, man. TronScript

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Do you have anything to say about the OP or are you just trying to annoy me?

Everything I've said addresses points you've made in the OP or subsequently. I'm not at all trying to annoy you, but I don't mind if you are if it helps you see Pattaya more objectively.

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None of that had anything to do with the OP and is nothing to do with the topic which is "is Pattaya as bad now as the News forum makes out.

Has everything to do with these points in the OP specifically: I'm wondering if it's just not a fun place anymore . . . have to wonder if the glory days are over for Pattaya. You see, contemporary eyewitnesses, based on news reports, report that Pattaya hasn't been a fun place for over 20 years. In what you're calling "glory days" it was in fact inundated with rude obnoxious thugs.  There had already been countless reports of tourists being insulted, assaulted, drugged, robbed and extorted and the numbers were increasing in the face of powerlessness by The Authorities!

Now I think we've arrived at the real issue: it is simply that you didn't read the news back then. Otherwise you could have asked your same question in the Pattaya Mail.

And that post specifically addressed your subsequent post in which you said In fact it was a very pleasant place where the most dangerous thing was being pickpocketed by a katoey. If that's on topic so was my reply, in which an eyewitness totally contradicts that rosy description.

28 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The OP mentioned "infrastructure" once as an aside.

There's no rule about the "asides" can't be discussed. And showing the inaccuracy of an aside calls into question all the rest. The cool thing about that aside is that it's pretty objectively disproven and mere anecdote and feeling can't hold the usual sway,

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The OP is not about the infrastructure, crumbling or not.

Oh, but part of it is and yes we can address that statement. Sorry!

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Those that want to comment on private infrastructure should post on one of the many threads about such or start their own.

If I see anyone doing that, I'll let them know.

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What does the tunnel have to do with the OP?

 

I take it you're now (cough) realizing The Tunnel wasn't privately constructed or owned. Now: what does the tunnel NOT have to do with while the infrastructure slowly disintegrates?

9 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Except of course that Pattaya was NOT "ever thus". In fact it was a very pleasant place where the most dangerous thing was being pickpocketed by a katoey.

Of course, one had to be there then to know.

Which you obviously weren't or just wearin' them classic rose-tinted glasses. Been hearing the same complaints (and more) , except for the magnitude part (actually, forum dogma holds that tourism has always been dying), with the same dire prediction for decades. Here it is in 1997; everybody's gon' go to the paradise of Cambodia, it's so bad!

There are two types of articles appearing in the Pattaya Mail with regularity: those where business and political leaders decry the decline in tourism and propose ways to improve the situation; and a steadily increasing number of reports of tourists being insulted, assaulted, drugged, robbed and extorted. All the good intentions and empty proposals by community leaders are not going to change the behavior of the people at street level, and it is they who are driving away the life blood of the city.

. . . It doesn’t matter if the streets are cleared of garbage, no one is going to walk down them if doing so leaves them open to being insulted and assaulted. Having a beach promenade doesn’t matter if strolling along it means taking the risk of being knocked down and robbed. No one is going to participate in the vibrant night-life if there is a good chance that they will wake up three days later in the hospital with all their possessions gone, or in some cases, not wake up at all. No one is going to seek an exotic experience if it means they might be set up by girls with both a legal age and under age ID, and then extorted for immense sums by the police.

14 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I specifically referenced PUBLIC infrastructure from the OP, not private.

It will come as news to all that The Tunnel was a private infrastructure project. What company owns it? Then we need to ask whether you're qualified to discuss this topic.

2 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Let us stick to inftastructure the City is responsible for! Cellphones it isn't!

A cellphone isn't infrastructure. Cellphone towers are and yes the City and the providers coordinate on that as indeed CPN and the City coordinated on the new power line to CentralFestival subsidized by CPN.

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Widening of Beach Rd did not help at all, it still bottlenecks at the South end. It was done to provide a better festival area to erect a market!

Well, you're just playing your Tunnel game again. The widening wasn't intended to solve the bottleneck at the south end, which was there long before the widening. Yes, it DOES help traffic before that point, a lot really, esp the CentralFestival traffic. Yes, it help traffic a LOT during the festivals, which had become a major problem. No, it doesn't have to solve every little problem for you to be an improvement.

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The resurfacing of the streets is behind necessity too, 3rd Rd is down to rebar in many spots as an example. take my eyes off the road!

Being "behind" isn't the same as "didn't do anything yet." Yes, they did improve Beach Rd., S. Pattaya Rd., and 2nd Rd amid the chorus of sneers. I've often enjoyed riding over that improvement, too. When 3rd gets bad enough by Thai standards, not yours, they'll work on that. So you don't have a point, just hot air.

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The traffic lights are not synchronised and are mostly operated by the police in boxes because timers and how they operate has not been well planned.

They don't have to be synchronised to be represent an improvement. Much better to see the timers now than nothing, and new turn arrows too. No, they aren't "mostly" operated by police in boxes but only sometimes during some peak events. I just went through quite a few today w/ no police around. You're starting to lie now--is it that important to you?

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The tunnel is good, but no benefit to me as I always use my motorbike.

Improving the infrastructure isn't all about YOU, you see. We have 8 million tourists or so visiting Pattaya yearly and it's a top destination in SE Asia.

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Even the burying of cables you cheer over, this was done quite efficiently on Klang, not that I noticed, daren't

I'm not cheering over the burying of the cables but merely counteracting the bias and nonsense about "deterioration, no improvement." Yes, it was done well to the consternation of our naysayers and it's a good thing.

24 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Well that is hardly going to help traffic is it!

Infrastructure isn't only about traffic, as a Brit discovered a moment before he was electrocuted in 2009 by an overhanging cable. How's your cellphone working? Got internet at home? Does CentralFestival have electric power? As for traffic the widening of Beach Road did help traffic on Beach Road. The resurfacing of the streets helped. The new traffic lights w/ timers all around town helped. What didn't help was all the new tourists flooding in.  

But if you were thinking objectively on that topic you'd have mentioned The Tunnel completed not long ago amid the chorus of sneers here and emphasized its success at doing what it was intended to do, not its supposed failure at doing what it wasn't. MAJOR new infrastructure.

28 minutes ago, JSixpack said:

 

Yep, we're loving this almost as much as a Thai driving accident thread. In fact we're doing the same accident twice now. So we'll see which gets the most pages. Maybe this one as we not only have our sociologists, moralists, DSI: TVF investigators, but also our vast number of TVF Sexologists all demonstrating their expertise.

And TAT: TVF also deeply worried about the possible impact on tourism and sneering at the TAT's pretensions.

19 minutes ago, BobBKK said:

Nice deflection from less important maters like panthers, elections and watches.

Yep, we're loving this almost as much as a Thai driving accident thread. In fact we're doing the same accident twice now. So we'll see which gets the most pages. Maybe this one as we not only have our sociologists, moralists, DSI: TVF investigators, but also our vast number of TVF Sexologists all demonstrating their expertise.

13 hours ago, owl sees all said:

I think so too. The officer is collecting 'lady juice' and will soon get a DNA match Then it's monkey time!

Another ace DSI: TVF analysis.

2 hours ago, impulse said:

31 seconds?  A convict just getting out after 10 years in the pokey with no pokie could do better than 31 seconds...

Well, wait for the reenactment.

OP, suggest you go over to the specialized webdev forum on reddit. Your type of question comes up fairly often and gets discussed and addressed by people who really do know what they're doing.

Beginner thread (as of today)

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/836l9a/beginner_questions_march_09_2018/

Look around in the forum and do a search, as there a lot of topics for the experienced as well as noobs and wannabes. They love Node and React, being hot and all. Anyway, every resource you need is known there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/

If you're going to spend much time on reddit, then get the browser Reddit Enhancement Suite:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-enhancement-suite/kbmfpngjjgdllneeigpgjifpgocmfgmb

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-enhancement-suite/

Free webhosting for webdev's:

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/83taz1/is_there_free_web_hosting_for_devs/

Good luck!

On 1/27/2017 at 9:17 PM, Get Real said:

PHP can be seen as a safer and quicker version of HTML

No.

1 hour ago, jenny2017 said:

I'm still trying to figure all out, currently still busy with school. The program gives you the option to save the files where you want, a memory stick, or on your machine. 

OK, so it looks like what we really got is " No more huge movie files on your machine, because you don't store them" unless you do store them. Which reduces to the trivial. 

Streaming movies is a whole industry thoroughly studied here on the forum and AFAIK nothing matches Kodi. Whether any music vids accessible by through the app can replace or  meaningfully supplement those offered via youtube is another question you may investigate when you're less busy with school.