ESCAPIS

Presently, in Muaeng Chonburi

Thank you NanLaew, for giving me an insight into the scene.

What should I budget for, in your opinion?

How does one go about engaging a Live-in housemaid/houseboy?

Are there any reliable agencies or is it the old word of mouth?

I have been here for close to 5 years on a student visa, my aim is to get a retirement visa when I reach 50, in 2 years time.

Is there an agency one could engage for such task, or is it the old word of mouth?

My mother would drop a drop of honey on the sand (amid the horror of the sellers) and if it sinks or flattens, the stuff is fake or mixed.

If it stays in its globular form, it is the real stuff.

Of course, you might not find sand where you come across the honey sellers!

A note of caution, assuming you created your account in thailand store with a thai credit card, if you decide to move to Laos you loose all the purchases associated with the thai id and credit card.

So choose carefully.

Apple ID can be created withou a credit card.

Apple id with credit card can only be created with a credit card issued by the country you reside in and a corresponding itunes account from that country.

So assuming you have a credit card issued in england you can create an apple id in the uk itunes store.

They will not approve a credit card issued in uk while you give a thai address.

It is weird, but that is Apple for you

Download Handbrake since it is free.

Explore it and see if it makes sense to you.

Should you need help with it, let me know, message me privately.

I teied sending tou a private message, but you seem to have turned private messages off in the site settings

Craig

You need mainly one app. If you want a free one it is Handbrake, already gave you instructions on how to get it.

If you want a paid one, then Mac X DVD ripper Pro.

Craig, one more thing, I forgot to mention, there are several free apps for the mac that catalogue, index, and show a synopsis alongside the movie poster of the ripped dvd. Two of them i recommend: Plex and XBMC. Both have a free iphone remote apps that let you control them from your iphone if you own one.

Craig,

As someone already mentioned previously here, the average dvd is 4gb, so it won't take too long before your 2 TB drive are filled to capacity.

The term ripping, is often confused with converting.

Let me explain, ripping means reading/copying the contents of a dvd.

After that, comes converting.

Converting involves reducing/compressing those 4gb into something more manageable.

The average medium quality film after it gets ripped and converted ranges from about 700mb to well over 2gb.

The key question you need to ask yourself is how much of a good quality you need your ripped dvd to be? Moreover, what is the resolution your tv is capable of showing?

You don't want to rip to a higher resolution if your tv cannot display it , it would mean a waste of your HD real estate.

On the other hand you don't want to rip too much and get the moiré effect that result from low resolution.

There are commercial applications that you can buy that takes the guesswork out and rip dvds into it thinks is a reasonable output.

If cost is of a concern to you, then follow my earlier advice and get Handbrake. It is free, powerful and will rip some very difficult dvds.

Let me know, if you need help.

As i said, ripping will be a long process.

Depending on your MacBook model and TV, you should be able to grab an HDMI cable. There are some dirt cheap ones sold in Fortune at Praram9 on level 3 (thai style).

Playing the dvds would be easiest, as the macbook would mirror the movie on your tv screen.

If you live in the bkk or pataya area i can come and help you initiate the process, if you like.

You did say you own a Mac, then perhaps, I can offer advice as I know absolutely nothing about windows pc.

First, it should be fair to warn you of the following:

1- it is an extremely slow process

2- not all the dvd will convert easily

3- depending on where you acquired your dvds, you might need more than one app.

The king and free app to d/l is Handbrake. It is capable of ripping lot of dvds

Go to macupdate.com, initiate a search and d/l it.

You might run into sone dvd that are heavily copy-protected. There are different apps/utilities for that.

Macupdate should suggest a few at the mention of the word drm.

Lastly, i hope you have the patience and time to take on such a herculean task.

There are of course alternatives, but I won't go into those publicly.

Good Luck

The same thing happens to me with fans!

I have several ebay and Amazon offers to ship the exact model i am after.

What would be the customs implication in Thailand for an import of around ฿12000?

That is a lead I can follow.

Thank you lucky

Is anyone aware or knows of a shop that might sell Helmets with built in Bluetooth?

I am particuarly interested in the Torc or O'Neal brands.

When I can eat grilled chicken at 9am!