whooliggen

paid 13,600 a month or so ago...

have been fortunate enough to own a few different mp3 players/devices over the years going back to the Creative Jukebox beast, but there's no doubt that as an "all rounder" this thing takes the cake and would highly recommend it if what you want/need is many devices all in 1. For pure mp3 sound quality/mp3 player'ability, it's not even in the same league as my Cowon (which is amazing for sound quality in my very un-professional opinion), but then the Cowon sucks with it's internet connectivity and its OS (the model I have anyway which is the Q5W)...

An incredible device though and nothing comes close to even polishing its shoes on the cool front! Saying that though, you do feel is if you're trying a bit too hard to be cool when you pull one out! Got a great pair of Skype friendly earphones, the klipsch S4i's that come with a built in remote/mic so you can not only keep the thing in your pocket if you want, but you can also Skype away in a wifi zone as well! A device for trendy's and plums all in one! Can't be bad!

W.

"Loft" in Siam Discovery has a few in their "electronic" section.

Novelty/niknak department of major malls also have some (Central / Mall Group etc)..

Must be some in Panthip / Fortune as well.

Good luck if you haven't picked something already!

Happy hols,

W.

Having one particular issue with iTues/iPod which is a little annoying/challenging, so I was wondering if anyone else had such a problem, and if so, what they did to overcome it...

Every time I add a new album from itunes onto my ipod touch (3rdGen). artwork from albums already loaded on my player gets messed around/deleted??!! I will then have to re-attach that albums artwork only then for other albums cover art to get messed up? More often than not, right clicking on one of the "artwork muddled" tracks in iTunes shows the original/correct cover art, but on the ipod it's different/wrong?

I've done some internet hunting for this but can’t find an exact match for my problem, but I can't believe it's specific to my computer(windows Asus EeePC)/software/ipod?

Any help or insights very much appreciated!

Happy holidays,

W ph34r.gif

Thanks very much for both your replies. The "Bamboo" looks great and am looking into it if we go for the Cha-Am option & have got some good info from the link provided as well for Hua Hin, so many thanks all round!

Hey,

Anyone know of any dog friendly resorts in the area that we can pitch up at for a night at the end of the month en-route to the South? Never traveled with a mutt before so don't know if "size matters", but he's only a little fella if that makes any difference!

Cheers for any info.

Happy holidays!

W.

Not gonna catalogue all my gripes with the software as I'm sure a fair percentage of users have had similar problems. One particular issue is a little annoying though to say the least, so I was wondering if anyone else had such a problem, and if so, what they did to overcome it...

Every time I add a new album from itunes onto my ipod touch (3rdGen). artwork from albums already loaded on my player gets messed around/deleted??!! I will then have to re-attach that albums artwork only then for other albums cover art to get messed up? More often than not, right clicking on one of the "artwork muddled" tracks in iTunes shows the original/correct cover art, but on the ipod it's different/wrong?

I've done some internet hunting for this but can’t find an exact match for my problem, but I can't believe it's specific to my computer(windows Asus EeePC)/software/ipod?

Any help or insights very much appreciated!

Happy holidays,

W

Off topic a little - but concerning itunes/duplicates, the problem I have is not with the software as such (even though MM is indeed FAR better!), but I seem to get duplicated albums on my ipod? Itunes will show just the one particular album loaded in, but on my ipod I've got a few cases where I've got 2-3 copies of it? No real drama, but it is a little annoying...

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

W.

I guess the lack of repliees is your answer I'm afraid. As I'm sure you've found out on your cyber trails that the online service isn't available in Thailand yet, so I would be surprised if the mobile option works instead? Keep us posted how you get on though as I'd be very interested too!

All the best,

W.

Ive had a bnch of different mp3 players over the years, but after discovering Cowon, I'm never looking anywhere else! (well, not for now anyway). The sound quality is breathtaking and that is after all the whole reason for buying an mp3, good quality sound on the move. Hands down its the best Ive heard. All take FLAC files (along with MANY others), so personaly I believe it's hard to have better audio quality at a reasonable price. The OS leaves a lot to be desired, but after getting over the initial frustration, the sound quality nullified any gripes I may have had. Check out:

cowonglobal.com/wheretobuy.php

click on Thailand and numerous options appear. Music2Home delivers...

I'm not sure that any of the models take the MicroSD card, but as an earlier poster mentioned, you can get around that. Can't recommend them high enough and I'm sure you'll feel it money well spent!

Good luck.

You will need your bank passbook for the year and copies of each page - as well as the letter from bank. Be sure they both match (last entry).

Great. Thanks.

Sorry, it's in reference to doing a 90 day address report on a current one year extension of stay.

Thanks all for your help...

Lite Beer - If the money has to be there 2 months before, how will immigration know is if I "Get the bank letter a day or 2 before you apply"? My experience with these bank letters is that they state the amount of funds in the account upon the request of the bank letter and doesn't show that the money has been there for the last 2 months?

Or do I need extra documentation showing that the amount has been there for at least 2 months?

Thanks a lot, but I'm still a little bit confused about the part "400,000 baht for the past 2 months for expenses within a year". When would I need to get the bank to issue certification of the amount in my account - 2 months prior to extension of just before?

Hey,

I've just been over to Suan Phlu for my 90 day extension and while there I asked what documents I needed to bring for the Annual extension (British passport / Thai wife / 1 child / working freelance overseas). I literally was told 3 different things from 3 different officials and haven't as yet been able to find an up-to-date list of requirements needed?

For example: one official told me I needed to show 400,000 in my Thai account at least 2 months prior to extension day (so would I need certificate from the bank stating account balance then, or just prior to the extension date? I was told 2 different things there..

I have trawled through the various websites, but nowhere can I seem to find an up-to-date list of requirements...

Anyone know of one anywhere?

Thanks,

W.

Fascino on North Pattaya Road (near city hall)

This is the biggest place in Pattaya and they stock all sorts of meds and equipment.

You will find better prices here than most of the small pharmacies that dot the sois all over Pattaya

Nice. I will go and check it out. Thank you - much appreciated.

Hey,

Happy Easter! Hope you all had better luck than I did finding easter eggs (for my kid,honest!

Have come down to Pattaya for a week and I've cleverly arrived with not enough Meds to see me through. I see a quack @ Bkk Hospital in the city & am I right in my thinking that there is a branch down in Pattaya as well? Would really be my last option as the drugs are SO much more expensive over their counters.

So my question is; does anyone know of a well stocked pharmacy/pharmacies down here where I could find Depakine Chrono 500mg? We're staying near the Avalon Beach Resort if there's any in that area (Dongtuan beach??).

Or I guess if there's a Thai Epilepsy clinic, then I don't see any reason why that shouldn't work out as an option too.

I've got a couple of days supply so not pressingly urgent, but any feedback/pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Whooliggen

Thanks v much to you both. Ive never had a net/laptop and am still using a computer I bought 10 yrs ago, so am a novice here. Is Linux a type of software or a design style? Also, if you could break down CAT CDMA/EV-DO that would help alot, as am doing this from London. Im guessing CAT is the local supplier of a signal called EV-DO? Finally, do we buy in Chiang Rai/Mai or Bangkok.

If your G/F is a novice computer user but familiar with Windows, I would stick with that as learning how new OS's work is always tricky at first. I would imagine prices are similar from Bkk to Chiang Mai, but Bkk may be marginally cheaper? (Open to correction...).

Even if you see a good deal there in UK, I would still recommend getting it here for warranty/Thai keyboard issues. My experience with Asus support in Bkk has been first rate.

W.

There is no way of blocking text messages and phone numbers on mobile phones.

The best way is to change the sim card every few months.

As I said, since calling them up a month ago and saying that I didn't want to receive these advertising/marketing messages (3 or 4 times a week) anymore, they have stopped. Maybe just me and "Simcity" are simply lucky??

I picked up a little Asus Eee PC 1000H (XP) which does "emails, Thai music and basic web surfing, but no complex computing" with ease and throw in a cheap Nokia for the phonecalling/modem options and she's pretty well covered.

I was having the same problem (AIS), but one single call to their service centre has seemingly sorted it out for me - a month or so now only getting texts from friends/family etc. So I would definitely recommend calling before getting new numbers/sim's...

It's also luck of the draw.

I've had two kinda expensive electronic devices sent from the UK; one got nobbled for the tax and the other arrived at my doorstep 2 days after being sent. Roll the dice...

Encoding my collection, or kinda starting to. Everything I've read about VBR states that it retains the same quality as the 320 kbps files but just with a smaller filesize. Have I understood that correctly?

(I'm using - or will be when I've got everything mentally straight - Cool Edit Pro 2.1.)

Yes, exactly right. If I were you, however, I wouldn't rip my CDs straight into a lossy format like MP3. Rip them into FLAC with a cue sheet and a log. This will leave you with a lossless 'master copy' and give you two major advantages: First, you (or anyone else) will be able to exactly reconstruct your original CD using the FLAC files and the cue sheet should such a need ever arise; second, you can then encode (using the FLAC master copy and something like Foobar 2000 or dbpoweramp to perform the convertion - make sure you have the latest stable version of LAME installed, currently 3.98.2 I think) very quickly to whatever LAME preset that happens to suit you at the time e.g. V0 if space isn't an issue, or V2 if space is more of an issue etc. etc. Remember: lossless to lossy encodes = good; lossy to lossy transcodes = BAD. With a FLAC master copy, you're not stuck with something you can't re-encode again to something else if you need to. I rip to FLAC only, then make a V0 for my i-pod, then delete the MP3 files from my computer (since I can always make them again in 2 minutes if I need to and they're on my i-pod anyway). I can't stress this next bit enough: only use EAC to rip your CDs. Forget about everything else. Make sure you set-up EAC and rip exactly as stated in these guides. It might seem like a lot of work now, but believe me, it will pay off. If you're serious about this kind of stuff, you're eventually going to (if you're not already) end up a member on trackers like What CD or Waffles, and these methods are essential there if you don't want to get booted out (and believe me you don't - What and/or Waffles will revolutionise your life when it comes to music). Anyway, hope this helps...

Whoah! That's an answer! Thanks a million! It's come JUST at the right time too as I think I may otherwise have spent a great deal of wasted time doing it all wrong! The FLAC files were also eating up a lot of space on my Cowon (but now after your advice I'll keep those originals on my external HD and encode the copies to the player).

It's all totally new to me this, but with your help and info I'm definitely seeing the light, so thanx very much. Looks like I'm gonna need to find a few free afternoons!

I also knew that if it didn't blow up, it would serve me well for the foreseeable future as I can't see FLAC becoming quality redundant any time soon! Not sure how there can be much improvement on it anyway, but I'm far from being an audio geek, so I could be wrong. All I know is that after listening to FLAC files, anything I've got now that's below 320 kbps.mp3 is tuff to listen to when you know what it CAN sound like.,,

FLAC is a lossless format, so there can't be any improvement (assuming the source is a CD). If you want quality MP3, try encoding (or downloading, if that's what you're doing) in V0 (VBR). 320 CBR wastes a lot of disk space.

Encoding my collection, or kinda starting to. Everything I've read about VBR states that it retains the same quality as the 320 kbps files but just with a smaller filesize. Have I understood that correctly?

(I'm using - or will be when I've got everything mentally straight - Cool Edit Pro 2.1.)

Cheers.

FLAC is a lossless format, so there can't be any improvement (assuming the source is a CD). If you want quality MP3, try encoding (or downloading, if that's what you're doing) in V0 (VBR). 320 CBR wastes a lot of disk space.

Thanks!

Whooliggen, can you tell me where I can buy Cowon here in Thailand? I have been looking for them for quite some time, but no success. Indeed, the FLAC capability of Cowon seems very attractive.

Thanks.

Imported it through the UK as I simply couldn't find it here. Sorry.

In your experiences, which one/ones are the most stable/reliable?