Beachcomber

Koh Phangan

How long in your opinion does it take the ex-pat to become synical about most aspects of Thailand and forget that nearly all he moans about now are the reason he came in the first place?

About the time you start being concerned where your money is going.

When you start to question the price of things ask for accountability of spending use phrases like “that’s too expensive” or “I can’t afford that” that is the time when you start to become cynical.

Cheers

Hi

I seem to remember some time ago there was talk of opening an airport on Koh Phangan.

Did that ever happen?

Beachcomber.

Guess I wasn’t quite clear in the OP.

I don’t have to personally report after every 90 day visa run. Wifie can take the form, signed by the landlord, to immigration for me, or as I understand it for the landlord.

So since I attracted attention to myself by getting a driving license this reporting “by the landlord” every time I leave my residence for more than 24 hours is normal?

Wonder what my landlord would say if I told him HE had to make the whole day return trip, if the weather permits the ferry, every 90 days.

He just might look for “easier” tenants.

We’ve all heard the stories of people getting in to serious trouble with immigration, big fines even deportation, for “working” without a permit.

I’m not talking about taking on a job but just doing odd jobs and helping out with the bar or small restaurant or what ever that is in your partners name.

The kind of thing I’m thinking of is putting up shelves doing some electrical or plumbing work, painting or maybe just clearing up glasses wiping down tables or even just sweeping the floor.

Has anyone had any first hand experience getting into trouble for doing these kind of things?

In Farang land if your wife/gf had a business, especially one you had paid for, helping out when you could would be quite natural. Same if you visit “the family” you would help out with their business if they had one even do some jobs round the house or garden if needed.

Does not seem to be the same here in the land of smiles. While most locals perhaps would not care too much to see a Farang doing odd jobs there is always the lurking jealousy of neighbors and business competitors. Or maybe even the GF wanting to get rid of BF now that he has set her up very nicely with her own bar.

Same question goes for doing work round the house. How much can you do round the house?

OK while inside it would be difficult for anyone to prove you were actually doing anything. But if you were to fix up additional exterior lights or plant some flowers, mow or water the lawn, washing the car?

Has any one had problems getting caught doing these kind of things?

Thanks

Beachcomber.

Take an aircon taxi.

Make sure the meter gets turned on.

Have done the trip many times, price between 70-90 Baht.

Have never had any taxidriver not know where Panthp is or Kahosan Road on the return trip.

Beachcomber.

Go to the wed site of your hard drive and download their free utility program.

This will make a floppy that has some basic HDD tools usually including a Zero fill option. As said this can take some hours depending on the size of the drive.

I have heard that “Format” does not necessarily delete all the information on a drive. Even a “Full Format” does not take as long as a “Zero Fill” so that should indicate something.

Beachcomber.

I have a one year multiple entry “O” marriage visa where I have to leave the country every 90 days.

Some little while ago I decided to take the Thai driving test. This involved getting a “proof of address” thing from the local immigration office.

The immigration guy told me I would have to report to the immigration office to reregister/confirm my address every time within 24 hours after my visa run. There is a form to fill in but nothing stamped in my passport.

Is this normal?

Reading through the forum posts it seems that one does the 90 day reporting OR run but not both.

Any solid information on this.

Beachcomber

News item on BBC World to day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4790293.stm

Bank account details belonging to thousands of Britons are being sold in West Africa for less than £20 each, the BBC's Real Story programme has found.

It discovered that fraudsters in Nigeria were able to find internet banking data stored on recycled PCs sent from the UK to Africa.

The information can be found on a PC's hard disk, which is easy to access if the drive is not wiped before sending.

Anti-fraud expert Owen Roberts said simply deleting files was not enough.

Users should instead use a programme to wipe their hard drive before they sell or give away their PC, a process which over-writes what is already contained on the drive.

Alternatively, people should remove their hard drives before they give away their computers, he said.

"It is surprising how easy it is to obtain documents people leave on their computers," said Mr Roberts, who is head of identity fraud at CPP Group.

Real Story found that second-hand computers from all over the developed world could be found in virtually every PC market in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

It said that while there was a genuine market for second-hand PCs in West Africa, identity fraud was a real problem.

Many of the PCs it found on sale in Lagos had come from UK council recycling points.

People are still being urged to give away their old PCs, but only after they have wiped the hard drive - not just to remove any bank details but also other personal information such as home addresses.

The Information Commissioner's Office, the UK government's regulatory office dealing with data protection, said companies had a legal requirement to delete people's personal information from their computers when it was no longer needed.

"It is essential that companies have appropriate procedures in place to ensure that personal records on computer hard drives are rendered unrecoverable when they dispose of computer equipment," said Assistant Commissioner Phil Jones.

"Under the Data Protection Act companies have a duty to store personal information securely and delete it when it is no longer required."

Ahm! Erm!

I thought that the first signs of a failing motherboard battery was the clock!

What am I missing?????

Beachcomber.

The voltage threshold of the CMOS memory and the RTC (real time clock chip) may not be the same whereas the CMOS will probably lose data at a higher voltage level then the RTC. Also, some RTC chips now have a battery built into them with retentions of 10 years and the CMOS with an independant battery.

Err! Ahm!

Guess I need to upgrade my whole system as I don’t have any of that 10 year stuff!!!!!!!!!!

What is the difference between the Jap and Wai icon?

I assumed the Jap was like a “Thank you” like a “Wai” but now I see there is a “Wai” in the “Show all” so what is the “Jap” ?

I would guess most posters would want to have a ”Thank’s” icon readily available so what is the official “Thanks” icon and lets have it readily available instead of having to go to “Show all”

Thanks

Beachcomber.

I had same problem, eventually the drive gave up altogether. - Solly!!

Slight Highjack:-

Sometimes I notice that the CD drive activates for no reason – light flashing – It can happen while I am doing something else completely or just surfing the Net – it activates for no reason – What is going on?

Beachcomber

Ahm! Erm!

I thought that the first signs of a failing motherboard battery was the clock!

What am I missing?????

Beachcomber.

FISHERD3 and TYWAIS

Thanks for the info and link, sounds just like the kind of thing I need to let me “repair” Windows without total re-install. Will definitely do that.

Thank Y’all

Beachcomber.

I'm not quite sure but it sounds like you are only half-way back to normal...if so one more place to check is the performance settings:

- right-click my computer, and select Properties

- Select the Advanced tab, and click on the Performance Settings button

- On the first tab, Visual Effects, look through the check-boxes, some of them pertain to how themes and effects are applied.

- Either check them all or pick 'Adjust for best appearance' and see if that makes any difference.

I think that may have been it. The Visual Effects was set to “Custom”. As far as I can remember it has always been on the “Let Windows Chose” setting.

Maybe one of the clean-up-optimize programs reset it. Shall watch that in future to see what program it was.

I can’t be 100% certain as I now have Royale installed as the XP theme but all the other themes work now as they should so can be almost certain that was the problem.

Thank Y’all

Beachcomber.

SOmething My aunt sent to me.

THANK YOU AUSTRALIA

This is an absolutely beautiful tribute to our United States of America. Say what you may ~ we still have the best country in

the world. I thought this to be worthy of passing on , and an Australian wrote it.

Many people love America - many people don't. But that's the way it is yet we are still blessed (my humble opinion).

Written by an Australian Dentist....and too good to delete....

To Kill an American

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.

In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

< BR>

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Please keep this going!

Pass this around the World ?

Then pass it around again.

It says it all, for all of us

A very profound thought provoking piece, a reminder that there is more to the American peoples than the world media find sensational to only report.

Unfortunately USA Bashing seems to be the thing these days many following the Bashing Bandwagon like sheep without having any real reason idea or opinion as to why.

A quote from one of my relations comes to mind. After reading this piece just for once “if you can’t say something good don’t say anything”

Beachcomber.

Quick Update:-

SILVERO -

BTW, when you get this sorted, there is a nice official XP theme worth having a look at, no patch required:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhan...for-WinXP.shtml

That is one cool site. Have downloaded and installed the Royale Theme which is great.

This has not solved my problem but has given back the blue task bar and general colours and style of the original XP. This I can live with.

I would still be interested to find out what caused my problem so if any one has additional ideas I am still listening.

Thank y’all

Beachcomber.

Hi All!

SILVERO - Your symptoms sound like the Themes service may not be running, to check do the following: Cut………..

Checked that, it is running and set to automatic.

BTW, when you get this sorted, there is a nice official XP theme worth having a look at, no patch required:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhan...for-WinXP.shtml

Will do that - Thanks.

TYWAIS -

I looked back at Restore and only have “System Check Points” logged for the last few weeks except one entry “Software Distribution Service 2.0” No idea what that is!

That's the one. It came in through an auto-update. Restoring to a point just prior to that restore point and the problem went away.

Did that also - and it didn’t fix the problem.

Thanks for the all the suggestions.

TYWAIS - Had a computer at the laboratory with nearly the same symptoms and it just happened yesterday morning, before that it was ok. Checked the system restore and saw two updates that came in on that morning, set the restore back to a date before those two and it fixed the problem. Might take a look at a date or two behind and see what was installed and go back before that.

Its been a few days now since it happened and to be honest I can’t recall downloading anything unusual. Maybe just the updates for SpyBot – Ad-Aware and AVG (all the free versions) but never had any trouble with them. I looked back at Restore and only have “System Check Points” logged for the last few weeks except one entry “Software Distribution Service 2.0” No idea what that is!

SILVERO - Have you checked that the Windows service "Themes" is running? If it isn't then you can only get classic.

Also, if it isn't running, and you can't get it to run, have a look in your event log to see if there are any errors. There may have been an accident with your UXTheme.dll, if so there are plenty of originals available for download from the web, you could also try to get it from your XP disk.

Is “Themes” is running? I assume it is as I can go to Desktop/Properties/Themes and change the “Theme” When I click on “Classic” or “Windows XP” the desktop picture changes to those themes but the color and size of the taskbar and title bar remain the same. “Classic”

What’s this accident I could have had with UXTheme.dll? Can I find it on the XP disk and drop it - Where?? - System32???

LANNIG – These are per-user settings so if you were to create a new username in Windows and use that one, it should get the default settings. You should have no trouble copying your documents, desktop shortcuts etc. from one user to another if the new one (target) is an administrator account (or if you're not using NTFS).

That seems to be a solution that I may try though I would like to get to the bottom of what caused the problem so as not to do it again. I am using the same original installation disk, XP Pro, but upgraded with the SP2 disk that those nice people from M$ send out for free so I am guessing when I insert the XP disk without the SP2 the computer thinks it is an earlier version.

The only thing that comes to mind is the problem happened after I had done one of my big computer clean ups. I have Windows Care and Reg Clean programs that I have run many times always in default mode, without this problem so why should it be different this time?

Beachcomber

I assume you tried the restore function before trying anything else?

If not got to Control panel, select performance and maintainance. Click on System restore (in the left hand pane)....and follow the simple intructions from there.

Good luck

Yes tried System Restore but though it restored everything else to a previous date the Desktop remained in Clasic mode.

I have somehow managed to mess up some of my basic Windows settings, mainly the XP desktop colors and taskbar and title bar sizes.

It’s no big deal as everything else seems to be working OK but I would like to get back to the default XP settings.

I have tried the Desktop/Appearance etc. but can only get “Windows Classic Style” Windows XP seems to have disappeared.

I tried to “Repair Windows” by running the original installation disc, as I seem to recall an option of “Repair” instead of “Install” but I guess because I have SP2 and all the upgrade patches installed I get the message something like “The version you have installed is later than this version if you continue ALL your data will be lost”

The question is if I continue past this warning will I be able to Repair Windows without losing any of my data or will it just go on doing a complete reinstall before I have a chance to stop it?

Thanks

Beachcomber.

Thank U all for the info and links.

All pretty obvious really

First time dad obviously got some more learning to do.

Thank u all for the replies, lot of information for me to work on.

Unfortunately I don’t have any family in UK to provide an address and don’t want to burden friends with something that could go on for decades. Also anything in Thailand is in wife’s name so really don’t have much proof that I actually exist.

Beachcombing ain’t what it used to be and the only reason for the need of a UK bank Acc is for the Government pension.

Can you open an account without any money? There would be no worries about money laundering.

ARTISAN - Your situation is almost identical to mine and make some good valid points.

NAKA - I will definitely follow up your link – Can it really be that easy?

Again thank you all - keep Em’coming

Beachcomber

I personally would investigate the 'reason' why the payment did not arrive in your bank account as the U.K Pensions dept insist that the money CAN be paid into certain bank accounts w/wide-including Thailand.

To deposit a U.K cheque into a Thai bank the min value they will accept is 150.00 GBP for certain banks so check this out with your local bank...then you will have to pay charges on the this.

Get the Pensions dept to sort this out..this should not become your headache!

E-Mails have been flying back and forth for the last couple of months. They are getting seriously fed up with me in the International Pension Office.

I have been in touch with the International department of my bank in Bangkok who were no real help except to ask why the UK government does not have electronic transfer to Thailand like in other countries.

The problem started with the Pension office asking for my Thai bank Acc details. This is a local branch and apparently they should have sent the check to main branch in BKK.

Added to this the address did not include the street number of the bank so my local manager informs me the check would never get delivered anyway.

The only bank on the island and they have to have a street number to deliver the mail.

TIT

Beachcomber.

A friend of mine (from the UK) living in Pattaya opened up an account online with First Direct quite recently.

He had no connection with the bank at all before.

Go into their site and click on 'contact us' at the foot of the home page if that might be of 'interest' you...

That looks promising I will follow it up.

Thanks.