nikster

Yes.

Background: I had to install Vista on my laptop for work. I installed on the second HD partition of my Acer TM 8204 laptop. All hardware was found except Bluetooth, which I installed with Vista drivers from the WIDCOMM website. So far so good - Vista running with all bells and whistles and an WEI of 4.5.

I played with Vista over the weekend to figure out whether I should just drop XP and use Vista full time. Conclusion: No. I will wait for Vista SP2 and by that time hopefully have my Santa Rosa MacBook with leopard.

Big No-Nos:

- Vista loves giant dialog boxes with two pages of text in each option. You don't click on a button - you click on a whole paragraph. It's horrible.

- They have also hidden the network settings which I need all the time. And Vista makes me decide for each new connection whether it's business, private or public. Particularly funny when using the laptop in many different internet cafes / cafes with Wifi, the hotel, etc - a large dialog (see above) each time.

- I had already disabled UAC (too annoying) but then the "security center" started nagging me that UAC was disabled. Duh!

I guess all of these complaints really boil down to one thing: I can't use an OS that requires constant attention. I would rather never notice the OS.

Vista seems to want much more attention than XP. With UAC enabled, it's in your face all the time with modal dialogs, interrupting your workflow with nonsensical questions "Process UAkS.DLL wants to modify system resources! Did you initiate this process and do you want it to continue Y/N". How the hel_l should I know?

But even with UAC disabled, Vista continues to nag and wants decisions all the time.

The shiny windows don't make up for that, neither does the excellent Aurora"screen-saver. Not that I use screen savers but Aurora is nice.

I think the graphics and sound effects of Vista are way better than in XP. Not as sublime as OS X but then, no one expected that, and an improvement is an improvement and should be applauded.

My prediction is that MS will receive literally millions of complaints about the constant in-your-face-ness of the OS and will fix some with SP1 and fix more with SP2 by which time it will have nag-parity with XP.

And what do you do for the 6 month validation (he asked for business not home so he needs the validation server access right) after that? I personally went back to tiger (OS X) after trying it out (yes real copy) as Vista would not run the most important app on my notebook being skype.

Maybe you didn't understand me.

1) Install pirate copy of Vista Enterprise (or whatever)

2) Buy new product key from Microsoft.com

3) Boom! Now your windows Vista install is perfectly legal

New product keys can be purchased here:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/e...6165661033.mspx

Looks like they have an event planned for the 23rd in Bangkok but I can't read Thai so here's the URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/thailand/launch/

Microsoft has a program called "Cleanshop" of trusted retailers where you can be assured genuine products. The full list of outlets in Thailand is here.

One thing to note is that every Vista DVD contains all versions of the software and you can buy upgrades online to unlock the upgrades so there's no pressure to get the Ultimate or Premium versions right away.

Couldn't you also buy a baht copy and then purchase a perfectly legal license for it online?

I am testing Vista from MSDN and I think that's an option.

I think you'd find the Nokia N80 is a different phone. I too had an earlier smart phone. It did what I wanted but I found it to be a real pain because I didn't find it user friendly at all and the delay in the program was irritating to say the least. The N80 still boots slow, I timed it at 40 seconds but since I rarely turn it off it is not important. My old phone was turned on and off a lot because that's all I could do to clear the hangups and crashes. The camera in the N80 comes on within three seconds. The latest software must be a lot faster because I have no complaints about the program speed. The best part is the speaker and call quality. After all, it's supposed to be a phone.

Before the dodgy software smart phone I used a Nokia 6230. That's the one that made me a Nokia user. The one after the 6230 would have really turned me off if it had been my first Nokia smart phone. My faith has been restored by the N80. The latest software upgrade for the N80 was a whopping 66mb. It took forever to complete.

For all I could find out, the N80 has the same processor as the N73, so it must be the software. I did a full software upgrade too, at 60MB or so - at least they finally allow firmware upgrades! N73 is still slow though. I don't care about startup because the phone never needs to be restarted (good) but the speed of opening the camera, the clock, the gallery... yawn. maybe I just need to add more memory, I will try that.

However, my point remains valid: Even if all the included features were blazing fast, they are still the same as in the old 6600, give or take a few. Nothing too exciting, nothing you couldn't do 4 years ago. Ok I give you that: The basic phone functions work reasonably well

names.

What has that got to do with the fact that they are a pair of theiving <deleted> and deserve what's due to them. "nuff said"

Its got quite a lot to do with it. Remember the Paris riots just over a year ago?

Its the N. African contingent who don't like being made to obey sovereign law of a country that they try to corrode and take advantage of from within.

They'll get theirs here, hopefully.

Let's just stick with the facts: Two foreign criminals thought it would be a good idea to follow their trade in Thailand and are now being taught that that wasn't such a good idea. Great! I like it when police do their job, all too many times they are seen as slacking and/or incompetent, one of the main causes of problems in this country.

As for them being from a certain nation / ethnicity - it's irrelevant. Really. People are people, the world over. Especially expats should know this - look around you in this "exotic" country, so many things are different - until you look at all the things that are the same and realize that the differences exist at the most shallow level only. Much more is the same than is different, even in this far corner of the world.

Yeah, but I'm lucky if I get 2 hours from a fully charged 18 month old i-pod.

They exaggerate the battery life somewhat!

It's a fact that these batteries tend to die. I had two - an original iPod purchased in 2001, which I returned 6 months later because its battery life was down to 2 hours. And the replacement which I got in 2002 which holds a 10 hour charge until this day.

There are many 3rd party solutions for this though, many shops that are specialized in replacing iPod batteries. It's about $50 or so.

I'm always amused because I find Apple fanatics the same as Toyota fanatics. If Toyota put wheels on a big turd people would still say it was great. That said, I was an anti Nokia guy. I thought Sony Ericsson was the best phone out there. I bragged them up and one of my friends bought a top of the line Sony Ericsson with the great camera and all the bells and whistles. His phone has spent two of the past four months in the shop. As for me I had two of them die on me. YEP, I now have a Nokia. If you can't beat them you have to join them.

I need to answer you because I am both a Toyota and an Apple fanboi! Imagine that!

Toyota I love for uncompromising dedication to quality. #2 in initial quality behind Lexus for the last 10 years, ahead of BWM, Mercedes, etc. Lately they even started to innovate...

Apple has the same sort of uncompromising focus on usability, user experience - Apple was a natural to do the iPod - much simpler than the inherently messy problem of computers. The iPod deserves all its hype as well - I got one when it first came out when there were lots of critics out there ("others with the same features cost less" never mind that they A don't work and B are 3 times the size) but when I used it I think it was the first time ever that I had a gadget where I could not think of a single thing to improve - it was perfect, or as perfect as it could be.

I hope iPhone will follow that, and I think it will but I reserve final judgement for when I am holding it in my hands.

I have always been a Nokia fan because way back when I got into cell phones they were by far the best - they were pure bliss to use, simple to start and with tons of nifty features later on. And unbreakable. Then the others caught up. And recently I see big trouble - Symbian, the smart phone OS Nokia likes to use in order to not get locked into the Microsoft trap, is crap. My 19,000 baht N73's Symbian is exactly the same as on my 4 year old 6600. It's even just as slow as the old one! The hardware is gorgeous, but Nokia really dropped the ball there on software - open the camera and wait 30 seconds. Do pretty much anything and wait xx seconds! This is 2007, hello? All they did in 4years was a shiny display and a 3MP camera?

So to conclude: The timing is not a co-incidence. Back when Apple first looked at phones, in the heydays of Nokia, they decided not to enter the market because the competition was too strong. They said so in an analyst meeting! Now, there are smart-phones, lots of them, and they all more or less suck. The iPhone will change that, or at least try. What people under-estimate is that the iPhone is running OS X - it will be able to do things others just simply can't do even if they wanted to.

His dosh is his passport, so being non-red won't have be an issue with any country.

For a small fee, he can be a diplomat of Nigeria. Or Burma.

Just another example of how Thailand does not want the "average" westerner here. They want the quality tourist, the rich tourist. And they sure don't want average westerners living here. Once all of the dust settles, the average westerner won't want to be here. I think that they will continue to make things difficult for those of us who want to be here.

Don't take it personal. Big money in phuket wants the avg. joe's package tourists to provide the base and the millionaires for whom they built all those villas for. They don't want the backpackers or anyone else staying longer than 2 weeks, which probably includes you.

I can understand it, it's the way to maximize profits. the package tourists spend the other 50 weeks working to make all that money that they can then set on fire in the two weeks they are here. that's the tourist i would want if i was running a resort.

I lived in Salzburg/Austria for a while (my dad's from there) and what Salzburg loves most are the Japanese. They come in hordes, they spend like there's no tomorrow, and they leave after a week to make room for the next batch of ready-to-spend japanese. That's why a coffee in Salzburg city is 10 EUR.

It's the perfect tourist and Thailand wants those people too.

I'm no expert, but AVG anti-spyware (free), finds for me, on a daily basis, medium-risk tracking cookies, such as Serving-sys, Statcounter, Tacoda, Burstnet, and Adrevolver, which are then deleted.

Spybot gave me a lot of problems, as far as conflicts with other programs. I was forced to remove it.

I use Ad-Aware which also marks all tracking cookies. While advertisers use these to do their business, they are completely harmless on your system.

I want to mainly know about software that messes with my system rather than cookies that I accepted - if I want to control cookies I would set the options in Firefox accordingly, like have to approve each cookie etc..

Case in point: It just found 2 "critical" tracker cookie in my IE cache. Apart from the fact that I hardly ever use IE, any type of cookie does not seem critical to me. A cookie is nothing but an ID that a website can request - big deal! Cookies are a form of ID but not programs, they can't do anything bad to the system. The label "critical" is IMHO just hype put out by the scanner to make itself more important.

A lot has been said here, but I want to add one thing to the OPs question about updating windows.

It is getting more and more annoying to use pirated copies of Windows. All sorts of stuff requires a WGA check and pirated copies generally don't pass that.

Turning on auto updates should keep windows updating though, even pirated copies. As long as MS doesn't change its policy on that, pirated copies are updated automatically just as genuine versions are.

I can't personally verify that this is still working though since my laptop came with a genuine copy of XP

If you are buying a new laptop you can just ask for a real version, the OEM installed on the computer should be substantially cheaper than a Windows bought after-market. Around $50 or so.

Also keep in mind that Vista is around the corner.

I am not commenting on the police / bribe thing - we don't know what happened so why speculate?

I am surprised though that these guys apparently got PIN numbers on a mass scale. That's new and troubling and I am sure the Banks and or insurance agencies are very interested in finding out how that happened. At the same time they are also very interested in keeping any findings to themselves, so don't expect this to be public knowledge anytime soon.

PINs, as has been noted, are not on the cards. A card can be replicated by just picking up an old receipt of yours or getting the card # and name some other way. Very easy.

One type of crime that has been around forever is to make fake cards and use them to buy stuff (and then presumably sell that stuff). Old news. Keep your receipts, and if it happens the card issuer will give you no trouble and return the money and lock the card.

The other type of crime, using the card at an ATM, is new, and completely different - they got your PIN from somewhere. Could be readers set up / attached to an ATM, but those are hard to hide, especially over a long period.

I also heard of an incident in the UK where someone at the post office basically intercepted the letters the bank sends out with the PIN on it. Those letters were apparently very easy to spot - a major flaw in the system and in Britain, I know for a fact that it got exploited once. I would think that that's not possible anymore though...

Thanks for the info. Last time I installed Nero it came with all sorts of programs including some sort of search bar which installed itself in my task bar and was hard/impossible to turn off. Hence the spyware rant. Maybe they removed that by now?!

The user has always been able to customise the installation of Nero. Hence, the options can be selected or deselected during the set up procedure. What you have is what you selected. Definitely no spyware.

It's been a while but what I am absolutely sure about is that there was no option to not install the "Nero Scout". I think I eventually found a program on the Nero website which removed Scout though. But, like I said, perhaps they saw the errors in their ways and there is now an option to leave it out.

To be clear: Are you sure that the Nero installer allows a user to _not_ install Scout?

From what I can see, there are currently only two manufacturers that have 1080p (actual 1080p, not just "accept 1080p input" and downsize it to some lower res) for non-astronomical prices (in Thailand), and those are Samsung and Sony. Both Samsung and Sony have 40-46" LCD TVs for around 100-200k baht, and Sony has the 50-60" SXRD projection TVs (which many say are better than LCDs or plasmas) for around the same price bracket.

You can go ahead and take a look around at the various shopping malls. Then go to the various retailers outside the malls (like Sinsiam) and they will give you around 5% discount for a cash purchase... you can also take off more if you cut some of the freebies (like home theater, dvd player, etc).

I was just going to write the exact same thing. I have been keeping my eyes open for true 1080p and found that Sony and Samsung have started selling them only just very recently.

The vast, vast majority of "HDTV-Ready" LCD TVs is 1366x768, not 1920x1080 (1080p).

Bravia X series and some Samsungs have real HD. I want one but I find it pretty hard to buy now while prices are in free-fall, basically.

Whichever you buy, resolution is not everything - there are pretty big differences in LCD quality between the vendors and between different models.

I read here that some people have 2MB or even 4MB connections from TOT and others.

When I signed up for my DSL connection, TOT offered 1024 (1MB) max. Goldcyber. But if I can get a faster connection, I would be very interested in it. Unfortunately I could not find a listing of current packages on the TOT website. I also don't know how the system works in Thailand - TOT seemed to be the only provider in my area, Pai, Mae Hong Son province - can I call True and get a connection from them? Or do they just not do that? I have not seen any signs of True internet in Pai, nor any other providers.

Also, I am pretty happy with TOT, it delivers as promised most of the time - yeah it's down more than it would be back home in Europe, but considering the infrastructure and power outages they have to deal with on a daily basis, I think it's as good as it can be.

I would really appreciate a listing of current packages over 1MB, price and availability. Thanks!

Note: This is assuming that the current internet troubles are going to be fixed next month or so. I know it's slow at the moment.

Will he breach his UK contract by unlocking?

No.

TRUE adsl Bangkok 512/256 circuit

413/206

Have done several times tonight and speeds are as good or better than normal. But the circuit is marginal as every 3rd or 4th time lose server, never loads, never completes load. It took two tries to get speed test both times I did it tonight. There must be a huge bit bucket out there tonight.

With all that bandwidth tied up in speed tests, no wonder it's slow for the rest of us. Stop it already!

I use Nero 7 and don't see anything regarding spyware. As for using 100% CPU, nearly any DVD authoring/writing software will be that way. It is very CPU intensive. Another package I use and find very good is Sonic MyDVD (Roxio Media Creator Suite) . For just writing/backup, then RecordNow DX from the same company.

As mentioned, be sure the DVD is compatible with your writer. You mentioned DVD+R/W and most DVDs are -R so verify your writer support.

Some free software

Thanks for the info. Last time I installed Nero it came with all sorts of programs including some sort of search bar which installed itself in my task bar and was hard/impossible to turn off. Hence the spyware rant. Maybe they removed that by now?!

On the same topic - what is a good program to burn DVDs in general?

I tried Nero 7 but it seems to have turned into a stinkin' pile of spyware these days, I just can't stand to have it on my system. It installs itself everywhere and then some. No thanks, I just want to burn the odd DVD.

Anyone using Alcohol 120%? I heard it's good. Any other recommendations?

I am currently using the program that came with my computer, NTI CD & DVD maker. It's using 100% CPU for burning a DVD so I definitely do NOT recommend it.

I just came to think about one difference between the two cars, when you select the A/T models.

In the Vigo you can select the following drive modes:

D , 3 , 2 , and 1

In the Triton you can select the following drive modes:

D , 2 , and 1.

I think about, that if I buy a Triton, I would miss this option, - to select the " 3 " mode when driving downhill and wanting to have some brake effect from the engine.

Any comments, especially from those who own a pickup with A/T ??

Not a pick up but...

My Fortuner has 1,2,3,D, my old Suzuki Vitara had 1,2,D and Overdrive.

Basically what it came down to was that "Overdrive Off" == 3. e.g. 3rd gear is overdrive off.

Maybe Triton has an Overrdrive/Overdrive off option?

I do use the 3 quite a bit but I also drive mountains quite a bit Doesn't make a huge difference but I like to drive the mountains like I would with a manual. That said the new autos are so good that there isn't a whole lot of difference, it's in the "right" gear most of the time just by itself. The only thing it can't do is anticipate what's coming - I know that there's a steep bit or a curve or both coming and can shift accordingly and of course the auto can't do that. Important for that last bit of speed!

I don't want to argue about looks as they are personal choices. The engineering is objective, however, and MU7 is outdated comparing to Fortuner or CRV. Does the new Everest have new engine and five speed auto, btw? I understand it's also only a cosmetic change on the old generation platform, just like MU 7.

Maybe later this year we'll get SUV based on Triton.

BUT, even if the difference is there, and it's confirmed both by motoring critics and the buying public, it's not that big as Gary noted - all Thai pickups are bullet proof.

Stay away from the Everest. The Ford, not the mountain. You have been warned.

I would definitely test-drive any new car. Fortuner has way better suspension than MU7 so take it over a few bumps and see if its acceptable. Triton is supposed to have good suspension too.

A friend has the 2.5 Triton - it gets very impressive gas mileage. 6l/100km over the mountains! It's a great truck.

I have a Fortuner which is simply excellent in everything - but it gets only 9.1km/l, just over 11l/100k. It's 4WD which the OP doesn't need, and they don't make 2WD versions. And it's much more expensive, I think 2x the Triton 2.5.

For 2WD pick-ups, Vigo or Triton for sure. For SUV type cars... the new CRV looks very nice but is expensive and tiny. Everest is a disaster. And I believe the MU7 has a coil leaf rear suspension (pick-up style) which will bounce your rear passengers around the cabin, even on small bumps. Ford Escape is pretty nice - small but good package.

I am planning going to buy an HP notebook in the next few days.

HP Pavilion dv6108tx, Dual Mobile Technology.

This is the full spec.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/th/en/ho/WF...4-77994827.html

- I am planning to buy this in Dcom in South Pattaya

- There are 2 shops that have them, one is slightly cheaper than the other 39K versus 41K

- The slightly more expensive offering is upstairs (5th floor) in a large shop with HP authorisation, compared to the other being a little shop on the 3rd floor.

The extra couple of Thousand Baht is not a big issue, I would rather buy in the larger shop as it looks more reputable.

Does it make a differencce where I buy it though, I guess if it does not work it will go to an HP repair centre ?

Is there an HP centre in Pattaya?

Does anyone have one of these HP Pc's

The processor looks pretty low spec - 1.66 Core Duo - everything else looks good. It should be a Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz for that price...

Then again, you won't notice the difference unless you do some really specialized apps. For internet, word, email etc this is plenty.

Don't know how HP handles warranties, but keep in mind that something _will_ go wrong at some point. I have Acer and they always go straight to the Acer repair center so the dealer you bought it at doesn't matter one bit. I heard good things about HP support in Thailand.

My internet is a joke today also (and yesterday). I found it better 3 or 4 days ago so i find the earthquake a flimsy excuse.

Im on True highspeed.

Two things happened right after the quake:

1 - Connections got routed via Europe.

2 - It was in the holidays in Thailand so not much traffic

Now connections go over HK, which is dead slow. And everyone's back from the holidays.

I think the connection over europe, while slow, was still a lot faster than the line we have now over HK. I can only assume that that was a very expensive line or we would still have it.

The only thing we can do is call customer service and complain. As it is, this severely affects my business.

Edit: It's 6:44 am now and I get ~35KB / second. There is hope.

electrified :D

(Now that is a d****d good smiley)

Why does this happen? The house was newly wired up by some reputable chappies, apparently. The holes in the wall are 2 plug holes.

Why do i have to get this electrifying feeling when i touch my computer case? Do i have to call in the electricians again and tell them they did it wrong?

Or, am I the one to blame?

I used to get zapped a lot in my old house, even worse with my Titanium Powerbook as the whole chassis is a conductor.

So I built my new house with ground (earth) - all 3-prong plugs throughout. No more zapping here Increases the cable cost by 1/3rd and you have to get a guy who knows what he's doing, but well worth it IMHO.

You can retrofit your old house with that, just slam a large steel rod in the ground and hook it up to the third cable, then wire it everywhere. I didn't do that in the old house since it wasn't mine, just rented. But Thai labor costs are extremely reasonable.