Polymer Head

In a somewhat related story. I retired after school to enjoy my life (some of that time was spent in Japan) but got tired of it after about 11 years. Went back to the UK to attend university and became an engineer. Got a lucky break with a small company (in UK) after being unemployed for a year after graduation. Next lucky break was being headhunted for a company (in Japan), didn't like it, left after after 3 years and found another R&D engineering job also within Japan.

I (think I) see two things from your post:

1. You're looking for reassurance from others to say that you are doing the 'right thing'

2. You're not sure whether you should follow your heart or not as you have built up a comfortable life in Thailand and afraid you'll never get it back again

Such a big decision is never easy, follow your heart, happiness and success comes from within and not from reassurances from others.

Do let us know what you decide. After all, all stories need an ending of some sort.

The changes we have been seeing in Thailand over the past few months saw me sticking my CV out to the world at large (just out of curiosity) and woe and behold I go and get two Senior blue chip company job offers this week. One is for 70k GBP plus plus and the other is 90k GBP plus plus. The only problem is I have to go back to the UK to work on a full time basis.

I have a good crack here in Thailand (job, lifestyle etc...) but currently only managing to save about 6k GBP per year which isn't enough for a long term retirement plan. If I go back to the UK I could save enough in 3 to 4 years to top up my current offshore funds to allow me to comfortably come back and retire in Thailand. I am however only 39 and currently too young to retire in LOS properly as I have to wait until I am 50 for that.

Given the choice, what would you do? Would you stick it out and maintain a static once a year visa type lifestyle here in LOS or go back to blightly for a few more years and top up the retirement plan wonger?

Practice, practice, practice and it's easy with a digital camera. Also, a short course in the fundamentals of photograhpy if your serious enough.

But digital camera made me stupid still. I've been more than a year learning photography from zero, starting directly with digital camera (used film only with compact point & shoot camera). Read photography magazines. I shots thousands of pictures, but still know nothing about how to measure lights/exposure CORRECTLY and MANUALLY. Digital camera makes me lazy. I get used to bracketing, trusting what the viewfinder/LCD says, Program mode, and other automatic stuffs.

Wish I could practice more on using my camera's Manual mode. Just like when using manual film camera where every single negative film should produce a good photo.

Same for me when I switched to a digital camera, so it was mostly in full auto mode occasionally testing the shooting and picture styles modes. As with donna, if 1 shot out 36 was 'good' I was happy. Besides, pros still take numerous shots and pick the best ones.

Getting slightly off topic, we now need to understand how the sensor of a digital camera 'reacts' and processes light in its various modes. Just as how negative or positive (slide) film reacts differently to the aperture and shutter speed settings. If you're using a DSLR then sensor size and crop factors come into play.

See if the link below is of any help

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

Practice, practice, practice and it's easy with a digital camera. Also, a short course in the fundamentals of photograhpy if your serious enough.

Ok just tried again but without ticking the "is it multilingual" box - sms sent with sucess. I guess problem solved.

EDH

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Hi,

The bug was fixed Today, 2005-12-07 18:20:50, probably you loaded the old page from the cache?

If the 'is multilingual box" is unticked and you send swedish characters it may not be displayed correctly on the reciepent's phone. If you type non standard english characters in the box, then you must make sure to have ticked the is multilingual box.

Not following the above guideline can have several consiquences :-

1) message not being delivered

2) message not displayed properly on reciepent's phone.

3) blank message being delivered to reciepent's phone.

Also remember when you send SMS in non-English, for the SMS to be shown correctly, the reciepent's phone must support displaying SMS in that particular language.

PS: anyone have a phone with chinese or arabic, need someone to test if those languages work fine or not.

Japanese can be tested on my mobile if required.

Truncated Messages

My first two messages were sent successfully but problems occurred at the receiving end.

Sender's Data

Operating system: Mac OSX v.10.4

Browser: Safari v.2.0.3

Location: Japan

SMS 1 (ID 4694): Message was truncated to first 8 out of 138 characters (including spaces)

Sent time stamp: 21:51

Receivers time stamp: 16:49 (TH)

Reportedly received: About 21:50 (TH)

SMS 2 (ID 6547): Message was truncated to first 36 out of 140 characters (including spaces)

Sent time stamp: 20:48

Receivers time stamp: 15:47 (TH)

Reportedly received: About 20:30 (TH)

Receiver's Data

Mobile model: Samsung SGH-E630 with TH-GSM system

Provider: AIS with GSM system

The time stamps are second priority to the messages arriving in a timely fashion and complete as sent.

What are the possible causes and solutions?

Google Pack - A free collection of essential software

http://pack.google.com/

Google Pack is a free collection of essential software from Google and other companies. The software in the Google Pack helps you browse the web faster, remove and protect your computer from spyware and viruses, organize your photos, and more.

* Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition

* Adobe Reader 7

* Ad-Aware SE Personal

* GalleryPlayer HD Images

* Google Desktop

* Google Earth

* Google Pack Screensaver

* Google Talk

* Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer

* Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar

* Picasa

* RealPlayer

* Trillian

Google Pack also takes the hassle out of downloading, installing, and updating software. You can download and install the entire Google Pack in just a few clicks. And the included Google Updater helps you discover new programs and keep your current software up to date.

http://pack.google.com/

To save a few milliseconds, the above pack is only available for Windows XP

I live in BKK and I just put this poll to find out the %age of people living in BKK or other place.

EDIT: I am sorry, there is a typo, Chiagmai should have been Chiangmai

Japan, about 80km north of Tokyo

Doesn't really answer the question as I'm not in Thailand yet but... got sent to Thailand for business trips and put up in Woodlands in Pattaya - didn't like the bar scene.

When comparing my pressure cooker work atmosphere in Japan to Thailands comparatively relaxed mode I knew that I would like to work in Thailand next (my other comparisons are UK, HK and China).

If I can't find a job with a 'permanent' contract in Thailand (cautious type) then I'll retire there with my old creaky bones. Due to the shortage of engineers in the Japan branch I can't be relocated to Thailand and continuous expansion means it's on indefinite hold.

Being new to forums and Thailand, where can I find out what LOS stands for/means for example?

[This is not the place but, just in case anybody knows of some websites for jobs in Thailand in the R&D/process/product design & development/project management field for polymer engineers, please let me know... thanks]

Not a falang, local "inter" Thai family actually. We do have an injection molding factory with 3 injectors in our group of companies. We usually don't make anything bigger than computer speakers, and it'd be ideal if you already have your up to spec molds made if you wanted to start manufacturing your product immediately. Feel free to PM me.

If you need to employ a polymer engineer or know of anybody/company that needs one let me know at the following address

[email protected]

I am looking for an individual, preferably a farang, that has knowledge in the plastics industry. I need someone that knows about injection molding, etc. I plan on approaching a Thai plastics co. and request that they mfg. some plastic components for me. I may need a spokes person, that is already in Thailand to be a participant.

Unfortunately, I don't live in Thailand (yet) but I would have liked to have helped. Be aware of some main points

1. How moulds (the two halves) are afixed to the injection moulding machine when the mould is manufactured

2. Grade of material - material selection based on product, end use (bulk/high performance polymer etc), there are so many

3. Size of component - it affects productivity as the product must be sufficiently cooled before being ejected which, affects

4. Quality - dimensional stability, flashing, finish and

5. Cost per component

I have spent a fair amount of time on Jobsdb.com. Even posted my resume and sent emails to a few of the listings. No responses. And most of what I have seen requires a knowledge of the local language and to be "in country". I have been browsing the Thai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japanese postings. Not encouraging at all....oh well, guess I will just have to live in the LOS, drink beer, and cruise the internet until I find a job. Sure hope that takes a long time!

It seems that teaching English is one of the very few jobs readily available to foreigners in Asia and Japan is no exception to this. The Japanese government protects underpay with a law that an English teacher under a full time contract must not be paid less than 250 000 Yen/month.

The market is flooded with teachers on JET schemes, those finding the position from their home country and many that have come here on their own to make it.

Still, you can find English teaching jobs in big cities like Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. I mention this as general information from what I've heard and can't say anymore than this as I'm not in this field.

I've yet to have a browse myself on Jobsdb.com.

are these new "Smart Purse" cards that you can buy at a Seven-Eleven store any good?

I understand that the first card costs B250 and you can use it at various stores around Bangkok for payment...and you can reload the card in B200 increments....you also get "one point" for every B10 spent....not sure what you can trade the points for...

will these cards also be useable for use on the subway and the skytrain (like the "Octopus Card" in Hong Kong)??java script:emoticon(':D',%20'smid_4')

I have used the equivalent in Japan (called Edy Card). Found it very convenient at an amusement park as it meant no fumbling with small change or notes. In Shanghai, my e-travel card could be used for bus, taxi and subway fares, very, very convenient. The inconvenience is having to top up the cards

Electronic money is a convenience/alternative and good depends on many factors, but it's down to whether you prefer this/ready to accept or handling cash and the number of establishments able to process e-money cards/mobiles. Any fringe benefits depends on the operators of the cards/mobiles.

Pricing is always a sticking point in any venture. The following was the result of a brief search to find a price comparison per SMS (individuals will have to confirm in more detail if destination/others influences pricing, sorry didn't have that much time):

http://www.e-txt.co.uk/buy.html

200 (SMS)

£0.070 (per SMS)

£14.00 (cost of package)

[0.07 GBP=0.122842 USD (http://www.xe.com, Live mid-market rates as of 2006.01.05 15:13:20 UTC]

http://www.clickatell.com/brochure/pricing.php

1 to 9,999 (number of SMS)

USD 0.053 (per SMS)

http://www.smsfax.com/tarifs.html

500 units : 8.36 € (0.0167 € per unit)

[0.0167 EUR=0.0201886 USD (http://www.xe.com, Live mid-market rates as of 2006.01.05 14:29:20 UTC]

I hope that Thai Visa is able to maintain the competitive pricing to ensure the success of this service.

Sorry, no new BETA testers for the time beeing

We are currenly refining the system for a sharp launch later this month. For the time beeing we don't register new users.

Existing BETA users, please post questions, and bug reports in this thread!

Thanks!

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1. Application and registration went smoothly without a hitch

2. PIN number took about 4 hrs to receive

3. First message sent 23:49 (jp) arrived 21:49 (th)

4. Has worked well so far for first SMS

One suggestion - since a SMS message is limited to 140 characters, a character counter would be very useful

To elaborate on this a little.

To me, the key is you have to add something EXTRA to a local employer.  In most cases it will simply be the advantage of having someone educated and used to working in the west (in addition to the english language skills).  I hate to generalise but those who work in western business environments tend to be more expressive, more independent thinking, more prepared to offer opinions than their Thai counterparts who - for cultural reasons - don't want to be seen to be getting above themselves.

So many people on here think their IT skills will be snapped up here.  Wrong.  An IT specialist is an IT specialist is an IT specialist . . be they Thai, Farang or from the Planet Mars.    It is basically the same skillset and as it can be acquired so cheaply here, why hire a farang?

But in more intuitive areas of business (eg Marketing, communications, General Management etc), I think we can add something different over a Thai applicant.

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Glad to hear the upbeat news as I'm also considering moving to Thailand from Japan.

Searching by internet yields very little for a research/project management engineer (polymers). Most jobs state an age limit (my sell by date expired long ago) and leave the salary blank (learnt now it's a monthly figure). As I'm not quite ready to move yet do you (or anybody) know of any good websites or excutive search firms in the research/process materials engineering field that can be contacted in the meantime?

To round it off, fluent in English, intermediate in Japanese and Cantonese and zilch in Thai. Slightly burnt out and in need of a lifestyle change hence, the desire to move.

Thanks for any feedback.

'Never' is the wrong word to use... some actually do work...

=) Long distance relationships never work

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Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience in mould design but, in case you're looking for a full time Polymer Engineer (product design and development/R&D engineer) PM me.

Hi everyone,

I hope this is the place i can post .. i m looking a part-time CAD/CAM engineer for both plastic & rubber moulding. Please send me your resume to [email protected] if anyone interested. Thanks.

Gender  : Male

Age      : Over 25

Location : Samutprakarn Area

Salary    : Negotiable

Nationality : Any

Experience : At least 2-3 Years In Moulding Design

Great Tech Engineering Co.,Ltd.

501/51-52, Prekasar Road

Samutprakarn 10280

[email protected]

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No they won't fire him just leave him in a room with a 6 inch knife. After having coverd up the floor with plasticbags. Think it's called haikiro or something , saw it in a movie.

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Yes, called harakiri or seppuku