Lannig

Some facts about Wiko (typed from France from someone who's owned 3 of their models):

- Wiko's headquarters are located in Marseille, France but the company's major shareholders are chinese

- they just rebrand, localize and import chinese phones, mostly from "Tinno", a major manufacturer which happens to be their major shareholder too

- yes, they're being quite successful here, their market share here in France was larger than Samsung's and right behind Apple in 2015

- the key to their success is clever marketing: aggressive pricing, fast model turnaround, fancy colors, flashy ads, fashion effect, very broad selling channels (they're everywhere)

- their support sucks on all aspects (warranty, repairs, updates) but due to the low prices and fast model turnaround, buyers seem to overlook this

- they surf on the "french brand" effect too (it even comes up in some of their ads). Not sure how many buyers realize that there's nothing french in these phones except the brand that's written on them

- you can find some of their exact same phones as models under a dozen brands, including Cherry and I-Mobile, simply because they come from the same chinese OEMs

- since they pick up their models from the catalogs of chinese manufacturers, they have very little added added value and they pick up the best or the worst. Among the models I've had from them, one was so-so but a real bargain for its price at that time (Slim), the next one was utter crap (Five) and the last one a good, reliable phone with great performance and unbeatable price/performance ratio, good battery life which I've really enjoyed using (Rainbow)

I'm sure I'm going to be flamed to death for this, but I'm really sick with this "a slap is unacceptable, traumatizing violence" nonsense.

9th graders are no small kids. Look at these girls, some of them are taller than he is.

Have I been slapped by my teachers when I was a kid? yes, several times, although one of my primary school teacher, being a football (soccer for you americans) player, used to prefer a good kick in the butt

Was I traumatized? no

Am I angry at these teachers? not the tinest, for as far as I can recall I did really deserve it every time. Actually I'm still friends with that teacher with a good kick. He's a very old guy now.

Whether gay or straight, I think that any boy would hate to go in such a place with mom & dad watching anyway.

It seems to me that all IT malls are going down these days. This is in no way limited to Pattaya, I was amazed to see how quiet Zeer Rangsit was during my last trip and how many shops had closed (and no, I'm not speaking of the pirated DVD shops) I don't think it's limited to Thailand either.

People more and more do their IT shopping over the Internet. Better prices there, easier to compare, more convenient.

Seriously? You're taking him to Pattaya and telling him he has to rebuff any female advances? Are you trying to mentally scar him for life? Maybe go somewhere else a bit less in your face?

I know what you're saying, but knowing my son, I wouldn't have to tell him to rebuff any advances. He wouldn't even acknowledge it. At least, that's what I would like to think.............

I'm impressed that he's managed to make you think that LOL. Smart kid.

Nothing wrong about pools conducted over a sample of ~1000 persons. Most of the ones you read in your favourite western newspapers don't use a much bigger sample if you care reading the small print.

Of course, in this case, one can be sure that the sample was chosen very carefully to provide the expected results. Or more ever, that the replies by the pooled people were entirely irrelevant because the results were written in advance.

No one has discussed by how much farangs can be overcharged yet.

Sometimes it gets plain ridiculous.

I mean, paying 100B vs. 50B for thais? even 500B instead of 200B? I'm not happy but I can get over it.

But how about being asked 500B compared to 30B for thais as I recall in a national park? pretty damn ignominious I'd say.

Riujd to b xi

Say again?

Folks, make the effort to learn some Thai and get to listen to what other people say when discussing prices.

Then when offered an inflated prince, just say "the gentleman/lady right before me has got that price, so I want it too" in Thai with a large smile.

Works for me all the time. Actually, just speaking some Thai gets you the local price quite often.

Obviously, it seldom if ever works in places where dual pricing is institutionalised. Although it did work at the Chainat bird park not long ago when I arrived with the whole Thai family including a bunch of kids. No documents asked.

I second the FreeFileSync solution or any freeware program that provides folder sync. Simple and easy. Share the folder on your deskstop, mount it as a disk letter on your tablet, fire sync program. Done.

Wifi speeds should be more than enough with both machines on the home network.

Bluetooth is dead slow and USB-to-USB things overkill (and subject to a lot of issues).

Never used Homegroup because I have too many different versions of Windows on my machines (including XP - yes, I know).

There are very decent Chinese Windows tablets here, I have a Teclast one and it works flawlessly. Chuwi is a good brand.

One last tiny bit of advice: IMHO 8" is a bit too small to work comfortably on a Windows tablet, unless you have really good eyes and pointy fingers. The desktop mode is hardly usable. I'd go for 10".

Please use discretion in your references to the government. Phrases which can be considered as anti-coup will be removed. Referring to Thailand or the government as a dictatorship, military dictatorship or other such terms will be removed. Any posts which can be construed as rumor mongering are not allowed.

Err.. pardon me Mr. Bot, but isn't this exactly what the quote in the original post does?

“It is a charade to show the world that Thailand is returning to democracy,” he told the Asian Wall Street Journal. “But in reality, it would be like Myanmar before its political reforms. There would be a prime minister, but the real power would be in some politburo above him and the economy would suffer,” he said. “No other government would want to touch Thailand.”

I would like to say you are wrong, but for one thing, it's true: last year there was Casino black chocolate, more than 75 % pure chocolate, very good and much cheaper than Lindt or Nestlé, many people bought it, and now nothing at all, I don't know why it has disapeared for at least 10 months ; for the rest, the Big C Market in Cha am is always full of Casino products but I have heard that it's because it's a Big C market ; I know other Big C in Thailand ( not in Bangkok or tourist areas ) and they have very, very few Casino products, several have nothing ( Thai people , I think, are not interrested )

I have to second this. The only Big C branches I've seen selling Casino products were the ones in Pattaya, Hua Hin and some in downtown Bangkok. Even the one in Pathum Thani doesn't have any, and neither do the ones in Nakorn Sawan and Kamphaeng Phet I know quite well.

Traveler's checks are a thing of the past like vinyl 33rpm discs here in France and I much regret it. They used to be a convenient and cost-effective way to bring cash to my Thai account.

Now I need to bring in a few thousand Euros in notes at each trip and being worried about these getting lost of stolen until I put them in the bank. Admittedly the most risky part is the train trip to Charles de Gaulle airport, especially when at night.

When at the Kasikorn Bank where my account is, the most boring, unnerving and time-consuming part begins: watching the counter clerk photocopying each and every banknote, making me sign every sheet of paper and painstakingly checking every note for the tiniest spot or tear. An average one of 10-20 notes gets rejected, with "defects" I couldn't see without a magnifying glass. Takes 1+ hour for a couple thousand Euros.

AFAIK only KBANK does this crap, and it's a company policy. Maybe they don't do it in high tourist places because it would be too time consuming, but in BKK and around they do. Since I don't have a work permit anymore, moving my account to a different bank isn't quite an option.

On the run, his face on the news and he didn't even try to change his look a bit? not even shaving his moustache? He must have been very confident indeed.

He may be the first man killed, but there are a whole lot of dinosaurs who know how deadly those things can be.

They weren't killed because of being hit by meteorites.

A commonly accepted theory is that they became extinct due to the massive climate changes caused by a very large asteroid hitting the Earth.

I think that this is clearly a reaction to the fact that making Buddhism a state religion was rejected in the draft of the new constitution.

These two topics can shed some extra light too:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/868100-spurred-by-myanmar-radicals-thai-buddhists-push-for-state-religion-status/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/875051-buddhist-extremism-in-thailand-fits-neatly-into-ncpos-plans/

A poor article IMHO to try and justify a very weird and bonkers phenomena. Yes the world does see this as crazy and hardly sets a positive image of Thai people. as someone who is nota fan of the current way things are here trying to align the problems with acceptance of this strange practice in a modern world is unjustified. In the 21st century from a supposedly modern society, one would and should expect better.

Yes, it looks like another amateurish news source has been found.

It's actually a pretty decent article if you read all of it.

Click that link thingey under the article.

Agreed. Quite sensible indeed and a fair tour of how superstition works in the Thai society, including in the elite layers. Not racist in any way, it's not judgemental. Well worth reading the complete thing.

Loxinfo? Is that a hypertension drug?

Well, assuming that this wasn't a tongue-in-cheek reply... Loxinfo, now known as CSLoxinfo is a internet service provider resulting from the merger of former CSComs (was part of the Shin group that includes AIS) and Loxinfo, a subsidiary of Thai-Singaporean Loxley PLC.

Used to be a dominant ISP, now has been eaten alive by True and BB Broadband in the home user market.

This being said, I find it hard to relate to the topic of this thread, so my apologies for the diversion.

In Phuket BBC World news also off air but they replaced now with Filmon BBC News the UK version its coming from online from this site:

http://www.filmon.tv/tv/channel/export?channel_id=27&affid=50442Nm

Slightly different quality, screen smaller in the cable tv, the frame rate bad too and it sometimes stops lol, but on the given link its pretty good quality, looks like its banned in the whole country since yesterday.

What is banned? BBC News on several cable operators or the aforementioned link?

Can't find out, not in Thailand these days.

If that's the link, plus BBC News still being absent from many places, or back with a convenient delay to being up a black screen in case something comes up that the junta doesn't like, I'd say that Auntie definitely is under the microscope from the big guys in the LOS.

What for exactly? no idea.

it might be time for thaivisa to upgrade to SHTTP. could be helpful for members posting inside Thailand without VPN.

Won't help. If a post is targeted by the authorities, they will require logs to be provided by the TV hoster and therefore they will have the IP address of the poster. Then the relevant Thai ISP will happily provide the name and address of the customer using this IP address at that point in time.

It's my understanding that TV isn't hosted in Thailand, so the logs can't be obtained by subpoena, however if the authorities give them a choice: either give us the requested log or get blacklisted, guess what will happen?

I have both DTAC (Happy) and AIS (1-2-call) SIMs.

Roaming had to be explicitly enabled for both so that I can receive SMSes while in my home country (which I need for my heavy use of KBANK online banking, as they require one-time passwords)

DTAC didn't charge me for this (curious about these 20B another poster mentioned), neither did AIS. But for some reason despite AIS claims that roaming is activated automatically, it didn't work at first. I had to use the USSD codes while in Thailand to disable it (because it was supposed to be enabled already) then re-enable it and then now it works. Go figure...

Agreed, you do not want to take calls while roaming. The price DTAC charges for this while here in Europe are ridiculous, like almost 100B/min.

All the best for this 2nd operation banK. We're still here with you through our minds.

Has your doctor hinted you about follow-up treatment after the removal of your tumor?

Nope, they're different things. You're thinking of the gravity sensor a.k.a accelerometer.

Lacking a compass does not hinder GPS navigation at all. Some apps use it to show what direction your vehicle heads to even when it's not moving. When it's moving, this can be deduced from the changes in GPS coordinates.

Hello banK,

Haven't posted since I started following this thread with great attention. Just wanted to share my best wishes and moral support too. I know what you're going through. I've had a cancer in my 30s, first operation in '93, relapse in '96 with 2 more operations. Clean since then, I've had a 10-year followup. It took me several years but I've managed to have my doctor eventually tell me "you're cured". So be confident ! you can thank whomever you believe in for this pneumonia, it's probably what made you discover your tumor a such an early stage. As Sheryl said, not many people have this luck. I'm no doctor (although I work in a hospital and I'm surrounded by doctors) but it's my understanding that at stage 1 with full removal prognosis is good.

Again, my warmest support and best wishes.

Think twice. Unless the car was parked under the sun during daytime (not the case as per the picture) there's no imminent threat to the kid's health. On the other hand, smashing the window is a risk, unless you think you can make a 2yo kid understand that that he needs to stay away, palm-faced, through the closed doors and windows.