coops

if you got it from Fortune Town the best thing would be to take it back.

Sounds like it has died...

You can get a Minix U1 with the A2 remote at Fortune. My new U1 and older Minix X8-h work fine and Minix provide updates and support.

The U1 is latest with Android 5.1 and 4k and hevc capable.

Best to go to 

https://www.mobileread.com

useful ereader website.

Kindles in Bangkok - I did see some at the B2S store at Central Citlom - not too many stores stock them, and they are marked up in price a lot.

My Sony PRS-T3 is going to be replaced by a Kindle Oasis - delivered to sister in UK who's dropping by after a marathon in Hong Kong. They don't deliver from Amazon to Thailand, so order on a trip to UK or USA or get a friend over their to ship to you...

Well, I do have the crappy True Fibre router.... but do NOT use its built in wi-fi - that's all turned off.

And, obviously have changed its Admin password.

Use an Asus wifi router and its built in VPN client - which works great and fixes the lousy True router DNS (unchangeable) and other garbage issues.

This bakery on Sukhumvit 31 may be worth a look - sounds like decent sourdough at least...

http://bk.asia-city.com/restaurants/bangkok-restaurant-reviews/holey-artisan-bakery

The ones from the bakery in Villa Supermarket (at J avenue) are quite decent... not full on sourdough goodness but  the best i've found. ( not very 'holey' but way, way better taste than that horrid looking third picture of yours which is basically a regular cheap bread mix in a round shape...).

Yamazaki at Fuji Supermarket do a nice loaf too - the big round (sliced) one, not the sliced 'Mother's Pride' whiter than white looking ones... and of course the curry doughnut.

 And a selection of Sake in the supermarket proper....

16 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

 

Kodi 17 is not final yet, so stick with 16.1 Any versions higher than 16.1 need Android 5 or newer to run. The Minix x8-h box firmware update never went past Android Kitkat 4.4 did it? 

Yes, the X8-h is only up to Android 4.4 - I use it as a Plex client ( and the new official Plex Kodi addon is very good) and for that it works perfectly - which is the main thing.

Once the newer U9 comes out that will be a good upgrade with hevc decoding and so on and the latest android builds. 

Minix support is good ( it was a deliberate decision not to update Android on the x8 for instance, and the old adage of 'if it's not broken, don't fix it' applied as it seeme Android 5 introduced new bugs and issues on other boxes) , and from Plex forums it would seem the Nvidia shield is also a very good choice for a media box ( get the more expensive Pro version though... and there's a new model out in a few months).

You'll need to go to the 'Play Store', which is the Google app store on Android.

Search for Kodi and install. There's a version 17 out i believe but only for the newest Android versions... version 16.1 is fine.

Note though... Kodi is very powerful indeed, but with that power comes great confusion and frustration - even for a hardened computer savvy person, using Kodi for the first time can require much googling, swearing etc.

Have some beers handy and persevere though!

Also note that not all Android boxs are equal... far from it. Support varies greatly.

I've a Minix box, the x8-h, and they did bring out good firmware updates etc -  i'd recommend them, the newest currently is the U1 for their Android boxes but an even newer U9(?)? is due out soon with latest Android. The U1 already supports 4k and hevc compression i think...

I'll be getting the u9 once it's out, or possibly the Nvidia Shield - the Minix can be found in Bangkok easily enough though.

New Year-ish is a great time for burgling... many are away from home visiting relatives - i'm sure your policeman was dissapointed he couldn't pass on the promising lead on your (not) empty house to supplement their celebrations.

I"m joking.... hopefully. Keep a one iron or baseball bat handy ;-)

What NAS?

If it's a Synology... I have one and deliberately chose NOT to update to DSM 6 due to issues with packages not running on start up. There's also issues with folder permissions....

The Samsung Plex client issue sounds like a different problem with the client end - best to go to the Plex forum where there is a Samsung Plex client subforum.

Never has the phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applied more than to Plex and its many, many different clients and servers... DON'T update until you really  have to and someone else (lots of someone elses..) has done so before you.

They updated the Android client which I've been using on my Minix X-8 happily for many months... stupidly went ahead and updated to version 5 i think it is - quite possibly the worst update ("upgrade") I've ever seen (ok, Vista was a bigger thing and admittedly worse ... but still).

Fortunately as Plex Pass member I could get an older version and sideload it after deleting the 'new' pile of crap version..

On 03/11/2016 at 3:46 PM, gjoo888 said:

 

The new Macs are great if you just can't live without an emoji bar or a dozen different dongles to connect devices you didn't need before. No SD card slot, but you can get yet another dongle to make a memory card reader work with Macs. 

 

 

On my Macbook I like to use my usb-c dongle to connect my floppy drive... i mean.... jaysus....  a memory card slot.  

Try a free vpn ( hie.me do a free one, limited total data usage  but good to test) and see the difference,

If it's still borked then something else major is wrong - but as you have already done a local speed test showing the actual cable is capable of doing just fine.... then the actual reason for lousy web loading is due to the True system and their dns servers... and they won't do anything about that unless presumably everyone leaces them and uses ais instead.... even then they'd probably just stumble on anyway.

By all means complain to True... but i'd be amazed if it does any good.

Torrents will be throttled to death with True unless you use a VPN ... and they even block Usenet servers, never mind the censorship.

get a VPN or switch to AIS fibre...

Probably due to the utterly crap fibre cable modem True provide - so badly gimped you can't even alter their default DNS servers which are very probably the root cause of the hopeless web site loading delays.

I confirmed this personally by turnong on and off my vpn service on an ipad or my laptop - difference is as huge as can be imagined.

Rather than go through the hassle of switching to ais fibre - for now, have bought an Asus Wireless router which like most asus routers has built in VPN client capability ( this is what you want.... not vpn server on your router).

The wireless on the True router is turned off ( poor anyway ) and all wifi connections go through the Asus -  as a result as many laptops, ipads, phones etc etc can go through that ONE vpn connection  on the router.

Problem solved.

Note, if you're going to,pay up for a vpn provider like hide.me as i do - then you'll get up to 5 devices covered anyway, which is useful for security when out and about and connecting to 'free' wifi networks, enable your vpn service ob the phone etc and you can bank, surf safely etc.

48 minutes ago, ftpjtm said:

The problem is that coffee aficionados have different tastes in coffee. I personally like drip brewed coffee and prefer Colombian vs arabica beans. Arabic is the rule here, and I have not found much local that I like. I load my suitcase with Melitta Colombian Supreme whenever arriving from the US, which is rich, earthy and not at all bitter or acidic. Occasionally Friendly Market in Pattaya will have imported Colombian coffee. 

 

I have yet to find a local equivalent so I stick to the imported stuff. Or maybe go through a bag of local so I more fully appreciate my imported stash. 

Colombian is ARABICA coffee bean...

https://danielmiessler.com/study/coffee/#gs.6djyHrA

At least the original poster put coffee in inverted commas before recommending some great instant "coffee".

I've recommended Bluekoff coffeee before - the A5 roast.

any DECENT  local bike shop can order the right size for you, after a reasonable wait... and perhaps tou can consider this a test case as to which shop you can rely on and trust.

The Merida dealer mentioned above for sure will order for you, and as they are the main dealer will get in regular deilveries.

Cannondale. - don't go near the obnoxious and apparently well known to be so ( i thought it was me...!) old main dealer on sukhumvit 26... despite them having a huge well stocked showroom - instead the guy at  Sealee Urban on Phetburo Rd now deals Cannondale amongst others and i would trust, 

the other option is  to buy new on your next trip back to uk or usa... then use it/ride it and leave it muddy, dirty and used and buy a second hand bike bag for it for transport, also used and carry it in.... seriously.

yes, i do.

And yes, it's accepted.

Some film can affect it, but easily got around by some thought first.

Behind the rear view mirror is likely to be an area of the windscreen that is kind of spotted to cut out sunlight ( since it won't be covered when the sunshade is lowered) - got the film installer to not cover that area only, stuck the easypass holder on there - and never a problem at all.

The real issue and stupidity is needing to have two passes for the same underlying system ( m pass and easypass) since the dongles are the d@mn same.

How much cheaper are they than EVA (who fly direct London to Bangkok, then on to Taipei) ?

Most router support VPN servers... but you are as you know I think looking for a router than be a VPN CLIENT ... so any device connecting through the wifi from that router goes through the VPN provider you've setup within the router.

Asus seems to be very good for this - most of their routers support being a VPN client.

Personally, I bought Asus-rt-ac88u to connect to the godawful True Cable modem (Technicolor) - many websites would baulk/be slow or need repeated requests to reply using the cable modem and my apple Time Capsule as the wifi router.

I'd already checked using my VPN provider on  my laptop and ipad, that once connected to the VPN all these issues disappeared - ie it is all down to the hopeless True service, whether that  be borked DNS cacheing (which you cannot override to use OpenDNS or google in the aforementioned POS router) or whatever...

Now the Technicolor is the cable modem, and the Asus provides wifi to all my devices and is always thru my chosen VPN provider. Works perfectly and fixes Trues terrible issues without having to ditch it and go to AIS (for now).

(Another friend also has the same issues with True Cable internet, will see if he wants to go VPN or switch to AIS).

ps I got the Asus router at Fortune town - no surprises there, there's a good selection of Asus models available.

On 24 July 2016 at 10:45 AM, ChristianBlessing said:

While recently in Bangkok I saw a packaged northern Thai blend at Starbucks. My favorite coffee purveyor and roaster in the US tells me Thai beans are just now reaching a point of sufficient quality, quantity and consistency to catch the attention of buyers.

There's been good coffee for quite some time - just like there is in Vietnam, even if they do predominantly supply cheap robusta for instant coffee producers... 

Go to 

coffereview.com

and search "bluekoff"

You can't read the reviews any more without subscribing ( I read them years ago and why I heard about Bluekoff) - you can see the A4+A5 review getting 90+ points ( 92 in Jan 2015 ) for that blend. I prefer the A5 alone... but note the actual price is around 140 bht per 250gm if you buy one... buy a dozen packs delivered free to your door and it goes down further around 125baht / 250gm.

Sounds like the Giant shop along by the Chalong Rat expressway, on the way to Crystal, Central Eastville etc, etc... and eventually does get to the Ram Intra Rd...

Sounds expensive, but first you say you had new tyres with tubes, then tubeless... so maybe they were converted to tubeless?

(Not sure how you'd see if it's tubeless apart from deflating and taking a peek in the tyre - I run tubeless road tyres and use the retaining nut to seat the valve internal seal a bit before inflation... so they look pretty much like the usual tubed tyres? Maybe you could tell the difference between the valve to tube and the tubeless valve seat through the rim hole... )

Anyway - I'd recommend Bike Station on Phattanakan Road, friendly, English speaking and good value

http://bicyclethailand.com/bike-station-in-bangkok/

A friend had 2 new tyres fitted at Bike Terminal out nearish the Sky Lane - fitting was free, just pay for the tyres - fairly typical service for Thailand I'd say...

If you don't have a track stand pump you should get one, and a couple of cheap but solid plastic tyre levers... then look around Youtube - changing tyres is easy enough (tubeless can be a faff... but no problems on my Stans Notubes rims).

google hide.me a vpn provider and tr it for free.

When you can take the MRT to Fortune Town, or drive and then park and shop at Fortune and at Central Rama IX... not sure how successful this refurb will be.

True cable internet is pretty shoddy - we changed from adso and get random some sites cey slow loading or need to repeatedly request/reload to get any response... this site is one of the 'bad' ones. Another friend also on tre cable als has same issues.

I have had  vpn service for a while, so can routinely show this cures any problem whether on a laptop or ipad etc etc - ie turn on the vpn and page loads ok.

it's worth noting the True cable modem, Texhnicolor, is absolutely the cheapest, sh@tiiest item - google technicolor 7200 for views on it from around the world... and true gimp it even further with what i suspect is some seriously awful dns service.

AIS cable gets better customer reviews...

but you,'ll want a proper good wireless router anyway - so get an Asus, as almost all Asus can run as VPN CLIENT ( note you want vn client, not just vpn server). Google Asus rt-ac88u as this is a particularly good router... set it up to run as vpn client through your vpn provider and your True cable service will be as it should be...

Any 'decent' sports frame can work for cycling - i.e. it will probably have a base 8 curve to it, so it wraps around the face more than non-sports frames. Just check the top of the frame/lens is high enough so when you're 'head down' cycling you can still see ok out of the top part of the lens...

Get a transitions lens ( one of the transitions lenses, think it's the 'transitions extra' model, goes darker in hot weather which is good - has only a very slight tint indoors, not noticeable to the wearer. There's also a version which transitions to some polarisation which is comfortable on the eyes...) since it'll be made to to your prescription anyway - and ensure the lens is 'digitally' surfaced since the base curvature/wrap means off centre vision would be poor with a 'cheap' prescription lens.

I use my prescription sunglasses for cycling AND Golf - they actually have a sports progressive lens due to my old eys presbyopia... lenses are quite ferociously expensive (errr, very ferocious actually...) Rodenstock lens from Isoptik at the AIA building on Ratchadapisek.

I know I haven't give you any specific places - Sorry!

Oakley are an obvious option, also Rudy Project - both of whom do prescription ( there's a Rudy Project shop at Central Rama IX, on Ratchadapisek also - go to the MRT/subway stop for Fortune Town).