wpcoe

I have routinely (in both XP and Vista) UNchecked the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in the Properties for the LAN (ADSL) connection. Is that the same as setting it to 0% per the OP?

In comparing the automatic bikes, a deal-breaker for me would be (I'm still on the fence about buying...) that the Yamaha bikes (Nuovo & Mio) are more "shopping friendly" -- they have basket mounts on the front, a hook to hang a bag near your legs, and the Nuovo has a large cavity under the seat.

The Hondas, sadly, have none of those storage options.

Since my main use would be to go shopping at Tesco, Carrefour, Foodland, etc, that's a significant point.

Well, thanks to the Wizards that pull the levers in the bowels of the ThaiVisa.com forum software, my default view has reverted to "Standard."

I think it uses less bandwidth to just list the response headers and not print out the entire conversation.

Yabut... it takes MORE bandwidth to keep loading a new page to read each individual post in a thread. Not only the .html coding, but the banner ads, and the original post are re-loaded each time: better to load a page with 30 posts once, than to load 30 pages each with two posts (the original and the next on in line), no?

To the scouser: if I understand you correctly, nothing has changed recently in the forum software that affects the default display mode? Totster posted in http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=120789 on May 15, 2007, that "One of the most common support problems at the moment is the different forum display modes." The title of his thread is "Does The Forum Display Look Different.." so methinks something has occurred, maybe not intentionally changed, but "occurred"...

Anyway, all's well that ends well. (And, I hope it has ended!)

Ok, to continue my search for the holy grail, how does one *permanently* set the Display Option to "Standard"?

It's tedious to have to click to change it on each message thread and wait for it to re-load, but if that's considered an enhancement, I guess I'll comply like a good little Borg.

[drama queen mode on]I just realized it's an additional treat to try to find only the new messages in this new & improved "outline" default mode: I'm accustomed to clicking on the "new items" icon at the beginning of a thread title in the forum list and having the thread open in a new tab and automatically displaying the first new (unread) message. With the "outline" mode, I need to click a couple of times to get the old default Standard view, and then it shows page one, message one. I need to scroll down, and sometimes across pages, to find the new messages. Woo hoo! Let's make some more enhancements![/drama queen mode off]

I have decided to abandon ThaiVisa.com except for monitoring replies in this thread I've started. It simply is not possible to use the forums when I can only read the first 3 or 4 messages in a thread.

Geez..... nobody told me drama queen tryouts were today.

It's not a big deal.... unclench yourself and relax.

cndvic: Tell you what, go to that upper right-hand Options button and select "outline" and see how pleasant and productive it is to read the forums when you can only read up to the first 3 or 4 posts in each thread. Yep, look at the .jpg in my OP and you'll see that the "tree" list is truncated after the first 3 or 4 posts. Nope, no scroll bar. No way to read any later posts. Practically useless, isn't it? :-)

I already have the certified letter from the Embassy. It required nothing but my word and my signature.

And, Thai Immigrations realizes how lax the requirements are to get that letter. Hence, in *some* cases applicants have been asked to show additional evidence to the Immigrations officer. So, bring last year's W2 form, or a pension benefits statement, or some documentation "just in case" they don't take the letter at face value.

I applied for my first retirement extension at Pattaya Immigrations last September, using a combination of pension (less than $65,000/mo) plus bank balance, and they accepted the US embassy letter with no other documentation required, but others (including Sunbelt, a while ago) have reported here that they needed additional documentation.

Thanks, cdnvic & Bambina! How did that default get changed? I sure didn't touch it!

(FYI, it's "Standard" Display Mode, not "Normal")

Starting a day or two ago, when I click on a thread topic from the forum list, I no longer get a continuously flowing list of messages in that forum. I simply get the opening post, and a "tree" of replies listed at the bottom.

To read replies, I have to click on each one separately, which totally reloads the page ... a very time-consuming task with the slow ISP connections in Thailand. Trying to read a page with several messages is VERY time consuming via this method.

And, at the bottom of the "tree" there is often a forum member name with no message. What's up with that? In the example attached, Cobra Necktie's name appears at the bottom. Did he reply to the thread?

I double-checked on my "Board Settings" and it is set to show 30 posts per page, and it used to up until a day or two ago.

Please, is there a way to revert to the "old" way I'm used to, i.e. reading a whole page of 30 replies at a time?

Why is there an advertisement to "Meet Beautiful Thai Women" on the Gay People page

Maybe for the lesbians?

A terrorist would study diligently what the current regulations are in airports before attempting anything. They would know that there is a liquid ban going on and would never try to smuggle liquids onto an airplane as a passenger because they know it would get tossed. Unless they were really stupid, they wouldn't even try this.

I'm not sure you really meant to, but you just justified the liquids ban.

Is it "urban myth" or fact that termites will also drill through gypsum? I seem to recall that they don't *eat* the gypsum, but will plod through it in search for wood and/or water?

I also know that termites were found in electrical junction boxes at a friend's rental condo in Bangkok. The aluminum junction boxes were set into concrete walls, so I'm not sure what the fascination for the termites was in there? Electrical wiring???

I marvel at the accuracy and attention to detail in the Thai news reports:

"At the incident, there was a Honda (Wave), license number 125."

"The damaged motorcycle’s license plate, No. 965, was stuck on the bumper."

Why bother even mentioning the license plate number? But, if deemed necessary, vital and newsworthy information, please don't confuse it with the motosai model number, which apparently was a Honda Wave 125.

Also, why give the full addresses of the victims? Tip-off to thieves that there might be an empty house or apartment?

Since this thread is rapidly derailing, I'll help by noting that the thread title is "Tv #4." Transvestite #4?

But, seriously folks, I'm assuming that the OP merely meant to report that s/he was successful at getting a 4th (consecutive?) Tourist Visa, issued in Penang.

The Royal Thai Police Headquarters is located diagonally opposite Paragon, short walk from both National Stadium station and Prom Pong station. If you cross over the road via crosswalk attached to the latter station, and with your back to Prom Pong station, go left and walk along the crosswalk. You cross over a road 50m (not good with distance, basically - a short distance) once you leave the station behind you, and on the right is a large building complex. Come down the stairs off the crosswalk, and there is a gate to the complex.

Are you sure it was Phrom Pong station? That's the one at Emporium around Sukhumvit sois 22 and 24.

The stations nearest Paragon/Police HQ are National Stadium and Chitlom, aren't they?

I had that done at Tuk Com Pattaya Tai, 4th floor, in the back. Don't know the name but thay have laptops on the counter, working on them. Only 200 baht and they gave me Win XP and a bunch of software.

I think the shop is called "Pattaya2U" or "Pattaya4U" or something like that. I had a positive experience with them when I needed help booting my notebook ... I had erroneously (and stupidly) removed the "System" access to the boot drive. <sigh...>

While I was there the long-haired fellow was patiently helping a frustrated notebook owner. There was no lecture or impatience. I think he was basically doing what you are talking about: reloading Windows and restoring documents.

I was impressed with the service there.

run gpedit.msc. go to computer configuration, windows settings, security settings, local policies, security options. there are several subkeys for User account control, the one to change is User account control: behaviour of the elevation prompt for administrators, change it to prompt for credentials instead of the default value to prompt for consent. The change will be immediate, no need for a reboot.

Thanks!

I have now reverted to doing most of my work in WinXP (Pro), because something with Vista (Business) is really slowing down. It takes several minutes to boot up to a useable state, and takes about a minute to shut down, and I keep getting the "busy" cursor in different apps preventing me to do anything until it stops, sometimes minutes at a time. When I have more time, I'll troubleshoot and experiment, but right now I have too much stuff to do that I need a stable platform, which means WinXP for the time being.

When I go back to Vista, I'm going to do the gpedit change you explained for the extra security. Now that I've loaded most of my apps on Vista, I don't get all that many UAC prompts so it won't be too much of a hindrance to enter a password.

I signed up for the MaxNet@Home 512/256 about two years ago. When they introduced 1024/512 (about a year later?) I upgraded to that for approx B1000/month. The international throughput varies, but usually I get about 800k when I use the ThaiVisa.com brodband speed test. Of course, there are (far too many) times when it drops to dial-up speeds, or worse. This seems to parallel reports from all users here with various ISPs, so I just assume it's "typical."

I think their mention of "Bittorrent" meant all file sharing, but since I don't do any of that, I'm not sure. I don't use VoIP, either, so that was another non-issue.

I went through a frustrating period where the signal would drop frequently: some times after only five minutes, other times after a few hours. I was using a WiFi modem/router. On a hunch, I dug out a simple Zyxel modem that I got with KSC several years ago. Using that modem, I haven't had a single drop out, and have left it on for three to four days straight with no drops. So, that's another of my projects: to see if I can tweak the WiFi/router to not drop the connection.

Maybe this was covered, but I missed it, but will it be possible to take the express train non-stop from the airport to Makkasan and then (easily) transfer to the local train into PhayaThai? Or, do they use widely separated/inconvenient platforms at Makkasan terminal?

I prefer a RAID system with 2 sata hard drives, one for work and one for backup.

I would prefer to know what RAID it might be where there are 2 disks, used for different purposes.

That kind of reveals you don't really know what you are after and a seasoned shop owner may soon run circles around you.

While your advice to consider Dell as an option is valid, I think you are perhaps a bit arrogant/condescending in tone.

He was clarifying that he wanted (a) SATA and ( Mirrored RAID (RAID 1) versus RAID 0, 3, 6, or whatever, without getting technical. Not everyone wants to talk like a geek in public, you know. ;-)

I would be interested to see if there is any Thai ISP that does state clearly, in English,exactly what is on offer, and the benefits/limitations.

Here's a scan from the TT&T brochure when I signed up about two years ago. It clearly states that Bit Torrent and VoIP are not supported, and alludes to shared bandwith (contention) in the lower right-hand fine print. The numbers I penciled in on the "No. of Shared computer" is what the sales person said were the contention ratios for each plan. I was impressed, and surprised, that she shared that info.

UAC indeed does ask for admin credentials if the user is logged on as normal user, you can change the behaviour of UAC to even prompt for credentials when an administrator is logged on. It is an added layer of security and during normal usage of Vista I hardly ever see it.

How does one add the prompt for administrator password when logged on as administrator?

This is one for the museum:

-the thai actually stopped to help an injured farrang.

-the thai admitted blame.

Where does it indicate that the Thai admitted blame?

Now, this may be way out of left field, but the thought just flashed in my mind: What with work permit restrictions and such, might a restaurant owner/manager be concerned about someone turning him in for a violation ... i.e. would greeting and thanking a customer be considered "work"?

I think that's an extreme take on things, but there are legendary tales such as the police entering a bar/shop to talk to the farang owner, and when the owner reached up to turn down the music to better hear the police, he was arrested for performing "work".

I believe many Thai ISPs have a disclosure statement somewhere that excludes peer-to-peer usage from their lowest-priced residential packages, which IMHO is a reasonable trade-off for the low-price/high contention ratio used.

When I signed up for TT&T's MaxNet I was shown some document in the TT&T office that notified me that peer-to-peer and VOIP were not supported. I vaguely recall a similar restriction when I had residential ADSL packages from KSC and QNet in Bangkok.

I'm not sure if all ISPs are entirely upfront in advising such a restriction.

FYI & FWIW, here's the best tracert that I could get just now using TT&T ADSL from Jomtien (least number of timeouts):

Tracing route to thaivisa.com [203.174.84.82]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1

2 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 58.147.0.20

3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 10.122.20.254

4 15 ms 16 ms 15 ms 10.121.20.1

5 * * * Request timed out.

6 * 15 ms 15 ms 58.147.0.51

7 17 ms 15 ms 17 ms 58.147.0.44

8 17 ms 18 ms 16 ms 203.156.187.146

9 333 ms 333 ms 333 ms 211.25.49.1

10 330 ms 335 ms 330 ms 203.121.17.46

11 244 ms 244 ms 244 ms vlan600.msfc2.glsfb.time.net.my [203.121.16.36]

12 334 ms 330 ms 328 ms fe-0-0-2.gw03.glsfb.time.net.my [211.25.28.11]

13 337 ms 338 ms 337 ms p1-0-1-2.a00.kslrml01.my.ra.gin.ntt.net [203.78.

193.97]

14 336 ms 335 ms 336 ms ge-1-0-0.r01.kslrml01.my.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250

.16.145]

15 340 ms 338 ms 345 ms p1-1-2-1.r00.sngpsi01.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250

.2.4]

16 340 ms 338 ms 344 ms ge-9-0.a02.sngpsi01.sg.ra.gin.ntt.net [61.8.234.

68]

17 343 ms 342 ms 336 ms 203.117.160.209

18 334 ms 330 ms 331 ms vlan901-cat6ts1-rsm1.starhub.net.sg [203.118.1.2

]

19 338 ms 334 ms 338 ms vlan915-an-cat6ts1-r1.starhub.net.sg [203.118.1.

229]

20 339 ms 335 ms 342 ms gi-5-1-0-an-ats-loc04.starhub.net.sg [203.118.5.

11]

21 337 ms 338 ms 344 ms ge-starhub.newmediaexpress.com [203.116.9.122]

22 345 ms 341 ms 345 ms fe8-0-0.eqx.newmediaexpress.com [203.174.80.6]

23 335 ms 341 ms 337 ms thaivisa.com [203.174.84.82]

Trace complete.

Seems like a lot of rerouting in Malaysia/Singapore.