Art

Right click "My Computer", Click "Properties", Click "Device Manager", Double click the CD-Rom Tree, Double click The CD-Rom You want turn "Auto-Run" off of , Click "Settings", Near the middle of the Window there is a setting that says "Auto insert notification", this is your auto-run Feature.

Thanks for that info. However, you lost me where you say, "Click "Settings", Near the middle of the Window there is a setting that says "Auto insert notification", this is your auto-run Feature." When I double-click the DVD/CD Drive, it gives me the Properties window and I don't see Settings, Auto insert notification. What I see are tabs: "General", "Properties", "DVD Region", etc. Do I see something different from you because this is a combo CD and DVD drive?

you can turn off autoplay for all your devices including USB

I thought Autorun and Autoplay are two different things. How do you turn off Autorun?

Please choose one:

(1) The news release in the first post - Is this for real?

(2) Was this release for real but later withdrawn? It does not appear on the TNA web site:

http://etna.mcot.net/

(3) Is today April 1??

Just want to pose these questions before this thread becomes one of the longer threads on thaivisa.com

I found this 2003 thread through a search and I thought it worthwhile enough to bump up so others could read it.

I have been a member of FCCT for a year and find the club very worthwhile for the reasons expressed in this thread. It's correctly stated above that most members are not journalists. The clubhouse is on the top floor (Penthouse) of Maneeya Center, which is connected to the Skytrain Chit Lom station by a Skybridge.

Famous people who have recently spoken before the FCCT include Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Hans Blix, former United Nations chief weapons inspector for Iraq, Shirin Ebadi, Nobel peace laureate. Rupert Everett, actor and activist, Tom Ridge, director of the U.S. Homeland Security Department, Xanana Gusmao, president of East Timor, and The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former US Presidential candidate.

The web site is at: http://www.fccthai.com and you can click at the bottom of the home page for the weekly schedule. The phone number is 02-652-0580-1.

Art

A year ago I used for a while AIS's fax store and forward service. The other mobile operators may have it also. When someone sent a fax to my mobile number, I got a notification on my mobile from AIS. I could then turn my PC on and use my mobile to instruct the system what phone number to send the fax to.

The only problem was that AIS's fax server sometimes took a long time to send me the fax (probably when it had a big queue to send) and this can be a hassle when you have only one phone line.

Another service you might consider is True Corp's (formerly Telecom Asia) MailFax service. This provides for receiving faxes as email attachments or sending faxes from the web:

http://www.truecorp.co.th/index.php?name=p...file&prod_id=87

The only problem is that this costs 400 baht per month (no fax receiving charge) with a one-time charge of 1,500 baht.

I am pretty convinced that CSLoxinfo is on the list of sites to be blocked.

Several e-mails to friends,sent from cslox, have simply not been delivered.

I am looking for the site that lists the baddies of spam.

I knwo it was mentioned here in the last 2-3 weeks

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It's interesting that you are mentioning the reverse of the problem I found. In my case, the senders thought their email was not being delivered to LoxInfo but upon investigation, we found that it was incorrectly delivered into LoxInfo's "Spam Quarantine". Too bad when this happens because LoxInfo has reduced the Symantec Brightmail default for days saved to 5 days. If the user doesn't retrieve the message from LoxInfo's Spam Quarantine in 5 days, LoxInfo deletes it. Not too good for people who travel often but it does save LoxInfo some money in storage costs!

I recently installed Windows XP SP2 on a PC that had a blank hard drive (not an upgrade).

I have a question about something that looks like a possible security exposure.  I went into User Accounts in Control Panel.  I see an Administrator account and a Guest account as I expected.  But I also see an "ASP.NET Machine A..." account.  It indicated, "Limited account, Password protected".  Is this normal?  The picture icon associated with that account is strange- like a cartoon animal.

Any ideas?  Thanks.

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Yes it's a normal account , the icon should be that of a person in front of a monitor though. Maybe to much chang ?

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Continuing my "security check"... Darknight, are you runnning SP2 of Windows XP (as I am)? In my icons area for accounts, there is no icon with a person in front of a monitor (see directory below). The strange icon I mentioned in my original post was the default for "ASP.NET Machine A..." that came with Windows XP SP2 and it is cat.bmp in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

I don't know what the criteria Lox uses in its Spam program, but I have no complaints. I used to get hundreds of Spam per day (mostly from my website addy), but now maybe 1 slips through per week. I checked daily for mistakes for the first couple of weeks, but never saw a mistake, so now I leave it alone.

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I have done further research on this topic by downloading the Administration Guide for Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam, the application used on LoxInfo's mail servers:

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/enterpris...0x/manuals.html

My conclusions:

(1) LoxInfo has improperly optioned the Brightmail application currently resulting in too many "false positves" for spam. Thus, too many of your valid emails end up being filtered out by LoxInfo.

(2) A policy of never checking what LoxInfo thinks is spam is dangerous if you don't want to lose any valid email. I am monitoring what LoxInfo thinks is spam for two people's LoxInfo accounts and CURRENTLY, this is way off. I emphasize the word, "currently" because the above poster assumed that LoxInfo's spam critiria remains constant. That's incorrect as they can change the "scoring" at any time and it seems that their current setting is bad.

(3) If people check what LoxInfo thinks is spam and find that a lot of good email is considered spam by LoxInfo, I suggest they write LoxInfo as per these words that appear at the bottom of the LoxInfo "Quarantine Summary":

"If you have any comment and suggession, please kindly send e-mail to [email protected] or contact Customer Service at 0-2263-8222 (24 Hrs.)"

If enough people contact them, hopefully they'll realize they have a problem. The techical support person I spoke to didn't understand much of what I said. Part of the problem was the language problem. The other part was that the technical support person knew almost nothing about LoxInfor's spam filter!

CS LoxInfo has a new "Spam Blocker" advertised on the first page of their web home page (on a rotating basis with other ads). The ad points to a page which is available only in Thai.

My experience with this new service has been poor. It filters out messages from some of my friends. These messages have no words in them which would be a pattern typical of a spam message.

I wanted to set a "lower" level of spam protection (such as you can do with Yahoo and Hotmail) to catch fewer non-spam messages. I checked the web page referenced by CS LoxInfo that lists caught "spam" messages. (This page indicates that LoxInfo is using Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam on their servers.) No place there to lower the level. Then I went into the web mail. No place there either to lower the level.

I called LoxInfo tech support and had a 15-minute conversation with the rep. He did not seem very knowledgeable about their Spam Blocker and had to keep putting me on hold. He ended up saying neither he nor I could change the protection level. I found this very hard to believe. I told him in that case, I wanted to turn off LoxInfo's SpamBlocker (and buy my own local antispam program). He said he could turn off LoxInfo's Spam Blocker for me.

Does anyone know whether LoxInfo really won't let me change the level of protection to reduce the number of good emails captured by LoxInfo's Spam Blocker?

Thanks.

I recently installed Windows XP SP2 on a PC that had a blank hard drive (not an upgrade).

I have a question about something that looks like a possible security exposure. I went into User Accounts in Control Panel. I see an Administrator account and a Guest account as I expected. But I also see an "ASP.NET Machine A..." account. It indicated, "Limited account, Password protected". Is this normal? The picture icon associated with that account is strange- like a cartoon animal.

Any ideas? Thanks.

I ordered Vonage to my place in San Diego.  I got it forwarded to me in Bangkok.

A nice Linksys router with two phone ports arrived.  I stupidly plugged it in and blew the power supply.  I went to Pantip to try to find a new power supply and the lady plugged it in to something to test if it worked and that's when my nice new router let off some horrible smells.  My guess is that it, too, is fried.

So, how can I get myself set up now?  I have true adsl with their zyxel modem which connects to your computer with a usb cable.

All help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Daniel

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Why not just use the Vonage add-on service, SoftPhone? With this service, you use your PC's soundcard instead of a telephone. There's apparently no extra charge for it and it eliminates the need for you to request Vonage to send you replacement equipment or your having to hunt for something that's compatible with both Vonage and True. The voice quality using the PC should be the same as using the equipment (that was fried) with a telephone.

Details of SoftPhone are at:

http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=softphone

Art

Once when I was at Immigration, I asked how far in advance I could renew my one-year retirement visa. The answer was "one month in advance".

Now I'd like to plan out-of-country travel during that one-month window. Has anyone heard of an exception to the one-month in advance rule? That is, could I renew 2 months in advance?

If no one has heard of anything other than one month in advance, is there a formal procedure for asking for an "exception" to the rule?

Thanks.

I want to try and record programmes from my cable Tv using a VCR machine, but for some reason the VCR machines on sale here in Thailand don't seem to include a channel selector / tuner which i think means i can only record the Tv programme I am watching with the TV left switched on

You have the less expensive type of VCR sold in Thailand. If you had paid more, you could have bought a VCR with a tuner. But if you have UBC's DStv (uses a small satellite dish), you don't need a tuner on the VCR.

Just connect a cable from the "Video" jack on your UBC box to the "Video In" on the VCR. You would also need to connect from the audio on the UBC box to the audio on the VCR. Normally this would be two connections- one for the left audio channel and the other for the right audio channel. But some of the less expensive VCRs are mono rather than stereo. In that case, you would connect either the left or the right channel audio from the UBC box to the VCR.

With normal UBC DStv you cannot record one program and watch another no matter what kind of VCR you have.

If you have UBC CAtv (uses a cable rather than a satellite dish), I would guess that the UBC box also has a "Video" jack but I can't verify that because I have DStv.

I received this in my e-mail:

Chaos at Bangkok Embassies and Thai Immigration

360 foreigners nailed for "agent visa runs"

Stand by for updated news:

http://forum.thaivisa.com

But I can't find the story on the website. Anyone know where it is?

Bob,

Take that "360 foreigners nailed for agent visa runs" with a big grain of salt.  It was apparently an unconfirmed rumor.  Thaivisa.com did not provide a link to any story.

With the number of rumors floating around, no wonder the mainstream press does not want to publish until it is certain of the facts.

It would be better if people would wait to come to conclusions until they can read confirmed, factual information rather than depending upon message board rumors and unconfirmed "stories".

What about the Hambali factor?  What about the war on corruption?  Surely one or both of these were factors.  The current crackdown is so widespread that it appears to come from the top of the government, not from the top of Immigration.

I think the speaker should be open to all important questions with of course the right to not answer if desired.

3. What is this business of having to provide a VALID REASON to be in Thailand? This sounds quite absurd. If you are going for a retirement visa, your reason is clearly to RETIRE in Thailand, and you clearly wish to do that. Does anyone know if this new VALID REASON rule is going to take effect, and if so, what are they looking for?

This is not something new.  At the moment, I'm looking at a document given to me in 2001 by Immigration in Bangkok with the requirements for a Retirement Visa.  One of the items says:

"7. Statement certifying the necessity of extension to stay."

I just renewed my Retirement Visa last week in Bangkok for another year.  On a form Immigration gave me to fill out, there was a request for the reason.  I entered "To continue my retirement in Thailand" and it was accepted.

I've edited the above post to remove the second question so that the post is easier to answer.

Thanks for any info.

I have read the excellent summary or reentry permits at:

http://www.thaivisa.com/346.0.html

and have done a search but I have a question for a friend based on the following information:

Citizen of:  U.S.A.

Visa:  Tourist Visa from Los Angeles Consulate - good for 2 visits through January 2004

Age:  55

Objective:  Do not plan on applying for a Retirement Visa at this time.  Instead, will use multiple tourist visas for "continuous" stay.

Entry #1 into Thailand:  August 2003

Expiration of visa:  October 2003 (will extend to November 2003 at Bangkok)

Date to leave country (90 days from entry #1) to get a new 60-day Tourist Visa:  November 2003

Return to Thailand: November 2003 after obtaining a new tourist visa

Has he now used up the 2 entries from the original visa?  That is, does his return on a new 60-day Tourist Visa count as one of the original 2 entries permitted?

Or does the second entry of his original tourist visa carry over to his new tourist visa?  (The expiration date of the second entry is January 2004.)

Thanks for your help.

I'm looking for a service similar to J2 (www.j2.com) where I can have a BKK-based FAX number, and FAXes received at that number are forwarded to my email.

Anyone know of anything?

UPDATE TO MY POST ABOVE - I have done further research and found out the following:

I have J2 fax service (a U.S. fax number which forwards faxes to my email account) so I know what you're talking about.  I also want the same type of service in Bangkok.

I did some research on the Web and by phone calls (to TA and TOT) in the last several days.  Here's what I found out.  Two types of fax handling are available in Bangkok:

(1) Fax to e-mail - offered by TOT (not offered by TA).  This service sends voice messages and faxes (from the messaging mailbox associated with your TOT telephone line) to your e-mail address as e-mail attachments.

(2) Fax store and forward - offered by AIS and maybe by other mobile telephone providers.  This service stores faxes sent to the messaging mailbox associated with your mobile phone number until you let the system know a telephone number of a fax machine or PC where you are ready to receive the fax.

Details of services:

(1) Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) offers this service for fixed-line phones.  They call it I-Box 1278.  Contact 1100, 02-505-1000, or 1800-22-1278:

http://www.tot.co.th/en/product/fixedline/ibox.php (overview in English)

http://www.ibox1278.com/S3.htm  (matrix comparing 50 baht per month plan against 100 baht month plan in Thai)

http://www.ibox1278.com/s4.htm  (download 16-page manual in Thai)

http://www.ibox1278.com  (web site for this service but all in Thai)

(2) Telecom Asia (TA) does NOT offer this feature.

(3) AIS GSM Advance offers this service:

http://www.ais900.com/e/public/vas/gsm1_3.shtml

(4) AIS One-2-Call offers this service.

http://www.ais900.com/e/public/vas/call_1.shtml

I'm looking for a service similar to J2 (www.j2.com) where I can have a BKK-based FAX number, and FAXes received at that number are forwarded to my email.

Anyone know of anything?

I have J2 fax service (a U.S. fax number which forwards faxes to my email account) so I know what you're talking about.  I also want the same type of service in Bangkok.  I did some research on the Web and by phone calls (to TA and TOT) in the last several days.  I have some preliminary information but I have to suspend doing more research for a month or two because of lack of time.

Here's what I found out.  The following indicates some organizations that have what I will call "fax store and forward" because I don't have details.  These systems might just store the faxes until you let the system know a telephone number of a fax machine or PC where you are ready to receive the fax (rather than send the faxes to your email).

(1) Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) offers this service for fixed-line phones.  They call it I-Box 1278:

http://www.tot.co.th/en/product/fixedline/ibox.php

(2) Telecom Asia (TA) does NOT offer this feature.  (However, I am waiting for a callback from TA Marketing to confirm this but so far it appears that they do NOT offer it.)

(3) AIS GSM Advance offers this service:

http://www.ais900.com/e/public/vas/gsm1_3.shtml

(4) AIS One-2-Call does NOT offer this service.

Let us know the details here if you order one of these services.  I wanted to order this on a fixed-line phone but I can't because I have a TA line rather than a TOT line.

We have unconfirmed information that the requirements for retirement visas (NON-Immigrant "O-A")  beeing rised from currently 800,000 Baht to be 1,500,000 Baht. (Bank balance or combined pension/income per year)

The new regulations, if they are true, will be effective from July 2004, or maybe as as early as from August 26, 2003.

NOTE:

This is very vague information from the Immigration Bureau so far, but it seems to be in line with recent announced changes.

I am *very* sceptic to the quality of the details of this new requirement, though is from a "normally well informed source at the Immigration Bureau", but will keep you posted ASAP, of course.

Now that we've passed August 26, did this go into effect?

Thanks.

I have been living in Thailand for six years, leaving the country once a year for a short time.  I have never been asked for a Tax Clearance Certificate when I left.

About two years ago, I saw comments on an Internet message board that such a certificate used to be required.  However, I just noticed on my Arrival/Departure Card from last year the following statement:

"6. Alien entering Thailand and having income or alien staying over 90 days in Thailand without income must possess a Tax Clearance Certificate from the Revenue Department before leaving Thailand.  If not, will not be permitted to leave."

My questions:

(1) Has anyone been asked for a Tax Clearance Certificate when leaving Thailand?

(2) I get a receipt when I file my income tax return.  Is this what is referred to above as a "Tax Clearance Certificate"?

We have unconfirmed information that the requirements for retirement visas (NON-Immigrant "O-A")  beeing rised from currently 800,000 Baht to be 1,500,000 Baht. (Bank balance or combined pension/income per year)

The new regulations, if they are true, will be effective from July 2004, or maybe as as early as from August 26, 2003.

NOTE:

This is very vague information from the Immigration Bureau so far, but it seems to be in line with recent announced changes.

I am *very* sceptic to the quality of the details of this new requirement, though is from a "normally well informed source at the Immigration Bureau", but will keep you posted ASAP, of course.

George, thanks for this information.  Because we are getting close to August 26 now, do you expect a confirmation of this before then?

Specifically, my questions are:

(1) Is the effective date August 26, 2003 for the bank balance requirement for the 1-Year Retirement Visa rising from 800,000 baht to 1,500,000 baht?

(2) If so, is 1,500,000 baht required only for NEW applications, not RENEWALS?

The first time I applied for a 1-Year Retirement Visa, I submitted an affidavit notarized by the U.S. Embassy in which I swore that my pension was a certain amount.

Next month I will apply for my first renewal of the visa for another year.  Do I need to again submit a (new) affidavit notarized again by the U.S. Embassy?  My pension amount has not changed but does Immigration want to see a current date on the affidavit?

Thanks.