Lordfoul

Yes, same here. If you change the language to Thai (still english audio) it is normal levels.

Anyone else have a problem with Star World's sound level?

It appears to be about 20% of the level it was - almost inaudible until I turn the volume to maximum.

This started yesterday.

Both Businesses you mentioned are also a victims of their own success as they both have fairly recently expanded their outlets, they have divided much of their existing customer base across more locations so they need more customers to break even.

Even if tourism has been flat, there are so many more businesses competing for tourist money. The amount of hotels that have opened recently is crazy for such a small town, this kind of expansion is going on in every sector too. A strong Baht (up til recently) hurts tourism and High (Thai) inflation hurts local tourism.

I do feel for an individual business owner who is struggling, but it is time for the heard to be thinned out a bit so the rest can prosper. This is all part of the ebb and flow of business

I haven't but seen business grow (on a small scale) year by year when comparing e.g. this August with its predecessors. I'm not much of a business analytic so I wonder why my experience is different from so many others?

A new business might becoming better known as time goes on and gradually growing even though more established businesses are doing poorly compared to the past. The Duke's business grew steadily for several years as more and more people discovered the place, but now his business has slowed down like most of us. The same for Bake and Bite and she is closing early some days and all day on others to SAVE money which is too bad.

Also, if you have a lot of Thai customers, that could help a lot.

Just as long as you don't burn them. I don't want caramel in my water supply.

if its good enough for the human body, i reckon it can do much harm when compared to the extensive list of dangerous chemicals out there. just toss off over soil and recycle the empty bottles. insects might love the sugar content in them i am sure most of the medications you store at home are sugar filled stuff!

TB..

I want neither, Thank You for asking.

Burning them is just an indirect way of dumping them in the water supply. Some chemicals will go into the atmosphere and come down with the rain. They rest will be part of the ash which also has to be disposed of.

Yes of course everything ends up in the groundwater. But do you want drugs ending up there, or do you want basic atomic end products of their combustion? All of the chemical/biological warfare weapons are disposed of by incineration, and this is widely accepted as the best way. I wouldn't trust a pharmacy or government agency here to dispose of anything properly.

Yeah.. WinRar used to be a great program many years ago when it was free, a nice improvement over the shareware program Winzip. Once RAR files were firmly entrenched as the defacto way to distribute pirated software Rarlabs capitalized on this by going pay. Then came 7-zip which handled more formats and had better compression for free and as Twais said.. Open Source.

So what would you recommend for free? .

google winRAR, better.

Burning them is just an indirect way of dumping them in the water supply. Some chemicals will go into the atmosphere and come down with the rain. They rest will be part of the ash which also has to be disposed of.

...responsible way to safely dispose of these things?

Depends on your POV, wish to ensure kids/animals don't eat them. Beware of the smoke/vapours but burning gets rid of most things - I'm sure some drugs will cause issues when burnt but is that a lesser evil than dumping into the water supply?

Do pharmacies take them and if so do they do more than just toss them in the rubbish?

Good question, if in date would they resell them or under orders from the drug companies to destroy all to ensure new drugs are purchased.

The response from a goverment agency would be interesting.

My favorite is 7-Zip http://www.7zip.com/

Need to pen a RAR file. I thought i had something on my PC for this. But obviously not. So what would you recommend for free? Thanks.

Yes it will.

I would expect that the Sony owned Channels AXN Beyond and SET would eventually come as we already have AXN and Animax. It would be Great to have Sci-Fi and the Universal Channel as they recently became available in Singapore.

follow up question

is this going to re-order my channel lineup come Sept 9th?

Unfortunately no good (or even bad) English channels being added to the line up even though there are several new ones available to this part of Asia.

That chart does show a few channels reserved for HD with a 9.328 Bit Rate.

I was thinking exactly the same way Amway or Vitamins. Both are already here though.

....A few more details ....would help

______________________

Sorry, you are correct - The business is client/service oriented and so requires a prominent (central?) position with easy parking – think of (say) a travel agency. Size can be small (say 35m2) upwards and we shall need a long term lease. Budget, as low as possible

We shall be in CM September 19^th and 20^th to view what you may have on your books.

The last time someone asked me a question, gave me so little info, and then showed up at my door they wanted to get me to sell Amway for them.

I thought Thais came from Thailand. Where do you think they come from?.

Quite amazing. Evidently these drunks would do this in their own countries and expect nothing similar (or worse) to happen.

Interesting, I took Finnishs' post as making fun of the Baked Bean and Cheese threads posted here lately.

Any one know who makes the best toast in town?

There is nothing nicer than a sharp cheddar cheese on toast covered with delicious baked beans. Does anyone know where I can get some ?

Heh, I was going to make a snide comment on how gross that sounded, but then came to thinking that as a Yank ( some may call among others..) that I do like and have eaten several times, a bowl of baked beans sprinkled with cheese on top and toast or bread to sop up the scrapings.

Good late night feastings with that slight alcohol buzz.

The maybe throw some onions, chopped and some jalepenos in to.

Now I'm getting a munch phase going here before the sleep phase....

Crap....

now I'm hungry.

I would agree with that, but they are still more comparable with each other than with Thailand.

A Singaporeans ability to speak English against that of a Philippino might be a more even comparison. There are however interesting differences there also.

It seems like most native Singaporeans can speak English fairly well, but a good numer of Philippinos can't speak it at all. I've never met anyone in Singapore that could not communicate in English, but in P.I. such people are fairly common.

Absolutely, And I know Thais who speak excellent English also. You must know some also.

But there are countries where English does not reach officialdom whatsoever, and the citizens can achieve a good level of spoken English.

Holland?

As PeaceBlondie eluded to there are people in the US who don't speak English at all. So do you find it odd that a US citizen can speak English so clearly yet a Thai can not?. Of course not. Because the US is a country that heavily uses English. The Philippines use English nearly as much as they use Tagalog. It is also the language of Education and Business, It is just part of their system. The Philippines is a Country closely tied to the US and is more media influenced By the US and American English than countries like Thailand. The Philippines was also where large call centers for American business were located before they moved to India. People were trained to have pitch perfect accents, their lively hood depended on it.

A Singaporeans ability to speak English against that of a Philippino might be a more even comparison. There are however interesting differences there also.

That's silly. English is an Official language of the Philippines.

I think it's fair enough, English is an official language in India, there are millions who can't speak it...

And my point would be that if standards were applied consistently and bad students failed then you wouldn't have situations where someone can become an English teacher and speak awful English.

More true than Thailand as that is the comparison that was being made.

One definition of native speaker is that you were raised from an early age, speaking English as a primary or first language. The fact that it is an official language does not exactly apply to the USA, and some countries such as Ireland have additional languages such as Irish which are quite optional. The average American, Brit, Canadian, Aussie, or Kiwi speaks English fluently and fast. Is that true for most average Filipinos?

That's silly. English is an Official language of the Philippines.

quote name='The Dan Sai Kid' date='2008-09-02 18:01:00' post='2188255']

I worked with a Filipino teacher once, and I asked her why Filipinos can speak English well, and Thais not. She simply said that if they are no good, they fail...

You notice this because when a foreigner does charity they make sure everyone knows about it, hence the rooftop parties. Most Thais doing charity don't pander to the English speaking crowd.

And your idea of the Thai view of Karma seems a bit perverted. Most Thais I know beieve what you do in this life will affect what you come back as in the next life. Meaning if you are evil you may come back as a snake or an insect, not as an orphan or a disabled person.

Maybe we just know different kinds of Thais.

Have you ever noticed that most of the people who run charities to help the disadvantaged in Thailand are usually expats?

You might consider that this is because in Buddhist philosophy people get the karma they deserve.

In other words, orphans, for instance, would deserve their situation.

I don't know anything about Chiang Mai's "School for Life" center for disadvantaged children but it is nice to hear about Thai's involved in charity work.

Maxnet 2Mb/1Mb 1090Bt/Mo ADSL

I use P2p, Usenet and streaming Radio

July 2008 (Incoming: 48961 MB / Outgoing: 64617 MB)

August 2008 (Incoming: 47480 MB / Outgoing: 65748 MB)

I had been using it heavier previous to July, but I don't have the logs.

There has recently been a debate on /. (slashdot) about bandwidth usage. This lead me to wonder what usage an average user here in Thailand has?

Anyone have installed a bandwidth meter that could give me some idea?

Also a note on which kind of traffic is running and the speed of the connection would be useful. Especially P2P and streaming makes a huge difference.

Seems it's always the same few people who jump in on every thread to say how bad the internet is in Thailand. So I guess I will jump in on every thread to say how good it has been. There has not been even the slightest difference in speed or quality on my 2Mb/1Mb 1090Bt/Mo Maxnet line since this Law came into place Aug 23rd. In the 3 Months been with them they have been every bit as stable (and much faster) than much more expensive leased lines I have used here for mission critical work. My CAT line which I had for more than three years also worked well but was nowhere near as stable as the TT&T line.

Perhaps only somewhat on-topic, but has anyone noticed considerable Internet deterioration since this law came by? The web is crawling these days. Why is it every time they get the Internet to work at least in a mediocre way here someone is bound to pass by and throw a spanner in the gears?

My CAT connection is roughly the same.

TOT and TT&T though definitely seems to have gone to the worse.. YES, you read correctly worse. No one thought that was possible, but it is.

I guess that mostly depends on whether it is your first stop of the night or your last

I do hope that John's place takes a turn for the better.

I stopped in for a cold one a few times. it was like buying a beer from a canteen machine. The girls never smile...

Reminds me of home. But at least at John's the girls don't look like Bulgarian wrestlers with facial leprosy

This won't make you feel any better but I have been getting full speed for my line 2Mb for the 3 months I have been with TTT and Most of the time I make full use of the bandwidth. I may just be lucky, I also had very good luck with CAT until TTT started screwing with the line to get the last holdouts to switch a few months ago.

Anybody having problems with MaxSh*te server today. I haven't been able to get online since 6pm today. Phoned up the office in Kadsuankaew and the lady said that the server will be online tomorrow (usual bullsh*t reply). Is this problem city wide or just an isolated server? ps. I stay in the Kadsuankaew area.

I'm now getting by with a good old Loxinfo dial up service.

Cheers....

Same Sh*t overhere,

We are living in Phan (Chiang-Rai).

We having problems for more then two weeks already.

Before we had Indy 4 Mb. also problems with connection and speed.

At the office : ttt answer: you are running a internet cafe, you need @cafe = 5Mb. and than no problems. so okay give us @cafe 5Mb for +/- 3000 Thb.

Now one week later, Stil MANY times NO or SLOW internet ( 250 Kb. ). But sometimes it is okay , but the max. speed is about 4300 Mb.

Download speed to Europe in the beginning (first few days ) 460 Kb - 490 Kb. Very fine . last 2 days download speed to Europe +/- 200 Kb. ( Reduced again ???? ).

At the moment is my wife to the office from ttt for complaining.

Keep us informed.

Greetings easyman.

My wife just came back from the office ttt.

answer tt&t: Yes yesterday there was a problem. but at the moment it is okay again.

And what about the slow or no internet, answer: buy a second modem and replace it every 6 - 8 hours. that should solve the problem.

my oppinion: BULLSH*T.

At the days , when i was living in Europe my modem was always on 24 hr's a day 7 days a week and no problem. and here a modem most be replaced every 6 - 8 hours !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .

TT&T has a huge problem , and don't want to admit it.

Greetings easyman.

The problem with Maxnet last night around 6pm (assuming we all had the same problem) was with their DNS server. The connection was still good but Names could not be resolved to IPs. A good work around to this is to add an Open DNS server as one of your DNS servers. This way if Maxnets servers fail to resolve The Opendns server will take over.

For instance, on my Linksys router I have places to add 3 DNS server. I leave the first two blank as they will get assigned Maxnets servers through DHCP and for the third one I add 208.67.222.222

This will also fix those instances where you get a could not be found error and have to refresh to get a page.

Same here, I have the 1090 Baht Package also and I have no problems with it. P2P, usenet, and ftp transfers all get full international speed.

In fact my experience with DSL in Thailand has been mostly good for the last 4 years.

Even the cheap lines are pulling in 2 - 3 Mbps now.. Just got to make sure you dont get the over shared packages.

My el cheapo 1090 package which is thier slowest option gets me a 1.8 - 2mbit international tested speed all day every day..

Sure its not 20Mbps but its OK for Thailand.

Most of the good ones.

Find a Thai girl who doesn't want a farang.