Pakaty

HSBC is expecting Thailand to reduce interest rates by 25 – 50 basis points by March 11^th. The Finance Minister states otherwise.

They actually did it. Thai time, waited as long as they could.

After so many years of trafficking and profiting off the suffering of Rohingya refugees, Thailand should be morally obliged to take these people in. I would like to think most Thais would agree. They can be a kind and generous people. This situation was caused by a years long industry created by Burma and some morally corrupt sub-humans mostly in southern Thailand. Politicians, military, police and civilian have all been involved. And now that Thailand has shut this industry down its inconceivable that the Rohingya refugees that are mid-journey will be allowed to be lost and die at sea. This is a truly deplorable act of ethnic cleansing that the Burmese started but to Thailand's shame perpetuated. What would be even more shameful would be to not act immediately and bring these people to safety.

I realize there are Bangladeshi out there too but they are relatively new in the mix. This started with the Rohingya.

Maybe she doesn't want to be an immigration volunteer and she is trying to be relieved of that position. She is a Tourist Police Volunteer after all. She just might want her old duties back.

I seldom notice billboards cause I'm concentrating on the unpredictable traffic around me.

I won't patronize any business that advertises on tuk-tuks either.

You mean billboards in phuket I guess. Better call Saul!

There is another "big" dark skinned lady working as volunteer in the Phuket Town Immigration office, with american accent. But this lady is helpful and friendly and tries to cheer people up. It's not the same one as pictured in the link from Lashay. Haven not seen the latter ever in Phuket Town. The Phuket Town folks are a real gem, never encountered any bad attitudes there (in contrast to the thai officers there, those are a very mixed bunch).

Correct! Her name is Roz, very nice lady at Phuket Town Immigration.

Don't be too hard on the lady in Patong. I'm sure she is just doing what she is told to do. She turned me and a friend away last month and said to go to town, saying the person that did what I needed (TM 30 & Proof of Address) was not there. But the place was quite busy with at least 15 people wanting to get in the door. We just returned to Patong the next day. She greeted to assist us and and went inside to see if the officers could help us, came back out and told us to come in.

http://www.aonangweather.com - the person who updates and operates that site seems to have their finger on the pulse pretty well for this part of the world. Quite informative and very relevant for Phuket as well.

It's great to see that they got the lightning radar working again. It was down for some time.

Pretty cool, your post updates with the current data. You posted this on May Day and its updated with today's data.

http://panphuket.com/weather has added this to their site as well.

I did a random test on my VPN yesterday and it failed.

Try these sites.

http://whoer.net/extended Look at the Interactive detection box then WebRTC. Does it show your real IP?

Or try this site.

http://diafygi.github.io/webrtc-ips/

I contacted my VPN provider and they sent me a work around solution that seems to work. I'm just surprised how long this flaw has been there and I thought it should be shared. The VPN companies may not care as long as we are feeling warm and fuzzy.

How did you backup your files? Copy/paste, a backup program or a file sync program. If you used a file sync program sometimes, depending on settings used, files on the target drive can be deleted if they don't match the files on the source drive.

Thanks Pakaty,

Is it alright for me to use malwarebytes? I have AVG and Ive heard you should not use more than 1 antivirus.

As far as cleaning unnessary files, do I have any files at all? All I do is watch youtube, facebook,read newspapers and look up stuff.

Well, you gave me enough homework to keep me busy this weekend.

Thanks, Zlodnick

You can use Malwarebytes. It is not an antivirus program. You are correct that you can't use more than one antivirus program at the same time. If you wanted to try another antivirus program you would need to uninstall AVG first. Just download the program you want to try before you uninstall AVG.

Your web browser alone can accumulate a lot old unneeded files.

You don't need to worry about defragging if you have a solid state drive. If you have a regular spinning drive Windows 8 should be doing that automatically on a weekly basis.

From this site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/improve-performance-optimizing-hard-drive# By default, Optimize Drives, previously called Disk Defragmenter, runs automatically on a weekly schedule. But you can also optimize drives on your PC manually.

Regarding malware, this is probably the most used malware scanner. https://www.malwarebytes.org/

You may want to consider this program. Its not for malware or defragging. Its popular for cleaning unnecessary files off you computer. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

You can read about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCleaner

Be careful when installing programs like CCleaner and Malwarebytes, they like to add unwanted programs during installation. Just pay attention and and uncheck the boxes that ask if you want the extra programs. Its the price we pay for free software. You don't have to pay for these programs, the free versions are fine.

Surely it's not rocket science-either some form is the right one or not!!!!

I feel your frustration. But, from my experience there is there is not always ONE right and wrong here. It depends on the mood of who ever you happen to be dealing with. For instance.....

A friend and I went to Patong Imm. 2 weeks ago with the intention of getting Application Form for Residence Certificate in Thailand to renwew our driver's licenses. I also wanted to submit a Notification Form for House Master, Owner, or the Possessor of The Residence Where Aliens Have Stay (TM.30) on behalf of my land lord. It was the first time this has been done in the 4 years I have lived in this house. On our first try it was surprisingly busy, line out the door. A volunteer came outside to sort what people needed and told us that the boss man that had to do what we needed was not there and we had to go to town. Not wanting to go from Patong City to Phuket Town, my friend and I decided to try again the next day. We got there before they open the next day. When the volunteer came out to sort people out she said let me go see if the boss is here. She came back out and told us to come in and I went 1st. An hour later (that hour is a whole other story) I was sorted with the lower portion of the TM30 signed and stapled in my passport. It is the same receipt of notification as in post #25 not the "Phuket form" as in post #12. It can be so hit and miss here and often hard to cover all the bases.

I think I see what is happening here.

Form TM30 titled "Notification From House-Master, Owner or The Possessor of the Residence Where Alien Has Stayed" has, at the bottom, a receipt section which is torn off and stapled in your passport.

The form with no number titled "Registration Form for the Owner of Residence" does not have a receipt section at the bottom, but Immigration give you the same receipt as at the bottom of the TM30.

(Actually, the TM30 receipt has a spelling mistake: ASSRESS instead of ADDRESS. My receipt has the correct spelling.)

Too funny, I never noticed the spelling error. The one they stapled in my passport has the error.

Proof of income from embassy/consul (affidavit) is valid for 6 months.

Confirmed.

I went to US Embassy outreach today for proof of income and was told it was good for six months.

As long as the Thai Immigration conforms to what the US Embassy says they should be doing

Surely it's not rocket science-either some form is the right one or not!!!!

I feel your frustration. But, from my experience there is there is not always ONE right and wrong here. It depends on the mood of who ever you happen to be dealing with. For instance.....

A friend and I went to Patong Imm. 2 weeks ago with the intention of getting Application Form for Residence Certificate in Thailand to renwew our driver's licenses. I also wanted to submit a Notification Form for House Master, Owner, or the Possessor of The Residence Where Aliens Have Stay (TM.30) on behalf of my land lord. It was the first time this has been done in the 4 years I have lived in this house. On our first try it was surprisingly busy, line out the door. A volunteer came outside to sort what people needed and told us that the boss man that had to do what we needed was not there and we had to go to town. Not wanting to go from Patong City to Phuket Town, my friend and I decided to try again the next day. We got there before they open the next day. When the volunteer came out to sort people out she said let me go see if the boss is here. She came back out and told us to come in and I went 1st. An hour later (that hour is a whole other story) I was sorted with the lower portion of the TM30 signed and stapled in my passport. It is the same receipt of notification as in post #25 not the "Phuket form" as in post #12. It can be so hit and miss here and often hard to cover all the bases.

Just got one of these, but I haven't unboxed it yet.

Supports UHD 4K, Gigabit Wifi, has quad core processor and octocore Graphics processor.

I may unbox it over the weekend and see how it goes. I got this to go with it:

http://matricom.net/product_page/g-box-q/

http://www.amazon.com/GBOX-Q-KEY-Yourself-Minutes-Installs-Add-ons/dp/B00Q984YCW

Kewl, thanks for sharing. Let us know how your enjoying it.

http://dealsprime.com/

http://www.aliexpress.com/

This Ugoos UT3S has the best specs I can find in an Android TV box. It was just upgraded from the previous Ugoos UT3. There are two versions, a base model w/2GB RAM and 16GB ROM and a 4GB RAM w/32GB ROM (the one I want). They also duel boot Android 4.4 (soon to be 5.0 Lollipop) and Ubuntu 14.10

I have not bought it yet but, If anyone knows of a box with better specs. please share as I'm going to order it soon.

Also looking at this SHARKK Backlit Keyboard to go with it along with my wireless trackball mouse.

I have been using XMBC/Kodi on my windows laptop running HDMI to the TV or just the laptop in bed and I am quite Happy with it. It can even get Thai TV.

Also using Ironsocket VPN gets around any Geo restricted content just fine.

Now its time to eliminate the laptop and just get a box connected 24/7.

check http://www.29tire.com/?lang=en

Thanks, I could not find my size on the website but I'll give them a call next week and see if they can help me.

Still welcoming other suggestions too...

Michelin Pilot Street 80/90-16 (replaced the Pilot Sporty). i got mine from "Ek Paiboon Yang Yont" (02) 222-7535, (02) 223-4678 speak to Khun Pairoj, paid 930 Baht each back in Sept 2014 plus 100 Baht freight

Thanks for that. Did you get that size for the front or rear. For my Elegance 80/90-16 is the factory recommended size for the rear tire. I am considering going 80/90-16 front and 90/90-16 rear. How do you like them compared with the stock IRC tires? I'm guessing you have the same bike right?

PM sent from a happy customer.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

check http://www.29tire.com/?lang=en

Thanks, I could not find my size on the website but I'll give them a call next week and see if they can help me.

Still welcoming other suggestions too...

I uninstalled IDM last week after years of use. I am currently evaluating Eagleget. It seems to be doing the job so far...time will tell. IDM worked well for me for a long time, but then I got the serial number issue also, and I decided to try something else.

My original wheels had wire rims. Then I upgraded to mag wheels which I got from my Yamaha dealer and new tubeless tires. However, there were some stability issues with the new tires and that's when I decided to upgrade to the Michelin Pilots one size larger. That being said, my friend Ross is about to order new mag wheels for his Elegance (it has 34,000 kilometers on it) and he's going to get IRC tires in the original size, 70/80 on the front and 80/90 on the rear. Mine are 80/90 front and 90/90 on the rear. The price he just got was 8000 baht for the new mag wheels plus the IRC tires. He got a bid from Maxxis on Sukamvit Road for 2400 baht for the Michelin Pilots in the larger size like mine, but he neglected to get a bid there on the mag wheels as well. The 8000 baht bid came from the Honda dealership in Naklua. Both of us really like this dealership and have a lot of confidence in the Thai man who I believe is the manager. If it were me, one way or the other I'd insist on getting the larger Michelin tires even if I had to drive down to Maxxis, pick up the tires and have Honda order the rims, and put the new tires on while they were replacing the rims. But that's me. I want the best. After all it's only my life that's riding on the tires.

I look at it this way. 8000 baht is around $260.00. Over the course of two years that's only $130 a year. If one is upgrading only the tires that's 2400 baht which is $80.00 or $40.00 a year. People won't hesitate about spending a lot more than that for a new stereo for his car, but when their lives are on the line, many people will pass on the improved tire setup while forgetting that it's just the rubber on two wheels that attach them to the pavement. This is chump change.

Its time to put new tires on my Elegance and I like the idea of going a bit wider like you did Jack. I have been to the Michelin Pilot Sporty website and it looks like the sizes 80/90 & 90/90 -16 are not available anymore.

Can you or anyone else point me in the direction to find these tires or something similar? I'm in Phuket but I don't mind ordering by post. These sizes don't seem very common when I do a search for them. I would like to stick with tubeless as I almost never had to put air in them but now I've picked up a nail on the rear and want new ones.

There is a bike shop on the road from Patong hill heading toward the big Tesco on the by-pass road. Does anyone have a phone or email for them.

I'm looking to get new tubeless tires for my Yamaha Nouvo. Yeah, its not a big bike but someone suggested they may be able to help me. There is only one brand and one size to chose from at the Yamaha dealer and I am considering going a bit wider on the size.

Any other places to check would be would be appreciated. I have checked Supercheap and several of the tire dealers along the same raod as Supercheap but struck out.

This site gives times of visible passes by the ISS and other satalites. You just have to plugin your geographical location. On days when the ISS is visible, its usually just before sunrise or just after sunset. Passes last from a few seconds to a few minutes and can come and go in any direction in the sky. Magnitudes given in negative numbers are brightest most easily seen.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

Join the club.