AyG

Don't think this has been reported before, but I've just noticed that you can complete form TM.7 online and book an appointment for an extension of stay at Chaengwattana through the Immigration website.

http://extranet.immigration.go.th/pibics/online/queue/EXTAction.do?cmd=term

Wasn't there a guy in Germany a few decades ago who coated a bathtub in margarine and that was his break-through piece of art work? Joseph Boyes (sp?), if memory serves.

You're probably thinking of Joseph Beuys - though I don't believe he ever did anything with a margarine-coated tub. His performance "How to explain pictures to a dead hare" in which he coated his face with honey and cradled a dead hare however has been described as "a new Mona Lisa of the 20th century". He also gave rise to the joke "Do you like Beuys?" "No, I prefer girls".

Chaengwattana does have a system for reentry permits. Launched a few months ago. Used to work fine.

Frankly, now it's the worst website I've ever, ever encountered. It took me half an hour to fill in the first five field on the first page (and there are 7 pages to be completed). I gave up.

Whoever was responsible for this disaster should be sacked. They're clearly unfit to be a web developer.

I've previously used the on-line appointment system for reentry permits at Chaengwattana. The system used to work fine. Now it's totally useless. Not only does it now demand that you use Intenet Explorer, it takes an age for every single character to be entered. At this rate it's going to take me longer to fill in the form than to queue without an appointment.

Does anyone have any tips on how to speed up the form?

Thanks

an alley that hadnt been exploited yet

??????

It's an asinine law, akin to the one that forbids bottles of alcohol in New Year gift baskets.

you could try a home made mozzie trap

I made on of these and it catches all sorts of bugs.

unfortunately mine also attracted a frog..

Just a small problem with that: mosquitoes like blood, not sugar. (I believe vampires are famed for saying "I vant to suck your blood" - not "I vant to suck your sugar syrup".) It'll catch plenty of insects, but not blood-sucking ones.

A markup of 400% in Cuba seems bad, but imported cars in Thailand can be marked up as much as 350%, so in comparison it doesn't seem that bad.

OK, to answer your three questions

1. All the most popular CMS systems are similar in functionality; there's little to be gained by changing system. There's no compelling reason I can see to move to WordPress. Upgrading Joomla will be quicker, easier. I suspect IT guy is just trying to make more work (and money) for himself - or is simply in love with WordPress (it happens - particularly with people with a blog background).

2. All your current functionality can be achieved in WordPress - however it will take a certain amount of effort and customisation to achieve.

3. Upgrading Joomla can take as little as an hour, provided that all the modules you use in 1.x are available and working in 2.x. However, if there are issues it can take a few days.

If you do decide to migrate to WordPress, will you be paying your IT guy on a fixed price basis or time & materials? If the latter, you may be heading for a nasty surprise, and if the former, the guy might quit part way through. It's definitely not a trivial migration.

BTW do mossies bite dogs and cats and other creatures?

I don't know about cats, but they definitely bite dogs. They transmit heartworm (a parasitic roundworm) that is a terrible scourge on dogs in Thailand and is inevitably fatal without treatment. (And the treatment is also likely to kill the dog.) Fortunately there is a vaccine available against it - not that that helps street dogs.

Out of curiosity I downloaded this app and played with it for 5 minutes. A few observations:

- The app is simply a front end to Google translate

- Translation is pretty dire (as you'd expect from Google translate)

- Phonetic script (also from Google) is utterly impenetrable . Seems (as far as I can tell) not to show vowel length and gets tones wrong. Also doesn't know about leading ห and shows it as a letter in the phonetic script

- No Thai voice recognition. (The English voice recognition, however, is reasonably good.)

- Frequent timeouts connecting to the Google server (perhaps 50% of the time)

- Haven't been able to get Thai keyboard to work (but that might just be me)

A bit disappointed, to be honest. Nothing new here. However, it is pretty good for looking up single words.

Though WordPress positions itself as a fully-fledged content management system (CMS), in my opinion it isn't. Before committing to moving to it make sure you know how to (in no particular order):

- add a rotating banner ad

- distinguish between featured listings and other listings, and how to combine them in a single list

- maintain advertisements on right hand side of page

- page within categories (e.g. "Construction News")

- allow third parties to add listings and maintain a consistent format

- specify sequence of listings

None of this is impossible - and some of it isn't particularly difficult. However, if you're dependent upon third party plug-ins with no guarantee of future support and customising PHP scripts (which may be overwritten on upgrade, or be incompatible with future versions) you could run into trouble.

You are also probably going to be very dependent upon the use of "tags" which are free text fields, so difficult to keep consistent. A small typing error will completely mess things up.

In my opinion, WordPress is not a particularly good fit to what you're trying to do.

What is the "British Used Car taxation system"? Never heard of such a thing.

Is this just another case of labelling something unpalatable as foreign, whilst nice things are always Thai?

go see a doc pronto tonto and take the dead dog with you for tests

Totally insensitive. There's absolutely no need for a beloved pet to be killed. There's no reason to think this dog does have rabies, and even if it does, it makes no difference to the fact that the person bitten needs to be injected as soon as possible - they don't have the luxury of waiting until the results of any test on the dog are available.

I'd also add that the OP states that the dog is "fully innoculated" which should include rabies. The chance that it actually has the virus is pretty remote.

I do agree with "see a doc pronto" though.

Incidentally (and I could be wrong) I seem to recall that the rabies vaccine is only available at government hospitals, not private ones.

There is no need to get the dog tested for rabies. The person bitten should simply get the three simple shots (assuming he/she has previously been vaccinated). It's a few more shots if not previously vaccinated.

Doubtless they'll also disclose that he's moslem when they want a bit more publicity through vacuous political correctness.

They're experiencing a DDoS attack from a disgruntled ex-member. This particular member has been attacking the site periodically for several months now.

It looks as if the site started moving to Cloudflare (a cloud-based service) a few hours ago to thwart the attacks; that move isn't yet complete.

All being well with the move, I'm guessing normal service should be resumed in a few hours.

Another option, cheaper than Invisalign, is sublingual braces - that is, braces which are on the back of the teeth, and so invisible.

Almost a year ago Acer and Asus both announced they'd stop making netbooks (which is what I suspect the OP is referring to - rather than notebook computers, a.k.a. laptops). Given the popularity of tablets there was simply too small a market for them. Anything you find now will probably be old stock.

I googled the phrase there, for the grace of god, goes I and found the original has no I but the name, John Bradford, who appears to be an english matyr. Bradford stated "there, for the grace of God, goes John Bradford" when he saw a group of prisoners who were led to execution. Can someone tell me what he meant by saying that? Is he talking to himself or god or just announcing his thought to the other prisoners?

can someone rephrase this old english sentence into modern english so a native thai speaker like me can appreciate how it has become a proverb?

He wasn't talking to God or to the prisoners, but to himself. What he was trying to say was "it might have been I who is going to be executed, but thanks to God's kindness/forgiveness I'm safe".

(There's a "but" missing from your quotation = "there, but for the grace of God".)

The prisoners being led to be executed weren't usual criminals, they were heretics (i.e. people who don't "do" religion in the same way as the official version). He's thanking God for showing him (what he believes is) the one, true version of religion - not the false, twisted, mistaken version of the heretics.

[Edited to show the prisoners were heretics, rather than standard criminals.]

From the God-botherers' 1000 Word List at http://bencrowder.net/downloads/lang/ThousandWordList.pdf there's a sentence that seems relevant to the discussion:

My grace is sufficient for the meek
พระคุญของเราเพียงพอสําหรับคนใจออนโยน
phráʔkhun khɔ̌ɔŋ raw phiaŋphɔɔ sǎmràb khon cay ʔɔ̀ɔnyoon

I think this is suggesting that the grace is ours - given to us by God - rather than belonging to God.

There's not a shred of scientific evidence that ultrasound repels mosquitos. It's a con - rather like the GT200 scanners, but with fewer deaths. The credulous, unfortunately will believe any old rubbish and be parted from their money.

(2) Twilight sedation. You're still conscious and can move when asked. You may have some memories of the procedure.

There's another alternative but I don't know how to classify it, it's not a general anesthetic, simply a shot that puts you to sleep and apparently erases any memories of the procedure, zero after affects and recovery is near instant, highly recommended and is in use at RAM Hospital in CM.

What you're describing is what I know as "twilight sedation". Some people do remember something (I did) - most don't. And in my experience recovery wasn't instant. I was groggy for a few hours and certainly wasn't fit to walk home on my own. (At the time I was staying about 300 metres from the hospital, but certainly wouldn't have wanted to cross any roads.)

General anaesthetics are never given for such procedures.

Just try Googling for "colonoscopy general anaesthetic". You might just possibly find out that you're talking out of the place where they stick the camera.