tjansen

We are planning to drive from Ban Pong, Ratchaburi, on Route 323, to a retreat center in the hills in Sangkaburi Province near the Mynmar border. We plan to go tomorrow and be there for ten days. Any thoughts on our odds of being wiped out by floods or landslides?

Thanks

Tom

WHOOPS. I was just telling my girlfriend about this after I sent my post, and she asked me why I don't just go to our local Post Office tomorrow or Monday, with my passport, pay, sign and wait for my package.

I must have forgotten these different postal stations know each other.

Sorry for the (hopefully) unneeded panic.

Tom

You may even get lucky and not have to wait. The post office for our zip code always has the package waiting. (after payment...)

Yes, that is exactly what happened. Af first I thought the mailer was from Customs, and I got flustered, thinking they must be in Bangkok. Then when I realized it was from the Post Office, I forgot to put my thinking cap back on. Thanks for the reply. Tom

WHOOPS. I was just telling my girlfriend about this after I sent my post, and she asked me why I don't just go to our local Post Office tomorrow or Monday, with my passport, pay, sign and wait for my package.

I must have forgotten these different postal stations know each other.

Sorry for the (hopefully) unneeded panic.

Tom

Hello,

I ordered an audio headset from the US. I went to Malaysia for ten days, and when I got back home, I had a customs notice in the mail that had an "Arrival Date" on it that was about ten days ago.

I believe the package is in the Customs Office, since I don't see Thailand Post anywhere.

CORRECTION, the notice is from the Thailand Post, so that brings up the question also of where to go.

I am planning to leave Ratchaburi Province, where I live, this Monday for another 15 days. I probably could do some remote business with Customs on Monday, but it would not be convenient at all for me to go to Bangkok.

I know some people in Bangkok that could probably pick the package up for me, but it looks like I need to send them the original form I got in the mail with my signature, as well as my passport, according to them. I won't do that for sure.

Questions:

Can I sign something and fax or scan and send to my friend and have them go pay the duty and pick up the package?

There are accruing storage fees after seven days, so I am beyond that.

The Noise Canceling headset was about $180 with shipping.

Unfortunately, if everything I am reading is strictly adhered, someone else will end up with a quiet space and I will go on for a while hearing the joyful festivities and loud exhausts blowing off anger at night.

Thanks for any help on this.

Tom

yvancg (I can't figure out how to get my reply out of the quotes box)

I was rather unhappy with High Speed Thai a couple of years ago and went at it with fits and starts, with some complaints to Vincent. I had looked at and tried other programs without being thrilled. One day I decided to get serious about learning Thai. I went to the instruction part in the ebook and picked the pieces I felt were most beneficial for me (I don't like to work very hard these days) and laid out a study plan and schedule. I started following that and I am now approaching Lesson 30 and feel like I am learning a lot. I am now venturing out on my own on errands, confident that I can communicate enough to get the job done. People tell me my Thai is very good.

Vincent is very responsive and patient and doesn't seem to get ruffled feathers from people's comments (mine). He actually makes changes in future releases based on people's (mine) comments.

If you are interested, send me an email or PM and I will send you my exact study plan.

Tom

HST was my first choice, I was not happy with it, I mentioned it with some suggestions to improve it, but that was taken on the negative side, like i didn't know how to arrange the windows properly.Sorry I i was mislead by your response, as vincent has vincenttv ID here as well as highspeedthai. And you reply was very much on the same tone of voice. My apologies.Even with the iPhone, which is a top of the range product, there as many unhappy comments and they don't hide them. It is hard to believe that i am the ONLY unhappy person about HST. I have already had a few other person contacting me and saying that what I was saying was what they felt about the programme. Again I am not saying it is a bad system. There is a lot of work done behind it, but the way it it presented, and the way it is marketed, is just nowhere close to the market reality.HST COULD be a great programme if it took the user into consideration. For now it is just 1000+ pdf file with a 1000+ files to organize on your screen. It doesn't cost much to integrate all this into one software and make it user friendly.I don't think my comments are unjust, i just related a story that happened to me. As for the Mandarin Chinese I have learnt, I took 2 years courses at the KMT 2 in Tahiti (traditional Mandarin from Taiwan, not the simplified form from mainland China). Please feel free to contact Rose Wong there, who is the lead teacher. I can supply her email address in private if you want to check by yourself. She taught me to read, speak and write. The reason why I decided to learn Mandarin Chinese and not Bikya is probably because Mandarin Chinese is obviously one of the most spoken language in the world (source: http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html).Anything else you want to clear I will be happy to clarify with you.Now if you want to share your own story about the benefits of HST for YOU, please feel free. But don't tell me that I must like it because all the testimonials we get from HST are all highly positive.Having said that, i am glad that you managed to learn your way through HST, and if you know anyone who want to buy a sample of this programme at a discounted price, please feel free to refer him or her to me.

Hello,

By the dates on these posts, I am very late in responding. I am currently on the fifth day of a ten-day strict water fast at my brother's center in Malaysia. In 2005 I did a strict (except for a little lemon juice in my water) water fast also at my brother's center in Malaysia.. Even on a ten-day fast (I just discovered) it can be important to monitor blood sugar, blood pressure, and a few others.

I have been on an all-raw food diet in excess of a year, with one three-week binge on cooked, high fat vegetarian food when I visited the US in May of this year.

I am settled on raw food with no looking back. I am 66 years old and want to thrive into my old age. I am experiencing the best health and fitness I ever have.

I can offer you a lot of information, pros and cons of various natural health procedures and processes from my studies and paid consultations with a top-notch professional health and fitness coach in the US.

I am not in business with this, so I don't charge anything. I just love spreading good information.

If anyone is interested in information or feed back, send me an email or PM.

OK, I have downloaded LAME and exported the project from Audacity as MP3 files. When I did that, the short (60 second or so) recording automatically divided up into five 11-second mp3 files. When I highlight all of them and right click on them, then play them in Winamp, they all play in sequence, and it sounds like my original recording.

Now, with Nero Street Smart, I don't know how to put the mp3 files onto a CD. I have tried a couple of (obviously wrong) things and got the following error message a couple of times.

Can you give some step-by-step instructions on how to get the files onto a blank CD, as well as what type of blank CD to buy?

ERROR MESSAGE

One or more files could not be added to a compilation.

It may be possible, that the files can be added, if a dedicated plug-in is installed.

C:\Documents and Settings\Acer\Desktop\Audacity\First Experiment with Lame_data\b00000.au

This message occurred for each file.

Thanks a lot

Tom

Audacity is very good and if you already know how to use it then you've already solved the hard part. I suggest that you export your recordings as .mp3 files rather than .wav so that you can compress them and make them easy to download. You will need to install the LAME MP3 plugin for Audacity (I think instructions are included in the program, it only takes a few minutes).

You can then experiment with the bitrate (quality) that you encode your MP3s at. For *voice-only* audio files I've found that 64 KB/s is the best trade off between sound quality and file size. Then upload your audio files onto your website and create links to them (it could be as simple as a single HTML page, depending on what you want to do). Put your webpage + audio files on a CD you've solved that problem too.

You can also set up online streaming of your audio files quite easily. To do that, make a plain text file containing the URL of the audio file(s) you want to stream. Change the extension to .m3u (a playlist file) and link to *that* from your website. People's browsers will understand that they should hand off to a media player, which will then start playing the track while downloading it. You can include multiple tracks in a playlist, just put each URL on a separate line.

If you plan to do this sort of thing regularly you might be interested in setting up a podcast feed.

Hello, I am looking for some guidance. What is the simplest and most effective way to make a recorded book available to Thai people, particularly to non-readers. I have heard CD's suggested as well as downloads maybe from DTAC or another cellphone provider to people's cellphones

In the past I have downloaded and used a program called Audacity to make WAV files. Then I burnt them onto a CD, using, I believe, Nero. I just learned today that there are different types of CD's, including mp3 and audio CDs, and that an audio CD holds a lot less recorded material.

My goal is to have the recording available on CD as well as some easily down loadable medium. So, I would like to know the step-by-step approach to make this happen.

Thanks for any help.

Tom

If you have a particular interest in diabetes, I suggest doing some reading about it. I was startled to learn recently from Doug Graham's book, The 80/10/10 Diet, that too much fat is the actual culprit in bringing about diabetes. He gives a pretty good explanation how fat interferes with insulin's ability to process the sugar from our food. Not to say that too much sugar helps matters any.

Thais don't need multinationals to become overweight. The amount of sugar being added to the (Thai) food in this country is staggering, and seems to increase every year. At this rate most dishes will in a few years time taste like an effin dessert!

Mark my words: Thailand will be a future hub of diabetes.

The Google-specific virus makes the most sense. Everything else works as normal.

Thanks

Tom

//

There is a very bad Google re-direct virus going around at the moment, I know because I have it, and cannot shift it, might be connect to your problem

My friend's computer suddenly started getting a "not found" message, with the number 404 appearing also, when trying to use Google. Any ideas for fixing it? They tried deleting cookies to no avail.

Thanks,

Tom

I don't recall exactly when I bought HST, maybe a year ago as a guess. It could be longer. I have tried a couple of other programs including one that I really like because it is fun, but I have settled on HST as my learning-Thai tool.

I made it through about eighteen or nineteen vocabluary lessons, then got bogged down for several weeks or a couple of months without doing much. A few weeks ago I got the energy, inspiration to finish all forty lessons. Here is the email that I just sent to Vincent, whom I have found very sincere, open, and responsive.

By the way, I am now on lesson 24 of the Vocabluary Section. I have learned much much more Thai with this program than I did while working with and being around Thais for the previous two years.

My two summary comments:

1) I recommend this course without reservation

2) I suggest, early on, finding the instructions on how to study in the High Speed Thai ebook (pdf) and designing a study plan for yourself. I experienced a lot of frustration early on floundering around in different folders not knowing what I was doing or where I was headed. Now I can go right to the folder I am working in that day and do my lesson. The course is definitely not a "push the Start Button and Go" affair, but once I settled down and read Vincent's instructions, I found them very useful in progressing on my way.

Here is the email, in quotes, that I just sent to Vincent, whom I have found to be very sincere, open, and responsive.

"Hello Vincent, I put this study plan together from your instructions in the ebook without including "extra practice" type things you mention, and I have been using it for a few weeks. Could you please comment on any essentials that I am missing?

I spend eight days on each unit, which means I should finish the course before the end of the year.

Day 1 Quick Review, following along with the appropriate text from the ebook, with some repetition as needed.

Day2 Section 1 Vocab until words are in short term memory

Day 3 Section 1 Learning with repetition as needed.

Day 4 Section 2 Vocab

Day 5 Section 2 Learning

Day 6 Reading Test using Anki

Day 7 Speaking with repetition as needed

Day 8 Anki Master File review

When you are ready to send me your updates (including male and female speakers, clickable pdf, etc, I would like some help / advice on both incorporating these new things into my folders as well as incorporating them into my current study plan."

Tom

I want to delete this post. Something happened to the font. I reposted my comments about HST.

I think you can get it if you're with AIS too. There's a reference to 3BB here but it is in Thai only. Maybe call AIS' helpdesk if you want to know more.

CORRECTION to my positive post. It is now 10:30 PM, and I am unable to consistently get on AOL and was also unable to get on Thaivisa some of the time. When I called the help desk, 1530, the man told me that when the system has many users, I might be unable to connect to foreign websites. He also told me that I cannot use my cellphone to utilize their service.

To InSISongkram. Could you please comment on this? You say it is good on the move, so it sounds like you are indeed able to use your cellphone. Is that correct?

I am now back to using the slow but reliable DTAC service for 215 baht for 70 hours, which must be used up within thirty days or be lost.

Tom

I just signed up and tried out the 3B broadband (sp?). I am able to connect directly to the Hot Spot with my computer, and the price is 100 bt per month for unlimited time. This might be a promotion, but for now it seems very good. Prior to this I was using my cell phone, connecting through DTAC to the Internet. Very slow and considerably more expensive.

The apartment building I live in is publicizing a 3BB Wi-Fi deal of some sort that involves a Download. It is 100 baht per month for unlimited use. Does anyone know of any drawbacks? I assume there is a tower or whatever is required nearby since the apartment management is handing out information. The first step is sending "A" without the quotes in an SMS.

Thanks for any information on this.

I am just getting back to my search. Thanks a lot for the ideas. I will check these sources out and report back what I came up with.

Hello,

I would like to buy Four Agreements by Ruiz and Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, and Man and His Symbols used in SE Asia to save on shipping as well as the books. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tom

What illness is there that a good diet won't prevent / cure?

Raw food.

Correction. The one from OneBody is called a "Foldable Trampette".

Hello,

I am not sure I have the right forum, but here goes.

I am looking for a foldable trampoline, 40 inch diameter maximum, 36 is OK also, for around $50-60 USD. I bought one a few years ago at Tesco in Malaysia. It was called a minitramp. The company was called Onebody. Something like that is still available, but the shipping will put it out of my desired price range. Also, I had to replace all of the springs with a better design as well as rivet all of the webbing loops. Springs kept breaking and webbing kept coming apart. That one is now a good one, but I am looking for another one for someone else. Hopefully I can find one in Thailand, AND I won't have to retrofit it.

If you know specifically of such a product available in Thailand, I would like to know about it. I have checked Tesco, Robinson's, FPT (or some such initials). I have found trampolines, but not exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks

Tom

Well, we accomplished the first step, which was our most urgent goal. We did the hard reset and can now, all three of us, get on the Internet. We are happy about that.

The next step, resetting the password, will probably have to wait. I seem to recall (and born out by the installation CD) that this step requires two ethernet cables, and we only have one. We are in somewhat of an isolated area. We spent about an hour trying to get it done using instructions from the Linksys site before realizing we probably need another cable.

Thanks a lot for that quick help on everybody's part. It got the job done.

I am actually leaving tomorrow, so my friend will be finishing the task at some later date, and I might be back on here asking for more help.

Tom

Accessing the Router's Web-Based Setup Page

The default IP address is 192.168.1.1.

Leave the user name field blank. The default password is "admin" without the quotes.

I just went to 192.168.1.1 and tried your suggestion, and the sign in block keeps popping back up asking for a username and password. I think the problem is that there is already a username and a password associated with this router. We know the username but we forgot the password.

I don't know the password for a security protected linksys WRT120N router. I can't get on the (wireless) router with a new computer. Any ideas or solutions?