bubba

I have a three year old MacBook Air with 2 GB or RAM and Lion runs fine with it, although if I begin to do work with a lot of open applications, the anemic 2GB of RAM begins to require a lot of virtual memory and things slow down. That was the case with 10.6 though.

I'm not sure why Jimi007 is having so many problems with crashes. I am running Lion on three different Macs and it's very stable for me. It could be that you have some system extensions installed that do not play well with 10.7. It is true that Spotlight indexing can take a long time with the initial startup in 10.7, as the Spotlight cache is rebuilt, but that should be sorted within a couple of hours or overnight at the most for most users. once the cache is rebuilt, Spotlight does not index all the time, but it only updates the cache when files are added or edited. If I am counting correctly, Jimi has six HDs connected for a total of 9.5 TB of disk drive connected, so who knows how long Spotlight indexing would take for all that. I suspect that could have something to do with the hangs you are experiencing as well.

I'm not sure if it was yours, BigJohnny. It actually wasn't a calendar file, but rather a hosted subscription calendar of Thai Public Holidays, in both Thai and English script. I found it on the Apple website. If you would like to host your calendar so that others can subscribe to it rather than download a file, you can have it hosted at icalx.com for free. All you need to do is make it a public calendar and then provide the link. I was just going to do that today myself!

They use DHL for deliveries in Thailand, and they will deliver anywhere. DHL deliver in larger cities. For smaller towns and villages, DHL transfer the shipment to EMS Post. Of course the latter will require a couple of extra days in transit, and the anticipated delivery date that your order form shows will take this into account. If you enter a complete address and the order is accepted, the shipment will be delivered to you.

System Preferences=>Print and Scan. Highlight the printer in the left hand column that you want to delete and then click the '-' symbol at the bottom of that column. That printer will then be removed.

I have two personal B&W laser printers. One is an H-P P1102W and the other is a Brother (can't remember the model number). While H-P clearly states that it supports OSX, in fact it only does so marginally. This is a wifi printer and I had it working for a while, but not right out of the box and H-Ps instructions didn't address wifi issues. After googling and spending hours looking for workarounds, I finally had wifi working. But now, for inexplicable reasons, wifi has stopped working (printer will not connect to my network) and I've tried everything to get it back without success. Have a look at H-P's support forum for all the problems OSX users are having with this printer. H-P claim that this printer works with iOs AirPrint, but support forums are filled with people who cannot get it to work, even with people who somehow got the printer to connect to their network. H-P really should have just slapped a Windows compatible sticker on the box and left out any mention of OSX support. It's practically false advertising. Never again, H-P. I'm dumping the H-P P1102W as soon as the toner cartridge is finished (if anyone would like to by a second hand printer for Windows).

My Brother wifi printer worked flawlessly right out of the box, with excellent OSX instructions, and it continues to work, including with AirPrint from my iPad and iPhone. It was cheaper, toner cartridges are less expensive than H-P's, and the print copy is identical to the H-P. Highly recommended,

I've noticed that my current Thai Holidays iCal calendar (downloaded from the Apple) subscription ends with 2011. I've been using this one since 2009, but there are no more holidays listed commencing with 2012. I've googled everywhere but have not been able to find one for 2012. Has anyone else found one?

Works fine for me.

One thing about installing 10.7 is that the moment you start it up, it starts indexing your hard disks. This process can take hours depending on your disks, and it's using a LOT of CPU and hard disk bandwidth so during that time your system will be way slow. Use Activity Monitor to check which process is using the most CPU, so you can find stray programs.

For all the hype I don't think 10.7 a must have though - I like the new Mail.app - it finally got threaded views (like Gmail). But I never use the new mission control and have removed "launchpad" - launchpad on my system consists of 5 entire 1920x1200 screens full of icons - does that make launching apps fast? Certainly not.

And they made the Finder's side bar icons grey which is just stupid and much worse than before. Had to hack it to get some color back. The whole side bar is a major step backwards in usability.

There are other small improvements here or there but really nothing major. No issues with performance or memory though.

PS: Just remembered another *fantastic* feature in Lion: Preview now has a "sign" feature with which you can sign PDFs. It's cleverly using the built in camera to take a picture of your real signature, and inserts it into PDF documents. Very well done, seamless, and painless. I use this all the time. So this and the new Mail are the reasons to upgrade.

Maybe it was indexing. I had downloaded Adobe CS 5.5 and it was really slow after doing that. It seems better now. But I don't like that my hard drives don't mount to the desk top anymore and you have to go to Finder. Reminds me of Windows... I didn't like the new mail app at first either and I started to use Outlook. But I guess it's okay, it looks like the mail app on my iPad... I haven't needed to look at any pdf files since I installed 10.7, but that sounds kind of handy. Better than printing, signing the document and then scanning it... But no version of Pro Tools is out for 10.7 yet. I guess I'll play with it a while and decide. The one thing that pisses me off is I will have to reload all my music and apps into iTunes for both my iPad and iPod touch. My time machine HD failed a few weeks before my system crash, so I had to start from scratch. Seagate is sending me a free new external firewire drive this week, so after it arrives I'll decide what I want to do.

Lion will still show your hard drive (as well as external drives) on your desktop. Just go to Finder preferences ==> General and then under "Show these items on the desktop", tick Hard Drive or whatever you wish.

Thanks! Good tip. Wouldn't have thought to look there... But then again, I've only been using it for about 5 days. Do you have anymore secrets of 10.7? I like a few things about it better than 10.6, but it seems to hang at times which annoys me. I'll have to see after I reinstall Adobe CS again, if I can stand it. Or I might have to order 8 GB of RAM. Every time I look at the activity monitor it says I still have about 1 GB unused. But it still hangs up at times. CPU usage is usually pretty low.

According to Apple, Lion has over 250 new features. You can read about them here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html

Actually, the option for showing or not showing your HD using Finder Prefs was always there. Showing the HD on your desktop used to be the default. For whatever reason, Apple decided to not show it by default in Lion.

As for Mail, if you like the old ("classic") view of 10.6, you can change back to that by going to Mail=>Preferences=>Viewing and then tick 'Use Classic Layout". Either way, I much prefer Mail to the clunky Outlook for OSX.

Not sure about your hangs. I've very rarely had a hang in Lion. Not sure what machine you are using or how much RAM you have, but the Lion system does use a bit more memory than 10.6. I think you need at least 4 GB of RAM, but you probably don't need 8. Where and how is it hanging for you?

Drove my car to short time parking yesterday morning and the place was filled to the rim with cars and pick ups. Had to drive to top floor (6th) to park. When I came back in late afternoon to collect my car I had to push a pick up out the way in order to get my car out. Still no fee.

What about that open parking space next to the covered parking? I noticed it was 1/2 full, but everybody wants to parked covered off course, but if I knew what was coming I would had chosen that, but are not sure its assailable from short time parking road?

Hope the fee's are soon back, I rather pay so I can park easy & fast, suspect that app. 1/2 of the vehicles owners are non fliers and its for fliers after all.

Exactly what I observed last week when I had to pick up an arriving friend. Many of the cars were so covered in dust that they looked like they had been there since the impending floods in mid-October. I had to resort to Thai-style double parking on the sixth floor, and all the rest of the floors were completely packed, with even the entire aisles all double-parked already. I've resorted to taking a taxi, as there is no assurance you will find any covered parking at all now, and I don't want to leave my car out in the uncovered lot.

Exactly. Last year I had two bottles of wine given to me in Hong Kong for a Christmas present as I was being sent off to the airport. I thought all I would need to do on arrival was to declare the extra bottle and pay a duty. So I went through the red channel and declared them. The Customs officer told me that I needed a licence to bring in more than one bottle, so I would have to leave one bottle. After saying sorry, explaining politely that they were given to me as presents as Xmas presents as I left from Hong Kong and I really thought I could just declare the extra bottle and pay the tax, he smiled and said "ok this time, but remember, it's only one bottle and don't do it again". Very reasonable I thought, and that's the last time I attempted to bring in more than one bottle.

Don't they go by the volume? Bottles come in all shapes and sizes, from under 0.3L to over 2 L

Yes. Thailand allows one litre. A standard bottle of wine is 750 mL, so two bottles would put you over.

Works fine for me.

One thing about installing 10.7 is that the moment you start it up, it starts indexing your hard disks. This process can take hours depending on your disks, and it's using a LOT of CPU and hard disk bandwidth so during that time your system will be way slow. Use Activity Monitor to check which process is using the most CPU, so you can find stray programs.

For all the hype I don't think 10.7 a must have though - I like the new Mail.app - it finally got threaded views (like Gmail). But I never use the new mission control and have removed "launchpad" - launchpad on my system consists of 5 entire 1920x1200 screens full of icons - does that make launching apps fast? Certainly not.

And they made the Finder's side bar icons grey which is just stupid and much worse than before. Had to hack it to get some color back. The whole side bar is a major step backwards in usability.

There are other small improvements here or there but really nothing major. No issues with performance or memory though.

PS: Just remembered another *fantastic* feature in Lion: Preview now has a "sign" feature with which you can sign PDFs. It's cleverly using the built in camera to take a picture of your real signature, and inserts it into PDF documents. Very well done, seamless, and painless. I use this all the time. So this and the new Mail are the reasons to upgrade.

Maybe it was indexing. I had downloaded Adobe CS 5.5 and it was really slow after doing that. It seems better now. But I don't like that my hard drives don't mount to the desk top anymore and you have to go to Finder. Reminds me of Windows... I didn't like the new mail app at first either and I started to use Outlook. But I guess it's okay, it looks like the mail app on my iPad... I haven't needed to look at any pdf files since I installed 10.7, but that sounds kind of handy. Better than printing, signing the document and then scanning it... But no version of Pro Tools is out for 10.7 yet. I guess I'll play with it a while and decide. The one thing that pisses me off is I will have to reload all my music and apps into iTunes for both my iPad and iPod touch. My time machine HD failed a few weeks before my system crash, so I had to start from scratch. Seagate is sending me a free new external firewire drive this week, so after it arrives I'll decide what I want to do.

Lion will still show your hard drive (as well as external drives) on your desktop. Just go to Finder preferences ==> General and then under "Show these items on the desktop", tick Hard Drive or whatever you wish.

Better to declare. I bring a few bottles of wine since it is so expensive here along with the reciept from where I buy them, worst case scenario is they tax you 100% on the value, which is still a lot cheaper than buying them in Thailand. Since they can't fine or extort you as you are being all legal like, they wave me through as it is too much paperwork for them to do. Also the guys who inspect the bags through the "nothing to declare" channel are different than the real customs guys/gals in white uniforms in the "something to declare".

You cant just declare a few bottles of wine, to import alcohol you need a special import license.

Exactly. Last year I had two bottles of wine given to me in Hong Kong for a Christmas present as I was being sent off to the airport. I thought all I would need to do on arrival was to declare the extra bottle and pay a duty. So I went through the red channel and declared them. The Customs officer told me that I needed a licence to bring in more than one bottle, so I would have to leave one bottle. After saying sorry, explaining politely that they were given to me as presents as Xmas presents as I left from Hong Kong and I really thought I could just declare the extra bottle and pay the tax, he smiled and said "ok this time, but remember, it's only one bottle and don't do it again". Very reasonable I thought, and that's the last time I attempted to bring in more than one bottle.

I think Fast Track is temporarily closed whilst they build a new security area.

Open as of yesterday (16 December) and I have not ever seen it closed.

There's more than one anyway. So if they did need to close one, they can direct you to another.

More than one? Where? I've only ever seen the one in the middle of the arrivals terminal, in between the two regular immigration entrances.

Just ordered my iPhone 4S from the Apple Store online and received an expected delivery date of between 29/12/2011 - 06/01/2012. Indeed it is cheaper than buying from AIS, DTAC or True, plus you don't have to (1) book a reservation for the phone (2) lay down a deposit (3) queue for an hour to pick it up, as was the case when I bought my iPhone 4.

Seems sort of odd that Apple would undercut their dealers' prices.

I think Fast Track is temporarily closed whilst they build a new security area.

Open as of yesterday (16 December) and I have not ever seen it closed.

Interesting to see that all these Windows issues are surfacing AFTER Microsoft acquired Skype. But then, Microsoft isn't really known for producing intuitive, stable, problem-free software.

Interesting, as I have ordered loads of stuff from the Apple Store Thailand site while using a non-Thai credit card. The iTunes store seems to be the one that is choosy about your credit card country, but that is because of copyrighting issues.

thanks guys --

+ seems to be ok - I believe it is "interpreted" by the carrier rather than being mapped by your phone.

You're right about folks in Laos not knowing the full code for their number -- but the same can be said of people many countries.

Ask most Americans (living in America) what their country code is (just for fun, of course you already know) and they will say "what's a country code". Give them your phone number, including the country code, and they will say "what do I have to dial to get that?"

In my experience (several different Star Alliance carriers), if you are flying business class, you get a Fast Track card on board, but the buggy ride from the airplane to immigration only comes with first class.

I have certainly driven into the drop off area when dropping people off.

Was that recently?

Yes, private cars can drop off passengers. I've done it many times myself. As you approach the terminal, you will see a sign directing taxis to keep left and private cars to keep right. There are drop off zones and luggage trolleys there.

Good post IMA_FARANG

Any thoughts on the possible outcomes for the area with hotels just outside Suvarnabhumi?

Like the femi fan I'm flying in to Bangkok next week on my way to Phnom Penh and fancy getting a hotel (Orchid Resort looks reasonable) in the ajoining Lat Krabang area.

I know its impossible to predict - just curious as to the flooding history of that area around Suvarnabhumi Airport where quite a few hotels are located.

Lat Krabang has always been prone to flooding, even after a heavy rainy season downpour. Personally, I would not plan on staying there next week with any degree of confidence that it will be dry. Actually, some roads are already flooded there now.

Thanks for an excellent update and photos, especially Wantan. This has been exactly what I am after.

My wife was due to fly out of Udon Thani to Don Muang Airport this coming Wednesday. That has now changed and she will be flying out today. I am very concerned about her safety and of course whether she will be able to make her international flight which is on this coming Friday night through to Perth.

Not sure if there is an forum for the Domestic Airport of Don Muang but my wife was advised that this airport may be extremely affected starting Tuesday and following. Do not take that as the official word as things can change, that was just what my wife was told.

Cheers

Just saw a twitter on #ThaiFloodEng saying that TV report were saying that the flood waters had already reached the front gate of Don Muang airport. Here is a video of it:

Don Muang front gate

Great work Khun Wantan - nice to know what the state of play is.

I'm booked to arrive in Bangkok on Nov 4th and am getting a bit anxious about wether the airport will be open and I'll be able to get into my hotel at Silom.

Suvarnabhumi has 3.5 metre flood dikes and a drainage system, plus there is an elevated airport express train into town. If the water surpasses 3.5 metres and floods the airport, you probably won't even want to think about going down to Silom, which would likely be under even more water than Suvarnabhumi.

Arrived last night, and no sign of flooding and the drainage canals around the taxiways didn't look higher than normal. The only sign of an impending flood were hundreds of cars parked along the elevated highway. Even cargo companies had parked trailers up there. I'd say you could still forget parking in the usual car parks.

Interestingly, even the American Embassy is providing more detailed warning information than PM Yingluck. A friend just forwarded me the following from an email that was sent out to Americans registered in their warning system:

--------

Emergency Message to US Citizens

October 21, 2011

Flooding continues in central Thailand and is becoming more widespread

in the Bangkok Metropolitan area. It is unknown how long these

conditions will persist. Water levels are dropping in most other parts

of Thailand that have been flooded. As a purely precautionary measure,

U.S. citizens assigned to the Embassy who live approximately 12

kilometers north of central Bangkok in Pakred District, Nonthaburi

Province have the option of relocating for a few days to central

Bangkok, should they wish to do so. Extensive flooding in Thailand,

especially in Central Thailand between Bangkok and Sukhotai, has caused

considerable damage and loss of life. In many flooded areas, surface

transportation has either been suspended or diverted around those areas.

Portions of highways are closed and bus and train services linking

Bangkok with points to the north are suspended and some routes to the

northeast have been diverted.

Since the situation is changing rapidly, we recommend that you monitor

local media sources. We are posting general information, guidance about

the flood situation, and resources for U.S. citizens on our website at:

http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/flood_information.html and on the Embassy

Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/usembassybkk?sk=app_139229522811253. Updated

notifications with information for U.S. citizens are available via

Twitter at @ACSBKK <http://twitter.com/> .

If you live within the Bangkok Metropolitan area and are affected by the

flooding and need urgent assistance, contact the Bangkok Metropolitan

Administration's flood hotline at 1555. If you live elsewhere, contact

the Thai Government's English-speaking Tourist Police, who can be

reached nationwide by dialing 1155. For general information you can

contact the Government Call Center at 1111 ext. 5. For Thai speakers,

there are hotlines for trains: 1690; buses: 1490; highway: 1586,

1784; and 1146 for local roads; highway police: 1193, and emergencies:

191. You can see the Thai Meteorological Department's weather forecasts

and warnings at its website, www.tmd.go.th/en/. On Twitter, unverified

flood information provided by members of general public is tracked with

#ThaiFloodEng.

---------------------

Note the Twitter hash tag they have provided. That will likely provide better and more accurate current information that the Thai Government.

Every time I have shopped around at Dubai duty free, the prices looked higher than just about anywhere else. I still don't get all the hype about the wonderful Dubai duty free shopping experience when, for example, the iPad leather smart cover sells for US$100 there, or about 30% more than in Thailand.

From what I could see, booze was reasonably priced, but everything else was priced much higher than average at other airports' duty free. Prices in the malls are even higher. Shopping in Dubai? Looks like a bunch of hype to me, but hype fairly well describes Dubai in general.