johngerrard

Oh dear Oh Dear…

Let me introduce myself, I’m the vilified ‘friend’. Before I get even more crucified by some of you, before posting can you please read the PS in posting No. 8. Perhaps then some of you can get back to basics and actually provide advice without nasty comments?

Let’s understand what happened shall we? At no point before Trompelemonde went to visit immigration had I spoken to him about visas or work permits, it was actually 2 days or so after the events took place that we spoke on the phone. In other words I bear no blame for anything. My comments to him after he had explained what had happened at immigration were that I was surprised by what they had told him because I thought that a work permit was in fact a visa, okay so I was wrong, big deal, sorry I’m no expert. I also don’t go around crucifying people either.

Have you all got that? Is it now clear? Concise? Understood?

The actual ‘advice’ that I gave to him was to get onto thaivisa immediately and seek advice/help. To those of you who provided it many thanks.

To those who suggested he ‘gets rid of a friend’ thank you for that ‘advice’ - very nice of you. For your information Trompelemonde and I served in the British Army together for over 20 years, there were times when he saved my life and I saved his. I guess that thanks to you he maybe will never talk to me again, even worse he may be planning to divorce my sister and kill the children, including the daughter with the wooden leg.

So, Gentlemen, please be more careful in future of what 'advice' you give….

Hi Welo, once again many thanks for your help. i noticed funnily enough that since downloading the touchpad stuf the mouse was behaving much better, now it's a mouse crash every few days not minutes.

here's the info you need:

southbridge VIA VT8237A.. is that enough?

which phone company are you using?

Check which one has the best signal for your area and sign up with them

Postion your phone for the best signal in your house maybe near a window

This may sound funny, but try putting the phone in a clean, dry, rounded bowl (the more half sphere looking the better). It acts like a dish antenna to focus the signal. Other people have verified it worked for them. Sounds funny, but it does work.

thanks Rakman, funnily enough i was reading in a book about this only last week and had forgotten about it, will try it out. Have been away for a couple of days...will report back.

Welo, quick question please... in the download manager it asks me to select connection type [options-optimization manager]... it has defaulted to 10/100 Lan.. whatever that means. there are lots of choices... is this the correct setting for my bluetooth setup via mobile or should i change it?

Welo, just to let you know that the downloaded drivers for the touchpad work fine... no more travolta cursor! many thanks.

Rakman, yes the 'big bowl' does work well, far fewer crashes now, suggest using a large wok, many thanks.

which phone company are you using?

Check which one has the best signal for your area and sign up with them

Postion your phone for the best signal in your house maybe near a window

This may sound funny, but try putting the phone in a clean, dry, rounded bowl (the more half sphere looking the better). It acts like a dish antenna to focus the signal. Other people have verified it worked for them. Sounds funny, but it does work.

thanks Rakman, funnily enough i was reading in a book about this only last week and had forgotten about it, will try it out. Have been away for a couple of days...will report back.

Welo, quick question please... in the download manager it asks me to select connection type [options-optimization manager]... it has defaulted to 10/100 Lan.. whatever that means. there are lots of choices... is this the correct setting for my bluetooth setup via mobile or should i change it?

Thanks again Welo, i'm sure it was xp before the crash, it cetainly is now.

yes, the mouse problem has been since i got the computer.

thanks for the download manager, all installed and working fine.

will let you know what happens when new drivers installed.

Hiya Welo.

The model No. is C42E-306.

The mouse ... a matter of minutes.

Thanks Mate.

hi again, the computer is a BenQ joybook Welo.

Have checked the mouse properties and they are much more basic than your example, older version i guess. nothing re synaptics.

yes, will be able to download from a mates computer to cd, next week sometime.

thanks all once again... time to download the free download manager!

thankyou all, i am most grateful for your advice. Will check out everything and report back.

the mice i have work perfectly well for a while then suddenly 'die' and up pops the 'windows does not recognise your mouse' box.

i use Internet explorer and the 12call service.

i can say that you seem to have recognised the problem with the cursor Welo, as long as the touchpad is not touched there is no problem.

Thanks again guys, will get back to you.

Could you give me more details of an external antenna? what sort of thing should i be looking for? basically an aerial with long lead that plugs into the phone?

will get back to you, once again many thanks.

thanks Welo.

i don't use a mouse, the 2 i bought here in thailand both get rejected by windows for non-compatability.

i can't find any touchpad settings and have a problem downloading the drivers you suggested, the download is just too big for my bluetooth 115k modem connection, it will take hours, assuming the connection doesn't crash, which has already happened twice while answering your post.

you are probably right about the touchpad being the problem, i just used it to move back over a miss-spelling and everything went haywire for a while.

any other options?

Can anyone help with this problem please?

I recently had to have a new hard drive fitted into my laptop, Windows was also re-installed.

Windows is in English, Notepad is in English but all of Microsoft Office is now in Thai.

I tend to write my emails in Notepad or Word and then copy and paste into hotmail, this is because I have a 50 hour per month Bluetooth connection and I’m a crappy slow typist, copy and pasting saves internet time.

Since the repair and installation whatever I use to write with, word, notepad or even directly into hotmail, the curser is dancing all over the page, I find myself constantly typing where I have already typed, and it is very annoying, not to say frustrating too. Also the font changes size for no reason as you can probably see. Anyone know how this curser thing can be solved?

Also if anyone has any advice on how a Bluetooth/mobile phone internet connection can be improved, other than by throwing it in the bin, I’d be grateful to hear.

Many thanks.

sorry for not replying sooner Bina.

the dog was given some pills [no-name, white, came out of a big jar -this is thailand!] Anti flea and tick shampoo which is available anywhere and something called 'frontline' so it seems to have been some sort of allergy to ticks perhaps?

since the visit to the vets there have been [as far as i'm aware] no further attacks.

My thai wife should be back from southern thailand soon, she's been looking after her sick parents, when she returns we will have transport as i don't drive, i'll take the dog back and check it out again and if the vet says any difference i'll let you know.

thanks guys.

just to let you know all is sorted. The vet has had a look and didn't seem too concerned, i have the pills etc, so hopefully all ok now. I'm actually a bit unsure about the cause because his english [the vets not the dogs] is about as good as my thai. He knew what he was doing though.

Toda-Raba Bina and Shalom, thankyou isanbirder.

in answer to the last post, no, there is no songtaew route, the nearest concrete road is 8 kilometres away. The few people around here use mobikes. When i said small, perhaps medium would be more apt. I won't bore you with reasons but the mobike idea to the vet isn't possible, NS is 120 kilometres from me, ok that's doable on a bike, but it can't be done at the moment. Thankyou again for your help, much appreciated.

.

really in the middle of nowhere! nearest bus stop 8 kilometres, nearest town of any size is Nakhon Sawan or Petchabun, both around the same distance away. Nearest small town is Bung Samphan, also known as Smothot, or Samor tort, depending on the road sign. I'm around 30 kilometres west of there.

My problem is no car, only have a small mobike.

I have a small 3 year-old Mongrel. Occaisonally he will very suddenly start staggering around as though completely drunk, quite literally unable to walk. His legs then go very stiff for a hour or so. Sometimes he will vomit but not during every attack. After an hour he will go back into staggering around on rubber legs mode then again very suddenly he is quite ok again.

Anyone any ideas about this problem, heat exhaustion perhaps? I discounted him eating something poisonous as i also have two more dogs who are not affected at all. Unfortunately i am not aware of any vets around this area. Any help, suggestions etc gratefully received.

it may be useful to someone going for a retirement visa to know exactly what p-lok asked for from me:

Copy of every page from passport.

Copy of departure card.

Medical form.

confirmation letter of pension from UK Embassy. [or bank details]

Form TM7

I had a previous retirement extension in my passport which actually expired a couple of months ago. I had replaced that with a type 'o' 90 day visa in phnom Penh. They wanted to see the 90 day report confirmation slips for the original retirement visa, which i didn't have on me because as far as i was concerned that visa had finished and i wasn't actually renewing it but in effect starting again. It may therefore be wise to take your 90 day confirmations along with you. Also initially i was refused the retirement extension because it seems i should have applied within 30 days of expiry of type 'o'. I read it as 30 days before expiry. I actually applied 32 days before expiry. After some fone calls they finally agreed to it, mainly because i said that i was off to Samui this week and couldn't get back to p-lok.

P/lok also wanted the medical certificate.

Sorry about being a technophobe Maestro, i feel totally inadequate now, so much so that the wife is arranging to have me put down next week.

Actually i only put the directions on here because i guessed that there may be people like me who have to get internet access via bluetooth/mobile and you'll find with this antequated system that google maps are useless...it takes 5 minutes just to open the map... and then if you want to move within that map...another 5 minutes. I guess too that i may not be the only one without a printer?

Anyway, glad it's all sorted now.

Hey thaiphoon you are frightening me, i'm a technophobe mate, still in the age of 'brownies'. I'm sure i have seen a photo on this thread tho, or on the other thread that seems to be running alongside. Once on the road the office is dead easy to spot, for anyone going by bus here's how to find it... believe me i know cos i had to walk it.

From the bus station go to the highway, turn left. Go over the first flyover [or under if walking] it crosses the railtrack. Just before the 2nd flyover[over the river] is a left turn... i'm sure there is a sign saying 'police station'. Take that left turn, do not go over the flyover. The river is now on your right, you'll pass the stalls for the night bazaar and the post office... Imm Office is on the right, more or less on the riverbank. Don't look for something large, it's almost like a small house.

sorry but i have no scanner, printer etc, just an english keyboard laptop. I'm sure if you ring the number given they will give the address in english.... maybe....

yes middelman, i have the same distance as i live in the very south of petch province. it's much nearer than Nan though!

yes, i was told quite severely several times that 90 days reporting goes to the new office, not Nan. I was also told quite severely that it's a 5000 baht fine if i don't! Maybe they are tightening up on this.

Sorry, i don't have the address in english, they only provide it in thai.... best to give them a ring. Am happy to post you [via the post office] a copy of the address in thai if you want it.

I've never heard of the exchange rate request before... ok it's easy enough but unusual.

it is definately open now. I was there yesterday. Problems encountered?... taxis don't have a clue where it is even when a thai speaker tells them. I visited every building in P-luk. When leaving the office no taxis in the area, none at all, so a long walk back to the bus station.

Staff ok, pleasant but very 'picky' i guess thru inexperience, they kept phoning someone [Nan?] to check things.

I had everything, all docs required but was asked for a letter from the bank, to which i asked 'why' as i had a letter from the Brit embassy confirming pension which is more than the 800k requirement. The guy said 'no, i want a letter from your bank telling me what the exchange rate is!'

I guess he dreamt this up the night before...

But anyway, definately open and operational. Phone 055259635

i phoned the Pitsanulok office today.. they assure me that they have been open for 2 weeks.

please don't blame me if this is wrong info, but it was the p-lok office i spoke to. I also phoned Nan to double-check and they confirmed.

Thank you all. Funnily enough it's not so much the mess they make, i can live with that, it's the noise, being as i live in a bungalow.

I did consider a cat or 2, but it's not feasable due to owning a husky who's only ambition in life is to kill and eat anything that moves, unfortunately he can't get on the roof though.

Have already got the hook made, and will check out the owls and the bird-x. Thank you all for the helpful advice.

First let me say that I have never subscribed to the ‘Flying Rat’ theory, to me Pigeons have always been just another bird. Until now that is. I have them nesting in the eaves but thankfully not inside the roof, they also sit on the Ridge all day. The noise is driving me crazy. I have no near neighbours so it is only me that suffers.

Anyone any ideas of how i get rid of these pests? I tried an Air Rifle to no avail; i couldn’t hit a barn door from the inside. It would be difficult but possible to block entrance to the nesting areas but how do i stop them just sitting on the roof?

I considered poison but have 3 dogs and i wonder if by chance they decided to eat a dead Pigeon would they be poisoned too? I also don’t particularly want to kill ‘innocent’ birds.

This is a serious request, these things are mini-monsters. How do i get rid of them?