welo

Before digging up the road I guess you should check whether it is really a faulty line that is to blame.

Not sure what the Maxnet guy did, but a proper cable guy should have tools to check the line quality between 2 points. A service guy from the telephone company (TT&T) can surely do that.

Not sure if the telephone company is responsible for this part of the line or not. But if you just tell them that Maxnet said the telephone line is bad they might come and at least check what part it is (for sure).

In the worst case, just replacing the line temporarily over-ground will allow a 'diagnosis', too.

If the cable is under-ground, maybe it can be replaced without digging up the road - shouldn't there be some kind of conduit to protect the cable? Maybe I'm naive here but I would just tie the new cable to the end of the old one and then pull it out at the other end

And of course there is inhouse cabling that might be faulty, that can easily be fixed by any electrician or maybe even by you.

welo

robblok,

I just want to make it clear that I don't think your POV is unreasonable - I really keep posting on this thread because I think the discussion is interesting.

Not so about whether skippybangkok is hiding his real motives or not (boring and endless and negative!) but about personal responsibility in the area of computer security.

And I actually already see the matter a bit different compared to when this thread started.

I think people go a bit over the top here in accusing junior IT staff of stealing company secrets. Also accessing other computers over LAN for doing updates is quite acceptable. I mean skippy would like them to go to his office and do an update manually. Imagine the IT guys having to go to everyone in an office manually and doing updates instead of being able to do a bunch of them at the same time over the network. That would be steps back into efficiency.

Normally you investigate the people who you hire to make sure they are trust able. You don't give the junior IT staff all the access unless its absolutely necessary and he has been found trustworthy. I think that if you feel the IT department is not doing a good and is a danger then address it with your boss especially if your management already.

More security most times implies less efficiency and less convenience.

Did you ever have to setup and maintain file permissions? Tiresome! Or did you ever have to send a file to a colleague because that person didn't have direct access to the file share (even though it was perfectly acceptable for that person to see the content). Did you ever work on a computer as non-admin user? In Vista/Windows 7 do you have UAC turned on at maximum security setting and does it bother you? Did you ever have to reset the Windows password for another user because that person has forgotten his/her password?

Security is inconvenient and not efficient! The problem is to find the right balance!

Finding the balance is surely the job of the IT department under direction of the management/boss.

This is where the personal responsibility discussion kicks in. Should a person rely (blindly) on the work of its IT department and their decisions? IT is a supporting department that affects all areas of a company, cutting through the organization in a company, both horizontally and vertically. I wonder whether it is different to other departments in this respect?

What about the company having its own car repair. What do you do if you don't trust them taking good care for the car you are using? Maybe your car is in pretty bad condition and you worry about your personal safety? Going to the chief repair voicing your concerns is a viable solution, maybe he will make sure your car gets the extra care you want. Or you bring your car to a friend who is mechanic and have him check breaks and other important stuff there.

However in this case i must wonder because the OP is not computer savvy how can he say the IT is bungeling everything up and the junior has all the access rights without having the proper knowledge about computers himself.

If someone like Welo or Crushdept would say so who are IMHO computer savvy i would put value in their word but from someone who is not i don't. Not all Thai companies are bad and medieval.

That's surely a point that got me thinking. IT security of course requires know how to implement. Picking up the analogy about the car repair I personally would not be able to thoroughly check and evaluate the safety of the car, but one of my friends could.

So to me this means that OP is not necessarily wrong about worrying about computer security and consulting somebody outside the company. But he should probably restrain from taking actions himself without the assistance of a knowledgeable person. An internet message board is of course not as effective as a knowledgeable friend you can sit down with. For instance, if I could have a look at the PC myself I could probably make a basic judgment whether the IT department is doing a good job or not.

But again, mostly only large companies can afford to apply strict IT management rules on employee PCs (non administrative rights, strict control of software) and any other scenario is anarchy IMHO That said I personally hate to work on restricted and controlled PCs, but I also know it is the only way.

And this is based on my experience in Europe, not in Thailand!!! No reason to start bashing Thailand here (not my intention at all), let's just agree that in average Thailand companies are similar and not better compared to western companies when it comes to IT security.

A last point even if you keep your data safe and the IT staff is so untrustworthy then they can get the same data from a backup or an other place and you have lost your purpose of securing yours. So then you would have had to go to your boss to talk about the IT department because it would have put the whole company at risk. Then making sure your data was safe was an useless exercise because they got it from a backup or a network.

That is surely a good point. I consider it a purpose of this thread to evaluate the OPs situation and what he can do, should not do, and what other aspects he might have to consider. Encouraging him to be more aware of the IT environment he is in is definitely not wrong either.

Looking back it was probably not a wise thing of me to jump right into advising him what to do, I should have rather asked more questions about the IT environment. Most of my recommendations were about general computer safety anyway (antivirus, firewall, analyze installed software) and later I pointed out the problem of network shares and remote access but didn't recommend immediate steps.

Of course we also voiced more extreme actions like re-installing Windows ('only way to be 100% sure'), etc and I guess this is what made others jump on the barricades.

But many comments on this thread were focused on telling him not to do ANYTHING because the PC is not his property, and it is not his job. And I definitely (still) don't agree with that.

Accusations of him not being honest ('smoke screen') didn't really encourage a reasonable discussion.

As I said before, I think there are some steps the OP could initiate to increase security for his data without undermining or sabotaging the work of the IT department.

For instance disabling the admin share on one of his drives which is used solely for data. This will not affect remote administration of his PC. He can then use TrueCrypt or Gizmo to encrypt his documents. This way IT can still have full local access to the PC and nearly full remote access, without having access to the actual data on the PC. However, this is not a straight forward process.

Concerning network shares and backup archives: as I said in one of my very first posts, this security problem (?) does of course not originate on his PC, and this is where he actually has to work together with the IT department.

I don't recommend in missing out on backups out of security concerns, that would definitely be fatal and the wrong choice!!!

welo

Maybe he IS a bit paranoid, but I personally think that a little bit of paranoia goes well with the current status of IT security in the average small to mid-size company (world wide). I don't have any experience with companies in Thailand, and I can only guess about the situation here. Like crushdepth said - who I think should know out of personal experience - 'Real world IT in Thailand is *scary*'

You guys tell him to trust his IT department... Simple test: do you or your non-IT colleague next door have administrator privileges on your/his/her Windows PC? If so the IT department failed IMHO. The local network has to be considered NOT safe, no matter how many $$$ the firewall has cost.

Of course I am simplifying a complex topic here, but I think you get the point. If you now call ME paranoid, well, you will have to come up with some tech facts to prove me otherwise.

Let's further assume that his IT department is not really eager on stepping up security measurements and aiding the OP with his efforts. Please tell me that this is an unlikely situation, again, especially here in Thailand. By challenging the currently implemented security measurements on his PC he will basically be questioning the IT departments' work - and just as somebody else said, 'Not a smart thing to do in Thailand'.

That said, I am not really advocating against consulting with them - just saying that there might be reasons why the OP doesn't want to entrust his problem to the IT department. Maybe he could express his concerns about using his laptop on other networks and how to provide additional security for those cases - I'd actually be interested what the IT responds to his request. I guess it might even have been a smart move to get some input here on TV before challenging the IT department, this way they can't turn him away that easily.

I do however agree that all steps taken by the OP should be considered carefully. This is not a matter of installing 'this awesome' tool and then everything is secure. If it were that easy we wouldn't have that discussion right now.

I do think there are possible steps that a user can implement on his/her PC without pissing off the IT department. Again, most likely a lax or overworked IT department (=help desk) will not even notice or bother.

Of course these are not necessarily for the computer illiterate, but you don't need to be a IT geek either. I don't know about the skill level of the OP.

welo

I will check for prices and see what is the cheaper option (external SAFE-T-CUT vs. double-pole RCBO).

Do I have to consider any specs? I remember reading about trip time (<=30ms) or is this only related to ELCBs? Ehm..

If I (or the landlord) want to move to a bigger consumer unit and install a ground and ELCB, which is the better way to go now cost-wise?

Thanks again!

welo

For my part, I'm very interested in discussing the OP's key statement (or rather: having more knowledgeable people than myself discuss it ):

There is no evidence whatsoever that pesticide residues on food are harmful to health. No disease associated with such residues, not one single person has had to go to hospital because of pesticide residues on food

(Let's just forget about how his comment was wrapped in a somehow generalized bashing of 'organic' food. Let's do this in order to get - like bina said - the 'religion' out of the discussion.)

From my understanding 'organic' is also about other aspects of how the current food industry impacts our world and our environment (flora AND fauna), but maybe it helps the discussion if we focus on the OPs question of pesticides and effects on human health.

The question about unethical practices and fraud is of course relevant, but does not really touch the core of the subject - that is whether the concept/idea of organic food is right or wrong. And from what I understand the OP referred to organic food as 'a lie and a con' not because of farmers/traders that cheat but because of unproven claims that 'pesticides residues on food are harmful to health'.

I further understand from bina's reply that pesticides are proven to be harmful not necessarily because of direct residues on the food, but due to them getting into the ground water, soil and finally into the food itself.

Token replied to the NYTimes article and questioned the relevance of this article since 'chemicals in food [...] are only a segment of the chemical rainbow that this article refers to'. But from his statement I still cannot deduce his actual opinion on the matter of dangers through pesticides run-off in soil and ground water.

Another aspect of this discussion is critique of the 'glorification' of 'naturally' grown food - Token has pointed out the harmfulness of chemicals that are 'naturally' produced by plants when not protected against harmful insects and pests. Bina confirmed the occurrence of 'natural' poisons and their proven effect on human health, but stated that 'most of what he mentions is not connected to organic/non organic but just to the general make up of the particular veggie/fruit'. TBH I am not sure I understand the last part.

Please keep the discussion running

welo

To me the main advantages of an off the shelf NAS box is actually the reduced labour costs of setting it up and maintaining it. You don't need to have a professional IT guy. It might take a moderately computer literate person 3-4 hours to fiddle around with the web interface settings and then it just works (until it breaks). Building a home brew file server (and securing and maintaining it) requires much higher level of technical skill, well into enthusiast territory at a minimum.

No question that the off the shelf NAS is easier to setup and less labor intensive!! As soon as labor costs have to be considered an off the shelf NAS will win for sure

I dont have any experience with FreeNAS or another Linux based NAS box - but I assume that this option is nothing for the average user, and some Linux experience is probably recommended. If using a specialized distro such as FeeNAS I doubt though that you need any extra effort in securing it.

The comparison was meant for the geeks amongst us and should evaluate whether higher energy costs would diminish any cost advantage in hardware costs.

welo

I would love to get Windows Mail running again.... but it is not available anywhere. Should come with Vista installation... so I installed Vista on a spare machine but Windows Mail was not on it...

Did you try to run the windows mail executable directly from the file system as described in one of my links... Is the .exe file missing?

If it IS missing you might have used a modded Vista install DVD ('Panthip Version') that has Windows Mail removed to make the OS more 'slim'.

welo

Windows Mail only comes with Vista, preinstalled, and is not available for XP or Windows 7 AFAIK. Windows Live Mail is available for all systems, but a different system.

There is a good chance you can recover the mail archive even if the index has been damaged.

Mail messages are now stored in individual files instead of in a single database file. A transactional index database based on the Extensible Storage Engine enables real-time searching and improves the stability and the reliability of the stored data. In case of corruption, the indices can be rebuilt from the mail files.

source:wikipedia

It's probably a good idea to try to get Windows Mail running again to access the mail archive which has not been 'exported' properly (just like you are trying to do).

You might also try to run the WMUtil and then try to import into Windows Live Mail again.

http://www.oehelp.com/WMUtil/

I think the database should be located in this folder

C:\users\(user-name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\Local Folders

Make sure you create a backup beforehand.

welo

Lacie fanatics.. tell me is lacy a hard disk manufacturer or does it use an others hard disks.. if so then it cant be more reliable because it just uses an other ones hard disks

LaCie benefits from the Apple cult.

[LaCie focused their businesses on IT storage solutions, based around the SCSI interface standard for connecting external devices to computers. SCSI was adopted by Apple Computer as its main peripheral interface standard and the market for both LaCie and d2 became closely, but not exclusively, associated with the Macintosh platform.

source:wikipedia

That doesn't necessarily contradict what others said. To me it just means that LaCie used to target the Apple market with well-designed, higher-priced and above budget-level products.

Not sure what the situation is nowadays... But I, too, wonder whether LaCie might benefit from the same phenomenon like Apple products.

welo

And here a view hints to find Windows Mail on Vista, if there is no shortcut in the start menu

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-mail/124490-...il-missing.html

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-mail/37908-w...a-ultimate.html

welo

Bapak, I've seen your other post about your problem of getting your emails from Windows Mail to Windows Live Mail.

I didn't respond because I have no experience with either of those programs. Nevertheless I think it should really be possible to go from Windows Mail to Windows Live Mail, since these are Microsoft's standard email tools for private users, and Windows Live Mail is the official successor of Windows Mail.

So I assume something went really wrong during the process...

The first question is, did you EXPORT the email properly on your old system. Did you choose to export for 'Outlook' or for 'Windows Mail'? In your case, 'Windows Mail' should have been the right choice.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/90298-wi...l-messages.html

Import seems to be rather straight forward, too.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3798-...l-messages.html

So what exactly did you do and where exactly does it fail?

Btw what email service are you using?

welo

That's some good articles on that website on self-build vs. stock-NAS.

I digged into the question of power consumption a couple of days ago, but didn't post anything yet because I'm not all that sure that my conclusions are correct.

Nevertheless, here is what I found...

netbooks/laptops vs. desktop PC

QNAP should be pretty low energy due to the netbook like platform (30-40 Watt under load), but then the QNAPs ship with 250W PSUs!? A harddisk takes only about 5-10 Watt AFAIK - with 5 drives that'd be 50 Watt max. Of course a 250Watt PSU still consumes only as much power as the system draws, maybe there is just no point for QNAP to go smaller than that?

Power consumption for a self-made box mainly depends on motherboard and CPU used. Nobody will put a power-hungry 3D graphics card into a NAS box, so that's a non-issue here - with Linux you don't even need a graphics card at all (headless mode).

Desktop Systems draw considerably more power than netbooks and laptops. Choosing your old PC as the platform for a NAS box might seem tempting, but might cost you over time due to the higher electricity bill. Here is a comparison from 2007

System power consumption starts from about 50Watt (Idle) and goes up to 100Watt (load) depending which CPU is used. Unfortunately it is not clear to me what system components were included in this comparison, I assume the numbers include CPU, motherboard, RAM, but not graphics card and harddisk, etc.

source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2340/13

With more powerful CPUs power consumption can go up considerably, 200 Watt and more under load for some modern quad cores, check here.

The lowest you can get with standard PC platforms is probably something like the Celeron E3200/E3300 product line. This chart compares the Celeron E3200 platform to Atom platforms (iNM10 being the newest, ION being Nvidia's board and i945GC Intel's older motherboard with the relatively power hungry North Bridge).

source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/displ...o_12.html#sect0

How much in THB?

Let's get into some maths.

System w/o harddisks

Considering a NAS box that runs 24hrs a day for 1 year, and an idle:load ratio of 90:10 (picked that up from one of the sources - no idea if this is a realistic ratio), excluding hard disks, 4Baht/KWh (This rate is taken from a TV thread from 2009 - not sure whether prices vary much)

Buffalo Terastation III (15W sleep, 40W idle, 40W load)**: 24.5 * 24 hours * 365 days / 1000 = 214 kWh * 4Baht = 858.48 THB (3yrs: 2575,44)

Atom-based system (25W idle, 35W load): average 26W -> 26 * 24 hours * 365 days / 1000 = 227 kWh * 4Baht = 911 THB (3yrs: 2733 THB)

Celeron E3200 (46W,76W): average 49 W -> 49 * 24 * 365 / 1000 = 429 kWh * 4 Baht = 1716 THB (3yrs: 5148 THB)

Intel Core2 Duo (127W, 172W): average 131.5W -> 131.5 * 24 * 365 / 1000 * 4 = 4607 THB (3yrs: 13821 THB)

Some notes:

- Not sure whether a low-budget NAS (other than the QNAP) has an even lower power footprint than the Atom. JSixpack's link rates the self-built Atom-based system as twice as power hungry as a ready-made NAS, which back then were based on more specialized CPUs than the Intel Atom (e.g. Marvell).

- **Added numbers for the Buffalo Terastation III (source here) which uses a Marcell CPU. Not sure if Watt numbers include harddisks or not - which of course could change numbers significantly (not so much in absolute numbers though). Device has a sleep mode with automatic wakeup function. Whereas this could also be setup on a FreeNas system hardware/driver support seems to be a big issue. I assumed a usage pattern of 50:40:10 (sleep, idle, load).

- I picked the Intel Core2 Duo as an example for a 2-3 year old computer that might be considered for replacement as a desktop PC this year and used as a NAS. Intel Core1 Duo has a similar or higher footprint AFAIK. The power consumption stated for the Core2 Duo include GPU and harddisks in IDLE mode (source) Different Code2 Duo models differ quite profoundly in power consumption under load (148W-245W).

- Older Pentium3 systems might be a good pick for a NAS system. In terms of CPU performance a Pentium 1.6 Ghz is comparable to current (single-core) Atom CPUs, however, performance will probably suffer due to the older platform (RAM and onboard components) and it will require an addon card for SATA and gigabit ethernet. Many of the Pentium 4 models and nearly all models of the Pentium D series were very power hungry CPUs, so be careful, often the cheaper and slower CPUs are a better pick. Checkout the 'Thermal Design Power' column in this list this list.

Harddisks

I am a bit unsure about harddisk usage patterns. The system could even power them down when idle for some time (during night hours), but in that case the owner would probably even power down the whole system. If going with one of the modern 'green' drives idle consumption is very low anyway. For now let's stick to the 90:10 ratio and just take the idle value and the random read value for one standard and one 'green' drive.

Seagate Barracuda XT, 2GB (7.0, 8.8): 7.2 * 24 hours * 365 days / 1000 = 63 kWh * 4 Baht = 252.3 THB (3yrs: 756.9 THB) | 4 drives: 1009 THB (3yrs: 3027.6 THB)

Samsung EcoGreen 2GB (3.8, 7.0): 4.1 * 24 hours * 365 days / 1000 = 35.9 kWh * 4Baht = 143 THB (3yrs: 429 THB) | 4 drives: 1716 THB (3yrs: 5148 THB)

Conclusions

When building your own NAS-box based on ordinary Desktop components (your old PC, cheap 2nd hand PC, etc) the cost savings compared to a ready-made NAS box might easily be 'eaten up' by the higher electricity bill! A Core2 Duo based system might cost you more than 13.000 THB over 3 years (running 24/7) compared to about 2500 THB for a ready-made NAS.

However, selecting more efficient PC components - and an elderly cheap Desktop PC with a low-budget CPU might actually fullfill this criteria - this seems to be a valid choice IMHO.

Another option might be to build a system based on the Intel Atom platform - not sure about the hardware costs here compared to a ready-made system.

Harddisk power consumption is rather low with modern drives and generally below 10W. In a 4-disk setup a green drive will save some money in electricity (with 4-disks up to 2000 THB over 3 yrs in 24/7). Not sure if product prices are higher for 'green' drives...

welo

I have had my Buffalo (terastation) NAS for about 3 years and I am very pleased wit it. No torrent client on mine, and of course as I stataed earlier even the Gigabit netowkr is much slower than USB 2 but all in all a good sturdy device

That's interesting. Gigabit Ethernet suggests a huge advantage over USB 2.0 (1000MBit/s vs 480MBit/s theoretical maximum), but this article here states that real world speeds only show a slight advantage for Gigabit Ethernet.

source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03...throughput.html

I wasn't aware of that!

welo

Thanks. Found another thread on switched outlets but I will probably just drop the idea.

I planned to replace the whole consumer unit and install grounding (after going through your website and some topics on TV) but couldn't find an agreement with the landlord.

You write on your website that there are combined main circuit switches plus RCD available. Do they fit in my consumer unit (like this one just only 4 MCBs) instead of the double-row main circuit switch or do I have to go with an external Safe-T-Cut.

You still didn't tell me what happens with outlets and switches with too much current going through them... I wonder because I noticed that those 2pin outlets that are used everywhere in the house and also in the kitchen state only 10A, which is only 10Ax220V=2200W.

welo

Thanks for your reply, Crossy.

The switch was just an idea, because my Misses likes to unplug all devices if not used - out of habit. I don't really feel confident to break this habit, since these are high watt devices and we don't have ground, and the induction cooker only has an electronic switch off, the rice cooker none at all, and the electric cooking plate is one of those cheap China things that I don't trust at all.

I thought that an off switch next to the outlets would come convenient.

Had a closer look at my consumer unit and found the Amp ratings.

main circuit breaker: 45, M10

MCBs organized per room: 32A, 20A, 16A, 16A, all M5

32 being the kitchen.

The box looks very similar to the one on your website here, just with only 4 MCBs.

MCBs and main switch is all Square-D, main circuit breaker is model QO-MBX. I don't see any test switch and for sure there is no ground connected neither to the consumer unit nor to any outlet, so I just assumed that this is no ELCB...

Not sure why this one was rated that high previously. Now it makes sense since the landlord temporarily connected another (low-wattage: TV, fridge, old laundry machine, computer) house to that MCB so it probably makes sense. That will change soon since our electricity bill gets higher and he wants to separate billing. But no other real high-wattage devices, biggest is the shower heater (4500W), no air-con.

Back to the kitchen: 3500 Watt on that (two) outlets is not completely unlikely, even though the cooking plates are usually NOT used at maximum.

So limiting the circuit to 10A to match the switch doesn't make sense at all. Are there higher-rated switches that fit into those outlet boxes commonly available (countryside)?

I guess I just forget about the switch and replace it with a third outlet.

welo

Hi guys,

In our (rented) house with have those standard plastic outlet boxes which have room for one to three 2-pin-outlets or light switches (or two 3-pin outlets).

Like this one from Crossy's page

No grounding implemented so there are only 2-pin outlets in our setup (Sorry, Crossy! )

I wonder whether I can use one of those standard light switches to turn two 2-pin outlets in the same outlet box on/off.

Wiring should be straight forward, but two questions:

• Are those light switches usually two-pole switches? Do they cut both lines or just one?
  
• What about the Ampere specs? Each of them says 10A (outlet as well as the switch). So the switch is obviously not within the limits when cutting 2x 10A outlets. But does that mean the switch cannot cut >10A or that it might get fried in such a scenario.
  

I used a 2,5mm wire to connect that outlet box to the consumer unit. The MCB is labeled M5 but also supplies other circuits than the one outlet box mentioned.

We have one induction cooking plate (max 1500W) and one traditional electric cooking plate (max 1500W) plus a rice cooker (500W?) that we want to connect to the new outlet. A 2000W rated power board with built-in safety switch (not a fuse) was naturally triggered quite a view times.

welo

I would like to see an epidemiological study of chronic toxicity and an organic diet - after all our ancestors before chemical agriculture died pretty young. Although I'm not blaming their food for that, they didn't live long enough for any chronic effects of their "natural"diet to be fully expressed.

Shouldn't the traditional food industry / chemical industry be very much interested in discrediting the organic food movement and provide such studies?

One more thing: you can setup Gmail to either fetch emails from your Yahoo account via POP3, or you setup Yahoo to forward emails to your Gmail account.

I recommend using the forwarding service in Yahoo since it will avoid any time delays - Gmail checks other POP accounts only every 30 mintutes or so (you can trigger a check manually but cannot change the fetch interval).

How to setup Yahoo to forward emails to Gmail

http://picobit.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/ho...-mail-in-gmail/

You can also setup Gmail to send emails with your Yahoo address as sender (however, pls note that in some email programs like Outlook your sender address will show up as '[email protected]; on behalf of [email protected]'). So unfortunately this is not a suitable way to cleanly separate different email accounts.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/configure_goo...ent_sender.html

http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/Sen..._with_Gmail.htm

Be prepared that the Gmail user interface is quite different from Yahoo, the graphical design is more 'tuned down', plain and simple, no 3D desktop imitation and such, but you will appreciate the speed and responsiveness, especially in slow-Internet-Thailand.

welo

really, try it!

Forget TOT! And watch out, those bastards usually give you a 1-year contract if you get any of their 'promotions' (which is basically any reasonably priced package AFAIK).

I am not a native English speaker but I would like the world to unite on one language. English works fine. You know why? Because I think it's good when people can talk to each other. I think it's bad when people can't talk to each other. It's that simple.

What about those people who don't speak English? Learn it! Or at least learn the latin alphabet. That's not discrimination - to the contrary, it leads to a better world. BTW English is not owned by the native English speaking nations, and never was.

Of course a common language is important for a multi-cultural society and 'a better world'. I always thought English is not a bad choice because the grammar is reasonable (as opposed to some other western languages like French, German, etc) - Since history has chosen English as an International language for us, I guess it could have come a lot worse

But coming to Thailand and having to learn a new language that is so different from all the languages I've learned before, I have developed a new understanding for what it means to learn a language with a completely different scripting system and also tonal system.

And how many foreigners in Thailand have learned the language but never learned to read and write Thai script?

Why should a kid that is just learning to write its own language at school and doing its first steps on the computer being forced to learn a foreign alphabet? Why should a 50 year old who has enough troubles understanding the PC and the Internet be even more confused by a foreign alphabet?

Of course I support and encourage people to learn English, but at the same time why make it a requirement to access the Internet? Access to Information is a key in today's world, why not lower the entry level for non-western people to the same level as for western people.

I personally favor Malaysian or Indonesian as the world's number 1 language. They use latin characters (without any special characters as opposed to many European languages), the language is not tonal (<> Thai, Chinese, etc.), and the grammar is easy (comparable to Thai - no tenses, capitalization, etc).

Selamat tinggal!

welo

Kind of wonder how much software this is going to break. Seems more

about national pride than common sense to me. Better to have one

standard that is hard for some people to use than hundreds of

standards that nobody can use.

Some people?

grey is latin, other colors include Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek,

Latin, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Hindi, Tamil,

Ethiopic, Thaana, Chinese,

source: wikipedia

Btw, did you guys know that it was possible for some time already (2004?) to have non-latin domain names, just not at the top level (as in .com, .net, .uk, and so on)

Try typing www.österreich.at on your keyboard!

Websites that cater to western audiences as well will provide latin domain names for sure, don't worry. The URL mentioned above is only a redirect to a strictly Latin address.

As to the technical aspect - of course it will makes things more complicated, but is this really an argument to oppose the introduction? If it was, we'd probably still have applications that can't handle UTF-8 and hence not fully support many European latin-based languages. I had to deal with multi-language websites in the past and it was such a pain because a lot of software (word processors) still doesn't support UTF-8.

welo

I just remembered how I switched my wife's Yahoo account to Gmail.

If you change the setting for 'preferred content' to 'Yahoo Asia' you can actually enable POP access for free. You can then use Gmail to fetch mails from your Yahoo account into Gmail automatically. Respond to emails from your new Gmail address and people will automatically start writing to your new gmail address. Of course you can keep the yahoo address indefinitely.

How to change to 'Yahoo Asia'

http://picobit.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/ya...ree-pop-access/

OR

http://www.snaphow.com/how-to-forward-inco...hout-mail-plus/

welo

Most likely troubles with the harddrive, either some bad blocks or even worse. Or other hardware that failed.

Take a picture of the startup screen with the error messages and post here, if you'd like to have a go at it yourself.

welo

On the matter of responsibility and ownership

I think OP has a valid reason to be interested in providing extra security to protect his and his company's assets. In an ideal world one can trust every employee in the company, but in real world many (cyber) 'attacks' (espionage, ..) are executed by persons within the company.

I don't agree with the 'this is the company's property'-argument in this case. Would anybody object if OP locked up sensitive printed documents in a drawer in his office with nobody but him have a key. Would you expect the janitor to have a key for this drawer?

Again, OP already stated that this is not about 'Big-Brother'-worries or using the company PC for private stuff - it is about securing company information from non-authorized employees.

I agree that it should actually be the company and the IT department to suggest tighter security for computers run by management personnel. Maybe OP has his reasons why he doesn't address the issue with the head of IT. This doesn't necessarily imply a lack of trust, maybe a lack of confidence that IT would see his request as anything other than bringing 'problems' to them.

If OP needs to hand in the PC for maintenance it is his right (and duty?) to remove/protect sensitive content beforehand. If you bring your company car in for repair don't you remove your briefcase beforehand?

On the matter of technical questions and specific actions

Disabling the so-called admin shares on his PCs might interfere with some administrative tasks by the IT department. Maybe OP should seek consent from his boss or head of IT.

There are alternatives that should allow remote administration while still preventing remote access to the data on the PC.

Setting file permissions on a specific folder is rather weak since ownership can always be changed with administrator privileges and permissions be changed, but it is definitely a start.

Maybe discussion should now focus on more specific instructions. However, I see a certain risk in the OP changing permissions and registry entries - without enough experience/knowledge this might render the PC unstable, unusable, or inaccessible.

As a start I want to quote wikipedia and some actions suggested there:

WARNING: I don't recommend the OP following those instructions (yet), as, again, some actions (executed wrongly) might render the PC unstable, unusable, or inaccessible.

Preventing access

Disabling the Administrative shares mitigates many known security risks. For example, viruses such as Conficker Worm performs dictionary attacks on Administrative shares.

Alternative approaches to prevent remote browsing of the disk contents include:

* Remove "Administrators" from the Security tab of the drive in question. This will prevent any external local admin from accessing the drive yet still allow the local admin access

* disable File and Printer Sharing (or unbind the NetBT protocol)

* Stop and/or disable the Workstation service

* set IPSec block rules that prevent inbound connections on 445/tcp and 445/udp

* remove membership in the Administrators group for those users/groups you wish to block

* encrypt the files that must remain confidential using a file-based encryption technology (such as EFS or RMS) that requires access to per-user decryption keys to gain access to plaintext contents of the files

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_share

welo

Glad I could help.

Out of curiosity I checked again if this might be a bug in Google maps.

But I think it is not, it is two different modes - one that allows you to create your own map and edit ('My Maps' -> Edit), the other to edit the public map data. Starting from a certain zoom level the interface will show an 'Edit' link next to the 'Print', 'Send', and 'Link' links at the top right corner, but only if any of the countries showing within the map area are 'editable'.

Could paste screenshots here but I'm too lazy

welo