Stocky

Education to secondary level is free in most western countries, tertiary education is free in most European countries and heavily subsidised in other western countries. The UK is free to secondary level and then fees apply (except Scotland) for tertiary education, with fees being similar now to those charged in the US.

Just came through Hat Yai immigration returning from Singapore and its had a face lift and upgrade. Nice new desks, and more of them, now space for ten officers, but not just nice new desks new technology too; fingerprint scanners, fingers and thumbs both hands, plus upgraded cameras.

1 hour ago, NCC1701A said:

I would risk a few IED's on the road side if it meant getting out of Hua Hin.

How do you think the guys in Kota Bharu feel, especially the 7% of the population who are non-Muslim, living under the watchful eye of PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party); no alcohol, no provocative dress, no social activities that contradict Islamic norms, and definitely no pork. Only a 35km drive to the border and a weekend in Sugai Golok.

On 2/13/2019 at 12:56 PM, JimmyJ said:

Why "unlikely"?

It's a <deleted> zone in a war zone.

Aren't the beaches a little muddy being so close to the estuary of the Kraburi River?

11 minutes ago, Pib said:

Ours posts are passing in the night.  We were both right.  A SGD to THB fee decrease for lower amounts and a SGD to THB fee increase for larger amounts.   Price out 1,000 and 10,000 SGD to THB transfers and you'll see.

Will work out what's the sweet spot tomorrow, obviously doesn't pay to send too much.

Have registered with OFX so next transfer will compare rates between Transferwise and OFX.

7 minutes ago, Pib said:

The above example was a SGD to THB transfer.

As maybe but you're not using Transferwise Singapore!

1 hour ago, Pib said:

You must be using a debit or credit card to fund the transfer as those funding methods increased.  Using a debit/credit card is generally a more expensive way for most currency pairs.   But funding via your bank the price has went down  a little over 4%

 

 

 

Certainly not. That's a money transferring to their Singapore account. There was a 17% increase on the transfer of SGD10,000 to THB.

A 17% INCREASE transferring from Singapore to Thailand. It says from 8th of March not the 1st.

3 hours ago, LivinLOS said:

I think its one of those things that people love to fixate on.

My wife is asthmatic, so air quality is an issue, even if for just a few weeks a year, so for us the peninsular is more appealing than living up north; a pity as I prefer mountains to beaches.

31 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Well, I'd rather spend a few hours at immigration than a weekend in Singapore, so there you go.

Each to his own.

Caustic soda - a smile to die for!

12 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

I know the disadvantage of the non-o is that  I have to exit the country every 90 days.

I don't find that a disadvantage, it's good to get out of Thailand every now and again. Alternative is 90 day reporting, which if based on marriage involves a lot of nosey questions and posing for photos. Hopping down to Singapore for a weekend is, I find, a far more pleasant option.

That's certainly the sweet spot as far as trying to maximize your chances of breathing clean air. North of Chumphon you've an increasing chance of getting haze from Bangkok, south of Nakorn Si Thammarat you've an increasing chance of getting haze from Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Not that familiar with Pak Nam, though Chumphon is a good source of supplies, Sichon I've driven through, beaches are a a bit better further north near Khanom.

I would suggest a field trip is in order.

I've had the same experience with Grab Taxis cancelling, on one occasion so close that I watched him drive past. I've given up on using them.

Will use them again if the driver rating system operates from the point the fare is accepted, then if cancelled you can rate the driver one star.

1 hour ago, ChrisY1 said:

"......and then our mates can build a nice resort on the land...!

That's what happened to them after the tsunami, so they're used to it.

You need to do your own due diligence, there is plenty of support for Linux Mint, just search Linux Mint and the make and model number.

I wouldn't install from within Windows, rather create a bootable USB or DVD.

1 hour ago, stud858 said:

Yes full factory reset just like out of the box. Unadulterated, uninfected fresh windows. The only way to be sure and get things done quickly.

I consider this the quickest way to get things sorted!

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3669

8 hours ago, Tofer said:

I have had the computer completely wiped clean and rebooted by a professional computer technician in the UK, twice,

7 minutes ago, stud858 said:

I think he's used a soft restore via windows. He needs to boot to the hidden restore partition on the hard drive. A hard factory reset. I didn't see any posts suggesting he's done that.

That sounds like a full factory reset to me, though admittedly not explicitly described as such.

.

8 hours ago, Tofer said:

What confuses me though is how they manage to re-establish their control of my machine after I have had the computer completely wiped clean and rebooted by a professional computer technician in the UK, twice, reset to an earlier date 3 times by me, all to no avail.

 

19 minutes ago, stud858 said:

 

Backup your important info to USB hard drive or stick first.

It really sounds like you need a clean fresh install by this method though. Easy peasy.

It gets harder if you have no factory restore partition. Viao should have it.

 

It seems he's already done a factory restore, twice, yet the issue persists, which would suggest there's some trojan / malware hiding amongst the backup files that have been subsequently restored.

6 hours ago, magicroundabout said:

To be fair last year I sent a swift payment from my UK bank to Thailand which meant "missing". It took just over 5 weeks to get the money back. I never manage to find out why... All the banks involved denied responsibility.  

I had an issue with HSBC, before I switched to using Transferwise. I couldn't work out why some additional charges had been incurred with a SWIFT transfer, when questioned HSBC just reported it was an 'intermediary bank' and if I 'wanted them to investigate further' it would cost me $40.

I appreciate the transparency you get with Transferwise, there are no mystery charges.

19 minutes ago, Tofer said:

Will I loose my current files switching over?

Not if you back up all your files before hand. You'd want to do a clean install with Linux as the only OS, not a dual boot. Linux will reformat your HDD.

15 minutes ago, Greyhat said:

OP don't install Linux, yes it's a better and more secure operating system but you're going to have to learn everything from scratch.

Linux Mint isn't hard to understand, it's a very intuitive user interface that is much the same as Windows, my wife and 8 year old granddaughter are happy enough using it. If all you're doing is web browser, email, word processing, spreadsheets and storing photos, watching movies and listening to music, all that works from the install. The only issues would be with external hardware compatibility, printers and scanners.

19 minutes ago, Tofer said:

I have a lot of files on my laptop both documents and photos

If that's all you need it for, why not drop Windows and install Linux - Linux Mint works fine and you can happily view photos, Word documents and pdf files, access the Internet and do your emails. Whatever's been following you around won't work on Linux.