Firefoxx

There are several things that a P+S could never do, but a DSLR does quite easily. There are also some things that a DSLR can't do, but a P+S does quite easily. Since you already have a P+S, I think it's a no-brainer to get a DSLR to complement it. They're dirt cheap these days. You don't need to worry about RAW and fill flash and whatever until you actually need to use them, a DSLR works fine without these things.

Be aware that with DSLRs, the body (and kit lens) are only the initial (and minuscule) investment. If you really want to use it to the fullest, be prepared to spend a *lot* of money.

Converting from FAT32 to NTFS is possible, but not recommended. There have been many reports of various glitches occurring in partitions that have been converted that way. Best practice is to backup, delete the partition, and create a new one (NTFS).

Not bullshit, and no, I don't side with the RIAA (I hate them), and I haven't been brainwashed. I don't really want to get into a long tirade here, since I've stated my position on bittorrent abusers (and I'm talking about abusers, not normal bittorrent users) several times in this forum. It's a position I've developed over a period of decades of being in Thailand and witnessing the evolution of Thai internet. Seeing how you seem to be incensed, anything I say will probably not register, so I won't say it.

And no, you're not really entitled to use the bandwidth as you want. An analogy I like to use is the expressway. You pay 40 baht to use it, but you're only entitled to a normal level of use. You're not entitled to just park in the middle of the expressway and hold a party. The only reason you pay only 40 baht to use a billion-dollar road is because you're sharing the cost with several others. Same thing goes for broadband. 2 megabits of actual international bandwidth doesn't cost just 1,000 baht a month, it costs tens of thousands of baht, and the only reason you pay so little is because you're sharing that bandwidth with several others, and are expected to use your fair share accordingly. If you want to use 100% all the time (as bitttorrent abusers do) then you should pay the tens of thousands that it actually costs, and you'll have all the right in the world to do so.

It's really a matter of True not having enough bandwidth, and not impementing the proper controls to curtail abuse of limited bandwdith. However, it's a story that's pretty much repeated at most, if not all, ISPs. Some ISPs offer so-called SME packages, which are supposed to be a step up from home packages, and not as expensive as corporate (business) packages, but many times they don't deliver as expected.

True is also a strange beast. Many times in the past I've witnessed anomalies, where one site would get a totally different speed result (tested to the US) than another, even though both sites weren't very far from each other and were using the same package. I attribute this to "local" congestion, as in at the CO itself, where you're basically getting strangled of bandwidth by the bittorrent abusers.

One thing to try may be CAT's (the one reason why there isn't that much bandwidth to go around) own service, especially the so-called "premium" packages. I've seen generally good comments about these, since even though they do slow down during peak hours, they don't slow down to a crawl like True's lines. My True ADSL 2.5Mbit service gets down to around 100kbits during peak hours, and peak hours last a loooong time.

If it's brand new, send it in for warranty repair at the HP service center. Look it up at www.hp.co.th.

Normally, it's not that hard to snap a key back on, as long as you didn't break any of the plastic.

As I said, "WRT to Thai functionality". In other words, the one sold in the US would be English-only, while the one sold here would have Thai names. I'm sure they're identical, map-wise, as they both come from ESRI. What I'm thinking about is if a Thai customer were to buy a Nuvi200W and/or the Garmin Thai map from the US, would he have the ability to type in Thai, hear Thai, search Thai names, and see Thai names? It would be relevant for even English speakers, since a lot of the English transliterations of Thai names aren't very accurate or standardised.

I'm guessing that the ESRI Thai maps available from Garmin in the US and the ones sold here aren't the same. Perhaps WRT Thai functionality?

Weight normally corresponds to screen size. The Asus is 7", a bit cramped for many people, but that means it can be small and light. A 12" notebook, OTOH, can weigh from 1.3-1.8 KG (the Compaq is actually 1.8, not 2kg), but it has a lot of increased functionality. At the other end of the spectrum are 20" laptops, which weigh up to 5kg.

Weight affects portability, but different people have different tolerances for weight. The standard size for notebooks these days is around 14", which weighs around 2.3-2.5kg, and these are the ones that sell the most. Of course, others would prefer to not carry around anything, so even 1kg is too much for them.

Also, it's not really a comparison. It was a reply to a request for a notebook within certain specs.

Actually I wasn't disagreeing with you, but saying that finding a notebook that has the specs required by bill would be easy, except for the SSD part. The general rule is that for the top-tier brands (Sony, Fujitsu, etc) smaller=$$$$, but the cheaper brands are coming out with very affordable 12" notebooks. Example would be the Dell Vostro and the Compaq 1227 that I mentioned. If you go even cheaper, like Synnex, they had ultra cheap notebooks around 4 years ago.

They are old stock (and hard to find) but they're still better performers (IQ-wise) than the models that replace them (the F40 and F50). You might have better luck finding the F31, which is basically the same as the F30.

Umm, which one, tigerbeer? Methinks you forgot a link.

The snatch here is SSD. There are plenty of 12" (or less) windows notebooks out there that aren't expensive, but scant few that use SSD, since it's so expensive (the EEEpc gets away with it since it includes so little). For example the Compaq 1227 is a 12" notebook, costs around 25k baht, 1.8KG weight.

My friend likes to buy stuff from powerbuy, it's just the way he is. Anyways, the support seems to come from Garmin's distributor here, or ESRI.

The one sold here has full Thai capabilities, including Thai voice, Thai maps, and Thai keyboard for searching. We got to try it out on a trip to the north, and it works well, taking us to the correct destination. Of course sometimes it would choose the shortest route, but not take into account the fastest route (bypasses and such).

A system lasts as long as it's useful to you. This means it could last from a couple seconds to decades. There is no set time period, although in general terms, 3 years to 5 years is typical for most.

It's been recently discounted at Powerbuy, from the orignal price of 18k. It's been this price for around a month, I think.

It's been discussed before. Both the Garmin and Mio use the same ESRI Thailand maps. My friend got a Nuvi 200W, but only because it's price dropped to below 14k (which is still a ripoff compared to the US). If you buy from the US and are intending to use it in Thailand, you need to buy the Thai maps too, so factor that into the cost.

At around 9pm Monday 14th of January, TITV got an order from the public relations department (I tink) to cease broadcasting at midnight. The reason given was to comply with some old decree. It's just politics.

Hmm, can't edit my previous reply.

Anyways, wrong calculation. The PSP+4GB costs 9,300, not 8,300.

What can the Nintendo DS do? It can browse the net. It can play wirelessly/online. It can act like a skype phone. It can play homebrew. It can play videos. It can view pics. Yes, pretty much everything the PSP can.

The Nintendo DS's audience is much broader than the PSP. The PSP is aimed squarely at the teen-middle age group, mainly boys. The DS is aimed at the 0-100 group, since it appeals to everyone. It's library currently includes around 1000+ games, and it can play gameboy advance games too. It's sold 20 million units in Japan *alone*, and normally beats the PSP in sales by a wide margin (and is actually the best selling gaming console in the world). The input device, a touchscreen, is much more intuitive than other types of input, and many can pick up a game and play it immediately. The games are fairly small (16-128MB), and so you can fit many more games on the miniSD used in the R4 devices. The PSP uses memory sticks, which pretty much only Sony uses, and are therefore expensive, and the games are normally in the hundreds of megs each. The DS has two screens, but the PSP has a single screen with higher resolution. The DS does not need to be modded in any way to use copied games, but requires a R4 (or similar) device, while the PSP needs to be flashed, but can use games directly from the memory stick.

Battery life on the DS is arond 7-10 hours, depending on how you set the brightness of the display and the volume, and charging take a couple hours. The new slim PSP has a smaller battery than before, so that may be the reason you're hearing conflicting reports.

The DS with a R4 device and 2GB of memory (good for around 50 games) runs around 7,000 baht. The PSP, with 4GB of memory (good for around 20-30 games) costs around 8,300.

Chances are, a *boy* that age will prefer a PSP, because of all the violent games, but then again, I know of a lot of boys that age who love the DS. The thing about the PSP is that a lot of it's popular titles are mature games that a 10 year old boy won't be able to grasp.

Pretty much anything can take a good pic in good light. Thing is, good light is usually not available.

And yes, I already pointed out that the main thing going for a in-phone camera is that it's with you.

But... what do you throw away? You throw away image quality. Optical zoom. Optics. Resolution (and I'm not talking about megapixels). A decent flash. Manual settings. Scene settings. ISO settings/performance. Etc. etc. etc.

Yes, it works, and in a pinch, it's "good enough". But my point was that if you're concerned about image quality, get a real digicam. They're small enough these days to carry around in your pocket.

Issues from a long time ago? This was from just a bit before 9/11. Not that long ago. The treatment was repeated, although to a lesser degree, a couple years later. After that, I've been there again (all these are business trips, since I have very little incentive to go to the US), and yes, they've been curt, but *at least* they didn't treat me as badly as the previous times. No, they've never actually been courteous. I have several friends who go through this process several times a year, and they've had similar experiences.

As I said, you've been lucky, and I'm not saying you're a liar, so you don't need to repeat about how many times you've had good experiences, we believe you already. But I'm saying that different people have different experiences ("YMMV"), so let's leave it at that. You have your good, others have their bad, and it's everyone's right to discuss these experiences. You have good experiences, I have bad. OK? My computer works well, yours breaks down. I have colds in the winter, you don't. Etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

I never said that I was an American citizen. You may assume as you like. You also assume that this is enough to make me mad at the whole country, which is not the case, as it would be ridiculous. What I don't like is the abuse of positions of power, and it's something that US officials exhibit quite often.

One thing that really bothers me is this: These people are the first examples of US citizens that any visitor to the US meets. This is not a very good first impression.

I've been pretty much around the world, and really, I can't recall any other place being this bad. Immigration and customs agents have been sloppy, lazy, or just uninterested, but never all-out rude.

For videos, most won't show up in your cache. You need to use a download tool or helper site to get to the files. In firefox, there are plenty of add-ons that do this easily.

Most jpegs should just show up.

As it is, YMMV. Some people will have bad experiences, others will have good. It does not mean that all will have good, or all will have bad. Some people have all the luck, others aren't so lucky.

As for chewing gum, no, it's not illegal. But to chew gum while performing your duty, when you need to interact with others, is showing disrespect. Try chewing gum all the time (and making it as obvious as these people do) while talking to your superiors. Since it's so prevalent in the US, you might get away with it, but in a lot of countries, you'd probably be disciplined.

Also, my ABSOLUTE WORST experience with customs and immigration (yes, both, one right after the other) was *before* 9/11. Think about that. The ordeal cost me nearly 4 hours (of me doing absolutely nothing and being treated like a criminal), and I almost missed my shuttle. 9/11 had nothing to do with how they behave, they were bad from the start.

Not once did I meet any US customs/immigration official that I could honestly say was polite/nice/considerate. They were all very curt, if not downright rude. And this is without me actually doing anything to them, they were like that from the outset.

If you actually want to take good pictures, don't get a phone with a camera. Get a camera. It doesn't matter if these phones take 500 million pixels, the picture will still be horrible compared to a low-budget 2 megapixel digicam.

About the only thing going for these on-phone cameras is that they're on the phone, so you usually have it with you. Other than that, they're not to be confused with dedicated digicams in terms of capability or quality, and really should not be a deciding factor in a phone purchase.

Dissolution, the hard part is unlocking the iPhone to use other sims. If that part's already been done, then that's all you need. The process for unlocking it to accept third party apps can be done by pretty much anyone.

A photo that's used for artistic purposes to express what a photographer wants the viewer to see can be manipulated as much as you want to. In the end, as long as it conveys what the photographer wants you to see, then it's totally all right.

A photo that's used for something like evidence, OTOH, is another matter, and should not be tampered with. News photos are in a sort of gray area between the two, as they should represent reality, not the photographer's reality, but cosmetic adjustments are normally done to make it more presentable. It's normally OK as long as the photo's content isn't altered. There was a photo of a woman in the olympics who had fallen during a race, and photo manipulation had been done to remove a radio antenna that was sticking out of her face in the original photo, and that was totally acceptable (the photo would have been awkward otherwise). However, one photographer got in trouble when he took two photographs from two different scenes and made them into one (this was from Iraq or Afghanistan, I think).