nivram4491

I watch a lot of sport on my computer using P2P TV streaming. My ISP is TOT Wifi (6Mb/.5Mb) and I am usually getting 5Mb+ and around .8 upload.

I live in a small rural village so there is not a lot of choice as far as ISP's go. The TV quality is quite good but the stream has very annoying pauses and bits of the action get lost. Many of the streams are HD which is great quality wise but create bandwidth problems.

Is there anything I can do to improve the quality of the P2P TV? My computer is dual core. Would an i5 fix the problem.

I could get 3BB (with its own cable to my house rather than a telephone line) in addition to TOT. Is it possible to combine the signals from two different ISP's? Would two 6Mb signals combined give 10 - 12 Mb? If it is possible does anyone know a network expert in the Chiang Mai area who could do the installation?

No offence Nancy but if your friend said no the first time then she should really leave it at that. Rather than embaressing her why dont you pay it?

james24, you are the one that should be embarrassed and not only for your inability to spell.

From my observations NancyL is one of the most intelligent posters to this forum. She is trying to help a friend who has suffered an unfortunate serious accident. For all the smug posters I say shame on you. Maybe sometime in the future you may be in an unfortunate position where you need some help. You would be very lucky indeed to have a friend like Nancy trying to help you.

Health insurance in Thailand for anyone over 65 is extremely expensive. As far as I know it is in the 80,000 plus Baht per year (prepaid) range. For any one over 65, still in reasonably good health, it does not make economic sense to pay that much for health insurance in Chiang Mai.

Is there such a thing as accident only insurance in Thailand which does not sky rocket in price with increasing age for those over 65?

Does anyone have a recommendation for a particular VPN service? I've had no luck. I don't mind paying if it's a decent price.

You need a fast internet connection - not only for a Bangkok server but also for London if you want to watch BBC. If your internet connection is not fast enough then the VPN service will not work.

I would recommend www.witopia.net

It is quite reasonably priced $40 US per year. I have never had any luck with free VPN services.

It has servers in many different locations: USA, England, Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia so you can watch BBC by connecting to the London server, ABC by connecting to the Sydney server and so on.

It is not a rip off company. They offer good solid support which you will probably need because it is quite difficult to set up. However, once setup it works quite well provided you have a decent stable and fast internet connection for the locations you want to use.

I found that for the BBC I get frequent pauses. However, the BBC allows you to download most of the available programs, but they do have DRM which means you have a limited time to watch the programs.

Is that where Gekko Garden actually is? Was wondering about that.

That's where Gecko Garden actually is. I used it as an example because there was a very long discussion about its location using terms like kitty corner etc.

I don't have a GPS but think that they are very useful.

I think virtually every farang living in Chiang Mai has a computer connected to the internet. If you can read this forum you have access to Google Maps. What a powerful tool!

Getting exact coordinates of any particular place in Google Maps is really easy, without having to write anything down.

Suppose I want to make it easy for you to find Gecko Garden in Google Maps. Here is what I have to do:

1. Find the location of Gecko Garden on the map of Chiang Mai and move the pointer to that location

2. Right click on the point to open the context menu

3. Choose What's here? in the menu

4. You should see a green arrow pointer at the location on the map and something like 18.781029,98.998489 in the box above the map.

To use the latitude,longitude coordinates just drag across them in the box (this is called select the text) and use Ctrl-c to copy.

You can then use Ctrl-v to paste the coordinates into your post, message or whatever.

To then use the coordinates that have been posted:

1. Drag across the coordinates given in the post (in my example 18.781029,98.998489) and copy with Ctrl-c

2, Click into Google Maps (or start it if not already running)

3. Click inside the box at the top and press Ctrl-v to paste the coordinates

4. Press the Enter key and the green pointer arrow appears to show you the location of Gecko Garden.

It may sound very complicated to some of you out there but just try going through the steps and I think you will see that it is really straightforward and absolutely precise. This powerful tool is already in your hands. Why not use it?

It takes all the guess work out of locating a particular establishment.

In my opinion, buying a few condos is a much better idea. There are condos you can buy in your own name. The rent from the condos can give you a better return without having to worry about staff, the music police and a host of other problems.

If you buy a house and your wife passes away you have to sell the property to a Thai person within 12 months.

Definitely rent before you buy property. Don't buy any property until you have reliable knowledge and support that you can trust.

I certainly wish that I had done a lot more research before buying property and taken things a lot more slowly. Imagine the worst possible situation like your wife wanting a divorce - not at all uncommon in Thailand - and then think about trying to unravel the mess. A rental home would be a blessing in such a situation.

Other people have had great ideas for a business and the ability and finances to establish the business which has then gone on to become successful. Something as silly as not allowing an internationally renowned farang musician not being allowed to play music in his own business has then put the kibosh on the business resulting in a huge loss of money and incredible frustration.

You can never predict what will happen in the future but one can be fairly safe in making the prediction that if something unexpected does happen to affect the farang business it won't be in a positive way (from a farung point of view).

Why complicate things?

As janverbeem has mentioned twice, buy copper tubing, corners and tees. Just as easy to make as the pvc one. Make sure you use straight copper tubing rather than tubing that comes in a coil. All that is required is a hack saw.

One important difference to be aware of is that with the retirement visa you can use a combination of income and bank deposit to make up 800K whereas with the marriage visa it is one or the other to make up 400K. I think many government pensions are in the 400 - 500K range so for anyone in this situation a retirement visa is the better choice, unless you want to find work and hence need to get a work permit.

To me this post shows a the owner's lack of confidence in his own school. Why would you have to post this private matter on a public form otherwise?

free MTV Exit concert?

The web site provides a means by which people can win free tickets. This doesn't make any sense if the concert is really free. I am somewhat confused. Is it free but tickets are required? How does one get tickets if that is the case?

Does anyone know if Pai has any service stations which sell LPG? I would like to drive there with my LPG Nissan NV but I need to be certain that LPG is available.

What NancyL said.

I'll add one more -- do some volunteer activities. My wife teaches English to Burmese students a couple of evenings a week and I spend time at the dog shelter. (Please notice that I called it "volunteer activities". I don't work as it's prohibited under my visa.)

The only stress I have living as an early retiree in Chiang Mai is finding the time to do all the things I want to do.

Hummm. This is a real grey area. From my understanding, you are required to have a work permit to perform volunteer work! If that is correct, and you don't have a work permit, and you get caught -- you can be thrown into jail, detained, and possibly deported. The organization that you work for will probably get a hand slap.

That's not to say that I'm not interested in working for a non-profit. Actually, I'm very interested in the processes of organizing, setting up, and running a non-profit in Thailand. I would eventually like to establish one in the remote area of my wife's village with the intent of providing educational programs that are not normally available to poor villagers. The object here would be to identify and groom intelligent kids in these villages, actively assistant them in improving their skills, and assist them in finding scholarships (Technical or University) with the hope that these kids with return to the area and help to break the poverty cycle in that area. But I need to understand how others are running their NP organizations.

Anyway, it's an option...

If you want to set up and run a non-profit organization in Thailand you better have the right paperwork.

I've heard over and over again that a foreigner cannot do volunteer work in Thailand without a work permit. That is certainly the law. However, I know of many, many individuals that are doing just that. I know of no one that has been asked to leave the country.

I'll give you some more detail of my volunteer activities (not work). I go to the dog shelter and let 4 dogs that I am familiar with out. I go for a walk. They follow me. Sometimes I follow them. Is that work? New volunteers are advised to only take only two dogs and to use a lead. Maybe that would be work? Then I go back to the shelter and pet some of the dogs that want human contact. Sometimes I brush them. Sometimes I even give a couple of them a bath. Is any of that work? I do the same things with the dogs that live in my house. I haven't heard of anyone being asked to leave because they brushed their dog or gave it a bath.

I think the purpose of the law is that the govt doesn't want a farang to volunteer for a job that a Thai could be paid to do. As i said, my wife volunteers to teach English to Burmese students. She is only called when there is no one else to teach them. If she says she's busy and can't make it, they sit and watch DVD's. They might actually prefer that. So she's not taking a job away from anyone. Several temples in CM have a "monk chat". Most that do, have signs that say it is to help the monks learn English. I guess if you speak English to a monk, you might run the risk of being deported!

I'm not giving legal advice here. That would be illegal. But if you have nothing to do and can't figure out how to fill your day, please consider volunteer "activities".

I am on a retirement visa. Last year I got a 7 day job teaching English in a provincial town court house. Before accepting the job I told them (a group of court judges) that I was in Thailand on a retirement visa. I was told "mai pen rai" and was paid handsomely for my efforts. While it is possible for the volunteer law to be enforced I think it extremely unlikely unless someone in a position of power was somehow affected in a negative way.

About 20 years ago I had a sudden attack of dizziness and ringing in the ear. I was told that it was caused by a virus and that I would have it for the rest of my life.

The tinnitus is always there but most of the time I don't notice it. Only when I think about it like right now. Once I forget about it I don't notice it or it goes away - not sure which.

The dizziness is more of a problem. It comes back when I am stressed. It is extremely uncomfortable when it occurs. My cure for it has been to learn how to be happy. For this I have to thank Ajahn Brahm, a Buddhist monk from Perth, Western Australia. A lot of his work is on the net either in video or audio so if interested do a Google search. He is a very wise man.

I was disconnected from 3BB about 2 months ago. The reason given was that I am too far from the server. Others in the same village are still able to use 3BB so I don't quite understand the reason. They were happy to provide very poor download speeds for a year before I started to show them my download test speeds. The last straw was when i mentioned the word TOT.

I suspect, but cannot prove, that 3BB terminates marginal users if they transfer a large volume of data. If users only use email and browse the web there is no problem but if you are a heavy user and dare to complain they cut you off.

I finally got my TOT wireless and am hugely impressed. For a 6 MB service I am getting downloads greater than 6MB and so far no breaks in the service. The long wait for the service has been worth it.

500 baht for sure will work. US$10 is on again - off again. Back in July they accepted 2 well-used $5 bills--certainly not crisp. But just yesterday I gave them 500 baht because I had no dollars. If you have both, offer the $10 first, and you will save some money. If they don't take it, then give them the baht.

I was told in late December by a Burmese customs official that they would accept $10 if you don't go shopping in Burma but insisted on 500 Baht otherwise. I don't know if this is policy or just one customs officers rule.

Nobody has mentioned Hang Dong GC. It is only a 9 hole course and one of the cheapest to play in the CM region but it has a great layout. If you go early in the morning you can have a very enjoyable game of golf at a very reasonable price.

Don't worry about a membership until you have tried all the courses in the CM region. For convenience it is difficult to beat Gymkhana, another 9 hole course which is right in the city of Chiang Mai.

It's available by mail order from the website. $159.95, although you get a $20 discount if you sign up for the newsletter.

I think $140 is a lot of money to pay for a program sight unseen. How can you try the program to see if you like it before buying it?

If I had been able to try it out before buying it I would not have bought it.

Back in the 1980's a lot of computer programming was done using BASIC. BASIC was great for tiny programs but as the size of the programs increased, they quickly became unmanageable. This is why BASIC is often referred to as spaghetti code. Modern languages use block programming in which a number of program blocks are accessed from the main program.

HighSpeedThai reminds me very much of a large BASIC program. There is a lot of data in the program but it is very difficult to access efficiently. Around a thousand pages of information requires a multilevel system of linked menus. It can all be done with Adobe Acrobat and the audio and video files can be embedded safely into individual PDF files which can be accessed from menus.

This is what I expected when I bought the program and was very disappointed when I saw one massive PDF file. The material inside the PDF file is good but the access to it is primitive.

I find that as far as I have gone in high speed Thai it has been excellent. I was zipping along and got about 600 of those 1000 pages done, and then got distracted by life, so it has been two months since I have worked on it. I do plan to get back to it very soon.

I think this is a great course, but the desire to learn is all on you because this is a self directed course. So far this course has taken from Taxi Thai to entry level conversational. HST has all the tools, the rest is how you apply them.

I also bought HST and tried to use it. It is a very good program for the 1990's but this is 2010 and technology has improved tremendously over that period of time. The PDF files should be linked and the audio and video files embedded. As it is, it is very easy to get distracted from the process of learning. If you get distracted and take a break it is very difficult to start again unless you go right back to the beginning.

It could be a great program if it were properly integrated. From the promotional material I saw, from my own knowledge of developing multimedia learning materials and particularly from the high price of HST I was bitterly disappointed because I expected a learning Thai system, not a conglomeration of individual Thai learning files.

I am one of the unlucky person who tried High Speed Thai.

I was very excited at first when reading the description, so after a while i decided to order the programme, being comforted by the no question asked money back guarantee.

I quickly received 2 DVDs, which i installed right away, or i should rather say copy. Because HighSpeedThai is not a programme. It's a bunch of files. 5GB of data. And my disk count is giving me around 12 000 files (probably including some of the inside software files).

So basically you buy this programme thinking you will get something fully integrated like Rosetta or other language software. But this one is VERY different. You basically goat a 1000+ black and white text only PDF file (yes over one thousand pages of text!), and a bunch of files in different folders that you need to open one by one) and you quickly end up having your pdf reader open, your music player open, your video player open, the few related folders open, and on top of that you have the Anki software. Anki is something like the Rosetta software, but a very basic version. Again text only.

OK. I had bought it, so i said why not give it a try anyway. Or at least try to. Believe me it is the most user unfriendly system i have ever seen in my life! After a couple of weeks, I did contact the maker of this system to suggest him some much needed improvement, but he constantly replied by copying clients testimonials (which of course were all positive about his programme) and more or less saying that his programme couldn't be any better and that everybody is happy about it. I was kind of "motivated" to give it another try, and passed the 30 days money back guarantee without really paying attention. After a while, and many attempts to try learning with this unfriendly system, i decided to give up and contacted again the maker of the programme asking him about the money back guarantee.

Again i had a flow of clients testimonials who were all agreeing that this is the best programme in the world to learn Thai. May be I am the only one to find it absolutely off-putting and uninviting. I was always told that learning should be a fun process, and the 4 other languages i speak have been learnt in a fun way.

Having said that, the maker of the programme offered me a deal, that if i complete 10 lessons and still don't like the programme, he would give my money back. I did accept the challenge, and forced myself through the 10 lessons. Passed the calvary of a couple of hundred pages of plain text in PDF format, and the juggling with files and folders, i completed the 10 lessons. But our programme maker was still not satisfied, and wanted to know all the details of my boring learning, adding here and there very positive testimonials of other clients.

So i just gave up and forgot about asking my money back. It is just not worth the ordeal really.

So may be it is just me not liking this programme. I don't know. If any of you wish you buy my version, I will be more than happy to get rid of it at a discounted price. I would even let you try it before you buy and show you how the whole thing works. I wouldn't want you to feel tricked the way i did!

I would like to back up the post above. My feelings exactly about HighSpeedThai!

I find it totally misleading because in all the advertising that is done you get the impression that this is an integrated multimedia program instead of a mismash of individual text pdf files and audio files. While the material seems reasonable I just can't cope with amateurish presentation. It is possible to make effective learning tools using pdf files if the audio and video files are linked or embedded. It takes a lot of work but from the amount charged for HighSpeedThai one would expect it.

I also found that Anki, as used in HighSpeedThai does nothing for me.

Before paying big bucks talk to someone who has done the course and have a look at the presentation if possible. Some people may be able to cope with it but I certainly couldn't. My first reaction was to try to making something decent out of the huge collection of unlinked files.

Has anybody else had any experience with the High Speed Thai Progarm?

I bought the HST course some time ago. I have been very disappointed with it. The videos used to generate interest in the course are excellent but so far I haven't found any similar material in the course. PDF files can have embedded sound and videos but this feature has not been taken advantage of. Separate text and sound files is a very awkward method to use.

Definitely get the land refilled now. I would also build a concrete wall now for security reasons. It will be a lot cheaper to build the wall now as opposed to in 5-7 years time. If the wall is built properly it should just need a good paint job when you are ready to build. If the property is walled it is more likely to appreciate in value even if you ended up not building.

If you were around Bangkok I have allot to give away for free

My wife is renting a house in Bangkok and needs some furniture. What kind of furniture do you have to give away?

Pm me

I have a yellow book and find it very useful. I can buy a car off the street and get it registered in my name because of the yellow book.

If you can get a yellow book, go for it.

I have been very disappointed with the High Speed Thai course.

For the high cost of the course I would have expected the text and sound to be linked in the PDF file making up the entire course. While I understand the need for copy protection having the entire course as one gigantic PDF file makes it very difficult to keep track of where you are in the course and is not conducive to effective learning.