Software Raid

[Donnyboy]

Actually JB I have noticed in shopping malls and the cinema loos that that its mostly the farrangs (males as I don't tend to visit ladies loos much ) that walk out without visiting the hand basins. However, no one seems to use the dryers just their shirts!

those dryer things are useless!

why would anyone have their wet clean hands dried by a hot air blow dryer that requires the air intake from inside the restroom

[Donnyboy]

theres heaps of freeware out there if you look

some good stuff as well. It might not have all the bells and whistles, but it usually does the job

i think google is/has come out with some good stuff, havent they?

[Maejo Man]

theres heaps of freeware out there if you look

some good stuff as well.

Yes there is most certainly, and I use a lot of it. Quite often they ask for a donation to keep it going, and if it works for me, I often send them five or ten dollars, as a thankyou.

Take a look, it's out there.

[thaimite]

theres heaps of freeware out there if you look

some good stuff as well.

Yes there is most certainly, and I use a lot of it. Quite often they ask for a donation to keep it going, and if it works for me, I often send them five or ten dollars, as a thankyou.

Take a look, it's out there.

In addition there are sites like http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ which give out selected software for free that would otherwise have to be paid for.

http://sourceforge.net/ is another great site for free and open source products which are generally very professional

Now I am changing over to Linux of course nearly all apps are free.

Edited November 2, 2009 by thaimite

[sbk]

another great freeware site is nonags.com with an extensive list of freeware. Tucows.com also has a lot of freeware but you need to be sure to sort by license, same as download.com

[BlackArtemis]

Actually I believe there was a move to openoffice about the time I was leaving my job.

[SM7WGP]

Open office is far far better then MS Office.

I have a legal MS Office but never use it , Open Office has it all and more and its Free ware

[heazille]

Presumably, this is the same set up as the "music police"

IE No paperwork,no warrant,no receipt for the fine etc etc

Keep a camera charged and see how fast they run (cos the music police can sure move when a camera starts flashing )

Cheers

Richard

Edited November 2, 2009 by heazille

[pj123]

Tsss.. I agree with MM on something. Honestly I can vouch for Sao Chiang Mai. I also work in this industry myself, and while the CHANCE of a company being raided is small, if it does happen it will have VERY serious consequences, no matter how legit a company it is; it's VERY hard to prevent employees to load a copy of Adobe XYZwhatever if they feel they want it. Then they hit you for millions of baht.

I thought it was easy for a company to lock its pcs to make it impossible for employees to install their own software. I have worked for several organisations here and in the UK where you could not install software. One company even took the precaution of preventing USB flash drives and CD Roms from working.

[thaimite]

Tsss.. I agree with MM on something. Honestly I can vouch for Sao Chiang Mai. I also work in this industry myself, and while the CHANCE of a company being raided is small, if it does happen it will have VERY serious consequences, no matter how legit a company it is; it's VERY hard to prevent employees to load a copy of Adobe XYZwhatever if they feel they want it. Then they hit you for millions of baht.

I thought it was easy for a company to lock its pcs to make it impossible for employees to install their own software. I have worked for several organisations here and in the UK where you could not install software. One company even took the precaution of preventing USB flash drives and CD Roms from working.

It can be done, and indeed it is done in many companies, but I have also worked in large organisations within Thailand (and elsewhere) where there are no controls at all. If the company sees fit to invest in a proper IT department and IT management software then they should have no problems, but unfortunately many see this as an unnecessasary expense, and these are often the same people who distribute illegal software to their employees.

Edited November 4, 2009 by thaimite

[Gonzo the Face]

This post has been around approx a couple weeks now ...... and I am sure has made a few of us a bit uneasy.

BUT..... does anyone know first hand of any place in or around CM that has been hit ???

[elektrified]

Presumably, this is the same set up as the "music police"

IE No paperwork,no warrant,no receipt for the fine etc etc

Keep a camera charged and see how fast they run (cos the music police can sure move when a camera starts flashing )

Cheers

Richard

Not the same set up as the music police. They won't run. These guys are uniformed police from a special division that carry little computers that can check to see if the bar codes and other info are legit. We saw them questioning a seller of designer jeans who was in tears. One guy was inputting data from the tags on the jeans into the little hand-held computers. They confiscated about 4 large boxes of "Levi Strauss" jeans from her and shut her down.

They showed up at my friends business in Bangkok asking to see all the CD-ROMS and licenses of his Windows and Office software from his office computers. Fortunately his are all legit that he purchased in the USA. He said they were well educated and very thorough. They told him that the penalty is severe if you are caught - especially if you have a work permit and a Thai company.

[Greenside]

I know of a sign maker fined an undisclosed amount but forced to stop working and is now having to put legit copies of windows on five machines. They'd removed about half the computers from the premises but the boys in blue, brown or whatever the software police wear turned up before they were bullet proof. I think they now feel that they will be checked every time there's a crackdown so will be a lot more careful (or they might just buy the software they need to operate legally!).

[Gonzo the Face]

May be a stupid question, and I am not a computer geek by any means, but as an example ,,,,, say your computer crashed and you get a guy to fix it...... they reformat what has to be,,,,, how do you know if the reformatting was with legit copies..... or someone installs a new or bigger hard drive,,,,, how do you tell if the installed versions are legit?

Is there somewhere , when the computer is booting up, that this is able to be seen?

Sorry if it is a simple minded question,,,, but I do not know the answer

signed: simpleminded

[Mestizo]

May be a stupid question, and I am not a computer geek by any means, but as an example ,,,,, say your computer crashed and you get a guy to fix it...... they reformat what has to be,,,,, how do you know if the reformatting was with legit copies..... or someone installs a new or bigger hard drive,,,,, how do you tell if the installed versions are legit?

Is there somewhere , when the computer is booting up, that this is able to be seen?

Sorry if it is a simple minded question,,,, but I do not know the answer

signed: simpleminded

Technically, it doesn't matter. The way I have seen these things work in the past (I've been working in IT for 10+ years now), is that all you really have to do is be able to produce a legit license. So if you ever were raided, as long as you have a legit paper license/ CD Key that came with the product when you bought it, you are OK.

This is especially important in enterprises that use things like Ghost to image a bunch of laptops. They all end up with the same license key. As long as you keep the paper copies of the keys that came with each laptop, you are ok.

As an enduser here, to ensure your Microsoft stuff is somewhat legit, you can try the WGA Validation tool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage

-Mestizo

[WinnieTheKhwai]

..however, if it's NOT somewhat legit, or if you upgrade enough hardware on an OEM license, then you eventually get locked out of Windows... Reasons I always avoided WGA like the plague. (Ok, often phone calls to Microsoft sort it out again after an upgrade, but it's just one hoop I don't particularly enjoy jumping through).

And like you said before, if you have the license key then you're in the clear.

WGA is a pretty controversial scheme.

Edited November 5, 2009 by WinnieTheKhwai

[Sao Jiang Mai]

Yup, I know a couple of design businesses which were fined and a printer - the rest are all rumours at this point. What happened was the software association and a unit from the police in BKK came up for one week. They apparently gave many businesses a month's notice to purchase software licences, but I didn't receive notice for my company, hence the panic. At the end of the day if we don't buy the licences then we are breaking the law, so we have this morning decided to bite the bullet and buy all the licenced softwares for our office...it was wrong of me not to have it all fully licenced in the first place, but frankly it is really really really expensive and I can't see how everyone can afford it. Still, for peace of mind, I am glad we decided to do the right thing...and it is a lesson to myself to not take such illegal shortcuts. After all, I write about ethics in my magazine and I broke the law myself. So I am glad we decided to put it right. Even though the staff will not be getting a bonus this year! Apparently the unit has left Chiang Mai, but once again, rumours in the 'industry' (magazines, design companies, sign companies, media firms, etc.) are rife, and one doesn't know what to believe at this point.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I would do a review of your actual software needs. Obviously SOME people need for example Photoshop, but others can probably get away with free alternatives. This applies to other software as well, such as MS Office for example; OpenOffice is free and gives you basically everything MS Office does.

I guess Photoshop and Illustrator and so on are the biggies in your business; while alternatives exist you would be taking a productivity hit to make people use alternatives. (Still, this may be an opton for some people in your office who don't do hard core graphics and layout)

[Gonzo the Face]

"Cream will rise to the top"

Thanks for that heads up Sao Jiang Mai .

Edited November 5, 2009 by Gonzo the Face

[thaimite]

I would do a review of your actual software needs. Obviously SOME people need for example Photoshop, but others can probably get away with free alternatives. This applies to other software as well, such as MS Office for example; OpenOffice is free and gives you basically everything MS Office does.

I guess Photoshop and Illustrator and so on are the biggies in your business; while alternatives exist you would be taking a productivity hit to make people use alternatives. (Still, this may be an opton for some people in your office who don't do hard core graphics and layout)

After you are sure all your PC's are 100 legit, don't forget to seek advice about locking down the system so as employees cannot install their own 'versions' and land you in trouble.

[Maejo Man]

When you say basically tons of companies I say bullocks to that and to your story.

After being here for years and years, I have heard the same story 1,000 times.

OK smart arse, check the link for the million baht fines, and an apology might be in order!!

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Software-Pol...es-t311892.html

[Loaded]

Yup, I know a couple of design businesses which were fined and a printer - the rest are all rumours at this point. What happened was the software association and a unit from the police in BKK came up for one week. They apparently gave many businesses a month's notice to purchase software licences, but I didn't receive notice for my company, hence the panic. At the end of the day if we don't buy the licences then we are breaking the law, so we have this morning decided to bite the bullet and buy all the licenced softwares for our office...it was wrong of me not to have it all fully licenced in the first place, but frankly it is really really really expensive and I can't see how everyone can afford it. Still, for peace of mind, I am glad we decided to do the right thing...and it is a lesson to myself to not take such illegal shortcuts. After all, I write about ethics in my magazine and I broke the law myself. So I am glad we decided to put it right. Even though the staff will not be getting a bonus this year! Apparently the unit has left Chiang Mai, but once again, rumours in the 'industry' (magazines, design companies, sign companies, media firms, etc.) are rife, and one doesn't know what to believe at this point.

Thanks for the heads up P.

I would imagine there are very very few SMEs without at least one piece of illegally downloaded software.

[Ulysses G.]

Contrary to many reports here, freeware would not work for my needs. I ended up buying legit Microsoft software through gritted teeth.

[Sparkles]

This post has been around approx a couple weeks now ...... and I am sure has made a few of us a bit uneasy.

BUT..... does anyone know first hand of any place in or around CM that has been hit ???

Not in CM but they are doing Phuket over right now according to TV. Must have a big force.

What do these boys do when they are not having a crack down ????

[Gonzo the Face]

This post has been around approx a couple weeks now ...... and I am sure has made a few of us a bit uneasy.

BUT..... does anyone know first hand of any place in or around CM that has been hit ???

Not in CM but they are doing Phuket over right now according to TV. Must have a big force.

What do these boys do when they are not having a crack down ????

What do these boys do when they are not having a crack down ????

Why they "Crack Up"

Probably laughing their heads off about the unease they put into the community. It would be almost impossible to someone who has a computer and/or internet, not to have something that could be accused of being illegal.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

If you run Ubuntu you're pretty much guaranteed to be in the clear.. New version 9.10 is just out.

(Except possibly if staff manage to install some kind of virtualization software and run Windows inside it. )

Edited November 6, 2009 by WinnieTheKhwai

[BlackArtemis]

Just to let everyone know

that windows website win741 (I'm not gonna link it)

but if you can get a .edu mailing address, you can get windows 7 home or professional for $30 direct download.

200 Baht for a copied version or 950 Baht for a legit version, easy choice. So go get a college student to help out if needed!

[Tywais]

One of my PhD students informed me today that a large public school in Chiang Mai was hit with a 1.5 Million Baht fine from this. Sorry, can't remember the name of the school he mentioned as we continued discussing the ramifications.

[Maejo Man]

One of my PhD students informed me today that a large public school in Chiang Mai was hit with a 1.5 Million Baht fine from this. Sorry, can't remember the name of the school he mentioned as we continued discussing the ramifications.

I wonder where that rather rude Mr. Nio is now that mega fines are being handed out all over Thailand

[Gonzo the Face]

One of my PhD students informed me today that a large public school in Chiang Mai was hit with a 1.5 Million Baht fine from this. Sorry, can't remember the name of the school he mentioned as we continued discussing the ramifications.

I wonder where that rather rude Mr. Nio is now that mega fines are being handed out all over Thailand

.... Is that rude Mr. Nio or,,,, nud_e Mr. Rio

nud_e in the noodle