Sunday 30 March 2008

Flickr Takes Me Down

The Flickr account I use for posting images on Pattaya Rag went tits up last night (Saturday) so many of my archived posts are now without images. I've e-mailed Flickr to get it fixed but I don't expect much to happen today, Sunday!!!

As a quick fix, I've set up a new Flickr account for today's post so hopefully the images will show correctly.

 

 

Sierra Tangos 

  •  Marine 2 is absolutely buzzing by 2.30am and crammed full of quality freelancers, (is that an oxymoron?)

 

  • Champagne Go Go closed for 30 days by order of the document checkers

 

  • Golf club sports days start in the Pattaya area from April 1st so enjoy playing 5 star golf for even less

 

 

  • Portable iPod Video Enlarger And DVD Player - Let’s face the facts, the iPod doesn’t exactly come with the largest display in the world now, does it? Being a portable media player to boot, screen real estate is a very important criteria to consider if you plan to watch countless hours of video on it. portable-ipod-enlarger.jpg

This is the portable DVD player that integrates with 5th Generation video iPods, allowing you to watch iPod videos on a 8 1/2″, 16:9 widescreen LCD that is 2 3/4 times larger than the iPods screen. Using active matrix technology, the LCD can redraw images faster than typical LCD monitors, resulting in a sharper, more detailed resolution. An iPod slides into the front of the video player and is protected by a clear plastic cover, and the dual headphone jacks allow two people to use the video player without disturbing fellow travellers. The device has an AV port for output to a television, charges an iPod while in use, and has an on-screen menu display for quick set up. Rechargeable battery allows three hours of continuous DVD playback on a five-hour charge; four hours of iPod® video playback. Includes AC and DC adapters, carrying case, headphones, remote control, and a strap for attaching to a car headrest. Supports DVD, VCD, CDs, MP3 CDs, and iPod® video/music files. Hammacher is currently carrying this item for $269.95. [via Coolest Gadgets]

      
  • Microsoft launches improved desktop search for Windows XP and Vista

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For well over a decade, Microsoft has included a nearly useless search feature in Windows. Sure, you could type in a query and maybe even get an accurate response. But you might have to wait five minutes to get your results. Things changed with Windows Vista, which includes a nearly instantaneous desktop search function. Just type a query into the Start Menu search bar, and you should be able to find what you're looking for in a matter of seconds.

The desktop search feature in Vista is based on an application called Windows Search, and Microsoft has just released a preview of the next version of the utility. And best of all, Windows Search 4.0 Preview runs on either Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Aside from support for Windows XP, Windows Search 4.0 has a few other significant updates:

    • A number of bug fixes

    • Get your results 33% faster

    • Remote Index Discovery now works with every version of Windows, meaning you can index files on any Windows machine on your network

    • If an error occurs, Windows Search will rollback to your last known working state rather than starting the entire indexing process over again from scratch

    • Encrypted files can now be indexed

[via Download Squad]

 

  • 29% of Windows Vista crashes caused by NVIDIA drivers

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If you were an early adopter of Windows Vista, there's a pretty good chance you became familiar with one of Vista's coolest new features: an automatic crash reporting utility that will recommend solutions if and when they become available. Or to put it another way, if you tried running Windows Vista on many machines, there was a good chance your computer crashed. A lot. Even if the manufacturer had slapped a shiny new label proclaiming the computer to be "Vista Capable."

There's a class action suit working its way through the courts to determine whether Microsoft changed the definition of "capable" to help Intel sell computers chips. But some of the documents released in the case (PDF link) are interesting in their own right. For example, Microsoft has a chart that lists identified causes of Windows Vista crashes during an unspecified period in 2007.

The folks at Ars Technica took it upon themselves to convert that data into the pretty chart you see above. The number one culprit graphics chip maker NVIDIA, a company that had a difficult time updating its graphics drivers for the new operating system. Next up is Microsoft itself, and really there's no good excuse for that, is there?

 

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While Call Graph certainly isn't the only Skype plugin that lets you record calls for free, it is certainly one of the simplest to use. And it's free, which always helps. Here's how it works. You install Call Graph, and it will automatically record every call you make as a 128kbps MP3 file. You'll know it's working because a window will pop up letting you know the call is being recorded and asking if you want to stop the recording. You can also click the icon in the system tray to configure Call Graph so that it won't automatically record every call.
When a call ends, a window will pop up showing you a list of recent calls. You can play, rename, tag, or delete files from this window. There's also a search bar to find previous calls, which can come in handy as long as you've been diligent about adding tags.
Call Graph appears to be Windows only for now, and it's officially a public beta, although it seems to work pretty well. [via Download Squad]

 

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  • A father watched his young daughter playing in the garden on their Wyoming ranch. He smiled as he reflected on how sweet and pure his little girl was. He thought about her seeing the wonders of nature through such innocent eyes.

Suddenly she just stopped and stared at the ground. He went over to her to see what work of God had captured her attention. He noticed she was looking at two spiders mating.

'Daddy, what are those two spiders doing?' she asked.

'They're mating,' her father replied.

'What do you call the spider on top?' she asked.

'That's a Daddy Longlegs,' her father answered.

'So, the other one is a Mommy Longlegs?' the little girl asked.

As his heart soared with the joy of such a cute and innocent question, he replied 'No dear. Both of them are Daddy Longlegs.'

The little girl, looking a little puzzled, thought for a moment, then took her foot and stomped them flat and said, 'Well, we're not having any of that Brokeback-Mountain shit in our garden.'

 

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Friday 28 March 2008

Bangkok International Motor Show

The Bangkok International Motor Show runs from today through April 6 at Bitec, Bagna and TGDaily have already posted shots of booth babes on their site. A couple of samples follow but click on the link above if you want to see more:

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Sierra Tangos 

  • Pattaya City Hall confirmed today that Songkran in Pattaya will be on April 19. Beach Road will be closed for most of the day. [via Pattaya City News] Ed. If only this was all there is to it. Expect soakings in daylight hours from April 14 - 18 in Pattaya as a build up to the main event on April 19th. Don't try to drive anywhere in the inner city on April 19th as the city will be just one big gridlock of pick-up trucks loaded with water wasters.

 

  • Pregnant Thai woman and Thai boyfriend arrested for murder of 65 year old Finn [via Pattaya Daily News]

 

  • Three Thai airlines, currently operating out of Don Mueang airport, are preparing to transfer their domestic services back to Suvarnabhumi International Airport. National carrier THAI Airways is prepared to return, in support of their single airport policy for the benefit of customers. Budget carriers Nok Air and Orient Thai are also planning a return. [via eTravelBlackboard]

 

 

  • Completely Uninstall Programs with AppCleaner [Featured Mac Download]

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Mac OS X only: Freeware application AppCleaner completely uninstall's applications from your Mac. As most of us know, the process of "uninstalling" applications on the Mac is generally as simple as trashing the application, but many programs leave behind settings and other small files that continue to take up space on your hard drive. AppCleaner identifies these files and takes them down with the application they belong to. To use it, you can either drag and drop the app you want to uninstall onto AppCleaner or click the tabs to select what you want to uninstall from the list of apps, widgets, or plug-ins AppCleaner finds. [via Lifehacker]

 

  • Web based Photoshop Express launches - As expected, Adobe has officially entered the World of online applications. Adobe is known best for their desktop software like their photo editing solutions (Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Elements, etc.), and so it makes sense that their first web-based application is a basic version of Photoshop called Photoshop Express. It has launched into beta and anybody can go give it a try and sign-up for a free account. Photoshop Express isn’t just about editing photos online, they’ve also made it a place where users can store their photos and share them with others.

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We decided to test-drive Photoshop Express and overall, we were pleasantly surprised at what it offers.  One of the first things we did was select a personal sharing URL. If you sign-up for an account you will get to pick a sharing URL so that you can easily give it out to friends and family to view your photos.  For example, your personal sharing URL would be something like http://yourname.photoshop.com. Adobe gives each registered user 2GB of space that they can use however they please.

When uploading photos, by default they will be uploaded to your main library. You can also photoshop-express-editing-tools-thumb.jpghave them uploaded to a new album or an existing one.  We uploaded a 2.1 MB file which is a pretty typical photo size and it uploaded within just a few seconds. Once it was uploaded we decided to put the editing tools to the test. Editing tools fall under one of three categories, the Basics, Tuning, and Effects. Here’s a quick run-down of what you’ll be able to do in each category:

    • Basics: crop and rotate, auto correct, fix exposure, red-eye removal, touch-up, saturation
    • Tuning: white balance, highlight, fill light, sharpen, soft focus
    • Effects: pop colour, hue, black and white, tint, sketch, distort

Each of the different tools that are offered are very easy to use. And if you apply an effect or make a change that you don’t like, you can easily have it removed by clicking “reset all” which takes your photo back to the original state. Once you’ve made all of the changes that you want, you just click save and all of your editing will be saved. The only downside we noticed is that saving a photo seems to take a few minutes.

With all kinds of free online photo editing solutions available, Adobe knew they needed to jump on the bandwagon. Given that Photoshop Express is their first entrance into online web applications, they’ve done a great job. We’re still partial to Picnik and the interface that they’ve developed, but Photoshop Express is a great tool for online photo editing as well.It’s impossible to cover all that it offers, so go check it out for yourself and let us know what you think! Just note that you must have Adobe Flash 9 installed, otherwise it won’t work. If you don’t have it installed, you’ll be prompted to once you visit the site. [via CyberNet]

 

  •  New Firefox Add-Ons Site Launches - Mozilla has just launched their new Firefox Add-ons site that shows off a sparkling and freshly revamped interface.

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The thing that I like the most is that the add-ons in the Sandbox are actually shown with the search results regardless of whether you are logged in. They are labelled as “experimental” add-ons if they are in the Sandbox, and if you want to install them you’ll still need to login. At least users will know that the add-ons exist which was a big complaint of the extension developers that I had talked to before. It was almost discouraging for developers to create extensions since they weren’t widely available to the public right away. [via CyberNet]

 

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  • This guy owns a horse stud farm and gets a call from a friend. "I know this midget with a speech impediment who wants to buy a horse. I'm sending him over." The midget arrives, and the owner asks if he wants a male or female horse. "A female horth," the midget replies. So the owner shows him one. "Nith looking horth, can I thee her mouth?" So the owner picks up the midget and shows him the horse's mouth. "Nith mouth. Can I thee her eyesth?" So the owner picks up the midget and shows the eyes. "Ok, what about her earth?" Now the owner is getting pissed, but he picks up the midget one more time and shows the ears. "OK, finally, I'd like to thee her twat." With that, the owner picks up the midget and shoves his head up the horse's canal then pulls him out. Shaking his head, the midget says, "perhapth I should rephwase. I'd wike to thee her run!"

 

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Thursday 27 March 2008

More Good News For Thai Property Sector

The rights of condominium buyers will be protected under an amended Condominium Act that will take effect on July 4, according to the Lands Department.

Surasith Sahasthamrangsee, the director of the department's Real Estate Promotion Office, said the new law clarified many issues that had been disputed between developers and unit buyers.

It makes developers accountable for claims made in their advertisements and imposes fines of 50,000 to 100,000 Baht for violations. [via Bangkok Post]

 

 Sierra Tangos

 

 

  • Business people complain about closing times for entertainment venues [via Pattaya City News]

 

  • Pattaya City Council, on its last general meeting in the term of the current Pattaya mayor, on March 26 2008, proposed extending the operating hours of entertainment venues from 2 to 4 am. The proposal will be forwarded to Ministry of the Interior for consideration. [via Pattaya Daily News] Ed. Don't hold your breath.....

 

  • Practice what we preach, not what we do - When Thailand faced the financial crisis in 1997, the US told Thailand not to bail out the failed banks because it would create a moral hazard. The central bank must not provide unlimited support to the weak banks and finance companies because the cost of the financial restructuring would bankrupt the country's fiscal position. Thailand must not delay the strengthening process of the banking standard. It must not protect the financial services sector from foreign participation. Now the US is doing exactly the same thing that it told Thailand not to do 10 years ago. [via The Nation

 

  • Sick and tired of getting ripped off by local hospitals then try iMedix for a second opinion - iMedix is a medical search engine social networking community for patients. Here you can quickly lookup information for almost any medical condition from top health sources across the web. It also offers an easy way to discover people dealing with the same health problems. Read more: iMedix - Health Search Engine Social Network for Patients.

 

  • ZipInstaller lets you install Windows apps without an installer

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We love executable Windows apps that don't need to be installed. They don't muck up you registry and other settings, and when you want to delete them, you just delete the file or folder, no add/remove programs dialog required. Best of all, most of these applications can be run from a USB flash drive which means you can carry them with you and run them on any computer.
But there are a few advantages to having an installer. First, if an application isn't listed in the add/remove program dialog and you don't use it very often, you might forget it's there at all and never get around to deleting it. Second, you have to create folders for all of your executable applications and add shortcuts to the Windows start menu manually. Or you could use ZipInstaller.
This little executable will automatically move any executable file to the folder of your choice, add an entry to add/remove, create an uninstaller application, and add a shortcut to your start menu. Best of all? ZipInstaller comes as an executable file, so we were able to test it out by installing ZipInstaller.  [via Download Squad]

   
  • Customize Google Add-On For Firefox - the Customize Google Firefox add-on has been making some huge leaps in the last year and it’s time to take another look at it. The basic use of this add-on for Firefox is to customize your Google experience in a variety of key areas like security and search. The options of the extension are divided into different categories that refer to a distinct Google service like Gmail or Google Video which each contain options related to the service.

Taking Gmail as an example you can remove the ads, make it always load using the https protocol and hide the invite and quick contacts box. The Web search can be customized in particular which is probably the most used Google service. Users can add Google Suggest to the main search box just like the one in the Firefox toolbar, add a wide range of links to other services, display favicons and more.

What I really like are the security and privacy settings. You can anonymise the Google cookie UID which is used to build a comprehensive search profile and prevent that cookies are send to Google Analytics which is used by websites to track their visitors.

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The preferences entry makes it possible to set several search preferences like number of search results per page and the default search language and interface. [via gHacks]

 

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  • Amara Feather, Thai cutie at Girls Of Desire  (Ed. she looks like my golf caddie)

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  • Lady Mucca's already spent her settlement

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  • Flynn staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy.  He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Mary.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step.  As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump.  A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.

Managing not to yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding.  He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.  He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning, Flynn woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Mary staring at him from across the room.

She said, 'You were drunk again last night weren't you?'

Flynn said, 'Why you say such a mean thing?'

'Well,' Mary said, 'it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly.....it's all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.

 

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Wednesday 26 March 2008

Stimulus Package For Thai Property Sector

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mr Surapong Suebwonglee gave a lecture under the title “The Government’s policies and the Real Estate Sector for the Betterment of Thailand’s Economy in 2008” on Wednesday morning.

During his speech, Mr Surapong expressed confidence that several policies to be implemented by the government will boost the country’s overall GDP growth by another 0.2-0.3 per cent on top of the initial forecast of 5.5 per cent for 2008. [via Bangkok Post]



Sierra Tangos

  • The cabinet yesterday agreed to extend the Songkran holiday period from four to five days,songkaran-water-fight.jpg April 12 - 16

Pattaya's Songkran seems to be scheduled after the official Songkran to lure people down from Bangkok for the extended festivities. My guess is Pattaya's Songkran will probably be daylight water chucking from April 14 - 17 with full on, round the clock soakings on April 18 and April 19. To be confirmed but you have been warned!!!!!



  • 130653 posted on Pattaya Secrets Forum today that a farang in Jomtien Immigration Office was told by the officer on Desk 3, "next time you come in here you wear a proper shirt". Two minutes later the officer manning Desk 8 for Retirement Visas told a farang to go away and get a shirt on. The farang returned 20 mins later wearing a shirt.

The good news is this post generated 3 pages of comments and without exception, every post supported the actions of the Immigration Officers. If you've been a long time reader of Pattaya Rag you will know that 'farangs without shirts' in malls, supermarkets, bowling alleys etc etc etc gets right up my nose. Why can't they do themselves and the rest of us a favour and put a fucking shirt on. Read my lips, I don't wanna see your tits.


  • Switzerland to Thailand, drop dead - On February 25, 2008, the Swiss government wrote a letter (copy here) to the Thai government, objecting to the use of compulsory licenses to obtain affordable cancer drugs in Thailand. The Swiss actions are closely coordinated with actions of the European Commission and the United States government. It is particularly appalling to us that Switzerland, one of the highest income countries in the world, would pressure Thailand on this issue after having promised, in 2001, that developing countries could use compulsory licenses to promote access to all. [via Lames Love @ HuffPo]


  • Tooltip information for most file types:

AudioShell adds a comprehensive tooltip to the following audio file types: mp3s (all ID3v2 tag versions), wma , asf and wmv, Apple iTunes aac (m4a and m4p) and mp4 files, ogg and flac (vorbis comment tags), mpc, mp+, monkey’s audio, wav pack, optim frog (APE and APEv2 tags), and wav. (Look at the following screenshot to see Audioshell in action).

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As an added bonus it also installs a handy tag editor to your audio files’ right click properties (see screenshot below), which is really cool.

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Thumbview will (a) enable thumbnail previews for a wide range of image file types that Windows natively lacks, and (b) create informational tooltips for these. There are a total of 19 image types in question: CUT, DCX, DDS, MDL, MNG, PCD, PCX, PIC, PIX, PNG, PNM/PBM/PGM/PPM, PSD/PDD, PSP, PXR, SGI/RGB, TGA/VDA/ICB/VST, TIF/TIFF, WAL and XPM.

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[via freewaregenius]


  • Sneak shots of Keeley Hazell topless in TotallyCrap. Mama mia!!!

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  • What's George Michael and a welly got in common?
    They both get sucked off in bogs

  • Two poofs were having a piss in the toilet and one notices the other has a nicotine patch on his dick. "Does it work?" he asks. "Yes" replies the other, "I'm down to two butts a day now".

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Tuesday 25 March 2008

Pattaya Mayoral Elections - May 4

The official date for the upcoming mayoral election in Pattaya has been announced as Sunday 4 May. At a pre-election meeting held at City Hall on Tuesday morning Khun Niran, the outgoing Mayor of Pattaya, said he would be stepping down officially from his duties as of Wednesday 26 March. In the run-up to the election his senior adviser Khun Itipon, one of the three current candidates for mayor, will take up pre-mayoral duties.

No word yet if there will restrictions on alcohol sales on May 3rd or 4th.

 

 

 Sierra Tangos 

  • From today, (Tuesday), Insomnia will open from 10.00pm with a special promotion to 1.00am of buy 1 drink get 1 free

 

 

  • Motorists have been warned that they have until May 8 to get used to the idea of not talking on their mobile phone while driving. [via Bangkok Post]

 

  • Iraq by Numbers
    • The number of US soldiers killed in the conflict: 4,000
    • The number of direct relatives of the neocons who conceived the war killed in the conflict: 0

It's very easy to be in favour of a war that brings you huge profits and in which other people's children do the dying. [via Neil Clark]

     
  • The US on Tuesday launched Asia's first avian influenza combat depot in Thailand to supply emergency kits to fight new outbreaks in the region of the H5N1 virus that has killed at least 235 people worldwide. "The Regional Distribution Centre in Thailand, the first of three regional supply centres that are being established worldwide, will help ensure countries in Asia will be able to take fast action to counter avian influenza without endangering the lives of the rapid-response teams," said US Ambassador to Thailand Eric John. [via EarthTimes

 

  • RockPod optimises videos for your iPod, PDA, PSP or Zune

There are probably hundreds of programs that let you convert video files from one format to another. RockPod 08 Lite is another one of them, but it has a few features which make it an ideal choice for anyone looking to cram a few videos on their mobile device.

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First of all, RockPod features profiles for common mobile devices like iPods, PDAs, Zunes, PSPs, iPhones, and the Eee PC. The last one's a bit silly since the Eee PC is basically a small computer which can handle any video, but all of these settings are kind of arbitrary. Essentially the RockPod developers picked video resolutions and codecs that they thought would work well on each device.

Second, instead of wading through a series of menus to choose the frame rate, bit rate, and other settings, RockPod lets you pick a file size. That's it. Want the finished video to be 64MB or 768MB? Just choose your preferred file size from the drop down menu and RockPod will do the rest. Obviously the larger your file, the higher quality the audio and video will be.  [via Downloadsquad]

         
  • Speed up file Copy’n Paste with Piky Basket - As much as I like Windows XP, I am constantly aware of its severe limitations. I realised this when I installed Teracopy to replace the standard Windows moving & copying function and it shot out the gate like a bat out of hell.

Piky Basket is something similar although it isn’t a software program. It is a shell extension which integrates itself into your Windows Explorer right-click menu. But where Teracopy is best suited for large-sized files being moved between drives, Piky Basket is more for your standard day-to-day folder maintenance, when you’re cleaning things up and generally staying organized.

When you want to copy a file and move it to another Windows folder, the normal way to do it is to right-click on the file, choose “copy” then go to the target folder, right-click again, choose “insert” then your copied file appears. That’s fine and easy if it’s only one or two files. But what if you have one hundred files to copy, spread out over say fifty folders? How long do you think it will take to copy them all individually then move them to a new folder individually on the PC? Plus it’s pretty tedious going backwards and forwards right?

That’s where the free Piky Basket comes in.

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After installing Piky, you’ll notice it now living in your Windows Explorer right-click menu.

Now let’s take the above scenario and do it the Piky way. You would quickly go through your fifty folders, right-clicking on the files you want copied and “drop them in the basket”. If you look at the screenshot, you’ll see “empty basket (0)”. Well when you start dropping files in the basket, that will start to add up so you can see at all times how many files you have in the “basket” so you can keep count.

When all the files are in there, go to the target folder. Now if your intention is to move the original files to that folder, right-click in the target folder and choose “move all”. All the files will now be moved from the original folder(s) to the target folder. If your intention is to copy all the files to the target folder, choose “copy all” and copies will be inserted into the target folder (leaving the originals where they are). It doesn’t matter how many folders the originals are spread out over - Piky remembers.

But if you look closely at the screenshot, there are two other options that Piky provides :

    1. Copy Paths to Clipboard : by right-clicking on a file and choosing “copy paths to clipboard”, Piky will give you the exact location of your file in your PC so you can paste it into a text box, word document or email. So for example : J:\Documents\Writing\Story ideas\writingproject1.doc

    2. Command Prompt Here : selecting this option launches a command prompt window in Explorer from that folder.

It would be nice if Microsoft would buy these tools from the companies and integrate them into the next Windows operating system as default features - instead of the inferior tools we have now! [via MakeUseOf]

 

 

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  • The kindergarten class had settled down to its colouring books. Willie came up to the teacher's desk and said, "Miss Francis, I ain't got no crayons." "Willie," Miss Francis said, "you mean, "I don't have any crayons.' You don't have any crayons. We don't have any crayons. They don't have any crayons. Do you see what I'm getting at?" "Not really," Willie said, "and what happened to all them fuckin' crayons?" 
       
  • Pattaya monger's problem

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Monday 24 March 2008

Up There With The Tsunami Warning System

The Thai police will hand out whistles to female tourists after the latest in a long series of periodic sexual assaults and killings on beaches and elsewhere in the country, officials said.

"We will issue the whistles first in risky areas such as beaches, valleys, mountains, national parks, waterfalls and other risky spots," Choochart Suwannakom, commander of the national Tourist Police, said in an interview last week.

While Thailand is generally safe for foreigners, recent sexual assaults and killings of foreign tourists have prompted embassies to issue warnings and have led to fears among Thai officials that the country's attractiveness as a tourist destination could suffer. Tourism is the biggest earner of foreign exchange for Thailand, bringing in more than $16 billion last year, accounting for as much as 6 percent of gross domestic product and generating the most jobs of any industry. [via Herald Tribune]

 

 

Sierra Tangos 

  • Pattaya is to get it's very own beer garden  The location is just before the beginning of Walking Street on Beach Rd, behind the Siren Beer Bar complex. [photo by PattayaPete]

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  • The Meteorological Department Monday warned residents of 15 provinces to brace themselves for possible tropical and hail storms. The department said the storms could happen in Uttaradit, Phitsanulok, Phetchabun, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Mahasarakham, Roi Et, Ubon Ratchathani, Surin, Nakhon Ratchasima, Saraburi, Lop Buri, Prachin Buri, Chachoengsao and Chanthaburi. [via The Nation]

 

  • I had a wander round the bars in Jomtien Complex today and the girls were all country. The real surprise was the Bt300 room, Bt1,000 for company rates which seemed pretty standard throughout the Complex. I expected it to be cheaper than say Soi 6 not more expensive, particularly with the limited quality on offer.

 

 

  • ICT to ‘hack & crack' foreign websites offensive to Thai supreme institution. A reader, PistonPilot, put me on to this one which I missed. It smacks of government sanctioned 'hacking' which is bad enough but to go public with idea is just asking for trouble. [via Prachatai]

 

  • In the very early hours of Monday morning special officers charged with enforcing Copyright Laws raided Tony’s Discotheque on Walking Street and allegedly discovered 259 copy CD’s. The officers arrested the DJ and impounded a DVD player and amplifier and took him and the alleged evidence to the Soi 9 station. [via Pattaya City News

 

  • Quick Folder Access with Direct Folders  - Every Windows user browses for folders regularly, be it to save files in specific folders or to load files from folders. Windows itself offers no way of saving often used folders as favourites so that they can be accessed with just a click.

Direct Folders adds a double-click menu that gives the user access to folders, files and recent documents that he has added to the application before. The system is so simple that I would call it brilliant. A double-click opens the Direct Folders menu when you are in Windows Explorer, Windows desktop or a file browsing dialog (like Save or Load) and opens a folder or file with just another click.

Several items can be added to the menu. First of all direct access to folders and files can be added on the main level. Separators can be used to visualize folder categories or add a break between folders and files. Last but not least subfolders can be created that add another level to the menu meaning in return that you need another action to access the folders or files contained within.

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Several other file related settings can be changed in Direct Folder. The default size of the file dialogs windows can be changed to an appropriate size as well as the default viewing mode (Thumbnails, Icons, Details, Tiles and List), the sort order (Name, Size, Type and Date) and if it should be ascending or descending.

The folder and file favourites as well as the recent documents can also be accessed by shortcuts. The default shortcuts are Windows Q for the Favourites and Windows W for the recent documents.

A pro version is available as well which adds several new functions like information about the size of a drive, the ability to set default folders for any application and an option to customize folder icons. [via gHacks]

 

  • Copy large files using freeware TeraCopy (XP and Vista)

With iTunes libraries, photo collections, and video files taking up more and more space on our cheaper and cheaper disk drives, we can all use some better file copy tools than Windows provides out of the box. The freeware (yea!) TeraCopy application makes copying large files and large numbers of files a breeze for Windows users.

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For power users and especially system administrators, a Pro version of the software adds some features for a small price. What does it do that File Explorer doesn’t? Have you ever left a large number of files to be copied to a USB drive perhaps to go do something else, only to find an annoying Explorer prompt for one file has stopped the entire copy?

Nice huh! Or, have you ever started a copy and then needed to do some work such as check email or run Word? Competing against a large copy can mean sacrificing the snappy response you need to get your real work done. TeraCopy to the rescue! Need these features? Yes, you do:

Pause and resume file copy. For me this pays for the trouble of installing an app that basically adds bells and whistles to what Windows already gives me.

Error recovery, continue file copy. TeraCopy can continue to copy files when one file has an issue. I don’t know about you but I often copy entire directories, and it’s annoying to have to sit and monitor the copy progress in case a file already exists on the target, and Windows wants to know what to do about it. Or as sometimes happens one of the files has a problem that prevents Explorer from reading it properly, which stops the entire group from being copied. TeraCopy can be set to handle these scenarios with one of several options, and can continue with the rest of the files.

Check target file accuracy. TeraCopy can run a check on the copied files against the source files to ensure accuracy.

Fast file copying. TeraCopy claims its technology can reduce copy times.

While TeraCopy has features to make large copy tasks a breeze, the application GUI itself, is no breeze for less experienced users. So go to Online Tech Tips for a simple How-To for TeraCopying.

 

  • Natalia Cruz at Kindgirls - Picture 10 has a sort of wankable quality about it....

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  • Argentinian babe Evangelina Anderson at DailyPOA

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  • Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Archangel Michael found him on the seventh day resting. He enquired of God, 'Where have you been?' God pointed downwards through the clouds. 'Look Michael, look what I've made' said God.

    Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, 'What is it?'
     
    'It's a planet,' replied God, 'and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance.'

    'Balance?' inquired Michael, still confused.
     
    God explained, pointing down to different parts of the Earth, 'For example, North America will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while South America is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot, and Russia will be a cold spot, over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people.' God continued, pointing to the different countries, this one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.'

    The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to another area of land and asked, 'What's that?'

    'Ah,' said God. That's the North of England, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful people. Seven Premiership football teams in the North West alone, and many impressive cities, it is the home of the world's finest artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, explorers and politicians. The people from the North of England are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they'll be found travelling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard-working and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as speakers of truth.'

    Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, 'What about balance God, you said there will be BALANCE!'

    God replied very wisely,
     
    'Wait till you see the bunch of tossers I'm putting down South!' 

 

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Saturday 22 March 2008

Check Your Personality At Thai Immigration

There is a recurring theme in Thai blogs and forums that's starting to wear me down. It's posts by 'hansum' young farang men detailing their successes with Thai ladies with the standard kicker that it was all for luv. No fee.

It got me to thinking about these guys and my initial thoughts were that they probably had similar success with their countrywomen before relocating to Thailand. Then the light bulb went on. All a Thai girl wants from a guy is he looks good, (reverse arm candy for her friends), is toilet trained and screws good. That's it. Personality, which is a must have in the West, doesn't count for much with Thai girls.

Now I'm not saying all handsum young men making these posts are lacking in personality but the content of their posts has me leaning in that direction. So maybe they weren't accustomed to success with the ladies before Thailand and that's why they're on their feckin' soapbox every week telling the world about it.

Now I realise this is a fairly contentious post, particularly as I'm closer to a bus pass than a free shag so I'd hate anybody to think I was jealous. I mean, that's just ridiculous.

Comments welcome!!!!!   

 

 Sierra Tangos

 

  • Marine 2 and Tony's Europa Club (something like that anyway) are still servicing the late night crowd.

 

  •  Catz Go Go girls by Hilly

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  • Shooters Jay Todd's Cherry Boy Party - 8.00pm, Monday, March 23rd. Free food, all welcome

 

  • New Secrets Sunday format - the new format is Secrets Super Sundays where there is a free Sunday buffet and lots of lovely girls and great rock and roll music. Fun starts 1pm each and every Sunday
     
  • Club Blu have launched their own web site

 

  • The Chinese stretch of a trans-national highway linking Kunming city in the southwest Yunnan Province with the Thai capital of Bangkok was completed on Friday, marking progress in a land link from China to Southeast Asia. [via People's Daily

 

  • ESET Sysinspector Computer Analysis - ESET, the creators of the NOD32 antivirus software, is one of my favourite security companies so it’s only fitting that I spread the word about this new app.

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ESET SysInspector is completely free and requires no installation to start using it. What’s really nice is that it brings up the interface seen above so that you can analyse the services, registry entries, and running processes on your computer. It’s a great tool for finding out details about your PC that you may not have otherwise known.

Using the Items Filtering slider along the top portion of the interface you can narrow down items on your computer according the the risk they pose. If you put the slider somewhere towards the middle it will show the items on your computer that the application is unfamiliar with. If you take the slider all the way over into the red only the “risky” items will be shown.

One thing that I want to point out is that this is a read-only application. By that I mean you can’t remove registry settings or delete files from within this interface, but you can right-click on an entry to open the file/registry location in an external program. Also from the right-click context menu you can perform an online Google search of a file or registry entry in your default browser.

This is definitely something you should throw on your USB drive for those times you have to clean up a PC.  [via Cybernet]

 

 

  •  Easily download and convert Internet videos using Mux - Web videos are extremely addictive. Viewing some of the funniest moments captured on camera can last for hours of fun. Whether you are cruising through YouTube or Google videos, there are times you wish you could download them for later viewing.

Although numerous services and applications offer you easy tools to download videos or share with others, they fall short. Being able to watch these hilarious videos offline requires a tool that works well. Thankfully, there are more and more services that are trying to give us what we desire.

Mux is a convenient little online tool that will let users download favourite Internet videos and share them with others or for offline viewing. It will also easily allow you to convert these videos into a file format of your choice. Once this is done, you’ll even have the option of sending them to mobile devices for on the go access. Compared to other applications or services that convert and download video, Mux stands out by taking it to a higher level.

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The first step involves you downloading your chosen video from available Internet websites. Quickly copy and paste the video link into the Mux website. After doing this, Mux will download the video and then convert it to a format you choose. If you already have video files saved on your computer, the service will let you upload and convert them as well. Some of the available file formats are Windows Media video, MOV, AVI, Divx and several others. Users can also convert videos for their viewing pleasure on an iPhone or iPod.

Sharing your favourite Internet videos with friends and family members can be done simply by selecting the share video link. Mux takes care of all of the hard work. You won’t have to worry about “jumping through hoops” to let others enjoy the same videos you love. This great little service patiently uploads and converts your video files without a complicated process. The hardest part of using this service is to decide which videos to start with.

Mux can conveniently take your favourite Internet movies and videos and convert them for a smartphone or mobile device. This is a handy feature when you are always on the go, but still want to enjoy these videos. Just provide Mux with the video link and then choose the mobile format of your choice. For mobile phones, identify your wireless phone carrier and then input your phone number. As soon as the video is ready, the service will automatically send a text message to your mobile phone. Click the download link to get the video onto your device.

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The best reason for using Mux is the easy to convert process. Many websites offer free downloading links for Internet videos, but they don’t allow you to easily convert the files to multiple formats. Internet video junkies will be happy to know that Mux is totally free of charge. After a few uses, you’ll notice how hassle free the service is. Now, you can start spending more time finding awesome Internet videos and then convert them for some offline entertainment. Keep in mind that this service is not the fastest converter on the web and it can’t handle files 30 megabytes or larger, but it is still an impressive tool. [via Online Tech Tips]

 

  •  YouPorn vid of 2 Japanese girls getting screwed while playing with a Wii. Expect sales of the Wii to stiffen....

 

  • Playboy on a nostalgia trip for when a  bushy.jpg was a bushy.jpg 

 

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  • I took my Uncle to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes. We decided to grab a bite at the food court. I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him. The teenager had spiked hair in all different colours: green, red, orange, and blue.My Uncle kept staring at him. The teenager would look and find him staring every time.  When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically asked,  'What's the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?'  Knowing my Uncle, I quickly swallowed my food so that I would not choke on his response. My uncle did not bat an eye in his response, 'Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock. I was just wondering if you were my son.'

 

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