Hi there
this is my new place for a blog and some other info pages for you all out there ..
I live most Winters for some month in Thailand and here I want to share some experiences with you, which may help you having an easier time here … it is mostly for people who spend over four month here a year ..
Btw I have a Motorcycle In Thailand info page at my website under https://www.kalka.org/thailand/motorcycle
Shopping
While most people think Thailand is a shopping paradise, it is actually quite the opposite. In Europe and the States I am an Amazon junkie, here you will have a hard time getting good things. For example a coffee machine that cost 350$ in Germany cost about 1100$ here. The same model and this is just one of many examples. Taxes reach from 100-600% .. Do not even try to get proper high end laptops or computers here, they won't sell. Better to find people who bring you this stuff from the States. There is nearly no chance to get a modern good dishwasher here and for a Tempur mattress that cost 2000$ in Germany they asked me 5800$. Yes you can buy a lot of cheap junk and some nice cheap clothes .. and amazing food …
Btw bring cash or use N26, I love this bank . (http://www.n26.com) they are the only ones who do not charge when you pay with their credit card and give you a great exchange rate … ATMs here charge 220bath extra and max you can get is 30k bath .. most credit cards charge 1.7% exchange rate .. good exchange place is Superrich (https://www.superrichthailand.com/#!/en)
A note Thailand sellers love to invent prices and write (1000$) now 300$ you save 700$ or 70% while it costs probably 150$ at Amazon ….
Online Shopping is about 5-10 years behind Europe, I think more 10 …
Cheaper in Thailand
Some links
Price compare pages
http://th.priceprice.com, https://ipricethailand.com/ and https://www.priceza.com/ all pretty crap but better then none.
https://www.lazada.co.th/ - General Shopping
http://www.powerbuy.co.th/en/ - Electronics
https://www.jib.co.th - Computer Store
http://shoponline.bananastore.com/ - Computer Store
http://www.jetcom.co.th - Computer Store (Only decent Intel NUC reseller in Thailand)
http://www.kaidee.com/ - Crappy but not many alternatives
https://www.homepro.co.th/?lang=en - Home Pro Hardware Store
http://mrdiy.co.th/ - Mr. D.I.Y. Hardware Store
http://www.thaiwatsadu.com/index.html - Thai Watsadu - Hardware Store
https://www.robinson.co.th/ - General Store
Food
http://foodland.co.th/ - Open 24/7 :)
http://www.villamarket.com/ - Good Food
https://www.bigc.co.th - BigC
https://shoponline.tescolotus.com - Tesco Lotus
http://www.tops.co.th/en/ - Tops
Most malls have a cinema on top and a deli somewhere, prices are pretty steep but often you will get original stuff. A full list is at wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shopping_malls_in_Bangkok
https://www.emporium.co.th/ - Emporium
https://www.emquartier.co.th/ - Em Quartier (Has a great restaurant Area
http://www.centralworld.co.th/index.php - Central World
http://www.siamparagon.co.th/ - Siam Paragon
http://www.central.co.th/en/ - Central
https://www.futurepark.co.th/th/home/ - Future Park Rangsit
http://www.theeramusic.com/ - Importer of many brands
https://th.iherb.com/ - Vitamins, Protein etc … 10-14 days delivery
There are things you can't get in Thailand ..
Mostly it is modern and sophisticated stuff that is really hard or impossible to get here..
Had to fix a broken Exchange 2007 and move it to a newer version thought I share my experience, it may help you to setup your exchange properly with certificates and outlook anywhere access with no cert warnings etc …
Please do NOT use any Exchange older then 2010 … old software often belongs in the trash not running on productive servers.
Setup your exchange according to your needs.
Now you want to activate outlook anywhere and setup access from outside your office over ssl. Here is a good documentation .. (and there are soo many crappy ones out there).
Do not follow their advice on ssl certificates, do not use wildcard and other stuff .. just read the link below. Good SSL certs are free these days.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1144571-wildcard-ssl-cert-on-exchange
Now you need to setup the IIS with a proper certificate .. please STOP buying SSL certs, it is wasted money. Support Let's Encrypt. (https://letsencrypt.org/)
Here is a client for windows which runs great.
https://github.com/Lone-Coder/letsencrypt-win-simple/wiki/How-to-Run it will generate your certificate for your exchange.company.com for three month and renew it when needed.
https://weblog.west-wind.com/posts/2016/feb/22/using-lets-encrypt-with-iis-on-windows for those who need a better manual ..
Now just configure outlook to use a ssl http proxy all the time and your are set. Easy and clean.
A friend of mine asked me to show him how to use encryption for his mail and webserver, so I wrote this page for him, maybe you find some info useful too
Install OpenSLL
then enter
openssl req -out certificate.csr -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout certprivate.key
this will create a private key and a certificate request, that you can use to buy SSL certificates.
if you buy a ssl key you will need send the SSL provider your csr file and get some files back from them. My SLL provider send me linux_cert+ca.pem, linux_cert+ca.pem, and certificate_company.txt An intermediate certificate authority (CA) is an entity that can sign certificates on behalf of the root CA. The root CA signs the intermediate certificate, forming a chain of trust.
Here is a link how to convert the different certificate formats. https://myonlineusb.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/how-to-convert-certificates-between-pem-der-p7bpkcs7-pfxpkcs12/
To use SLL/TSL in
Add in /etc/postfix/main.cf
# TLS parameters
smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/linux_cert+ca.pem
smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/certprivate.key
smtpd_use_tls=yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache
smtp_tls_policy_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/tls_policy
smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1
smtpd_tls_received_header = yes
and in /etc/postfix/tls_policy
domain.xx encrypt .domain.xx encrypt
If you do not want to waste your money I recommend to use cert-bot https://certbot.eff.org/#debianstretch-apache, you will get free three month certificates and it is very easy to renew them.
Interesting article over Palantir a CIA-backed startup for future crime precognition … wth :( ..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/30/palantir-peter-thiel-cia-data-crime-police
Updating my photographing newbie guide, if you are new to photography check it out :) I think you find some useful information there ..
What do the German chancellor Merkel and the American president Trump have in common? Well the both sell weapons to one of the most horrible countries on this planet.
While most people agree that North Korea is a horrible place to be and nearly every country has sanctions against them, Saudi Arabian is treated with respect and as an equal business partner despite being same or worse.
The German government acts even against the German fundamental law that Germany is not allowed to sell weapons to war eager countries. Anyway it is probably one of the best governments money can buy .. ;) . .
Saudi Arabia is killing civilians in Yemen and the world watches somewhere else. Even the main press has issues telling about the war down there with few exceptions.
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-us-arms-2017-story.html
Just because the Saudis sit on a huge stock of oil makes them invulnerable, so that even the American president bows before them .. :( ..
After three weeks of running a fresh installed Windows Cortana and the SearchUI app are just crashing all the time. The event viewer whows .. Faulting application name: SearchUI.exe, version: 10.0.15063.332. After 4h trying to fix it with no success I found a better solution, remove Cortana by disabling it with the Group Policy Editor and installing Wox http://www.getwox.com/ :) ..
The one and only blog from Fefe @ http://blog.fefe.de/.
I bought a new Dell XPS 15 laptop three weeks ago in the states. After using macbooks pro for five years, I decided to go back to a Windows Laptop. Apple is just producing crap .. and I can not support this any more. Thew new macbook pro is a bad joke and a horrible piece of metal for any sophisticated computer user. Apart from no sdcard, no usb, no ESC or F1 keys etc ..
I was looking into other option with 32GB ram and 1TB SSD and was close to buying and MSI GS62VR but I really did not like the keyboard and touchscreen. Apart from that is the MSI is a great machine with better hardware then this Dell.
Back to the Dell. After removing the killer wifi software which came on it, the bluescreens stopped .. welcome to Windows. ..
The mouse under windows was lagging a lot sometimes but removing the Gforce Experience App solved that issue too.
After one week the display showed a grey area, which I complained to Dell and they promised me to replace the laptop two weeks ago but they have to transfer the warranty since I am in Europe for a while. Will update on this ..
Apart from this the machine is fast and convenient. Still the 1050 is a bit slow but I am not a gamer so it is fine for me. Lightroom is slow on 95% of the computers out today anyway.
may the force be with you, follow the white rabbit and .. there is no spoon .. cheers