World's Best Anti-Virus Just Got Better

Symantec Norton 360, 2008 edition, is the world's best and most popular anti-virus and Internet security software. It now uses 1/4 the amount of memory as previous editions and runs considerably faster as well.

I have used AVG Free Anti-Virus and got annoyed with the intrusive pop-up messages whenever it does an update. I would be typing something in Microsoft Word and then all of a sudden, my system starts beeping madly with each keystroke. Turns out AVG popped up a message saying it had done an update, press the OK button to continue. All my keystrokes that should have gone into Word instead went into the OK button, which beeped because they were the wrong keys. Arrgh! Why can't they just do the update and not tell me about it? It was so stupid and happened so often that I deleted AVG.

I have also used the free PC Tools Anti-Virus which has a "Smart Update" which is not very smart. It pops up a message in the right corner of the screen saying an update is available, but most of the message is immediately hidden by a Windows security message saying PC Tools is not up to date. The Windows message goes away after a few seconds, and about 1 second later, so does the PC Tools message. There is no time to click on it. Then the PC Tools icon stays grey, indicating that it is not up to date. Well, come on, you just told me the update was available, why didn't you download it? Instead, I have to open PC Tools, click on Update, watch the update window appear, click OK to download, then OK again to get rid of the damn thing. Not very smart, but you get what you pay for.

Worse, one day I did a full system scan with PC Tools and let it run in the background. When I checked it a couple of hours later, it had deleted over a hundred files that it said were infected with a virus. Now I know there is no virus because I scan frequently. I did a Google search on the error message and sure enough, it was a "false positive"; that is, PC Tools recognised something that was not actually a virus. The PC Tools web site said yes, they did a boo-boo, download the latest update, which I did, but it did not fix the error.

So I switched back to Norton. The 2008 edition is what it should have been 5 years ago. It runs fast, takes less memory, and has silent updates. Yes, you have to pay an annual subscription, and yes, it costs money to get started, but like I said before, you get what you pay for.

Free stuff is sometimes not worth the price.

More info at http://www.virus-protect.info Sphere: Related Content

An Amazing Young Woman

While wasting time browsing the Internet the other day, I came across the story of a young American woman named Holly Mann, who is an Iraqi war vet, and a single mother of a 3 year old boy. She's only 25 and lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

What's remarkable is that, after her service in Iraq, she was living in the US, pregnant and penniless, and decided to do something bold to change her life. For six months she read all she could about Internet Marketing, read about the scams, learned what successful marketers do, and after her baby was born, sold everything to pay for her airline ticket, and flew to Thailand. She had a small pension coming in from her Army service, and lived on that.

Within 4 months, however, she was bringing in over US$12,000 a month through her Internet Marketing efforts.

The story of how she did that makes fascinating reading. She bases her success on offering straight-up, honest ways to make money, no scams. She calls herself "Honest Holly" and has written a book called "Honest Riches" which is available here. If you've been thinking about trying to make some money on the side, you would be hard pressed to find a better mentor. Sphere: Related Content

High Fuel Prices and What To Do About It

With all the excitement over rising gasoline/petrol prices, I did a little research on using a water-based fuel cell. They are cheap and easy to build. Basically, they use electrolysis to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The unstable mixture is called Oxyhydrogen and has the chemical symbol HHO (as opposed to liquid water which is H2O). The gas is injected into the incoming air stream to the engine, which means that the efficiency of the engine improves. When HHO burns, it recombines back to water. This means that the pistons now have water in them, as well as gasoline. Does this damage the pistons? Apparently not. People report that the engine runs smoother, less pinging and knocking.

I have read reports from many people saying they got 50% or better gas mileage.

Since water is a lot cheaper than gasoline, this seems like an obvious way to go. One wonders why car manufacturers don't provide this as an option, or even as a permanent feature.

What does it cost? Less than $100, including the self-help instruction guide.

And how do you do it?

The equipment necessary is not complicated, basically a glass or plastic jar of a litre or so in volume, with electrolysis plates or coils inside, filled with water. You need electricity to make the electrolysis happen; this comes from the car battery. You also need a hose to connect from the top of the jar to the air intake of the motor. This feeds the gas into the engine.

I made a web site to talk about this in more detail. It's at
http://www.maximize-income.info/Water4Cars Sphere: Related Content

Why I Travel

Where the hell is Matt?

http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

If the video is jerky, press the pause button and let the buffer fill up, then press play again.

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Isaan Blog

Today I discovered another Thailand blog; this one has a lot of good pictures about Surin and other parts of Isaan. It’s at http://isanthailand.blogspot.com/ Sphere: Related Content

Fundamentals of Thai Grammar

Back in 1988, I bought a big black grammar book called "Fundamentals of Thai Grammar". Although I found the phonetics (transliteration) system obtuse, the book is a wonderful resource of everything you ever wanted to know about Thai grammar. Indeed, every time I pick up the book to look up something, I invariably get distracted by all the other useful little tidbits. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of little nuggets of information as to why you would use this word as opposed to that word.

This book is available in ebook HTML format, ready to download. It costs only $9 and is available from here.

This is the same grammar book that is included free in Speak Easy Thai. Sphere: Related Content

New Thai Resources Site

I have been working on a Thai language section for my Learn Faster web site. I have added a lot of articles on Thai culture and Thai food, as well as a short summary of some products available to learn Thai. I will add more stuff soon.

The new site is at www.learn-faster.org/Thai Sphere: Related Content

Emigrating to the UK

The Only Complete Guide To UK Immigration.

Learn safely how to successfully emigrate,
live and work in any part of Britain.

How to find a job in London and other UK cities.
How to get a work permit.
What visa do you need?

http://www.learn-faster.org/English/Emigrate2UK.html Sphere: Related Content

New Model Railroading Site

I have been interested in model railroading since I was 7 or 8 years old. I have finally begun a new site about it, with some articles on how to build mountains, make trees and rock cuts, etc. The site is at http://www.model-railroading.org/ToyTrains/index.html Sphere: Related Content

New Dementia Site

I have added a section on Dementia to my Superior Health web site; this complements my Alzheimer site, which was established 8 months ago.

The new site is at http://www.Superior-Health.info/Dementia/

The Alzheimer site is at http://www.1-800-Alzheimers.org Sphere: Related Content

New Web Site - Learn Japanese Faster!

I haven't written much lately on this blog because I have been working on a new web site to help people learn Japanese faster. See Learn Japanese Faster!. It has more than 45 articles on various aspects of the Japanese language from people who have been there, done that, and have now written about it.

My Learn English Faster! web site is also doing well, with more than 275 people joining the student mailing list in 3 weeks, as well as 75 teachers joining the teachers mailing list. Sphere: Related Content

Some Thai Food Has Six Legs

Many people enjoy Thai food worldwide: spicy soups and salads, flavorful rice dishes are abundant. But in Thailand, fried or roasted insects and scorpions are also popular, readily available, and inexpensive.

Insects have traditionally been a rich source of protein, calories, vitamins, and minerals in the Northern Thailand diet. They are also prized as delicacies. In fact, it is unusual to find an insect which is not eaten in one form or another by local people. Among the most popular are:

• cicadas, locusts, mantises, crickets, and grasshoppers which are all deep fried and are rather crunchy;
• bamboo worms, which are also deep fried;
• giant water bugs, which are steamed; they are also ground into a paste with chili and eaten with sticky rice;
• weaver ants (red ants with a painful bite) and their eggs; sticky rice is dipped into a mixture of ants, eggs, and chili;
• dung beetles; which add a wholesome flavor to curries; however, many people will not eat them because they live in and on excrement.

In addition, Thai people will eat:

• the pupae of silk moths and other moths and butterflies; you must first remove the pupae from their cocoons, then boil them until soft with a pinch of salt, finally sautée them lightly;
• the larvae of wasps and bees; these are deep-fried;

and arachnids:

• poisonous scorpions, which are grilled;
• giant tarantulas, which are also grilled.

I haven't seen other spiders eaten, but I suspect if it moves, it's considered food somewhere.

Also, termites (large white ants) are grilled and their eggs are a delicacy used to make a flavorful soup.

Where I lived in Bangkok, Sukhumvit Soi 4, every night starting around 5:00 PM, there was a street vendor with half a dozen kinds of fried and grilled insects and scorpions; her customers were mainly the bar girls in the area. Every night she was quite busy as the girls consider these insects a tasty snack, and munch on them as frequently as Western people munch on potato chips.

The lady vendor does not speak any English, but will pose with her wares for a photograph if you give her a 20 baht (about 60 cents) tip. And if you’re brave, you could always buy a bag of deep fried bamboo worms…

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