After looking at the phones available here in Thailand (admittedly, we don’t have all of the bells and whistles), I’m leaning strongly toward the Nokia N-93. Yeah, I’m old fashioned. And cheap.

I just finished installing a program on my Nokia N-95 phone. I got it for free from the Nokia store. I can’t help but wonder why Nokia is seemingly non-existent to a lot of the world. After reading your second last post about the Gizmodo/Apple Hole fiasco I popped over to the Giz for a gander. Gee the new IPhone will have a micro chip and a removable battery, My N-95 is three years old and has both, plus a plethora of other important features, that Apple is still playing catch up on.

With regard to the OpSys. As I’m sure you are aware, Nokia runs on Symbian–open source–software and there are thousands of free apps available all over the internet.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that apple can charm the pants off a huge number of people but I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to fool all the people, all the time. As for Symbian, I go open source whenever possible, although google won a lot of my support with their China move.

P.S. I left Thailand a couple of weeks ago. I spent several days in Bangkok, a city I know well, and the biggest deal for me was that PranThip Mall was closed so I couldn’t pick up any cheap, bootlegged, CD and DVD’s. Still, if I didn’t know the city, I’d fly direct to Phuket, or book a connecting flight to somewhere in Thailand that meant I didn’t have to go into BKK from the airport.

Sawadee Krup

Al

Thanks for asking. Bangkok’s the pits right now. Most of the city’s safe, but trying to get around is a mess.

The rest of Thailand – which includes about 99% of the interesting places in the country – is fine. The US State Department just issued a Travel Advisory covering all of Thailand, but I haven’t seen or heard of anything to justify it. Certainly, I wouldn’t go to Bangkok unless I really had to. And I would avoid Chiang Mai just because of its reputation for harboring Thaksin supporters. But the rest of the country is just fine.

As you probably know, Phuket is a Democratic stronghold. You won’t find many Thaksin sympathizers or red shirt supporters in these parts. The joke goes that there were five red shirts in Phuket, but they left four weeks ago.

Now’s a GREAT time to come to Phuket. The tourists throngs are starting to settle down. Weather’s wonderful. You can get a seat in most restaurants. The airlines seem to be booked, but if you look, you can still catch a decently priced flight.

If any of you folks get out this way, drop me a line!

been hearing lots of unpleasant news about Thailand. Are you safe? Is it exaggerated?

How about an update to reassure your loyal followers?

Best regards,

Brian Williams