angiud

The next month I'll go with some friends at Bogani Nani National Park in North Sulawesi for a 10 days photo safari (yuppi!!).

The problem I could have is the great amount of shot (RAW over 20 Mb each) I'll do daily.

Last week I was at Khao Sok N.P. for a 4 days photo trip (herethe pictures) and due to the vicinity and going with my car it was easy to carry my 14" laptop with me and every night upload, control, manage and delete the pictures I've made was easy and extremely useful.

In Sulawesi will be a bit hard trip, by plane (normal and low cost) and my baggage should be definitely smaller and I was thinking of 2 solutions:

1st:    just buy 4-5 more 16 Gb Compact Flash Cards (2000/3000 Baht each)

2nd:  get a tablet

I don't love the apple more than a little and I've found the new Asus Transformer Prime as a good tablet with many good features, but now Apple has a new IPad with a gorgeous retina display, just perfect for photo use and a good 64 Gb room for a lot of bugs pictures.

Any feedback?
I have to buy the Photo Connection Kit to upload the pics to the Ipad, but how can I copy back home the 1000s pics back to my home pc?
Ipad on sale now in BKK are covered by a warranty?

I would like to buy a laser color printer and I'm not sure about the choice I'm going to make.

Too many completely different reviews on the same printer here on the web.

I don't have too many problems about the price (10 to 25.000 is ok to me) but what I need basically is:

- Good overall quality print (both text, graphic and pictures)
- Cost per page/toner cartridges cheap and easy to find
- Duplex printing
- Strong-long life and availability of spares

I don't need

- Multifunction
- LAN/WLAN

I'm in the need of a professional kitchen specialized appliance usually found only in Italy, but I've found acompany in Guanzou that sell exactly the same machine (copied) for a similar price of the original.

What custom duties, VAT etc I'm expected to pay from something coming from Pop.Rep. of China?

Just released from BandH.com (B&H Video) the first impressions of the new flagship of Nikon brand.

And I am a 'Canonist'...

In the last few years I lost dozens and dozens of employees of my restaurants. Just they disappear the night after the salary day. Both Thai and Burmese. I mean, I'm used to that, being working in Thailand 10 years, but in the last years (say 2 or 3) the problem increased to reach an unsustainable situation.

I start by saying that I give a day off a week, room with fan and shared toilet, free-flow rice, 40 baht a day each head extra for food and a salary of 6000. I give also, to better motivate them, a bonus of 50 baht every 10.000 of the gross daily turnover, so in a good day is easy they get another 100 to 300 baht. And don't forget the tip from the customers and the recycle of glass, aluminium and paper, I give to them.

The working time is a bit hard (11am to 11pm) but many hours a day are free of customers so they are relaxed.

I ask professionality but I don't think to give them too much pressure, exploit them, treat them like second class, etc.

After the first missing, I start a different strategy to slow down the leak, payng the salary on the day 5, and after 7, so if somebody want to run away without any prior notice, he's going to lose 5/7 days of salary. And after that, also giving my bonus money every month in a random day ( not less than 3/4000 baht each).

None of those deterrents worked out.

Is my impression that Thai staff before, and now Burmese (because it's almost impossible to find Thai workers here in Koh Phangan) choose a more light job, less difficult, with more free (lazy) time, possibly sanook too, and they simply don't care if they earn half of the money.

Today 4 on 6 workers of my main restaurant just packed their belongings and disappear during the night, lefting behind over 12.000 baht of bonus and a week each of salary. My restaurant is closed, I hope to opend back in a couple of days, if I find new staff.

I would like to know some impressions, suggestions, experiences from other fellow members.

I an truly hopeless about to breed, teach and train new staff, to see them go away after a few weeks, sometimes a few months. This affect also in a big part the growing and the quality of my business.