Got GPRS working yesterday. It’s not much faster than a modem, but it’s an adequate backup, as the ADSL and phone line are still down. I can even take my Bluetooth dongle and mobile phone round to P’Bot’s and hook his machine up to the Internet at his house - which doesn’t have a phone line. And, next week I’ll have a new HDD and battery for the laptop, so will be able to stay connected on the train/bus. It’s not too expensive either. I chose a basic ’ten hour’ promotion for 50 baht to try it out, and if it’s less than 1000baht a month, I might go for the unlimited option.

Oh, and if you haven’t already ditched Microsoft Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access etc) because of the price (if you’re not running an illegal copy that is!), here’s another bloody good reason to uninstall it today and install OpenOffice instead. I’m surprised any of you people can sleep at night.