grahamb

There has recently been a question over whether the navy was with the army and air force. Also if you go back to the 60's and Thai history it is possible to find old links, and not particulalrly good ones between these two.

Back in 1951 the Navy actually went to war with the Army. They kidnapped the Army backed Prime Minister and held him hostage on a warship, and attempted to get their own guy in power. Their bluff failed however, the Army didn't care if he died or not, and the Air Force allied with them and destroyed the ship. The army laid siege to naval bases and hundreds of people died. And the Prime Minister through some miracle survived the sinking of the ship he was being held on and swam to shore.

Can you please at least name the PM, so that I can search/google and read about it. I find this very interesting.

OT but info is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Rebellion. If it's on Wikipedia it must be true

When I cancelled the TRUE service in our first apartment, the cancellation was effective immediately. I had to go to the TRUE service centre (and no, the TRUE cafe in Paragon didn't count) and they charged me pro-rata for the days I had used that month. It wasn't possible to get the service disconnected by phone (at least not the people I spoke to) but it was relatively easy to cancel it in the service centre

Thanks for the suggestions

Have you installed the latest software for the SMC?

I updated the firmware from 0.84 to 0.85 2-3 years ago and that's still the latest one listed on the SMC website.

Could be you have local interference so you might try setting the channel to several set numbers for awhile to see if that helps. It didn't help me but in an apartment it could be your problem.

I thought that may be part of the problem and I've changed to a channel that none of the neighbouring networks are using. It did seem to improve the signal (less interference I guess) but didn't resolve the problem.

May be time for me to start researching modem/routers...

I've been a generally happy user of an SMC7804WBRA Barricade ADSL modem/wireless router that I bought in late 2004 based on the recommendations here. In my last 2 apartments, it has lived next to the phone line which was a few meters from the PC so I used a wired connection for my desktop (HP Pavillion for the last 12 months, home-build PC from China before that; both running WinXP with all Service Packs and patches). My work laptop (IBM Thinkpad T43) connected via WPA-PSK without any problems.

We moved to a new apartment where the TRUE phone line is in the living room but the computer is set up in the bedroom, 10m down the hallway. Instead of running a long cable for the kids to trip over, I decided we'd go wireless for the desktop. First I bought a Linksys 802.11g PCI card and fitted that to the desktop. That didn't work well so I bought a Belkin 802.11g USB adapter which suffered the same problem: whenever I have the security set to WPA-PSK, the router doesn't assign an IP address automatically. I have DHCP enabled and normally there is no problem with my Thinkpad. When I realised it was the IP address allocation that may be causing the problem, I assigned an IP address manually in the desktop PC. I made sure it was an IP address within the range used by the router but it was far enough through the range that the router would never assign that address to anything else connected to it. With the Linksys card, the problem reduced a bit - it would connect for a few seconds but then drop again. With the Belkin adapter, it gets connected to the router with the assigned IP address but still doesn't get a connection to the internet.

To simplify the connection, I turned off all security and the connection to the router and internet worked correctly (with the Belkin - the Linksys card is disabled and I've not tried re-enabling it to check with that). I tried turning on WEP security but the problem reappeared - I got a variable connection to the router and no connection to the internet. I turned off WEP and also turned off the SSID but the Belkin adapter had difficulty connecting to the router. Turning on SSID and enabling MAC filtering allowed me to get connected with a very basic level of security but it's not as much as I would like. If I add any more security, my internet connection drops...

I know that the internet connection is OK because I can get connected with my Thinkpad and the desktop when security is turned off. I noticed that the Thinkpad seems to take longer to connect to the router in this apartment than it used to but I've got no way of proving it - maybe I'm just more sensitive to the fact that things aren't connecting smoothly!

The signal strength in the bedroom isn't great because of the way the walls are arranged near the router and desktop so the Linksys card may be having problems due to that. The Belkin adapter is on a cable though so I've moved it to a point where it says it is getting relatively good signal strength (3 out of 5 bars when my Thinkpad shows a 'Very Good' connection in the same place) but the problems are still there.

Moving back to a wired connection isn't really an option because I'm also planning to set up a second desktop in another room (which is where the Belkin adapter will ultimately be used). Is anyone else having problems using an SMC Barricade with Belkin or Linksys equipment? Any suggestions on how I can get WPA-PSK security back and still maintain the internet connection? Is it just the modem/router reaching the end of its natural life?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

If you get really lucky, you can park at the Short-term car park without having to pay the extra B2000. We parked our car there for 2 weeks last summer when going back to the UK and I put the magnetic ticket in my wallet. When I drove out of the car park when we returned, the ticket didn't seem to be readable in the parking attendant's machine. Her response? She charged me B25 (i.e. 1hr parking instead of 15 days)

Unfortunately I've no idea how I rendered the ticket unreadable so I haven't been able to repeat my luck.

Well, I am forced to eat my words - True customer support responded quickly and with the information I needed

My problem was that I was not using their proxy (proxy.asianet.co.th port: 8080). After I had entered that, my connectivity seems to have been restored. I assume that the proxy helps control what sites I can see so I may now have problems with Wikipedia

I don't know when they started using this proxy because I don't access my True email so if they emailed me about it, I didn't receive it.

Hope this solution helps some of the people in this thread.

Is there any way to ensure that I get an IP address from a completely different range? I'm on True ADSL in BKK (Saphan Khwai) and while Wikipedia is OK, I'm consistently getting the network timeout on such subversive sites as Hotmail, the default HP advert homepage on a brand new PC, the Windows Update site and the AVG anti-virus update site.

My current IP address is 58.8.177.* and whenever I reconnect my ADSL connection, I either get the same IP address or another one in the same range. I've contacted True to see what they suggest but from experience, I expect I'll get better advice on here!

Edit to add: I'm assuming that it is True that is causing the network timeouts because I don't have any problems when I wirelessly use my router with my laptop. On those occasions, I'm using the company's VPN gateway in Singapore and all sites can be accessed normally...

No worries, probably another coup or smth like that.

Well, that was my assumption. We were on holiday when the last one happened so I was wondering if this is my opportunity to get the photos of flowers in tank barrels

If your co-worker was American and also had an Irish passport most likely was that he had a parent born in Ireland or even a Grand-parent that was born in Ireland entitles one to an Irish passport.

These days, you have to have a parent born in Ireland or a Grandmother born in Ireland. A Grandfather is not enough.

Anyone else seeing a lot of troop movements this evening in Bangkok? We just saw (@ 21:15 on 2-Mar-07) a large number of armoured personnel carrier type things and trucks driving along Pradiphat Road in Bangkok (near Saphan Khwai). We were watching from the balcony of our apartment so weren't able to see exactly how many there were or where they were going. They were heading along Pradiphat from Rama VI to Paholyothin Road.

Didn't see anything similar posted in the Bangkok, News or General forum but I apologise if I missed anything. I know that in theory this is a Bangkok related post but I figure that it may also relate to the rest of Thailand...

Could it be another precautionary measure for screening purposes re security threats ?

How does the boarding pass help security?

I always keep my boarding passes to make sure my airmiles post but Immigration didn't ask to see it when I arrived at Suvarnabhumi last Friday.

I know there used to be a few Vonage UK users on here so hopefully you're still out there...

Is anyone else having the same problem we are - whenever we dial out, we get a dial-tone but after that, everything is silent (we don't hear the phone ringing at the other end). The phone rings at the other end but when they answer, they just get silence. Our Vonage number is coming through Caller ID so people can identify it is us and call back. When it happens, it also 'disconnects' the phone at their end - if I try calling on our Thai land line straight after failing to get through on Vonage, I get the voicemail system from their phone exchange (which normally kicks in if their line is busy). They also can't make any outgoing calls for a few minutes until the exchange 'resets' their number - they don't have a dialtone. After that, they can call us normally and the audio is fine.

This is happening when calling UK numbers, Ireland numbers, US numbers, ... It used to just happen on a few numbers but now we can't make outgoing calls to any number.

We're in Bangkok with a 2.5Mbps TRUE ADSL connection. Vonage was working OK for 12+ months. Our network is ADSL line > SMC Barricade ADSL Modem/Router/Wireless Access Point > Vonage Linksys router.

I'm discussing the situation with Vonage customer service by email (can't call their customer service number through Vonage ) but all they suggest are different ways to reboot the router... If anyone out there has experienced the same problem and found a solution, I'd be very happy to hear it!

I guess this is more of a Travel issue than a Visas and Migration issue. Mods: if I'm wrong, please move the post.

I hadn't seen this information on here or any other forums I frequent so here it is FYI.

The British Embassy are now issuing biometric passports (containing the photo information on a chip.) According to the sign in the Consular section, they've been doing this since May 06. A few things to note:

• Currently they can only issue 32 page passports. Jumbo (48 page) passports should be available 'next year' but the guy could not say exactly when
  
• It now takes 10 working days to get a passport. When I got one for our son last year it was about 5 working days so I assume the chip takes longer
  
• The photo requirements are stricter - your face has to meet the size requirements listed on the UK passport website(PDF file). I got a regular passport photo from the Fuji place near my office but my face was too small so I had to go to a photo place across the road from the British Embassy (who knew exactly what size I needed and is probably doing quite nicely out of this requirement...)
  
• 32 page passports are B6825. I can't remember how much it was last year and as it was a child's passport it may have been cheaper anyway. I assume that this price is more expensive than the old non-biometric passport
  
• The biometric part is only your photo so they don't take fingerprints, iris scans, etc. (yet)
  

The application process was pretty painless and fortunately I'll get the passport before I need to travel but it is longer than I'm used to so I'm posting it here to stop anyone else getting caught out!

Every couple of months, a thread pops up of someone who wants to bring a car with them to Thailand. The answer is always "Don't!" because of the import tax, risk that Customs will take a liking to it, etc.

I was in Central Chidlom at the weekend and saw that SEC are showing a Nissan Murano and a Mini Cooper Convertible (their description, not mine - it's got a pretty solid roof for a convertible ) I noticed that the Mini has a sticker in the back window from a garage in the UK who presumably sold it to SEC for import which got me thinking: how do SEC (and other grey market importers) import their cars? Is it all down to connections in Customs? Are there legitimate ways for companies to import cars that are not available to regular consumers?

I'm not interested in importing a car (though I still mourn my Impreza that I sold in Europe before coming here ) but was just interested to hear how they do it.

Part of the BAMBI site lists Maids that are available when people are leaving Thailand (click here). You may be able to find someone there who would do a few months work. I think most of the maids there are looking for full-time jobs but I think you can also post a Help Wanted ad yourself there.

If you have access to the Bangkok Guide from the Australia/New Zealand Womens Group, I think it also lists various agencies. Some details are online here but the names of the agencies are only in the book (which I don't have with me know).

The other alternative is to just post up an advert in your building or if there is a bulletin board in a nearby store (I think the Villa near us has one).

Now you can watch it on video!

That's what we ended up doing. By chance, I chose Channel 3 as the one to tape and that was the one that had English commentary

...I thought it was a bit cheeky to automatically subscribe us for something unless we told them otherwise!

Not just cheeky, but definitely illegal, which is why they refunded you immediately and without a murmur when you asked for it.

---------------

Maestro

Well, I wouldn't say that they refunded it immediately without a murmur. The person I spoke to at Customer Service thought she was doing me a favour by cancelling the subscription and it was only when I pushed that she agreed to take off the existing charge. I'll find out next month if she actually did take off the charge or just said she would to get rid of me...

A word of warning for those with DTAC post-paid SIM cards. My wife started receiving SMSes in Thai that came from "Nation". At first we thought they were just spam but when I looked at a few, I realised that they were all different messages so I surmised that they were probably the news headlines.

When the bill came yesterday, I noticed a B49/month charge for this subscription to the Nation so I called the customer support to find out what was going on. I was told that they had sent us some sample messages and then sent us a message (in Thai) telling us that if we did not want to subscribe, we should respond. Otherwise, they would just set up our subscription and start charging! Of course, this message came through as just another Nation message and was deleted... I got them to cancel the subscription and refund the money but I thought it was a bit cheeky to automatically subscribe us for something unless we told them otherwise!

I understand that I'm in Thailand and therefore messages will be in Thai but are they not able to set up their systems so that it doesn't automatically sign me up for things?! Sample messages are fine but then just stop the subscription if I don't contact and give my approval for the charge...

If you are receiving unsolicited messages on DTAC, watch your phone bill to make sure that you're not being charged for them!

Total rubbish....mobile can't set off an explosion at a gas pump. However that being said they can enforce their own rules when its their petrol station.

Sorry Brit if I disagree with you.

I have seen the Safety Video which shows a woman in the states stepping out of her car, opening the petrol tank, she grabs the petrol pump handle, her phone rings she leans in the car and picks up her phone as she answer the phone she insterts the pump into the tank and................<deleted> BOOM. Luckily I belive she only suffered very minor burns to her hand.

Static Electricity and highly flamable gases do not mix.

I'm with Brit on this one. I've not seen that safety video but all the evidence I've seen is that it is static electricity that causes the explosions.

If the risk of a spark from a phone is that high, why do petrol stations not ban all electronic devices?

tell me what you want, but ESPN and Star Sports will not miss out on not showing the biggest sporting event of the year.

They will when they have coverage spanning several countries and would need to buy the rights to show the World Cup in each of those countries. The World Cup rights are sold country by country and I don't think ESPN/Star Sports could afford to buy the rights for all the countries where they have coverage. Particularly when football is so popular in Asia and the rights will be priced accordingly...

OK, I should have read the paper this morning

A colleague just informed me there are some details in the supplement with the Bangkok Post today but if anyone has any specific recommendations, I'd appreciate them.

Where is the best place to watch the Royal Barge Procession from on Monday? I read in the paper that there will be a Naval boat in the river that is selling tickets for B3000 and that there would be a grandstand set up with tickets for B1000. Unfortunately, I don't have that paper now and can't confirm those details online. Does anyone have a link to those details online? I've tried the 60th Celebrations site, etc. but could not find specific details.

I'm assuming that it will be easiest to take the BTS rather than trying to get through all the road closures so is there somewhere near Saphan Taksin station that would be a good place to watch the ceremony?

If this is already being discussed in a thread elsewhere, please let me know because I missed it!

I thought this article in the Bangkok Post was funny:

The launch of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's new public surveillance system struck a glitch yesterday when the high-speed internet connection linking the 10,000 cameras failed to perform.

<snip>

Under the project, True Internet Co and Law Enforcement Technology Solution provided a high-speed internet service to bolster the Metropolitan Police Bureau's closed-circuit camera system to improve public security in Bangkok.

<snip>

When it is working the network will allow police to effectively monitor the goings-on in the designated areas through live pictures, Pol Lt-Gen Viroj said.

See, it's not just us who have problems with the TRUE connection, the Police do as well

When it is working, the network will allow police to effectively monitor the goings-on. And when it's not working, what will the 10000 cameras be used for then?

Watana has no face left... that's probably why he proposed this latest horrendously bad move to treat the homeless as so much pile of refuse.

The reason he has no face is that when he came out with the previous imbecile notion of wives, after his very own wife said it was a stupid idea and then told him to eat shit and said she would never do it...

He came out with various stupid suggestions about 9 months ago and I remember reading one article in the Bangkok Post which quoted him as saying that it was his job to be provocative. I can't find that article now but he was basically admitting that he comes out with these crackpot ideas in the hope that one sticks.

<Conspiracy Theory> I wonder what he has been told to deflect attention from this time? </Conspiracy Theory>

Is this one?

Thailand Leased Autos

No, that wasn't the one but thanks anyway. I've still not found the site I saw earlier but we got a Yellow Pages delivered a couple of days ago so I'm using that instead.

Still looking for recommendations if anyone has them