jampola

I have a friend who is a Ruby Dev who lives in Rayong and lives off eLance. No dramas at all. Build up a good rep for yourself and you'll be fine.

Work permit for freelancing? Seriously, so long as you're not stupidly posting real details about yourself and that you're working here you won't have a problem? Source: said friend has been here 10+ years with no dramas.

flood risk information/flow rate

http://floodinfo.rid.go.th/index_en.html

Wow, a government run site that actually uses the web to its full potential, is easy to navigate and is adequately translated in English also. Bravo. This is a brilliant! Thank you!

Just a question that I feel I might already know the answer to, but, in Thailand, is there any qualification/certification required for electricians? (Please don't laugh!)

I have an inkling that no such qualification exists. Would I be right in assuming this??

This is very common in Thailand. Usually shoddy electricians are to blame as well as the humidity.

You have 3 prongs (sometimes 2) on most devices. One is L which is your Live wire, one is N which is Neutral and one is E which is Earth. Not all appliances have an Earth prong (Usually the appliances that are completely sealed with some kind of non conductive material, like plastic) but your washer does since it does have a metal chasis -- You have 2 possibilities here.

1: Your machine is faulty or has something that shorting the Live elec wire with the Earth (Since earth is usually connected to the chassis of the machine)

2: You wiring in your house is faulty and something is crossing Live elec with the Earth.

You can go about this 2 ways to check which one is the culprit.

1) Go to the hardware store, purchase a current testing screwdriver. something like this - http://www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wickes/invt/500525/Screwdriver-Mains-Tester_large.jpg

2) Hold the screwdriver with your hand touching the metal at the butt end of the screw driver and insert the screwdriver into the middle earth prong of socket of the electricity outlet you plug your washer into.

If you see the light in the screw driver light up, then you have an earth leakage and I would suggest you call a GOOD electrician. I would also check other outlets around the house also, just to be safe. I would also try unplug everything in the house also just to be 100% sure that it's the wiring causing the earth leak and not another appliance (since Earth can be shared across all the wiring in the house)

Hope this makes sense. Good luck, sir!

I see a new submission to the Darwin Awards! lulz

A visa is never transferred to a new passport, only permissions to stay.

If you stll have a valid visa, you use the old passport to show the visa and get the permission to stay in the new passport.

When the visa is invalid/expired, you no longer use the old passport.

Awesome. Thank you. That saves me a lot of trouble. I wish more countries would take advantage of ePassports though :/

Color me perplexed but what is with all this 400k in the bank stuff? I go back to Melbourne every time my visa is up since it coincides with a few other commitments I have there I just do it at the consulate.

Last week, I redid my non o for the 4th or 5th time and all that is required is Marriage Cert, letter from missus in Thai stating we're married, her ID card and the completed form. That's it.

Is it a case that different consulate/embassy requires different things?

With a marriage extension done in Thailand you don't have to leave the country during that extension only do a 90 day report at immigration. With a non-imm O applied for in your own country you have to leave country every 90 days and get re-stamped for another 90 days on re-entry. Pro's and cons for both Visas i guess.

For me personally i'm going to Singapore a lot so i'm in and out the country anyway and I can squeeze almost 15 mths out of the non-imm O visa, also can't be arsed to deal with the d1ck heads at Phuket Immigration. For others the Visa runs may be a pain in the ass so for the sake of a days paper trailing and dealing with people that hate you, the extension based on being married to a Thai may be a better option.....horses for courses one might say!!

I have also wondered why there is no need for proof of funding when applying in one's own country for potentially a years visa. Maybe the consulates have secret access to all our bank accounts we don't know about!!!

Ahhh, now I understand! I'm in a similar situation, I am in and out of Thailand probably once a month so it's never been an issue for me. I think a few years back we drove to Aranyaprathet to hit up the Casino's in Cambodia when I needed to get a stamp and to be honest, that didn't bother me either! I must do that again!

Now my problem is that now I have a new Visa, I only have 3 or 4 pages left in my Passport and I doubt it will last me through to next year. I wonder what will happen when I get a new passport, can I just carry my old one with me to show the visa? (sorry, off-topic I know but I am too lazy to create a new thread )

Color me perplexed but what is with all this 400k in the bank stuff? I go back to Melbourne every time my visa is up since it coincides with a few other commitments I have there I just do it at the consulate.

Last week, I redid my non o for the 4th or 5th time and all that is required is Marriage Cert, letter from missus in Thai stating we're married, her ID card and the completed form. That's it.

Is it a case that different consulate/embassy requires different things?

http://www.thaiconsulatemelbourne.com/non-immigrant-visa.php

No mention of funding on the above website!

I got a non imm O visa in China (reason given: retirement) a few weeks ago and I definitely had to show funding in a bank equivalent to 800,000k baht along with an onward flight.

Different requirements from different consulates in different countries? ..... Looks like it.

Yep. And I must say, the staff at the consulate in Melbourne are awesome. Always talkative, never want to upset anyone and are always helpful. I remember 2 years prior I had to fly out the following day due to an emergency back in Thailand so they managed to get it done within 24 hours and even offered someone to drop my passport to me at the airport (who happened to be on their way there anyway)

I find it stupid that there is a lack of standard when it comes to stuff like this but I can't say that I am surprised.

Color me perplexed but what is with all this 400k in the bank stuff? I go back to Melbourne every time my visa is up since it coincides with a few other commitments I have there I just do it at the consulate.

Last week, I redid my non o for the 4th or 5th time and all that is required is Marriage Cert, letter from missus in Thai stating we're married, her ID card and the completed form. That's it.

Is it a case that different consulate/embassy requires different things?

A friendly suggestion, if you value the privacy and data integrity of whatever you're planning on storing, I would steer clear of 3bb's service. If I need to, I use sparkle share otherwise I use own cloud which is set up on my home server.

Whoops!

We employ no less than 50 Burmese because of this problem. We go through the whole process of doing their work visa's and to be honest, they tend to work a lot better than Thai for the same amount of money.

Once 2015 rolls around and this ASEAN agreement comes into effect, you will see unemployment gradually rise in Thailand. When it happens, staff retention will be a lot easier.

I would recommend you either rent a house or buy one with a 30 year lease. Internet could be the least of your problems. TOT can help you with the slowest service you can find.

We have TOT ADSL in a few offices (Laemchebang, Bkk, Rayong and Saraburi) and all have been fine. Usually it's the crappy TP-Link routers they supply the customer that makes it so slow. Change the router into bridge mode and connect it to a real router running something like DD-WRT or OpenWRT and you'll notice a HUGE difference. I always see <insert Thai ISP here> bashing and to be honest, I think most ISP's here are quite alright.

My only gripe I have is with 3BB as the username they provide you for your ADSL doesn't reflect your phone number, so when you have 15 or so accounts, you have NFI which is for where and NEITHER DO THEY! *slaps forehead*

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

Are you using those 3 connections individually or have you tried using Connectify to combine them into one faster connection?

You can do this to obtain a faster connection but only when multiple traffic is concerned. Example. You can't tie 3 ADSL connections together and expect 1 download to download faster as HTTP, FTP, Torrent traffic etc will only talk to the requesting IP address (1 ADSL Connection). However if you are flat out maxing out one ADSL connection but you have 3, you won't notice a slow down because you can set it to start using the second ADSL connection.

I run pfsense (www.pfsense.org) on a server with 4 network cards. 3 for WAN and 1 for LAN. 2 of the ADSL connections go into pfSense I have set up as a single gateway as far as the LAN is concerned for all of the work PC's and then there is load balancing and policy based routing on that group which gives priority to VoIP and some other services. The 3rd ADSL connection is a private use which is mainly used for Netflix and other streaming stuff (yes, this ADSL connection is also routed through a VPN).

Hopefully this all makes sense!

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

@ExpatOilWorker It's nice to see some educated replies around here! Bravo!

My sinsod was 7mil THB. In saying that, minus the cost of the wedding, we got it all back. The large amount was solely due to face value (well know family business) and making the son in law look good. Stupid I know but it's easier to just do what you're told I find!

Most families (at least Chinese Thai family) will give the sinsod back from what I'm aware.

In saying that, the amount can vary. There is no hard and fast rule either.

Sounds like the girls mum had no sense of humour!

Your first priority is to make sure that good quality cables are installed

whilst the building takes place.

A small hole with the cable poking out at each speaker location, say min 50cm should suffice at this stage,..

Make sure there is sufficient cable at the other end for what ever you choose as the source.

Then wait until you are finished before having the rest installed

Others will recommend suitable speakers.

Have you thought about the feeds from the satellite dish, they

need to go in at this stage too.

Also internet cable feeds, unless you want to rely in slower wireless connections?

Won't be installing until EVERYTHING is done but that's a good call on the cabling. Hadn't even thought of it yet!

As for the other cabling, Cat6 and RJ6 to each room is already completed.

Hey all,

I'm in the process of building a house. Foundations are up, roof in the process of being tiled as we speak so now is the time to decide on all the fun stuff!

The house itself is large. 2 story but the house itself is 4 stories high. So we're talking high roofs. I want in ceiling speakers for each of the bed rooms (6) plus the guest rooms (2) as well is in the entrance and common areas of the house and lastly the indoor pool room. For where the pool is, in-ceiling isn't possible as the roof won't be suitable so I would be looking at in-wall speakers or even something that attaches to the wall via a bracket.

Each room will have a raspberry pi to handle switching between sources (Music,XBMC,TV via tv input dongle) and output via an external USB audio interface.

At the moment I am stuck as to what speakers I should be considering? Do active speakers exist that can live in the roof? I would like something that still sounds quite decent! Also, for speakers where there is high humidity (pool) should I be looking at marine speakers?

I know it's a difficult question but I would love to hear from anyone who has gone through a similar build with their house. Would love to know any gotchas that can occur!

There are too many variables to consider. If she is from middle/upper class and especially if she is of Chinese background, be prepared for a lots of cynicalism from her family.

I met my wife in Australia when she was studying at UNI and the process of meeting her parents and family was one of the most painful things I had to deal with. I pretty much had everyone thinking I was there to take her money (funny when the tables turn huh?! 555!) But over time, I just had to prove myself.

Nearly 5 years on and everything is fine and I am part of the family.

Unfortunately for you, you don't want to get married yet but that is usually quite hard to deal with in Thai culture, especially among those that are of middle/higher class.

The best advice I could give you is not to fight the culture but to try adapt to it. The more you fight, the more tired you will get. And trying to pick up some Thai goes a long way.

Good luck!

I've had a 4 disk raid0/1 setup under linux on an old rack server for hourly database backups from another backup server. Been using the same 4 1TB 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda's for over 4 years now and the smart data doesn't indicate any errors on any of drives yet. Drives are pretty much constantly being written to also.

If you're backing up, stay away from SSD's... they still have limited writes and if it's only for backup, you're not going to benefit much from speed since it's only the seek time that makes SSD's faster, not so much continuous writes (still faster but not as noticeable)

If you only need a single drive connected via USB, stick with the Seagate Barracuda's or the WD Red's and buy a decent USB drive caddy. That way you can buy the drive with the best warranty.

I think it would be quite difficult for the OP to work "legally" in Thailand. Christ, it's hard enough for expats who are skilled to find any kind of work here (which is funny since my company struggles to find Thais willing to work)

I can only suggest OP puts her baby first and head back home (depending OP's home country and her circumstances)

We have 6 ADSL services for an office in Laemchebang (Chonny) and they were all down for a solid 2 1/2 hour around midday after checking the logs. I also noticed that all the connections retained sync with the exchange and were all still able to ping the local gateway (being TOT) -- So I would have to think this is more of an upstream data problem which could also mean that it could be caused by TOT's upstream provider.

Its hard enough to get any staff to work, what they worried some work will get done?

This!!!

We go through the whole process of legitimately employing expats (Indians, Chinese) and pay them the (much higher than Thai) minimum wage to do work because it's so bloody hard to find anyone to actually do any work. Luckily the type of work is specialized enough and requires solid English which means that it (just barely) fits the criteria for a role that a Thai person cannot do.