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The best way is to teach yourself, this is coming from a Developer with formal education beyond 15 that now has 16 years commercial dev experience including consulting and perm stints at a number of Blue Chips. I'm 100% self taught and began back in 1999 with HTML and PHP. Teaching yourself is the right way, languages change regularly, you'll need to be learning all the time, and it's hugely important to be an autodictat.

There are loads of good books, and a wealth of support is available online via places like Stack Overflow and the Open Source community.

The first PHP book I bought was an earlier edition of http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Web-Development-Edition/dp/0672329166/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0T5X7C8DTH4V5Y7HG1VS - it is excellent but firstly you need to learn HTML and CSS. JavaScript, PHP and MySQL should come after this and being honest, these days JavaScript is the growth area - I'd focus there and not on PHP.

For getting a great start in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, these two books look like great first buys:

http://www.amazon.com/HTML-JavaScript-Sams-Teach-Yourself/dp/0672337142/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413354650&sr=1-1&keywords=html+css+and+javascript+all+in+one+sams+teach+yourself+covering+html5+css3+and+jquery
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Development-Node-Express-Leveraging/dp/1491949309/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413354557&sr=1-19&keywords=html+javascript+css

If you work through these thoroughly, and learn how to get answers to questions that are raised in them from places like Stack Overflow and the book support forums, you'll get a very good grounding and be well placed to build upon it.

peoples rights ??? I thought the people of Thailand deserve a Police force that is not corrupt, and this project was a step in the right direction. Perhaps this guy could see that his investment in buying his position could not supply the anticipated income he expected from bribes if this project proceeded. The NACC should have a look at this guys Assets and how he accumulated them

I agree this project was a step in the right direction however what has surprised me is the level of intelligence on this forum.

Handing money to police minus Arrest and fine equals no tea money

How is it a step in the right direction?

The right direction is that any attempt at bribery should result in arrest without the police expecting financial reward for doing so - it's simply bribery from the other direction and is a fundamentally flawed concept.

Offering officers a reward for doing their job inherently assumes that they are corruptable, and simply serves both to set a base negotiation rate of 10k baht, and to provide a new opportunity for extortion given that it is the officers word against the purported briber.

It's terribly misjudged and ill-considered.

As with most police forces around the world, I think the step that needs to be taken is independently auditable constant A/V monitoring of all officers on duty with the footage archived and court-admissable by legal teams of all parties.

Did you call CAT to check it's definitely not possible at all? We lived > 2km from Ao Nang and managed to get it installed for 6k line fee, first in the area.

Often when they say 'not possible' it means 'not possible for free installation'

I just opened an account with them using a Thai address - was very easy, though I think it helped that I had a bank statement with an English transliterated address from Citibank (was an online statement, not sure if they noticed) - I tried to register with another broker that specified no online statements using a Thai script TOT bill and they came back asking for certified translations. Only other requirement was a copy of my passport.

You transfer money to IB first then trade with that, rather than having a direct link to you bank account. Transfer was seamless, the whole process from initial registration to tradeable funds took less than a week for me. Not sure in regard to transferring from another broker since that wasn't a factor for me.

Same here. Within the login.asp file is an error message:

Sorry, you cannot do this transaction at the moment. Please try again later
If you have any questions or need assistance, Please call 02 777 7777 to contact SCB Easy Call Center.

Busted - hopefully they fix soon.

I use Netflix on TOT fibre, personally I use unotelly.com DNS set up on my router to get non Thai DNS for Netflix, but I do have a VPN as well and that works fine.

Just in case this is the root of the issue - you still need to have a VPN or DNS service in place for Netflix to serve you content even with fibre optic, Netflix do not serve content to Thai IP addresses whatsoever.

Yep - killer service

Fatal error: Call to undefined function current_url() in /var/www/html/application/views/th/config.php on line 2

CAT are excellent in relation to the others, probably the best large provider in Thailand. More expensive though.

I used them on Samui a few years back, was a faultless experience.

Just a heads up - I overestimated how much of a container we shipped - was 200 cubic feet. very well tesselated.

1/10 of a 40ft

1/4 a 20ft

1/2 a 10ft

If that's the case, good news for the OP, but very odd that they are handing them out in Immigration Offices. Nothing surprises me here though

Sounds like you were apprehended rather than handed yourself in. Unfortunately by the letter of the law it is not good news:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/740634-thai-immigration-bureau-to-blacklist-all-overstayers-of-more-than-90-days/

I got given a document containing this info at immigration when I last did my 90 day report, I think it is in place now. Hopefully in your case it is not enforced. Reading that topic it seems that this might be only being applied to people who enter the country after those rules came into place, hopefully for your sake this is the case for you - it's certainly something you should raise if they begin to point to this legislation, that you entered well before those rules applied.

Absolutely unbelievable nonsense, and I don't mean this anouncement about the suspects.

What is beyond belief is that every single poster on this thread (from what I've read so far) is ridiculing this latest progress after spending the last few weeks ridiculing the investigation's lack of progress in finding the culprits.

You lot have no information whatsoever on the case yet there are so many morons coming up with irrational comments like "I don't believe a word of it", "so they've found someone to blame it on", "have they checked the DNA", "BS", "this can't be right" etc, etc.

The world is not asking ThaiVisa members to solve this case, the Thai police are not asking that either, nobody outside of the investigation gives a flying fart what the uninformed, ignorant posters here think about what might actually be a professional, successful investigation. Ultimately it may not be, but so far things are moving in the right direction.

It seems that whatever Thailand does about anything will never be satisfactory to the vast majority of negative, mickey-takers that populate this forum and maybe it's time for these nay-sayers to shut up and accept that, whilst they may not like Thailand's authorities achieving some success in the investigation of these murders, by finding the alleged culprits the authorities are at least achieving something, and something positive.

There has been a cacaphony of problems.

1 - Among the first statements made - 'A Thai wouldn't of done this'

2 - Followed up by, 'You know, wearing a bikini is dangerous for everyone except ugly women'

3 - We think it was committed by one of the victim's secret homosexual partner in a fit of jealousy, because they shared a flat

4 - The island is locked down, apart from all the boats leaving

5 - Photos of the murder scene posted on social media, reputedly by investigating officers

6 - The bloodied shorts in the victim's bag were, by their own admission, put there by officers

7 - Civilians walking all over the crime scene

8 - Not pressing for DNA testing of influential figures, but immediately rounding up all of the Burmese, tagging them, measuring their feet and DNA testing them.

9 - Not charging influential figures that admitted threatening the Scotsman

10 - Reports of a beating of a taxi driver who claims that he was offered 700k to lie that he witnessed the murder.

Goes on and on. That's why people are negative, judgemental and disbelieving.

Gangthai is completely right.....you all moan about injustice and how bad Thailand is and you won't accept when a suspect confesses to a crime...what more do the Thai Police have to do?.....pathetic farang that want to live in Thailand and criticize Thailand forever.

Can you not accept the positives of Thailand?

Beautiful country, wonderful religion, wonderful King, best food, most illustrious history, friendly people, beautiful culture, amazing Thailand......why do you only bitch about Thailand?

Can you not see the corruption and badness in any other country?

I am truly blessed to live in the best country in the world and to respect Thai law and to abide by Thai law.....I don't understand the moaning and griping.....if you don't like Thai law....go back to your country...if you love Thailand stay and be respectful of the wonderful culture and kindness of the most amazing people in the world....you can be pathetic and criticize but Thailand is Number One and always will be

People don't accept reputed confessions because of reports like the one from the Koh Tao Taxi driver claiming he was beaten by Police when he refused to lie that he witnessed the murder in exchange for 700k baht.

It's possible and fine to be happy living in Thailand without believing that it is perfect and all peaches and roses. Nowhere is.

I think it's probably this one - Number One Brand

Can buy it in loads of places, very cheap, very nice. Certainly seen it in Tops, loads in Makro, quite possibly in 7/11 as well.

what's the thai word for "scapegoat" ?

My wife says it is pronounced 'meean maar'

We used Dynamic International, they were excellent, half a container around £1200 GBP fully insured then 15k THB 'scan fees' at the Thai end. The intimation regarding the scan fee was that there was too much stuff for them to bother looking through it(?!), so they just scanned it. Might have been a blag by the Thai agent, probably could have disputed this but we just wanted our stuff by that point and we'd anticipated a 10 - 15% charge of some kind anyway.

Process was very simple, we prepared nothing - they came, packed everything securely, took it away, and on the Thai end, it was delivered unpacked and placed where we wanted. No breakages and we shipped a few breakables.

Sounds rather cheap, altho you didn't say where you moved from.

Of course using a bigger company can work out cheaper as they will combine more than one shipment into a container.

We moved from London

And now that the story is floated here and read by the immigration HQ in BKK, the countdown for crackdown begins.

We'll see. If it doesn't, it's pretty much a green light for digital nomads, however much that might get up some people's noses.

We used Dynamic International, they were excellent, half a container around £1200 GBP fully insured then 15k THB 'scan fees' at the Thai end. The intimation regarding the scan fee was that there was too much stuff for them to bother looking through it(?!), so they just scanned it. Might have been a blag by the Thai agent, probably could have disputed this but we just wanted our stuff by that point and we'd anticipated a 10 - 15% charge of some kind anyway.

Process was very simple, we prepared nothing - they came, packed everything securely, took it away, and on the Thai end, it was delivered unpacked and placed where we wanted. No breakages and we shipped a few breakables.

Exactly. I guessed you would either ignore my question or not give a direct answer.

This has been my point all along, because there are probably hundreds, perhaps thousands who share the same attitudes as you do and this is one main reason why the authorities have increased their observations on the activities of farangs in the country. Most of the blame that the Digital Nomads (whatever they’re about or do) hassle of today’s unwanted attention can be attributed to the likes of you and those like you, plus of course that has the knock on affect of eventually creating more hurdles for the rest of us who respect the laws and abide by the imposed Immigration department rules and regulations for foreigners staying in Thailand.

Regarding your belief that paying taxes should not apply to you, have you heard the old saying; the two certainties in life? We pay tax and we die, and sorry to have to make you aware of this; but no one ever escapes either of them.

Does the fact that they were released without charge not indicate that the Immigration department consider those they questioned today to be 'respect(ing) the laws and abide by the imposed Immigration department rules and regulations for foreigners staying in Thailand'? Bit of an oversight if not...

In terms of taxes, Thai residents are only liable for tax on foreign income remitted to Thailand in the year it is earned, as with many other countries. Therefore it is quite feasible for taxes not to be a certainty - the saying is a fallacy - well, technicallly they are taxable, but on 30% of zero.

At the end of the day, excuses and "I think I'm outside the law because..." explanations aside, it's still illegal and there is no visa that suits the digital nomad - as fully outlined here http://www.thethailandlife.com/working-online-thailand

At the end of the day, literally, they were questioned by police then released without charge.

In practice, it seems like the opinion of those that actually have the authority to enforce law in Thailand, differ those of 'The Thailand Life' and those that they consulted (none of whom were Thai lawmakers or enforcers).

Seems to me that it is not considered illegal. It's not like the police tend to try to avoid charging people with illegally working after investing planning and resource in a raid with the purpose of catching illegal workers is it?

It seems like the police (regular and immigration) were just doing their jobs, what's wrong with that...? It always amazes me the people (I thought to use another word but am opting to stay civil) who always come out here with nothing good to say about Thailand or Thai authorities. If they find it so distasteful to stay within the bounds of Thai law, and they are really here, why don't they leave - go to Cambodia, go home, or anyplace other than here? What about Thai in their own countries? How easy for Thai to go to them, stay, and work? I love Thailand and the Thai people, that's why I'm here.... If I didn't love Thailand and respect its culture I would go elsewhere.

Did you read through this thread before commenting?

Who is complaining about the police or immigration?

Who is operating outside of the bounds of Thai law?

To break it down:

1 - The immigration police raided a co-working space under the suspicion that the people there were working FOR the co-working space.

2 - The people in the co-working space were taken for questioning.

3 - Once it was determined that they were not employed by the co-working space, the people who were questioned were released without charge.

Points to take from this:

• Nobody is complaining about police or immigration conduct. Beyond a couple of people claiming it is a waste of resource - which, to be fair, it turned out to be.
• The people in the co-working space were not considered to be operating outside the bounds of Thai law.

Why are you rolling out the 'if you don't like it go elsewhere' comment and defending the police from non existent criticism? Those questioned were released without any charges - generally that means the person questioned did nothing wrong.

If you're breaking the law and stupid enough to do it out in the open you probably deserve the punishment. Digital nomads - whatever the hell that is - often say how they can do their job anywhere. Well why would anyone provoke the authorities by all getting together in the same place to make a mockery of the laws?

There was no punishment, and it seems, no breaking of the law from the perspective of the Immigration Police. That's the crucial aspect here. It's not a case of 'provoking' the authorities or 'making a mockery' of laws, there have been persistent questions regarding the legality of working online for foreign companies when payment is received outside of Thailand. Recently it was reported that an Immigration Official in Chiang Mai said it was fine to do this and no WP was required, something that had many expats up in arms - understandable given the hoops required for most traditional business structures that involve foreigners in Thailand. It seems that the Thai authorities do not share this outrage.

The search occurred because the officials understood people to be working FOR the co-working space, and when it was clear they were simply working AT the co-working space, and for foreign entities, and being paid outside of Thailand, they were released completely without charge. This is a strong intimation that in fact at present it is considered perfectly legal to work remotely in Chiang Mai for foreign organisations, so long as payment is received outside of Thailand.

It certainly seems that people like to think they have clear insight as to what the laws of Thailand are regarding remote workers, however it appears this view is not actually shared by those that have the responsibilty and authority to enforce them. In my experience, the Police like charging people when they consider a crime has been committed, partiicularly having gone to the practical and financial trouble of setting up a raid on an establishment to catch people - they love stats, particularly when they justify expenditure. That nobody was charged speaks volumes.

If the Immigration department considered these people to be operating illegally, they would have been charged. That they were not indicates that they are considered to be operating legally.

That all said - on a practical level - perspectives and interpretations could change. I wouldn't like to be the guy renowned for every day in a coworking space when / if they decide that actually they have changed their interpretation. In general in business in Thailand, as a foreigner, a low profile is good.

LazyYogi, on 01 Oct 2014 - 17:16, said:

For those who work here online and want to avoid any gray area, the one solution that I know of is to do your invoicing through an umbrella company, who then pays your taxes for you and gets you a work permit.

Sounds like a plug for this umbrella company to me... seems to me to be a crazy expensive option - and btw don't they need to capitalise millions for each farang work permit they issue?

BOI approved companies are exempt fromt the capitalisation per WP I think, but yes I think it is expensive as well.

For those who work here online and want to avoid any gray area, the one solution that I know of is to do your invoicing through an umbrella company, who then pays your taxes for you and gets you a work permit.

bulls++t exactly this is illegal, you can write an invoice with any adresse onl not a thai adress

That company provides a work permit and helps with a business visa - it's above board (and BOI approved I believe)

It is just about as expensive as setting up your own company though, albeit with far less beaurocracy. Of course if you take up the service there's nothing to stop you putting a fraction of invoices through that company, just to meet their minimum monthly invoice level (2K USD I think) - it's not like you must put everything through it.

In reading the full blog posting, it seems that everyone who could produce a passport with a valid visa or current visa-exempt status was left alone. And perhaps a misunderstanding that the people were working (employed by) PunSpace.

So, I wonder if it's really an exercise in harassing digital nomads, or just an opportunity to check visa status for a group of foreigners who are congregated together. I wonder what's next? Will they storm the next Expats Ladies Lunch and ask to see that we all have our passports with valid retirement visas?

I now carry my passport with me at all times. Yeah, I know it's a hassle. I put it in a plastic bag and hopefully it won't get stolen or trashed out.

This is no misunderstanding.

Digital nomads and similar groups all have sites on facebook and are openly encouraging and teaching farangs how to run online businesses and make money online here and there are those cashing in on these groups by organising meetings and being self appointed so-called digital instructors.

Let this be a warning to those who believe that the Thai authorities will turn a blind eye towards those who create and run such groups, and think they can get away with running these kinds of outfits without the official permissions and work permits. This also applies to certain other clubs that have pay subscription memberships.

Very odd conclusion to reach when they all got released without any kind of charge after it was ascertained they did not work for PunSpace.

Surely if the intention were to send a message, the people that were released with no charge would have been charged with working illegally. The only mention of any potential fine or prosecution was in regard to not carrying passports - nothing in relation to working remotely.

I think the opposite, this is happy days for digital nomads.