SamuiRes

Before we moved from near Bangkok Hospital to Bangrak we had 3BB and they were pretty good. 3BB do not have lines to the Fisherman's Village end of Bangrak so we had to go with TOT and I agree their service is pretty poor. Last Friday was a prime example for everyone I think being out until 4pm which is not good when you are trying to run a business. We often find they are down first thing in the morning as well. No problems with 3BB at home in Plai Laem. As we cannot get 3BB I was considering CAT - does anyone have experience of them in the Bangrak area - or True for that matter?

There is an eye Dr at Bangkok Samui Hospital. Do not know his name though but he did a post op examination for me following cataract surgery so I could avoid a trip to Bangkok.

I went about 8 years ago and clearly nothing has changed - perhaps they have one more species than when I went! As another poster stated I get more different types of butterfly in my garden on a busy road than there. Total rip off which is a sad reflection on what is supposed to be a quality hotel.

Thank you all for the various suggestions.

Schmitts in Lamai - 1 Kilo 60 Baht

Shook our office in Banrak as well. Was also told it was an F16.

Tried Tesco, Big C, Makro, Tops with no success.

Anyone seen icing sugar anywhere?

Part of the problem according to my wife is that with childen under 18 they are all registered at the same adress as the mother. As the children live with the grandparents, changing her house book would create a problem for the children. There is of course the psychological reason of maintaining the ties to home and family.

With regard to the OP reference to City Status - I do not think Koh Samui has that as it would not qualify under the population density requirement even with a registered population well in excess of 50,000. The status seems to be some sort of typical Thai compromise to resolve the issue. Perhaps someone with better knowledge of this could enlighten us.

I fear it will just turn into a farce, with people everywhere simply going about their business as usual. Especially on the ring road. I really can't see the organisers recruiting enough manpower to enforce the closures at that many intersections for that length of time. I actually feel sorry of the competitors, who come here believing the road closures will keep them safe.

This was the control at the junction with Soi 4 in Plai Laem just after 09.00

TOT pretty poor at the Fisherman's Village end of Bangrak most of the week. Unfortunately 3BB do not have a line there.

OK - here is the latest:

Spoke to Bangkok Bank Help Desk again yesterday.

They said that the ability to pay TOT bills by Bangkok Bank Biz IBanking had been cancelled by TOT and a senior Rep from Bangkok Bank would call me in an hour to explain.

Called TOT Help Desk - eventually got someone to understand what I was asking. They confirmed I could not longer pay though Biz IBanking due to a technical problem and she did not know how long this would take to fix.

Rep from Bangkok Bank called and told me that TOT had withdrawn this facility due to a Withholding Tax problem.

From what I could gather this was just an issue with Business Banking and not the personal Bualuang Banking. That does not help me as I do not want to mix company and clients funds with my personal funds.

So is this a load of BS or do you other folk out there now have this problem?

Still paying my TOT bills via Bangkok Bank internet banking...paid two bills just last week. I just checked and TOT is still listed under payees you can add...they are listed as TOTELEC...see snapshot below. Now supposedly, if the bill is pass the due date you can not pay; however, during the flood late last year when TOT bills were delivered ldate....even delivered after the due date since the postman's motorcycle couldn't transverse meter high water in many places I was still able to pay my bill via Bkk Bk internet banking way after the bill due date.

This is all I get on the add Payee page.

TOT / TOTELEC do not appear.

I tried to delete existing TOT payment details and it would not even let me do that.

CAT * CAT Telecom Public Company Limited

MEA * METROPOLITAN ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY

Clearly I'm confused, but in the graphic you posted I DO see TOTELEC on your list.

Provided I'm badly misunderstanding something, others have said you can't pay online if you're in arrears. Considering that your paying for several TOT accounts from your BKK Bank account, perhaps one of those accounts somehow ended up in arrears & now you're blocked from payments. I would suggest taking all your montly account statements to a TOT office, paying up, making sure you have no arrears anywhere, and maybe that will fix the problem? Just a guess.

Not my graphic.

TOTELEC has disappeared from my available list although it still shows on my account list - but will not accept payments.

All accounts are paid up to date and even if what you say was true, I suspect that the Help Desk might just have spotted that as I have been in touch with them for hours over the last week.

Also one of the graphics posted by Pib is from Bualuang Banking which is the personal account internet banking and not Biz IBanking.

. So, what do people do when they are out of the country and one of these bills comes due?

Maybe I'm missing something here..... But, all my utility accounts in Thailand (phone, electricity, internet, cell phone) have been set-up to be automatically direct debited, in full, to my Bangkok Bank account. All's I have to do is ensure I keep enough money in the bank account to meet the fairly predictable monthly amounts due. This Bangkok Bank account is one of several we have, all linked to an iBanking account, so we can view the utility payments on-line (and keep the account sufficiently topped-up, as needed).

Did the same thing in the States -- everything direct debited, in full, from my bank account. Never saw much use in the on-line "bill pay" feature, where, unless the amount due is the same every month, you have to physically fat-finger in monthly applicable amounts and numbers. Too lazy -- plus, maybe I'm not available or it's not very convenient.

And, just as in Thailand, you make the direct debit arrangement through the utility, not your bank.

That is fine is you are only dealing with your own accounts and your own money. I need to ensure the bill is correct before I authorise payment on behalf of a client. Usually they are but once in a while, the one you do not check is the one that is wrong.

Rather Notepad than Word. Did you ever view the HTML Word generates? Nothing short of awful.

If you just want to modify an existing website you could just use Notepad (assuming of course you know basic HTML). Otherwise try an old copy of DW or Coffeecup, or there is a ton of free html editors available from download.com you might take a look at.

Xara looks interesting too, at least if you are starting a new web design project. Not sure how useful it is for editing an existing site. Seems to be more of a website builder than design tool.

I downloaded the trial version and so far your analysis is correct. For a new web site it seems fine but for playing with an existing web site not so good. I tried downloading pages from our web site and they only partly downloaded and were difficult to edit and also tried using a page from my hard disk and that just would not load for some reason. As I said in a previous post I am not web guru so maybe I have to keep experimenting.

If anyone knows how I can get a copy of a previous version of Dreamweaver, please let me know.

@GiantFan This is not TOT but I've had a 3BB bill not arrive and I went ahead and paid it via Bangkok Bank Internet banking using the last month's invoice number and had no problem. The important part is your customer ID number. Just a thought.

Yes I have done that too especially after the Bangkok floods when lots of post went missing.

If a person knows they will be out of country/won't get the bill in the mail which has the payment Reference Numbers needed to make the internet payment, there is always the option of going to a TOT service center (lots of them around...usually in a mall near you) and overpaying/prepay for the next month(s). And although I've never done it, I bet a person could overpay a bill via internet banking and when the next bill comes it will just show a credit which means you don't need to pay anything. But I know this depends on having the time to do this before leaving and sometimes a person don't have that time, especially in an emergency. I'm not a fan of overpaying just to create a credit on the account, but it is an option.

Well, that's the question. Can we prepay or not. If so, how? Also, how reliable are these Thai companies at crediting prepayments which seem to be rare or non-existent here? I was hoping to hear from someone with actual experience.

I pay all my bills through IBanking (except of course recently TOT!) on behalf of my company and clients. Recently a client was in town and thought it a good idea to pay his CAT bill without telling me (went in with the previous bill and asked to pay up to date) I did not know and paid the current bill on line so it was paid twice. The credit came through on the next bill without any problem.

Still cannot pay TOT and with public holidays today and Monday and Songkran next week doubt this will get cleared up soon.

One managed estate that I know charge Baht 5,000 per month. This includes 24 hour security, street cleaning, refuse collection, common lighting, communal pool maintenance, management charges (someone has to organise this and pay the bills). However, this is at the low end of charges I have seen and up to Baht 10,000 a month is not unusual.

Have you tried switching between CSS and html in the properties tab?

I still like Dreamweaver, but it freaked me out to when I switched to CS5 and the standardization of CSS. Its kinda good though because it forced me to learn CSS, and now Im a CSS ninja.

The Find and Replace function just made my life 1000 times easier. Wish I would have implemented its use earlier, instead of editing pages one by one to change links. What took me 6 hours took Dreamweaver literally 3 seconds...dam_n (shaking head)

I am not a web guru by any means but with the old Dreamweaver we could make changes easily, add pages, amend pages, use different fonts with different sizes. I just went to look at what you referred to and I still do not understand. I can see the code and highlight text but it will not change it to what I want. I have had pictures appear out of place and identified the code but it will not let me delete them. I do not have time or inclination to learn CSS or whatever, just need a simple tool to do the job Dreamweaver used to do.

Still paying my TOT bills via Bangkok Bank internet banking...paid two bills just last week. I just checked and TOT is still listed under payees you can add...they are listed as TOTELEC...see snapshot below. Now supposedly, if the bill is pass the due date you can not pay; however, during the flood late last year when TOT bills were delivered ldate....even delivered after the due date since the postman's motorcycle couldn't transverse meter high water in many places I was still able to pay my bill via Bkk Bk internet banking way after the bill due date.

This is all I get on the add Payee page.

TOT / TOTELEC do not appear.

I tried to delete existing TOT payment details and it would not even let me do that.

CAT * CAT Telecom Public Company Limited

MEA * METROPOLITAN ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY

I don't use them but just tested to see if I could add them as a new payee and they showed up in the list. Perhaps remove them from your payee list and add them again.

Thought of that - I tried adding a new account but they do not show up in the list of available payees so I cannot re-activate them. This is frustrating because it is an on-line system, not something sitting on my pc, so why can you guys see them, but I cannot? Bangkok Bank do not seem to have an answer either, but is useful to know other users can still see TOT.

I just paid my TOT bill using iBanking. The symbol is TOTELEC.

Yes - that is what I have been using for years - but now not available on my system. If you can pay it, it must be a fault at my end which is proving hard to identify.

I have used Bangkok Bank Biz IBanking for some years now and have found it to be an excellent service. However, for some reason in the last couple of weeks I have been unable to pay TOT bills on line. They seem to have lost TOT from their system. I pay for both my company and for clients and therefore have been paying about ten different TOT invoices on a monthly basis for probably 6 years. Suddenly it is not possible anymore. I spent well over an hour on the phone to their help desk, but they could not figure it out either and have been unable to correct the problem.

It is only TOT - all other bills and transfers work as normal.

Question: Has anyone else come across this problem, or is it just me?

Following a computer crash we re-installed Dreamweaver on line. It of course downloaded the "new improved" version which we have found to be a nightmare. They seem to have made it unnecessarily complicated. Try changing a font size! There are quite a few programs out there but would appreciate any feed back on which offer an uncomplicated method to update an existing web site on a regular basis.

Prices hit a peak about 3-4 years ago as a consequence of demand.

There are a number of factors that have changed since then, the most dramatic being the fall in value of currencies against the Thai Baht.

GBP down from 72 to 48, USD from 52 to 30, etc (approximations for the pedantic).

This means that a seller can reduce his Baht price by the same % and still come out with what he invested in his home currency.

Demand has fallen mainly due to the world economic crisis and people do not have the spare cash they had before for a second home in Thailand.

The land issues and Coup did not help, but it is the availability of spare cash to buy that is the big factor.

Prices have come down to pre-boom levels and we have seen a drop in asking prices by an average of 25% with completed sales at up to 50% down on pre-boom prices. Property is selling again where the seller has accepted these corrections in the market and there are some very well priced i.e. good value resale properties around.

Cannot guarantee 100% accuracy as itineries do occasionaly change:

Silversea - Silver Whisper 28 March 2012

Princess Cruises - Ocean Princess 4 April 2012

Costa Cruises - Costa Classica 4 April 2012

Star Cruises - Super Star Virgo 12 June 2012

Princess Cruises - Dawn Princess 2 July 2012

Princess Cruises - Dawn Princess 9 August 2012

Silversea - Silver Shadow 6 November 2012

Princess Cruises - Ocean Princess 15 November 2012

Costa Cruises - Costa Victoria 29 November 2012

Holland America – Volendam 12 December 2012

AIDA – AIDAdiva 12 December 2012

Costa Cruises - Costa Victoria 13 December 2012

AIDA – AIDAdiva 26 December 2012

Azamara Club Cruises - Azamara Journey 26 December 2012

Costa Cruises - Costa Victoria 27 December 2012

and for next year -

Cunard - Queen Mary 2 11 February 2013

Wish I had found this yesterday - bridge cam view from the Queen Elizabeth

http://www.cunard.co.uk/Ships/Queen-Elizabeth/Bridge-Web-Cam/