wpcoe

I've taken about a dozen train rides in Thailand, and most of them start out from the origination point on time, but become amazingly late the farther they go.

My last train, from Hua Hin to Bangkok, scheduled to depart at 1601, departed at 1605, but even with no perceivable delays (not many slow spots, not many stop-and-waits) still arrived Hualampong about 45 minutes late.

That train originated in Sura Thani at 1040, and I was duly impressed that it was still pretty much on time at Hua Hin five hours into its journey.

What are the issues with the 64-bit version? Is it incompatibility with plug-ins and add-ons?

FYI & FWIW:

I'm moving from Pattaya to Hua Hin soon, so I stopped by the 3BB counter on Pattaya Klang at Carrefour to ask if I could transfer my existing account & service. They said the process can only be initiated from Hua Hin.

I figured that 3BB needed to be sure that my new location has 3BB lines, and asked if the Customer Service phone center could check, and was told no, only the Hua Hin office can check. She said that as long as I can get 3BB service at my new location, then they definitely can transfer the account and service. (Why can't someone just check with Hua Hin and see? <shrug>)

I was hoping to do it from this end (Pattaya) and have an approximate date of switchover to coincide with my move, but unless I want to travel to HH in advance, apparently can't do that. Oh, well.

Thanks to all for your tips!

Earthed/grounded or not, a direct lightning strike is probably going to fry everything that's plugged it, no?

Hasn't air service to/from Hua Hin come and gone a few times in the past?

I wish these guys success. Too bad, though, that it's only 4x/week and to/from Don Mueang. Daily service to Suvarnabhumi would be nice.

Pepper spray: Anybody know where to buy it in Pattaya these days? The spray I have now, I bought at the Foodland pharmacy on Pattaya Klang shortly after I moved here about six years ago. Although I've never used it -- and I always carry it when I go for long walks for dog control, just in case -- I figure its half-life must be something less than uranium and I should be looking for a new one. Went to Foodland today and they no longer carry it.

Boxes: I was at Carrefour this afternoon and asked at customer service if they had any cardboard boxes that I could use for an upcoming move. Obvious, that is NOT a standard request, and I was treated with such shock and surprise that I could only manage to get ONE box out of them -- from the back room of the customer service counter after they emptied out the trinkets that were shipped in it. I asked if the stock room would have boxes available, and was told in no uncertain terms: no.

Am I going to face the same situation if I try at Tesco, Makro, Kanyong, etc? I had already shopped at HomePro before going to Carrefour, and forgot to ask at HomePro. Darn.

Last bus is at 10pm. You can get them to stop at the junction of any on the main arteries into Pattaya; North, Central and South. They then continue on the Thapphraya Road. (North of Thepprasit Road, opposite Pan Pan Restaurant)

FYI, the web site linked in post #2 has an asterisked footnote for the 1000pm bus:

"This bus goes to Pattaya Bus Terminal on North Pattaya Road only due to its arrival at Pattaya is quite late so it will be more convenient to passengers to get local transportation from Pattaya Bus Terminal to your accommodations."

Based on that, I think that that particular bus *won't* stop at any of the junctions on Sukhumvit, nor go to the Thappraya Road location.

When I took the train from Hua Hin back to Bangkok with my new "unlimited, but fair use" True 3G account, when we were in areas of EDGE-only coverage, I was still able to use speedtest.net tests.

When True shapes the 3G after the "fair use" provision kicks in, does it go to some modified 3G service, or does it drop to bona fide EDGE? I had assumed the latter, but now I'm not sure.

So, AIS is in cahoots with 3BB now?

The whole 3G set-up in Thailand seems like a house of cards, what with the current "trials" not being advertised as such. With all the info online and in the shops, nothing indicates that 3G service by a particular carrier might be a "trial" and hence "temporary."

Thanks, again. It's starting to sink in.

Surely a Thai would just buy one of the cheaper Thai or company name units. I would, in his shoes.

Why would any Thai person buy a Farang-name condo when he could buy a Thai-name one for less?

Ohhhh, I don't know. How about some absurd unbelievable reason like the farang was selling a desirable unit? A corner unit, a unit on the "cool side" of the building, on a high floor, or some such.

Maybe for *you* price is everything, and you "would just buy one of the cheaper Thai or company name units," but perhaps some folks -- including Thais -- do have other criteria and standards. Just a wild & crazy concept I'll throw out for consideration.

Boy, I experienced one heck of a cluster &lt;deleted&gt; with iTunes and my iPhone4 last night.

I fired up iTunes to do a routine synch and it notified me of two updates: one to iTunes and one to iOS v.4.3. Great! Thanks, iTunes, I'll do that: I'll upgrade both!

First, I clicked to update iTunes. When the process completed (after a 75+MB download), I clicked on the iTunes icon and was greeted with an error saying files were missing, and to re-install iTunes. Crap. But, okay, so I googled "download iTunes," clicked on the apple.com link, clicked on the big "DOWNLOAD" button and downloaded another 75+MB. Clicked on the file only to find I'd downloaded the 32-bit version, and I have 64-bit Win7. Crap. So, downloaded another 75+MB and it installed properly.

That was the EASY part.

Next I clicked on iTunes' generous offer to upgrade my iPhone to v.4.3. Woohoo! Finally I can get WiFi tethering.

First clue something was amiss: after downloading and getting what looked like 90% through the installation, up popped an error: The iPhone "wpcoe's iPhone" could not be updated. An unknown error occurred (1013). Clicking on the "More Information" button lead to an apple.com page with a link explaining the error codes. Apparently this error code could/should be resolved by deleting everything from the HOSTS file.

Fine, did that.

Then iTunes cautioned me that my iPhone was in recovery mode and I should restore the settings. I clicked on the appropriate button and after several minutes, again about 90% through the operation, up pops an error: The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1013). Hmmmm. Same error as above.

Rinse, lather, repeat. I was stuck with a bricked phone.

The problem was a single line in the HOSTS file. At some point some piece of Apple software inserts an IP address 74.208.10.249 mapped for gs.apple.com.

Many of the internet forum fixes say to remove that line -- Apple's site arrogantly says to delete ALL entries in the HOSTS file, of course, since they reign supreme in their own eyes -- which I did early in the process.

Then I realized that my primary DNS server is set to my Thai ISP's, and my secondary DNS server is set to a USA site. I think that with the invalid address mapping deleted from the HOSTS file, my Thai DNS server resolved to some Thai Apple IP address. When I switched my Primary & Secondary DNS Server settings, I was able to complete the iOS upgrade.

Now, how many folks are going to stumble on that solution?

After the upgrade was complete, I was presented with an iTunes screen to restore a backup, which I did. I got no error messages. However, after the restore, all my music and photos are still missing and all my downloaded apps as well. What the &lt;deleted&gt; exactly was backed up and restored???

I finally found that if you right-click on the device name in iTunes, it offers to restore. (Here, I was, silly me, expecting to find such a useful tool in the menu bar at the top...) I had a choice of three backups, one from before this debacle started, and two created during the process.

I chose the one from before, and it restored none of my apps, music or videos.

I found the location of the backup files:

C:\Users\wpcoe\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\7e3ba4c339bcb70b1ed25c16f0b0ef3b2174d2de

-- a folder with 5519 items, including some .plist files that contain the names of my downloaded apps and some of their settings, but can't seem to find a way to have iTunes access that info to restore it!

iTunes already had all my apps under LIBRARY > Apps

I found where iTunes had hidden all my songs/videos (C:\Users\wpcoe\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media) and I successfully dragged-and-dropped them in the LIBRARY in iTunes. However, when I click SYNC, nothing gets copied over onto the bloody iPhone???

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

So, all that to say: HOW THE HECK DO I GET ALL MY VIDEOS, MUSIC AND APPS FROM ITUNES TO MY IPHONE???

How can Apple fans be so blindly loyal and in awe of its products? This "simple" upgrade process has so far cost me over three hours, and I still don't have a fully functioning iPhone.

+1 for Irish Aircon.

jackbox, thanks for that history of (lack of) 3G in Thailand.

I would have *sworn* that sometime last year, there was a brouhaha because True had been awarded all the 3G contracts nationwide. Any idea what I am mis-remembering???

[edited to add:]

Okay, *this* is what I remember: CAT hands True 3G windfall

The 3G-licensing saga took a new twist yesterday with True Corp becoming the sole operator to be awarded the rights to a 3G-service roll-out.

Meanwhile, the future of other private operators hinges on TOT's e-auction for the 3G2.1GHz network today after the Central Administrative Court last night rejected the petition by the disqualified Ericsson-led consortium for a stay on the auction.

CAT Telecom yesterday awarded deals to two of True Corp's wholly owned subsidiaries for joint development of the 3G wireless broadband services nationwide.

No wonder I was confused. What exactly did CAT license to True? I had thought that True got the whole enchilada = a license to be the sole 3G provider in Thailand, but apparently, I misunderstood?

From the OP:

All commercial banks will be able to adjust their ATM related service fees down by the end of this month as they have agreed in their meeting late last year, according to the Bank of Thailand (BoT).

"Will be able to..." Huh? Is there some government regulation against lowering the fees voluntarily and at will, any time a bank wants to?

...state-owned Krung Thai Bank has taken the lead in reducing the fees, and other commercial banks are expected to follow suit by the end of March 2011.

So Krung Thai Bank can initiate fee drops? By being "expected to follow suit," does that mean other commercial banks are *required* to, or is it optional?

I always assumed that if one bank wanted to lower its fees, it could at any time? You know, like for competitive reasons?

An alternate to MSCONFIG is to use Microsoft's Autoruns. On the computers I've used it, it found more start-up entries than MSCONFIG. Plus, you can either simply un-check the entries to disable them, or you can actually delete them permanently.

On Vista/Win7, right-click on the executable (or its shortcut, if you use one) and grant it administrator rights, or you won't be able to modify/delete any entry.

I wonder if the MAC address registration is simply an option to bypass the log-on screen with username/password? I won't swear to it, but as I was watching the True fellow futz with the entries on his computer, I *think* there were spaces for multiple MAC addresses.

I wasn't aware of the "SMS to 9789 with "w" (lower case w, no quotes) and then get back a reply with my True WiFi username and password" routine. That may still work with my notebook computer, even thought my iPhone is MAC-registered. "One of these days," I'll check it out.

I had Siam steel come in the other day for ameeting, amongst the things they do is prefab houses.

I like a couple of those floor plans: I favor an efficient design with a lack of hallways. (Hallways, to me, are a waste of space.) Now if they would only legalize it for farang to own a small plot of land upon which to erect such a home...

Do you know what material they use for the exterior fascia? It almost looks like a vinyl fake wood. If it's real wood, is it single-wall construction, or a double-wall (cavity) construction?

Did you get any price estimates?

I had a Thai friend of a friend whose dad was a professional painter help me when I did the first remodel of my condo. He would load up the roller, slowly lift it to the ceiling and roll the paint on -- without getting a single drop or even droplet on the floor! I was amazed. I watched him closely and still couldn't figure out how he managed that. He was also so detailed that he went along each ceiling-to-wall joint with artist paintbrushes to get the line between the colors EXACTLY perfect.

The only time I attempted to roll paint on a ceiling *I* was covered with spatter.

And, when using a "bucket grid" with the large (5 gallon?) buckets of paint, how do you get started? Do you pour the top several inches of paint into some other container? If you simply put the grid in a new bucket, how does it work?

I recall several years ago -- I know it was before I moved to Jomtien, so at least six years ago -- that at least the seat availability portion of the SRT web site was operational. I can't recall now if one could actually make a reservation, but I clearly recall being able to check availability.

Today, clicking on the "Available Seat" link leads to a "404 - File or directory not found" server error.

I never noticed the byline for the "Grade: A" rating: "faster than 85% of TH." Goodness, that can be misleading. 85% of zero is still zero.

So, if I can distill what is being reported, Songkran in Hua Hin starts in the bar area(s) on the evening of the 13th, extends through the 14th, and then is finished?

I just rented a small townhouse on a quiet soi near city center, so I expect some good-spirited water fun from the local kids on the block on the 14th, but hope not to encounter drunken farangs throwing buckets of iced water 24/7 for a week?

Thanks for all the info, folks. I think I'll try walking up from Sukhumvit and take a look.