steffi

I could just keep a small amount of money in my checking account but currently I have enabled that feature that lets them take money out of savings when it's necessary. This is designed to protect you from going into overdraft and incurring bank charges $50 each time. So right now they can put thru an amount that would hit checking and then it will hit savings for the remained. Anybody know if you can turn that feature off online?

Yes you make a good point but what is their record re: disputes like this? This would be with Bank Of America so I'd imagine them to resolve any dispute in a timely fashion?

Customer service for the bank of closed right now.

So the only recourse is to cancel the card?

That's a big inconvienience right now but your point is taken.

notify the bank immediately... before you get stung for a higher amount!

Which is the bigger inconvenience ? cancelling the card or losing a large amount of money. ?

Should be a simple choice. You have already had the warning signs of the small value transactions.

Yes you make a good point but what is their record re: disputes like this? This would be with Bank Of America so I'd imagine them to resolve any dispute in a timely fashion?

Customer service for the bank of closed right now.

So the only recourse is to cancel the card?

That's a big inconvienience right now but your point is taken.

notify the bank immediately... before you get stung for a higher amount!

Which is the bigger inconvenience ? cancelling the card or losing a large amount of money. ?

Should be a simple choice. You have already had the warning signs of the small value transactions.

Customer service for the bank of closed right now.

So the only recourse is to cancel the card?

That's a big inconvienience right now but your point is taken.

notify the bank immediately... before you get stung for a higher amount!

This could just be coincidence but the very same day I booked my air asia flight with a card I don't use that often and one that had only just been reissued with a new expiry date I find that there were three fraudulent charges charged to my card

04/10/2007

CHECKCARD 0409 AP9*PRIVACYMATTERS123 877-993-6264 CT

$1.00

04/10/2007

CHECKCARD 0409 VIDPROF 6.95S&P1STPMT 800-5257763 CO

$4.95

04/10/2007

CHECKCARD 0409 ULT* ULTIMA SMILE,LLC 800-6302305 CA

$8.95

These charges are all obviously designed to go under any "alert" radar.

Right now I'm in Khon Kaen and there's a plentiful supply at Tukcom/Oasis but you never know which ones work and are reliable. I've had good experience with one of those translucent card readers before. The kind that this year and half their size with the CF slot being on the opposite side now. One that seems to be highly regarded is the Apacer rotating cube one and there's always those flat ones. There's also those very small square ones which 2 connectors on either side that seem to be ok also. Anybody used those? There's two phillips screws in either side and it's almost a perfect square. There's also the circular kind that allows you to plug in bigger devices as the spaces b/w the connectors is bigger.

Also, since a notebook cooling stand is cheaper than a CPU or a burnt out machine has anybody seen any noticable improvement when using these notebook cooling stands? There seem to be a lot of them around. I saw somebody in a book took a USB hub and actually glued/double sided taped it to the button of the notebook stand to actually provide a hub and wired the stand directly into the hub and connected the hub the laptop via it's connector.

Seemed like a cheap way to get a notebook cooling stand with USB 2.0 hub as most of the ones you see don't say they are USB 2.0

That may be the defaults but I'm sure there's another way to operate landscape and still have the keyboard visible. Otherwise you couldn't browse the web in landscape which is a big selling point of this phone.

Portrait and landscape mode depend on which way you move the slider. If you move the slider towards you, you are in landscape mode and every thing works in that mode okay except you do not have access to the keyboard. If you move the slider away from you, you are in portrait mode. Again everything works in that mode and you have the keyboard.

BTW: the video recording id great! I recorded some Songkran watering throwing for about 2 minutes.

Battery life - do not know yet. Have not paid too much attention as I have been "playing" with it alot. I charged the battery Friday morning, shot some video and pictures on Saturday, received a few calls, and today, SUnday, I have about 1/2 battery life left.

Gary

I just saw on today in Khon Kaen but it was the grape colored version and I'm not that crazy about that. I think I'll have to wait until I see the other color. Seems the phone was just released a couple of days ago. I was quoted the same price here in KK. I'm guessing you can get a bit of a discount at MBK but you might risk getting one of the earlier prototypes they were selling instead.

Does any application work in landscape mode on it? I'd be coming from an N80 so that's a big win for me especially with the built in web browser. Presumably Fring and Gizmo work out of the box?

Any thoughts on battery life yet?

I just purchased a Nokia N95 3 days ago from Central in Chiang Mai for 28,990 baht.

It comes with a 1GB miniSD and nice leather case to protect the phone. You also get stero earphones with an adapter to control the audio player without touching the phone.

It is a very nice phone. Yes, it is a little slow in some places, but hey, being a computer freak, it's okay for me.

It does take a while to get used to as there are so many features built into the phone. The user manual is in Thai, but you can get English versions online from Nokia.

You can download F-Secure antivirus through your phone - 30 day free trial. There are other antivirus programs for the phone at a cheaper price - you just have to search for them.

The mapping program is okay but only supports Bangkok. One cool thing is the AsiaMaps - it will show you your location on the display. First you see a world map then is homes in on your signal and marks where you are - pretty accurate.

The audio with the earphones is great. The visuals are great. It has voice command capability and a voice synthesizer to tell you who is calling you.

The 5MP camera is outstanding! Better than my 4.1 MP Olympus camera. No optical zoom, though.

Be care when converting your mp3s to m4a type files for the phone. DUring the conversion it will over-write your mp3s! Move them to a temporary directory before doing the conversion.

Internet browing is good and I can even get email from my website, which uses an SSL connection.

I have not tried the visual radio yet, but will over the next week as I am trying to update my website after a lengthy re-design.

If you have any questions, ask. I am currently in Chiang Rai on holiday bu will be back in Pattaya in 2 days.

Gary

I just wanted to follow up and say that I was dealing with the Chicago consulate.

The irony is that as we were departing at the airport in Chicago we were approached by a gentleman seeking assistance with helping two ladies transfer at Narita. Apparently they weren't sure which way to go and he asked me and my wife whether we could help them. He claimed at the time that these two ladies were assistants of the Consulate in Chicago. So here we have a situation where I'm being asked to help staff who work at the Consulate which blatantly refused without reason to issue me with a mulitple entry type O immigration visa. Btw: we assisted them in transfering at Narita but I must say I was quite wary about being approached by strangers to do anything in an airport. From what I understand I was unduly paranoid about this arrangement but I will always be in a similar situation in the future.

Depending on your product code Nokia Software Update will show you that there's a newer release out there but be warned about the notifications etc... as they no longer work.

Apparently there's an issue with service provider "requesting" type messages with the new firmware release such that they don't work. These are things like *120# etc that tell you your remaining balance etc.

So if you have an N80 you might want to wait until the dust settles before upgrading your firmware.

I checked and I have the latest update available. It is version 4.0632.0.38. I have had no problems at all using AIS. There was a new version of Nokia updater and Nokia Suite available that I downloaded and installed.

I actually killed mine whilst I was in the US and instead of sending it away I decided to invest in a JAF box. If you ever kill yours they have many folks around Bangkok with similar boxes who can revive a dead phone. Typically you need an FBUS cable with a BB5 flashing box to do that. I'll probably take a hard look at the N95 whist I'm here as I think the landscape screen is nice but it will have to be responsive... a little more so than my N80 is now.

I'm more worried about how fast the device runs.

I've heard several people complaining about how slow their N-phones were.

I'm also in the market for one of these devices, but I think I'll go O2, or Dopod...

After I bought the N-80 I was quite disappointed because it WAS slow and every once in a while it would freeze and I would have to re-boot. It takes forever to boot. I then downloaded new software from the Nokia update site and am now VERY happy with the phone. It is still slow to boot but since I leave it on all the time that's not a problem.

Did it arrive yet? battery life is my main concern

Will be following this one myself..

I am tempted (I am involved in a charity race that transits india in mid summer and GPS features and geo-tagged pictures and photoblog would all fit) but the results I have looked at from the 5MP cam looked pretty poor.. Much worse then my GF's SE790..

Right now I am thinking that a N800 internet tablet and a real cam (or mobile cam) and GPRS may be the tools I need to crack this nut.. But then still fail in geo-tags and GPS..

FDid it

Now I don't speak for the guesthouse but I have a new rule and that is to not eat dinner at any resturaunt associated with any guesthouse. These are typically there for the breakfast and I should have known that but this place served some of the worst food imaginable for the price. For instance we had Tom Yum Gung that didn't taste anything like same 100 thb and we ordered a dish with squid and got 3 pieces of squid for 100 thb. We specially ordered our meal family style and instead of having a dedicated chef on hand you had the waiter doing some of the cooking in the kitchen and they brought out each dish separately and expected us to eat it "sequentially" instead of together. This turned out to be a good thing because after the second dish we cancelled the third and left and still had room in our stomachs for some edible food.

I strongly advise that you walk across the street to Tanta's Seafood and there you will have a very positive dining experience and the food is reasonably priced, atmosphere is superb. Be warned that they are strict about not seating two people at a table of four and that can upset some people.

Apparently there's an issue with service provider "requesting" type messages with the new firmware release such that they don't work. These are things like *120# etc that tell you your remaining balance etc.

So if you have an N80 you might want to wait until the dust settles before upgrading your firmware.

so my Nokia N80 seems to be having a lot of "KERN-EXEC 3" errors since I arrived in Thailand and occasionally it wants to send a message over the network. Does anybody know what this message contains and why my phone periodically wants to send the message back? It seems to be related to "AIS Service." Typically when this comes up I just choose cancel.

Usually the printer itself does all the work. At work we had a big Xerox copier/printer and one of the layout options was booklet. But in this case I don't think that's the right one since the book is so thick. Usually "booklet" is for smaller books. Because it prints 4 pages to a page in landscape orientations.

My friends carry big textbooks back from the UK (borrowed from the uni library over xmas!) to photocopy around Siam. You usually go there and leave the book with them for a few hours, then come back and you'll find that they've photocopied the front cover (colourful and on 150gm paper!), make the photocopies into a book (not bind, but actually make it into a book) all for you for 0.5baht a page + 20 baht for the covers. You could barely tell the difference between the original and the photocopied (shhhhhh).

So, I'm sure these shops can print PDF's for you too.

Pavee

Do they let you change the package in the middle? ie. if I run out of minutes can I then change to a higher limit package or do I have to wait until 30 days have finished since I last made a change?

So - using EDGE right now in Nimmanhemin road in Chiang Mai. I am getting a not very exciting 30 - 50 kb / sec, sometimes 80.

OT - question about the N80 - is it fast? If you click on "Messages" how long until you see the list of New Message, Inbox, My Folders and so on? Asking because this is way too slow on my N73 which really pisses me off. It takes about 3-4 seconds on the N73. Clicking on Inbox or New Message then takes 1 full second, which is also too long. That stuff should be instant. Grrrrr...

I've got a PDF I'd like to get printed as a book. Anybody know of a place that can do this? What's it likely to cost if I want book like binding two sided like a book ie. odds and evens etc. At work the Xerox copier use to do this in it's sleep.

Would Lard Plao area be the best location for this sort of thing?

So then does anybody have this working from OSX with an N80 over bluetooth? I'll enquire about this some more today. I'm guessing you need Ross Barkman's GPRS scripts?

If you have an Edge capable phone and Edge coverage by your mobile phone provider, then it can be faster then dial-up.

Edge tops out most of the time at 200kbps for me, with average speeds almost always over 100kbps, which is almost 3 times faster then dial-up...

Biggest difference compared to dial up is that the speed can vary a lot, whereas with a good dial-up ISP your speed is roughly pegged to your connection speed and stays pretty stable...

Biggest advantage of Edge though is the price!

Its actually dirt cheap at just a couple of Baht per hour!

With an AIS one2call prepaid simcard, you just dial *138, and listen to the computervoive guiding you through the options. You should listen for "monthly GPRS packages" and choose that. Then choose a package which suits you, I think I have 100 hours/month for 350 Baht or something.

I think the biggest package is 900 Baht which gives you 300 hours (i think) or 10 hours per day, every day...

You cannot get unlimited packages with prepaid cards though...But then again, who uses more then 10 hours per day on average?

Another small advantage is that logging in goes much faster, just a few seconds compared to the almost a minute a dial up modem needs to complete the handshaking and the username/password verification.

Take a look here to see what speeds to expect,although it can vary a whole lot depending on your location, and how many people are using their mobile phones in your vicinity...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...43517&st=15

At home I'm forced to use dialup internet and I was wondering if I can get better speeds if I resort to GPRS. I have an Edge capable cell phone so I'm just wondering if I can beat 56k with it and whether it's affordable or not with a unlimited GPRS plan. I'd want something that allows me to use my phone as a bluetooth modem.

So now your defending their actions? Listen the person who made the decision is the same individual who gave me my single entry tourist visa several years ago prior to my marriage. So this wasn't an inexperienced staff member. My wife was with me to explain everything and we asked them why they list the $125 for multiple entry and all they could say was that that doesn't apply for cases based on marriage. That is a blatant lie. Additionally I've heard in the past of others being treated poorly by this particular consulate.

You could tell this consulate official was lying his ass off because when confronted with a convincing argument he had to run away to find yet another reason to justify their policy.

re: Taxi. Please don't bring that up here it's nothing to do with this posting. Please note i've been to Thailand several times in the past it's not a new experience for me. Again please don't go OT in this thread.

The rules are that I have to apply at local consulate. you cannot send your application elsewhere and expect them to process it if you live in the juristiction of another consulate. All they will do is simply refuse to process it and tell you you have to process it at your local consulate.

Now, I have a Non Imm O visa it's just not multi entry but only single entry and that's what this thread is all about.

Yeah that's what I thought. It's quite clear to me that they don't want to give me mulitple entry visa for the same reasons that other nations consulates do hand them out. If I want to travel many times within a 2 year period I should be entitled to that visa. That fact that I'm not makes me very upset.

You ARE entitled to it ,you just don't seem to want to do what you have to to get it...and that is to avoid the consulate you are dealing with at the moment. Americans are getting Non Imm O visas in USA every day. It'll make you more upset when you find out you cant get a visa whilst in Thailand and they shrug their shoulders when you go back and tell them.

Sorry, maybe I don't fully understand, but other people in the U.S. have reported sending their passports to other consulates and securing visas. I don't see the injustice as you mentioned in an earlier remark. You were unfortunate that your situation was borderline. And we all know, that on any given day, one can run into someone who is incompetant or having a "bad day". But, usually if the proper procedures are followed, there isn't a problem. If that doesn't work, then sure, try something else. But, for a guy who is reluctant to take a taxi from the airport late at night, are you really sure you want to be here?

The rules are that I have to apply at local consulate. you cannot send your application elsewhere and expect them to process it if you live in the juristiction of another consulate. All they will do is simply refuse to process it and tell you you have to process it at your local consulate.

Now, I have a Non Imm O visa it's just not multi entry but only single entry and that's what this thread is all about.

Yeah that's what I thought. It's quite clear to me that they don't want to give me mulitple entry visa for the same reasons that other nations consulates do hand them out. If I want to travel many times within a 2 year period I should be entitled to that visa. That fact that I'm not makes me very upset.

You ARE entitled to it ,you just don't seem to want to do what you have to to get it...and that is to avoid the consulate you are dealing with at the moment. Americans are getting Non Imm O visas in USA every day. It'll make you more upset when you find out you cant get a visa whilst in Thailand and they shrug their shoulders when you go back and tell them.

Sure but it's a completely new route and for once we're not being picked up by family because of the late arrival time.

Secondly, we will be carrying and it will be easily seen that we have a lot of luggage with us.

Thirdly, it may be prefered to simply stay overnight at a hotel and get picked up the following day or get a taxi when it's daylight. I'm told the overpass to the Novatel isn't complete yet so how do people currently get to this hotel from the airport? Or is there a shuttle from either that hotel or any of the Sukhumvit hotels that come to the new airport?

So take a taxi then. Surely there is a lot less 'risk of harm' (to use your phrase) that way than wandering around aimlessly, lugging suitcases and trying to find buses.

What possible harm can you get in a taxi?

Why overcomplicate life when, really, it is so so simple?

I am at loss here. A grown man is coming to an airport (to the country he is not a stranger to) and he posts here asking what to do upon arrival?

Call your mum!

If that fails, hug your teddy bear.

Yeah that's what I thought. It's quite clear to me that they don't want to give me mulitple entry visa for the same reasons that other nations consulates do hand them out. If I want to travel many times within a 2 year period I should be entitled to that visa. That fact that I'm not makes me very upset.

The DC embassy has just told me that it is in fact possible to apply for multiple entry visa at Soi Suan Plu. They said that I can apply for multiple entry type O non immigrant based on marriage with my wife at Soi Sun Plu.

Steffi, Thai consulates usually don’t have a clue how Thai Immigration offices work, and vice-versa, but what the DC embassy told you comes quit close.

1. If you enter Thailand without a visa or with a tourist visa and if you meet the criteria for annual extension, you can apply at Immigration for a change of visa to non-O visa status. This gives you 90 days permission to stay. If you enter with a non-O visa – single or multiple entry – you can skip this first step of change of visa.

2. Then you apply at Immigration for annual extension of stay for the reason of living with your Thai wife.

--

Maestro

The DC embassy has just told me that it is in fact possible to apply for multiple entry visa at Soi Suan Plu. They said that I can apply for multiple entry type O non immigrant based on marriage with my wife at Soi Sun Plu.

So I guess i'm going ot find out whether this is possible or not.

Well i'd like to but right now they have my passport and my visa and I'd rather wait.

Unfortunately they are a law unto themselves .. I'd love to know how I can file a formal complaint against them but honestly I do not how it would be followed up.

I mean what can you do when the Washington DC embassy says that they have no juristiction over what these people do?

Why not name and shame ?

They are spreadin lies about extending visas once in LOS. That has to be stamped out. In Asia, some nearby countries are using laws outdated in 2003 as a reason to refuse visas. It is plain wrong.

Thais seemed to have heard of Thais returning to Thailand being victimized by Taxi drivers in the past.

It's most probably overblown as I haven't followed this subject myself. I have heard of the problems farangs travelling by themselves in Taxi's have gotten before.

Not very well especially at night. My wife is Thai but we don't know this route at all as it's our first time going to the new airport.

So my wife and I will be arriving at the new airport and we'll have a lot of luggage with us.

Rather than travel by taxi during the nighttime and risk harm I'd like to know what the options are upon arrival at the new airport?

Eventually I need to get to Don Muang but I think I'd rather do that during the day when I can see where I'm going.

How well do you know BKK and environs, specifically new airport to DM route ?

As Bendix has already said why not take a taxi. Should be quite safe and as your wife is Thai even better and certainly so much quicker than travelling during the day.