danw

What industry have you been working in for 15 years Mick? Perhaps there's something you have a lot of experience with that you could use within an internet based business.

Ok mate,

put a: " I reckon"

in the sentence,

but still:

" The number is around 400 a year on Samui!".

Official numbers, where are we???

Just checking not intending to be a <deleted> :-) thought maybe you had a contact at a hospital or something. Fair point about the official numbers, I suppose the people who are most likely to know are Samui Rescue - they will have an idea of the % of motorcycle accidents that are fatal, and the number of bikes involved in collisions per day. Oce you've got that information the figure could be quite reliably calculated.

Says whom? Exactly the right question.

Just the number is around 400, every year on Samui, simple as that.

So the sentence is missing an 'I reckon' is it, or are you basing the figure on something more than your calculations?

I reckon it's probably 1 - 2 a day on average as well but I think people are looking for official stats of some kind rather than guesstimates from other forum users.

1 main thing I like about Big C is that its always less crowded than tesco.

Thumbs up from me - it's great! In and out in 20 mins when shopping alone (with g/f in tow it takes an age, I once asked her to make a list to attempt to speed up the process and she added 'some clothes' as an item on the list.)

Boots, Bangkok Bank, Big C it's all I need for essentials.

I like the fact I can park right outside the doors - makes loading up shopping far easier.

There is a very small stall in there that I've grabbed some RAM from (double BKK price) and an urgently needed replacement laptop PSU (at a very reasonable price) though you're better off ordering from one of the Thai online electronics stores or stocking up when in Bangkok. For urgent needs though they have some useful bits.

Those shops outside are terribly located for retail though.. Starbucks has the best plot as it's noticeable from the ring road, but it's still dead in there - the shops further in barely get anyone walking past as parking is closer to the Big C doors than the outdoor shops. Bad planning.

Just as an update I spoke via my girlfriend to a Thai local who witnessed it in full and from a clearer angle - the driver actually exited the vehicle and ran directly to the farang who was most seriously injured and started trying to help him, he didn't disappear into the background as I indicated above.

Additionally the police didn't let him drive away as I thought, they let him follow them to the police station, he is going to be prosecuted.

Also it appears a Songthaew was making a right turn further up the road where the first skid occurred and he seems to have braked to try to avoid that collision, then lost control due to his speed.

The comment re brain dead - seems very badly timed really, as someone did die but I understand your general point. I do feel that people not wearing helmets are taking unnecessary risks, they can only help a terrible situation have a slightly better ending. I think there needs to be a concerted effort made to really enforce the fact to tourists (and indeed residents) that there is an extraordinary high number of fatal accidents involving motorcycles on the island. People should receive information on arrival at Samui airport, when hiring bikes, and perhaps via some kind of independant campaign - signage in tourist accomodation, the numerous island magazines etc.

He kept a distance until the police showed then made himself known, he was out of the car pretty fast, in fact I believe he was out and in the background within the 15 seconds it took to locate my phone and get to the truck - it was the passenger side that did the damage, he was scratched but nothing more.

Most people there were Thai locals and a number had seen the accident play out, there was a big delay and distance from the initial skid to the actual damage, which gave many a chance to turn in time to see what happened and who was at fault. My friend has since looked at the skidmarks and it appears the driver went slightly off road at high speed and lost control trying to correct his mistake, putting the car into a spin onto oncoming traffic :-/

The police took all his details, investigators photographed everything, many locals were explaining the accident to the BIB and it was clear as day from the skidmarks and dents what had happened, and at what speed. They kept him for an hour, then let him drive home - they'd clearly got his details - what happens to him next I don't know.

Witnessed an awful accident this afternoon close to Choeng Mon, we heard a skid, turned round and witnessed a pick up travelling sideways at about 100km/h (no word of a lie) sideswipe 3 oncoming bikes. He'd skidded and gone into a spin, no idea what, aside from his speed, caused him to lose control so badly, it is sandy at the side of the road but it's not on a bend.

6 people / 0 helmets. 1 farang man dead, 1 thai lady very seriously injured (breathing but nothing more) and 4 more conscious but smashed up and to hospital.

Something I never want to see, or hear, again. I ran over to try to help but it was such carnage I panicked, have no medical training didn't know what to do just tried to call the ambulance in the midst of screaming people to speed up the medical help. I couldn't get through on the number I had for Thai International, Samui Rescue were there within 4 minutes, someone else must have got the message to them there were a number of other witnesses. It was absolutely horrific.

Somebodies head went hard into the windscreen, I think the farang man. Having some protection could only have helped. This was really one of those cases where any biker no matter how skilled would have been taken off the road - the bikes were travelling slowly behind one another, less than 40km/h but they got taken down like dominoes because of someone else's mistake. Very sickening and very sad. RIP

It's at least the third accident within a 100 metre stretch this year :-/

I know the smoking ban is being enforced in many places in Thailand, and I am thankful for that. But by far, Koh Samui is the worst offender. There are only a handful of restaurants on Samui, that even have signs posted. It is the worst location in Thailand for non-smokers. I have walked into restaurants and asked for the non-smoking section, and they look at you like you are from Mars. The normal response is, "no problem, you can smoke anywhere". Talk about missing the point. There is not a single government official that cares, or has made any effort. The mayor is lazy, corrupt, and all talk, and no action. He must be voted out next time, but still nothing will change, unless someone in power in Bangkok embarrasses them into submission. The mayor has been informed of the problem, and he promised to set up an enforcement group to go around and inspect every restaurant and bar on the island. As far as we know, not a single one was ever inspected. Talk about bluster. Talk about lack of initiative. Talk about ineffective. Talk about a lack of leadership. Talk about weak and dishonest. Someone has to do something. It has to come from the top.

I smoked for 18 years, from a daily B&H at 11 years old on my paper round to 40 a day at 28 years. Stopped two years ago and am extremely happy that I've managed to pack it in ...however, I live in Samui and am very HAPPY that smokers can continue to smoke where thay want! I don't like the smell, it's far more noticeable when you're a non smoker, but I simply don't choose tables next to smokers. Less nannying the better thanks - good job Samui ;-)

Anyone have a direct number for TT&T at Tesco, Chaweng area?

Promised to send an engineer out five days to check the availability of TT&T where I live before I could place an order for ADSL/broadband, even though I told them a neighbour had it, I just want to chase them up.

Hi Mattcodes

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but I felt the need to post!

I work in a similar field to you (I primarily code php, mysql, javascript and actionscript) - I was given the runaround by TT&T for over a month - exactly the same scenario. You potentially face endless calls and visits to the office (where you'll probably notice they are offhand, unknowledgable and rude) just to get a TT&T engineer round to tell you you either need or don't need a new line (you usually 'need' one...) following that you face a wait of 1 - 2 months to actually get them to come round and connect it. I felt this was a very bad indicator of customer service, and I know you most probably require a solid connection and fast troubleshooting.

I highly recommend you got see CAT Telecom, they are located above the Post Office in Nathon - I did this after the fourth visit to Tesco to ask for an engineer. CAT came (the area manager actually came personally) within 4 days and connected me, during Chinese New Year.

Given your profession - I'd strongly, strongly advise you to go with CAT. It costs 2500 (ADSL) - 3000 (SDSL) baht a month but speed is as advertised and customer service is a world apart from TT&T. DON'T get the CDMA package, it's not especially reliable.

Just thought I'd give you a heads up!!

Here you go, Bin Tin - sorry for the bad quality it was 3am on a camera phone - first one reminds me of Terminator!

[edit] OK then.

concerned, I think the noise is coming from inside your head. Not one single person has mentioned on this thread that they were kept awake on the night of the previous party and this INCLUDES YOU

Either way, evend if they did/have/will - I've been kept awake by extremely loud and detuned karaoke wedding sessions, and have been woken by dance and other parties on many occasions in my life - just like most people. I just do what every normal person does when something loud wakes them up, put the pillow over my head and get on with sleeping.

If you had Glastonbury built outside your front door for six months a year I'd empathise, but a party you sometimes hear? Nah.

Anyway I won't rise any further to the bait. It's a proper timewaste :-O ^zzz

Can't find a smilie for a yawn, anyone any ideas???

:-O ^zzz maybe?

Good idea, i'd use it, but only if the bread is great. I have either a 20 minute drive or a 40 minute drive at present to get any decent bread.

Psy-Trance - Very plippy ploppy hands-in-the-air pseudo-religious electronic dance music, typified by a slightly too high downpitched short decay kick drum and really squeally 303ish synths with oscillating filters. Extremely popular in Israel, Goa and along hippy trails in coastal Brazil - afficionados tend to love it exclusively over all other music but for me it's awkwardly close to techno but just not right - I like things a bit grittier having travelled the european Teknival circuit for a few summers in the late 90's/early 00's.

I really wish someone played some proper solid techno (apart from me in my house) Subhead, Neil Landstrumm, Chicago-esque shuffled and jackin techno at 128 - 140bpm - it's the one, single thing I miss from the UK! I love tough dance music but psy-trance is too fluffy for me. :-( - On a trancier tip a bit of old acid ala Hardfloor or Hallucinogen wouldn't go amiss.

Hopefully Dan will get a chance to update us on Tin Tin soon.

jose '-)

Hi Jose hope you are well!

For anyone interested Tin Tin is happy and well and has settled in nicely with us. He's our first dog and is a little bigger than we expected, but he's so relaxed, calm and friendly in general that that hasn't been a problem. Obviously we've had a few teething errors, probably mostly down to my inexperience with dogs - Jose gave us a lot of advice and also there's loads of information online so we're learning!

Had a few funny incidents, discovered he loves tagliatelli and slurps it up very professionally (we are careful with the amount we give him). He understood without being taught that the bedroom and bathroom were out of bounds, and he tested curling up on the landlords chintzy sofa once, but knew exactly what we meant when we both shouted 'NO' at him and sullenly climbed down

He is now scared of the bin, we have a swivel top and whilst seeking leftovers he managed to get it stuck on his head - looked very guilty (and very funny - i'll grab the photos off my girlfriend) sat in the corner with half an upside down bin stuck on his head - a good look!

He doesn't really understand roads, and we live close to a busy one, so unfortunately he is now a house dog with a long daily walk and doesn't run freely like i'm pretty sure he'd like - we did test it and he attacked 2 motorcyclists within 30 seconds - a shame as I'd like him to be able to come and go as he pleases but we don't want him to get run over or knock anyone off their bike!

Only other problem with him is he is, erm, very aggressive to dogs of a similar or larger size - I guess from his experience as a roamer. We were walking him on the beach every day until he ended up starting a fight with a pack of 4 big dogs on the beach, in the midst of which I got bitten. But we've learnt from it and altered his walk route and now just get him away as soon as the growling starts! Sounds like an aggressive dog from that but I must assure you he is absolutely friendly with humans except for people he doesn't know that walk near the house (which is good for us! He's a very protective dog)

So we're all happy, I'd like to have a fenced in garden area for him to run around in, so if and when we move we'll be taking that into consideration.

Anyway just wanted to give you all an update, we love him, are doing our best to take good care of him, and he seems to be happy and content :-) I have to finish up here as work to do..

I thought the iPod was crap because it did not have a 'pause' button. I bought it in Cambodia and of course it was made in China and so was inferior quality.

I recall in the 1950's anything made in Japan was thought of as rubbish but they improved their game until they made a reputation for very good stuff.

China is going through the same process I think...

Colin

I don't mean to state the obvious, but the good thing about the ipod is the apple built hardware and apple coded software and how they interact- if you've bought a knockoff 'ipod' then it's neither apple hardware nor software - it's an mp3 player made to look like an ipod - cheap to buy, cheap to make and is completely different in terms of how it works. I have a real jailbroken ipod touch 2g here in my hand, it's very well made and all the media players in it have a pause button. I've also seen chinese knockoffs on sale for about 5k baht, and whilst my girlfriend thinks they are the same because they are a similar shape, they plainly aren't.

I would wear a fake watch or a fake pair of jeans, but with something like an ipod it's a totally different ballgame.

In terms of music management - itunes is fine on a mac, mediamonkey as mentioned above seems best on windows. Or if you jailbreak the phone/ipod and know how simply sftp files over with filezilla, winscp or fugo.

Select the unmounted C drive and create a partition on it, sounds like your C drive may be 'unallocated' which you should see in Gparted - you need to select the unallocated space and add a partition to it (formatted to ntfs)

I have internet connection through Cat CDMA. I am trying to set up an Ad Hoc network so my girlfriend can share my connection wirelessly. I set up the ad hoc and her computer sees it and connects without difficulty but she can not access the internet. Any ideas about what I am doing wrong? Both laptops using WinXP Pro.

P

I think you need to bridge your cdma connection and your wireless card - i'm on win 7 so not sure of the exact procedure on xp, but probably something like:

Start / control panel / network connections

then ctrl+click on your cdma connection and your wireless connection, or one way or another select them both then right click and then click 'bridge'

then set up the ad-hoc as you have already been doing and cross fingers

The exact instructions that worked for me were

i found an easy way to do this..

1. disable internet connection sharing

2. bridge your ethernet (in your case your CDMA not your ethernet) and wireless cards together

3. create an ad-hoc network on the wireless card

4. connect to the wireless ad-hoc network

5. test connection

Last I heard was 20,-THB per day

It is a different place to the outdoor one - I went to that about 18 months ago and it was as you describe, 20 baht into a tin on the wall, no staff just a load of spring powered machines. Very quaint and interesting though!

The Jungle Gym geing referred to is either new gym altogether or a largely upgraded version. I heard 150 baht a daily visit.

And? Oh I see! you mean, as in "Just another fly tipper" or "Just another ars---le who throws their rubbish out the car window" or " Just another pr--k who doen't give a <deleted>> about anybody else" Oh right! I see your reasoning! I see that you are clearly a well brought up sort of guy with a great education! Congratulations! Just please don't get involved in anything that affects the rest of the world. Thanks.

Oh dear, not kept awake and looking for a new bugbear huh?

You're acting as if Gecko are behaving in an entirely "outrageous" manner, when they are doing nothing more than any other company in a similar field (and many others) has done for years [referring purely to the postering you highlighted a few days ago]. In terms of the original issue with them, as LolaSamui has already noted this party was certainly quieter last night - they have clearly done something to appease nearby resident, so why not tone your noise down too? It offends me .

Whilst I see your analogy to fly tipping, it's hardly the same thing really, is it? Does construction noise annoy you? Should construction be banned? How about dogs barking? Pet-hanasia? Babies Crying? Sterilisation? What about their rights to run a business? Why, exactly, shouldn't they be allowed to put up posters?

Oh right! I see your reasoning! I see that you are clearly a well brought up sort of guy with a great education! Congratulations! Just please don't get involved in anything that affects the rest of the world. Thanks.

Mmm passive aggression on thaivisa, how refreshing! - Got all my GCSE's (assisted places scheme) thank you very much for the congratulations! Thanks also for the comments on my upbringing, you'll be glad to know I religiously poop-n-scoop.

Wow posters around the island, and pickups with music driving around to promote a (infrequent) party - how outrageous! On a quiet and pristine tropical island where you would otherwise never see a 30 foot trailer driving round all day banging out dance music for Escape, Sound Bar, Solo Pub, Monkey Bay, Ice Bar, Muay Thai, Coyote etc etc etc. And of course we'll probably start seeing posters plastered everywhere for these previously purely word of mouth parties, fights, events and festivals - and all because these inconsiderate guys have started doing it. I don't belieeeve it!

For the past two weeks I have been puzzled by this.

A few hosts simply wont answer http requests. These hosts include

*.mail.live.com -- used by Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com)

assets.espn.go.com -- used by Soccernet (http://www.soccernet.com)

static.ak.fbcdn.net -- used by Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)

I had exactly the same issue with facebook and other sites for 3 days until yesterday - I fixed it by removing the OPENDNS settings and replacing them with the first CAT DNS ip's I found in google:

202.129.27.135

61.19.245.246

You mention you have tried CAT DNS already - but this fixed my issues 100% so it might be worth another shot.

I'm assuming the unamplified reference is referring to an active (amps built into the speakers) monitor system, commonly used for music production / accurate sound referencing - whilst these pack a punch, they are not the same scale as a standard club PA.

Jose, if you are looking for another alternative, or if Womble would rather not have an extra dog, I'll happily take care of Tin Tin. I'm near Choeng mon beach. Do PM me if you think I might be the better option! I'm a long term resident for your security.