AlarmGuy

Hey,

Good Link. I found the Karon Beach webcam on the site.... http://www.marinaphuket.com/live.php

Now, if someone could just move it slightly to the left we could get a nice view of the break instead of the white water

Thanks for the info guys.

Looks like the missus might be travelling with us now, so as far as nightime goes - the quieter the better.

There has been swell the last couple of weeks. With a few very good days, heaps of oke days and a lot of hmmmm days...

Thanks for the info - pretty much as I expected. I forgot to mention it's been over two and a half long years since I caught a wave so there are only two essential requirements for the waves:

1. They must be wet

2. They must be above knee height

I've just been looking through the Saltwater Dreaming web site and Kalim and Kamala seem like the most consistent places to surf. I have stayed at Karon on the Hill Hotel a couple of times and had a splash (without a board) at Karon and Kata Noi/Yai beaches. They were OK, but I'm thinking of trying the beaches further North this trip - is that a good move ?

Also, I pay around Bt900 at Karon for a decent room for me and my son and I'm wondering if I can get anywhere for around that price (or a bit less) further North ?

Any suggestions appreciated

Hey Surfers,

I'm planning the 12 hour drive down from Chon Buri this Saturday for 3 days surfing and I'm just wondering what the waves have been like lately ?

If one of you guys could give me an update on Friday afternoon/evening and give me your best shot at a short term surf forecast - that would be awesome

I know that's a tough ask with Phuket surf being so fickle, but it would give me something to dream about on the long drive down there. If it's flat as a pancake - I might save myself a few baht by calling off the trip and going for a paddle up the Bangpakong river instead

Bit curious as why you'd need a hub (purely from a technological view )

I develop IP based solutions for a living and I need to sniff what traffic is going between one device and another. If the devices are PC's - that's easy because the packets come through your NIC. However, I use Linksys VoIP adapters and if I need to sniff traffic between say ATA 1 and ATA 2 - I cannot do it with a switch as the packets are only visible between the two IP addresses of the two devices.

With a hub - the packets fly all over the place and are visible to every device connected to the hub. So, traffic flowing between the two VoIP ATA's is visible from the NIC on my PC. I attach Ethereal to the NIC and Voila

So, anyone with an old hub in their bin should dig it out and send it to me immediately !

A few months back I went to dozens of shops in Pantip but could not find a network hub. Plenty of switches - but no hubs (there is an inportant difference ).

Luckily, one of the guys I have bought equipment from previously had an old one sitting in the back of his office - which he let me have for a few hundred baht. Not so luckily - it got fried by lightning last week

So, I'm on the hunt for a new or second hand network hub - 4 or 8 port will do. Does anyone know where I can get hold of one in Bangkok ?

Definately register any future domain names yourself next time. If you decide to design the site yourself, you might want to look at a web template site to speed things along. We recommend http://www.perfectory.com to our customers as we have purchased a couple of templates from them ourselves without any issues. Our customers purchase the template and we optimize the site and place the content in the right places for them.

I have a Thailand related web site, since it is Thai related I need a Thailand based server and IP address for the hosting, this is good for SEO.

Whilst there is a certain element of truth in that statement, unless your target keywords are really competitive, then I don't think it would be worth the extra cost and pain of dealing with a Thai hosting company.

Did you know that if the domain name ends in .net or .com - you can tell Google via Webmaster Tools that Thailand is your target market ?

I do SEO and basic web services and I have done that in Webmaster Tools for a few countries where I have sites and it works well. For a web site of mine aimed at the Thai market, I setup a web server on a spare box that I had lying around and leave it permanently connected to my ADSL Thai Internet connection. Even with my pathetic MaxNet connection - the site ranks well.

Hope that helps

some take all the bandwidth they can get whatever you give them. I know people they download day and night....

Hold on a minute - I think you are talking about my son there.

It just struck me that Maxnet may be "throttling" our connection due to the crazy teenage download antics of my son. Anyone experienced that before ?

If so, how long does it take to get your name off the "blacklist" ?

Many services are blocked on Maxnet Indy:

- FTP transfers are only 50% successfully, I have to revert to a dial up connection from True to upload website material

- OpenDNS and all other 3rd party DNS services have recently been blocked

- The standard outgoing SMTP email ports are blocked to try and prevent you using 3rd party SMTP email services

Exact same problems here

Maxnet are absolute garbage !

My Maxnet speeded up the day the rains arrived here in Chon Buri / Chachoengsao. A few more weeks there will be so much rain getting on the lines that it will be the reason for speeds slowing down again ;-)

Here's my 1mB Maxnet Indy blazing all the way to Singapore...

Tried every hour or so from 9am in the morning to upload some files via FTP with my Maxnet account. Had to stay awake until 1am before I could finally get a connection to the server. My Outlook tried for more than 3 hours to send a 4k email.

Surely - TOT cannot be that bad ?

We will use the internet mainly for our work. We work a lot with Amazon.com, and Amazon.com is known to have a ton of graphical pages. We need to browse tons of pages there daily. You think that would work on the avarage Thai connection without it being TOO slow?

As I at a 4K email "stuck" in my outbox for the last 3 hours because my broadband connection has almost ground to a halt, I'd have to say - be prepared for some frustration from time to time.

A lot depends on whether or not it is a school day. As soon as the Thai kids arrive home from school - Shut Down !

I'm pretty used to VOIP to use for work, but I guess it will be better to call by regular phone lines. I doubt that will be extremely expensive... Most countries, and I hope Thailand as well, have pretty cheap prices for international calls these days.

Skype is your friend

Was hoping 3G might one day allow me to run a reliable server from Thailand. Duh - what was I thinking ?

There is certainly easier ways to earn a crust

You place a few lines of code on your pages and then sit back and collect money. I fail to see how anything can be easier than that

Looking to increase my companies web presence in India and the Philippines and have been looking into low cost web hosting. As usual, it's a bit of a minefield so I was was wondering if anyone on here has been there, done that ?

Guys,

My customers in the USA have fixed wireless terminals - basically a mobile phone in a plastic box that never moves. They are used as a backup for their alarm system in case the landline goes down.

Problem is, the cheapest Prepaid SIM is around US$9 per month and the vast majority of units hardly ever make a call. So, I am looking at ways of reducing the monthly fee by using a Thai SIM card with roaming enabled. Obviously, this has to be done on the understanding that if a call has to be made, it will be quite expensive.

So, is there a SIM package out there at the moment that might be of interest to me or can anyone suggest the best Thai SIM provider (GSM) to approach to try and negotiate a business deal ?

Sri Racha is generally a quiet place,

but do bear in mind the new ruling about using your "local" office.

Ahah ! - I did not know about that rule.

I live in Bangpakong, which is part of Chachoengsao. I don't think they have an immigration office in Chachoengsao, and Sri Racha is about as close as Bangkok, so I wonder if I'll get away with it ?

Only one way to find out

Try to be there well before 8am. If you arrive 1 or 2 hours later you can wait for hours, don't count to do anything extra for that day.

Unfortunately, I have to drop the kids at school in Chon Buri at 8am - that's why I thought it may be best to go to Pattaya instead.

Five hour queues seem to be normal these days for those arriving after about ten. If you are there before opening you may not have too long a wait; but even then it could be several hours.

Ouch.

I am about the same distance from Pattaya. Is it possible to do a 1 year extension from there and what are their wait times like ?

Heading down to Suan Plu for the first time to do a 1 year extension and am not sure what to expect. Trying to plan the best time to arrive and estimate how long I'll be there so I can get other things done that day.

Can anyone let me know if there are normally queues down there at certain times of the day, or should I be in and out in an hour or so ?

Thanks in advance for any tips

To anwser AlarmGuy's question more directly: Your friend can go to an immigration office, but be sure to have his ticket out of the country with him. On show of that they will determine his overstay, fine him and sent him away. Than no more risk of being detained.

Thanks everyone. I guess it wouldn't hurt to go down to immigration to find out - whilst he is still allowed to be here legally.

7 days is the most you can obtain on a 30 day visa exempt entry (which I suspect is what your friend actually has).

Correct - he is from the UK. So, it looks like the best he can do then is to get a 7 day extension and then pay 3 days overstay at the airport.

Go to your local Immigration office and get a 7 day extension. Cost 1,900 Baht .

A mate of mine is in a simlar position. I sent him to a visa run company and they advised him that he had been in and out too many times on a tourist visa - so they would not take him.

Anyway, his tourist visa expires on the 17th of this month and his flight does not leave until the 27th. He is happy to pay the Bt,5,000 overstay at the airport but is concerned that it may not be that simple. I just realised that it would also not be good if he gets "pulled up" whilst in "overstay mode" either.

Can he extend somewhere in Bangkok for 10 days ?

Go to your nearest Immigration Office. You will be given a one month extension and have to go back to receive the remaining 11 months.

Thank you Mr Lite Beer - much appreciated.

Now, I live in Bangpakong, smack bang in the middle of Chachoengsao and Chon Buri. Do either of those have an immigration office - or do I have to go up to Bangers ?